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Us and Them: The Discursive Construction of Foreigners in the British Press John Morley

Us and Them: The Discursive Construction of Foreigners in the British Press John Morley University of Siena. IntUne focuses on how processes of integration, at both national and European levels, affect the three major dimensions of citizenship: Identity Representation

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Us and Them: The Discursive Construction of Foreigners in the British Press John Morley

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  1. Us and Them: The Discursive Construction of Foreigners in the British Press John Morley University of Siena

  2. IntUne focuses on how processes of integration, at • both national and European levels, affect the three major dimensions of citizenship: • Identity • Representation • Scope of governance.

  3. Identity The more people feel that they have a national identity, the more they are aware of those who do not share it. In a word, the more sense they have of Us and Them

  4. Previous work Paul Baker, Tony McEnery, Ruth Wodak - Lancaster University Representation of RASIM in UK newspapers 140 million words c.175,000 articles (all referring to RASIM) broadsheet, tabloid and regional newspapers January 1996 and October 2005

  5. Corpus Linguistics Techniques derived from Critical Discourse Analysis Key words - immigrants, asylum seekers Topoi - Number, Abuse, Cost and Threat Metaphors - inundation etc.

  6. The discursive construction of RASIM is fundamentally negative

  7. Our corpus c.26 million words Guardian,Telegraph, Scotsman, Western Mail 5 February and 28 April 2007 Note we have chosen all the articles in the newspapers

  8. As the really negative reporting about RASIM in Baker et al’sresearch is found mainly in the tabloids we won’t offer comparisons here.

  9. The IntUne British Press subcorpus does not contain popular newspapers. This was to give coherence to the four subcorpora. So, as our results are not really comparable with those of Baker et al., we will limit our enquiry to the construction of the nationals of the countries involved in the IntUne Media Group research: France, Italy and Poland Perhaps a similar study can be made of the press and television of all four countries

  10. Polish in the IntUne Corpus hits words % hit texts texts Guardian 223 10,707,112 0.002 59 71 Scotsman 122 3,389,234 0.004 38 72 Telegraph 188 8,863,269 0.002 54 72 W. Mail 70 2,805,134 0.002 23 51

  11. French in the IntUne Corpus hits words % hit texts texts Guardian 2006 10,707,112 0.019 71 71 Scotsman 375 3,389,234 0.011 61 72 Telegraph 1797 8,863,269 0.020 72 72 W. Mail 516 2,805,134 0.018 51 51

  12. Italian in the IntUne Corpus hits words % hit texts texts Guardian 814 10,707,112 0.008 71 71 Scotsman 232 3,389,234 0.007 54 72 Telegraph 698 8,863,269 0.008 72 72 W. Mail 177 2,805,134 0.006 41 51

  13. We have made a 12 million word satellite corpus of the Daily Mail. We will check certain findings with this corpus.

  14. POLES APART

  15. Polish Collocations R1 collocates 462 uses of Polish in the IntUne Corpus.

  16. The most frequent collocation is student (30). A ‘seasonal collocation’ (Gabrielatos et al.: 11) A particularly sensational story about the murder of a young Polish student, with whom a Catholic priest confessed to having had an affair.

  17. people (14) is the next most frequent collocation and may be grouped with a number of other bland person-indicating words: community (8), families (5), population (5), citizens (4), mother (3).

  18. People are often referred to as being Polish-speaking (6). This doesn’t seem to be regarded as a threatening even by the monophone Brits. The NatWest Welcome Account was launched earlier this year to meet the banking needs of Polish-speaking migrants who are new to the UK. (Scotsman 24.04.2007) It’s just a small problem that needs to be sorted out.

  19. What about the Polish plumber? plumber(s) occurs 14 times Many other words indicating occupations: workers (12), builder(s) (5), peasant (5), tradesmen (2), kitchen-fitter (1), machinists (1), playwright (1), poet (1), social worker (1), sociologists (1), spies (1), translator (1), waiters (1), waitresses (1), the rather unusual job of voltigeur (1), and, pick of the lot pontiff (1).

  20. There is interest in Polish politics and economics. We find: government (10), president (3), prime minister (2), embassy (3), business(es) (7), economy (4), capital (3), property (3).

  21. The press is also interested in Polish sport, entertainment and arts. Football is top, as usual: goalkeeper (5), striker (5) but we also have references to Polish film (5).

  22. A parenthesis about sport Over the last 10 to 15 years significant increase in newspaper stories about sport and in particular about football. KeyWordsSiBol_93 2 of the first 100 refer to sport soccer at 66 with 5,521 hits Gooch at 75 with 3,101 hits.

  23. SiBol_2005 22 of the top 100 KeyWords refer to sport. Premiership at 18 with 16,849 Admittedly Premiership has a socio-economic importance connected with the richer clubs breaking away from the old Football League on the back on the vast riches being offered by Sky. Sky, incidentally, comes in at number 73 with 11,325 hits

  24. soccer -top sports KeyWord of SiBol_93 - faintly archaic Football - 59 in 2005 - 33,197 times SiBol_93, sports KeyWords 2 to 6 refer to players of: cricket, tennis or golf rather more gentlemanly games than football SiBol_05KeyWords are dominated by footballers.

