Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

World Languages

Major Professor

Camilla Vásquez, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Wei Zhu, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Brandon Tullock, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Amanda Huensch, Ph.D.

Keywords

Authority claims, Citizen sociolinguistics, Code-mixing, Critical discourse analysis

Abstract

Language ideologies are systems of beliefs about languages. Naturalized as “common sense,” they are widespread and significantly influence social, discursive, and linguistic practices. Language ideologies are expressed and circulated in a wide range of media formats, including social media, where lay people and experts alike share their opinions and beliefs. One “language problem” they debate about is the use of English in otherwise Italian contexts that is (mostly) deemed unnecessary (referred to as Italenglish). By applying a citizen sociolinguistic lens (Rymes & Leone, 2014), and by adding an ethnographic component to the critical discourse analysis of digital data (Fairclough, 2013), this dissertation contributes to shed light on the multiplicity of language ideologies (Kroskrity, 2010) that are circulated online about Italenglish, exploiting the connectivity and participatory culture that social media afford (Rymes & Leone, 2014). The study explores both linguistic practices and language about language use (Woolard, 2008), produced by groups engaged in the Italenglish debate. To investigate the latter, my dissertation was designed as a longitudinal observation and an in-depth analysis of social interactions on three social media platforms: YouTube comments on a 2015 TED Talk on Italenglish; posts on a Facebook page devoted to defending Italian from Anglicization; and emails to Italians, an online forum in the newspaper Corriere della Sera. To these data analyses, an important ethnographic dimension was added, i.e., interviews with public figures and key individuals from each context: Annamaria Testa, author of the TED Talk, Facebook group moderator Giuseppina Solinas, and Italians moderator Beppe Severgnini. This study joins the relatively limited conversation on language ideologies in digital spaces. It shows that some specific code-mixing practices are condemned more than others, i.e., they are stigmatized more because they seem to index lack of knowledge of English, thus pointing at potential linguistic insecurity. On the one hand, the study also reveals that there are more language ideological similarities than differences between experts and lay people in the online discourse. On the other, it draws attention to the benefit of an ethnographic dimension of language ideological research, since interviews allowed for a more enhanced understanding of experts’ sociolinguistic sophistication. Lastly, this study identifies three language ideologies that are, to the best of my knowledge, unique. These ideologies are: inferiority complex ideology; complaint ideology; and obfuscation ideology. These also tend to co-occur with statements implying linguistic insecurity, which seems characteristic of the digital platform users in this study.

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