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Language Ideologies and Discourses of National Identity in Canadian Newspapers: a Cross-Linguistic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study Vessey, Rachelle

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Language Ideologies and Discourses of National Identity in Canadian Newspapers: a Cross-Linguistic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study Vessey, Rachelle Language ideologies and discourses of national identity in Canadian newspapers: a cross-linguistic corpus-assisted discourse study Vessey, Rachelle The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/8763 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND DISCOURSES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS: A CROSS-LINGUISTIC CORPUS-ASSISTED DISCOURSE STUDY by Rachelle Vessey Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2013 School of Languages, Linguistics and Film Queen Mary, University of London DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is original and has not previously been submitted to this or any other institution. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. Date Signature i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Queen Mary, University of London and more specifically the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film for awarding me a research studentship, which made it possible for me to come to London. In addition, departmental research funding and the Postgraduate Research Fund also enabled me to travel to numerous conferences, workshops, and seminars. I am also very grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada for the Doctoral Research Award that enabled me to continue my studies. I would like to thank my supervisors Leigh Oakes and Colleen Cotter for engaging with my research from the beginning, for their support and guidance throughout the PhD process, and for their encouragement in my academic endeavours that extended beyond the thesis itself. I would also like to thank Erez Levon and Devyani Sharma for their insightful comments and suggestions during the upgrade process, and to all department members for their interested and often challenging questions over the past three years; these ultimately strengthened my research. I am also very grateful to Sylvia Jaworska and Guillaume Gentil for their continued support and interest in my work. My research has also been enhanced by the SLLF sociolinguistics reading groups, postgraduate discussion groups, the annual postgraduate conferences, and the weekly nationalism workshops at the London School of Economics as part of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. I also feel very fortunate to have been provided such excellent university workspace. The “lab” proved to be a haven, and I feel so fortunate to have shared it with such excellent colleagues and friends. This environment provided invaluable support on a daily basis, and I would like to thank all of my fellow PhD students – especially Fryni, Philippa, Ahmad, Ruth, Barb, and James – for their incredible friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for all of their love and support. Thank you especially to my mum for being so generous and a continued source of inspiration. And a final thank you to Lee, for enabling me to become Dr. Vessey. ii ABSTRACT The idea that Canada consists of “two solitudes” (MacLennan, 1945), according to which the two dominant (English and French) linguistic groups live in separate worlds with little interaction or communication, has also received attention in sociolinguistic circles (e.g. Heller, 1999). This thesis examines this claim further, by comparing the content of English and French Canadian newspapers. More specifically, the thesis compares how English and French serve different purposes in three coexisting conceptualisations of national identity in Canada: Quebec national identity, English Canadian national identity, and pan-Canadian national identity. In each corresponding national identity discourse, the nation and its language(s) are imagined differently. With a corpus of 7.5 million words in English and 3.5 million words in French, the thesis employs corpus linguistics and discourse analysis tools to test the salience of these ideologies and discourses, as well as to compare and contrast findings across languages. Adopting the theoretical framework of language ideologies (e.g. Woolard, 1998; Milani and Johnson, 2008), it seeks to contextualise languages with regard to discourses of national identity. In other words, the thesis compares and contrasts language ideology findings within the three discourses examined. More specifically, three research questions are addressed: (1) How do the French and English Canadian media discursively represent languages and language issues in the news? (2) How do these representations differ? (3) How do the different representations relate to understandings of national identity in Canada? The findings indicate that French and English serve predominantly different purposes, thus helping to reinforce the image of a Canada comprising “two solitudes”. iii CONTENTS DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................... II ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................III CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................................... IV TABLES .......................................................................................................................................... VII 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF LANGUAGE IN CANADA .............................................................................................. 3 1.3 THE MEDIA IN CANADA .................................................................................................................... 10 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ..................................................................................................................... 15 1.5 STRUCTURE OF THESIS ...................................................................................................................... 16 2. THEORETICAL CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................ 17 2.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 17 2.2 IDEOLOGY ..................................................................................................................................... 17 2.2.1 Implicitness ........................................................................................................................ 18 2.2.2 Ideologies and power ......................................................................................................... 21 2.2.3 Ideological semiotic processes ........................................................................................... 23 2.2.4 Language ideologies .......................................................................................................... 25 2.3 DISCOURSE .................................................................................................................................... 31 2.3.1 National discourses and discourses of national identity .................................................... 35 2.3.2 Language and nationalism ................................................................................................ 39 2.3.3 Ideology and nationalism in media language .................................................................... 41 2.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 47 3. CANADIAN DISCOURSES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES ........................ 49 3.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 49 3.2 DISCOURSES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN QUEBEC .................................................................................... 50 3.2.1 Monolingual ideologies...................................................................................................... 55 3.2.2 Ideologies of French as a core value .................................................................................. 58 3.2.3 Ideologies of standardised French ..................................................................................... 61 3.2.4 Ideologies of language endangerment .............................................................................. 63 3.2.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 66 iv 3.3 DISCOURSES
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