  25. Food gets a brief mention: food (3), bakery/baker’s (3), kabanos sausage (1), cheesecake (1), bread (1)

  26. Kabanos Sausage

  27. Jarek, 31, said, 'I'm sure Polish food will become as popular as Indian, Chinese and Italian food has become in Welsh cities like Swansea and Cardiff and towns too in future. So many people come into my shop showing an interest in Polish food that it's going to happen sooner or later.' (Western Mail 22.02.2007) We might say that Polish food has not yet gained the kudos possessed by French and Italian, cf. their collocates.

  28. Polish immigration: immigrants (6), immigration (4), migrant(s) (3), refugees (1) No moral panic story If we look at the topos of arrival, we don’t find waves, floods and inundations (see Gabrielatos & Baker 2008); we have influx (1) and invasion (1).

  29. Note the balanced Guardian article: Professor Ball's report suggests that 2006 was very much Poland's year. While the influx of Polish plumbers and other workers into the UK has grabbed headlines it would appear that the traffic has been two-way, with growing numbers of British and Irish investors snapping up apartments in Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk. (Guardian 06.02.2007)

  30. We find a review of a play in the Guardian which talks about the influx of Poles. We are told that the play is about: the isolation of migrant workers, their exploitation and their "almost Dickensian“ living and working conditions, beyond the reach of British laws and social norms. Guardian 26.04.2007).

  31. The Polish are linked to other nationalities: Czech (4), Hungarian, Russian, Bulgarian, Yugoslavians, etc. normally Eastern Europeans These combinations are, as might be expected, mainly in the context of workers or cheap exports.

  32. in Polish (20) Are the media angered or pleased about words appearing in Polish? WELSH environment bosses wrote warning signs for anglers in Polish but not in their native tongue. The signs were erected at Erddig Country Park in Wrexham - in English and Polish, but not in Welsh. A spokesman for the Environment Agency Wales said, 'Not putting up the Welsh version was a mistake for which we apologise’. (Western Mail 06.03.2007)

  33. There are a number of references to Polish Jews: Jew or Jews occurs 9 times, all references to the Holocaust

  34. There are also 44 mentions of the missile system which the Americans planned to install in Poland. It’s important to know what’s going on. There are no hits on Polish missiles.

  35. Poland is: (a selection) like an island drifting away from the rest of Europe (in its treatment of gays) reluctant to surrender the generous voting rights (in the EU) an attractive place to invest a property cold spot (not beautiful, not romantic) like a coke bottle which has been shaken (a good place to buy property according to this expert) part of the EU

  36. A glance at a tabloid As Baker’s research group has observed, the most negative reporting of immigration is to be found in the tabloids, so it might be useful to look at one. c.12 million word corpus from the Daily Mail (including the ScottishDaily Mail) covering the same period as the IntUne Corpus.

  37. Daily Mail Corpus ptw Polish 0.022 French 0.131 Italian 0.081 IntUne Corpus ptw Polish 0.018 French 0.182 Italian 0.074

  38. We don’t find the collocations Polish immigrants or refugees. There is one instance of Polish migrant. Frost said he rarely visited a company which does not employ a Polish migrant. One businessman had told him recently: 'I had forgotten how much work one person could do in a day until I started employing Poles.’ (Daily Mail 17.04.2007) This seems very far from hostility.

  39. A number of jobs are referred to: the generic workers (7), employees (1), labourers (2). We also find the more specific model (2), health official (1), nurses (1), waitresses (1), nannies (1) and, of course, plumbers (7).

  40. SCN editor Jonathan Brown said: 'The myth of the Polish plumber has become a reality. The figures speak for themselves.' But a third of managers questioned warned that language difficulties meant Eastern Europeans were not always up to speed on the industry's health and safety practices. Daily Mail 22.03.2007).

  41. This might seem rather negative until we look at the article’s headline: Poles Top The Poll Of Hard Workers

  42. Poles in Britain tend to be referred to as a: community (9) or communities (2) and residents (2) These may be described as: large (2), growing (2), burgeoning (1) Not really threatening words, but the word community might be seen to set apart its members from our community

  43. We have 24 football related words: giants (2), international (9), goalkeeper/keeper (7), player(s) (2), striker (4).

  44. Daily Mail Corpus student /student’s - 40 times 14.3% of all the collocations of Polish. 6.5% of collocations in IntUne Corpus While all newspapers are interested in sex and violence, tabloid papers are twice as interested.

  45. Back to the IntUne Corpus

  46. The French Connection

  47. A keen interest in what is going on in France. 4694 hits for French. 1946 hits for German Only American get more hits – 5813.

  48. Political Institutions presidential (60), president (31), presidency (27), election(s) (28), voters (12), electorate (7) Note this was the period of the French presidential elections government(s) (28), politics (21), democracy (11), foreign minister (4), interior minister (4), finance minister (2), law (8), economy (7), police (45), union(s (8)

  49. Sport clubs (149), open (65), side (37), team (34), rugby (34), defence (34 including chess), game (24), league (23), football (14), grand prix (11), midfielder (6), scrum 6), grand slam (5), forwards (4)

  50. Culture language (14), film (12), literature (10), fashion (8), resorts (7), lessons (6). poet (5)

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