TY - JOUR

T1 - Life in the ghetto

T2 - how the media represent British lifestyle migration to France

AU - Lawson, Michelle

PY - 2015/7/1

Y1 - 2015/7/1

N2 - This study is part of a wider analysis of migrant identity within the context of British lifestyle migration to south-west France. The study uses an integrated methodology of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis (Social Actor Analysis) to examine how British migration to France is discursively represented within the UK media. The analysis reveals common keywords and patterns of language use that carry negative evaluation; distinctions are made between the existing British residents and a recent and more generalised phenomenon of migration, where the latter is portrayed in terms of a threatening invasion of ghetto-dwellers. Lifestyle migration is thus presented on different levels, with an overall sense that one kind of lifestyle migration is portrayed as moreacceptable, or legitimate, than another. Such stereotypical positioning can be taken up as a resource by writers to self-identify against what they are not, at the same time reproducing ideologies of lifestyle migration. The study also concludes that although the British do not constitute a marginalised and vulnerable group, they are represented in the media using similar linguistic strategies to those seen in the representations of immigrants and asylum seekers.

AB - This study is part of a wider analysis of migrant identity within the context of British lifestyle migration to south-west France. The study uses an integrated methodology of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis (Social Actor Analysis) to examine how British migration to France is discursively represented within the UK media. The analysis reveals common keywords and patterns of language use that carry negative evaluation; distinctions are made between the existing British residents and a recent and more generalised phenomenon of migration, where the latter is portrayed in terms of a threatening invasion of ghetto-dwellers. Lifestyle migration is thus presented on different levels, with an overall sense that one kind of lifestyle migration is portrayed as moreacceptable, or legitimate, than another. Such stereotypical positioning can be taken up as a resource by writers to self-identify against what they are not, at the same time reproducing ideologies of lifestyle migration. The study also concludes that although the British do not constitute a marginalised and vulnerable group, they are represented in the media using similar linguistic strategies to those seen in the representations of immigrants and asylum seekers.

KW - lifestyle migration

KW - Corpus linguistics

KW - recontextualization

KW - Social actor analysis

KW - British in France

KW - media representations

M3 - Journal article

VL - 7

JO - JOMEC Journal

JF - JOMEC Journal

ER -