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Public discourses on multilingualism in the UK: Triangulating a corpus study with a sociolinguistic attitude survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2017

Sylvia Jaworska  and
Christiana Themistocleous
Sylvia Jaworska*
Affiliation:
University of Reading, UK
Christiana Themistocleous
Affiliation:
University of Reading, UK
*
Address for correspondence: Sylvia Jaworska, Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AW, UK, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article investigates public discourses of multilingualism in Britain. In contrast to previous research focusing on specific languages or varieties of language, we examine multilingualism as a metalinguistic construct and are interested in what is frequently said about multilingualism, and how it is said. More specifically, we explore the extent to which media discourses are consonant or diverge from the attitudes of lay people. Media discourses are investigated using a corpus-assisted discourse-study approach to the analysis of large-press corpora. Results from the corpus study are then incorporated in an attitude survey distributed to 200 participants living in a large superdiverse town in Britain. Our study shows that while positive media discourses are mostly shared by the general public, some of the negative themes, especially those relating to immigration, are either reinforced or challenged. The article demonstrates the usefulness of triangulating corpus-linguistic methods with a survey to provide a more comprehensive understanding of public discourses about language matters, and offers some implications for promoting multilingualism in society. (Multilingualism, metalanguage, corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS), attitude survey, triangulation)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 57 - 88
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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