The Linguistic Debate in Chile: Ideologies and Representations of Languages and Multilingual Practices in the National Online News
The linguistic debate in Chile: ideologies and representations of languages and multilingual practices in the national online news HANNA SLIASHYNSKAYA Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Newcastle University School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences July 2019 ii Abstract Linguistic ideologies, or beliefs about languages and their use, are key to dynamics and changes in language choice, language minorisation and death. Linguistic ideologies, especially those of monolingualism, have long been part of nation-states’ policies (Shohamy, 2006; Fairclough, 2015) despite the prevalence of multilingualism in social domains (Meyerhoff, 2008). Chile, the context of this research project, is a multilingual country with a surprisingly limited amount of language legislation (Leclerc, 2015) most of which focuses on governmental plans to make Chile bilingual by 2030 (Minsegpres, Mineduc and Minec, 2014) and the foreign language education in schools, namely, the teaching of English, the only foreign language taught in public schools since 2010. At the same time, the use of indigenous languages is not regulated, and Spanish is the de facto official language. In view of such laissez-faire regulations of Chile’s linguistic setting, it is crucial to explore public domains beyond language policy to explain the ongoing minoritisation of indigenous languages and the growth of the dominant languages. Thus, this thesis examines how dominant and minoritised languages are represented in popular national online newspapers. The collected data includes 8877 news articles published in ten most widely-read Chilean online newspapers between 2010 and 2016 and containing references to Chile’s local (Mapudungún, Rapa Nui, Aimara, Quechua, Yámana, Huilliche, Qawasqar, Kunza and Spanish) and foreign languages (English), as well as variously labelled multilingual practices, such as bilingualism and multilingualism.
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