230366 Migration and Linguistic Identity in Britain (S) (WiSe 2020/2021)

In 2011, and in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, David Cameron “spoke of multiculturalism having ‘encouraged different cultures to lead separate lives’” (Ife 2020: 397). Cameron blamed poor English skills for being a barrier to integration and made a direct link between poor English and extremism. In a way, that defined an era of migration policy in Britain. In the following years, and with larger waves of immigration, immigration became a defining matter on the socio-political level.

In this course, we study migration discourse in Britain from a sociolinguistic perspective. In doing so, we approach the effects of migration policy and discourse on immigrant communities in the UK. Additionally, we will focus on the representation of migration discourse and immigrant speech communities in British media. We will put the notions of multiculturalism, multilingualism and integration to test in light of British migration discourse and policy and how that reflects on immigrants’ linguistic identities and place in British society.