Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums o... more Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the questi...
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums o... more Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the questi...
‚Mehrsprachigkeit‘ ist zu einem zentralen Schlagwort auch außerhalb des akademischen Diskurses ... more ‚Mehrsprachigkeit‘ ist zu einem zentralen Schlagwort auch außerhalb des akademischen Diskurses avanciert, vor allem auf der Ebene supranationaler EU-Politik. So trat etwa 2007 erstmals ein EU-Kommissar mit eigenem Portfolio für Mehrsprachigkeit sein Amt an. Aber kommen die sprachenpolitischen Kommunikationsbemühungen der EU bei ihren Adressaten, den nationalen Mitgliedsstaaten auch wirklich an?
In einer kritisch-diskursanalytischen Fallstudie wird untersucht, wie und in welchem Ausmaß die diskursiv betriebene Mehrsprachigkeitspolitik der EU in Österreich rezipiert wird. Darüber hinaus wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Sprache im Sinn von ‚Sprachigkeit‘ in der Politik, den Medien und der Bevölkerung Österreichs diskursiv konstruiert wird. Hierzu werden Interviews mit Politikern, Zeitungsartikel und Gruppendiskussionen mit BürgerInnen nach dem diskurshistorischen Ansatz analysiert, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf sprachbezogenen Nominations-, Prädikations- und Argumentationsstrategien liegt.
‘Multilingualism’ has become one of the pivotal catchwords in a discourse which for several years has been spreading not only in the field of academics, but also in the public and private sphere, especially at the supranational European level. While the EU’s language political communication efforts are aimed at the national level, the member states often seem to follow language political principles that differ significantly from those of the EU.
With this perspective in mind and focussing on an Austrian case study, the present book investigates how and to what degree the EU’s discursively conducted multilingualism policy is perceived at the Austrian national level. Furthermore, it pursues the questions of how language (in the sense of ‘Sprachigkeit’ or ‘languageness’) is constructed discursively in politics, the media and among citizens in Austria. For this purpose, interviews with politicians, print media articles and focus group discussions are analysed following the discourse-historical approach with a focus on language-related nomination, predication and argumentation strategies.
CDA 2.0 - reader commentaries from a critical discourse analytical perspective. An exploratory ca... more CDA 2.0 - reader commentaries from a critical discourse analytical perspective. An exploratory case study on the discussion boards of the Austrian news portal derStandard.at
Project “migration.macht.schule”, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research within the programme “Sparkling Science” (project duration: 2010-2012, project manager: Rudolf de Cillia)
While certain web-based communicative forms, such as chat or e-mail, have become a preferred subject of linguistic analysis, little has been said about online discourses in general as well as discussion boards in particular. Furthermore, there are hardly any investigations of readers’ comments in discussion boards of online newspapers, even though they represent an online genre which seems to gain more and more popularity.
The fact that online discourses have hardly been subjected to discourse analysis, especially critical discourse analysis, is remarkable for several reasons. First, within online discourse analysis it is possible to build corpora consisting of easily available online texts which occur in a ‘natural’ communication situation. As the data is not elicited by the researcher, a bias towards social desirability can therefore be obviated during data gathering. Second, such online texts mirror discourses, which are not carried by public figures such as experts, journalists or politicians (in the sense of an institutional discourse or ‘elite-discourse’) but by ‘ordinary’ citizens being their recipients (in the sense of a non-institutional discourse or ‘everyday-discourse’). Third, online discourses like those related to the discussion boards of online newspapers contain profoundly opinion oriented and argumentative statements with regard to socially relevant topics and problems, and they are characterised by strong inter-discursive and inter-textual links. However, discussion boards allow readers not only to exchange opinions about journalistic articles and topics of public interest, but they often also include, at least implicitly, racist and discriminatory language usage.
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist and discriminatory discourse and argumentation strategies in the discussion boards of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. This news portal constitutes one of the most actively used news sites in Austria, which seems to be at least partly due to the integration of discussion boards on their sites. At first, we will consider discussion boards as a communicative form characterised by linguistic features different to chat and e-mail. We will also elaborate on the technical and functional composition of the discussion boards on derStandard.at. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication and Austrian migration politics. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberative democracy and the moderation (the ‘censoring’) of the discussion boards by the editorial staff of derStandard.at with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we will discuss chances and risks of the investigated discussion boards regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such discussion boards.
Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat sich in Europa ein spezifischer Diskurs über Sprache herausgebildet... more Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat sich in Europa ein spezifischer Diskurs über Sprache herausgebildet, der die Wahrnehmung von MigrantInnen sowie den Umgang mit ihnen auf gesellschaftlicher und politischer Ebene beeinflusst (und umgekehrt) – so auch in Österreich. Im Zentrum dieses Diskurses steht das Makrothema „Sprachigkeit“ und ein damit verbundener Komplex von Sprachideologien, d.h. Themen und Commonsense-Vorstellungen, die in erster Linie um bestimmte Formen von Sprachfähigkeit kreisen (z.B. Einsprachigkeit, Mehrsprachigkeit, Fremdsprachigkeit oder Deutschsprachigkeit). Vor allem MigrantInnen werden in diesem Diskurs mangelhafte Sprachkenntnisse zugeschrieben und in diesem Sinn als sprachlich (hilfs-)bedürftig konstruiert, während Kenntnisse in der Landes- bzw. Mehrheitssprache als selbstverständlicher Ausweg aus der sprachlich bedingten Bedürftigkeit propagiert werden.
Sprachenpolitische Interventionen, die auf die „Sprachigkeit“ von MigrantInnen abzielen (bspw. Deutschlernpflichten oder Sprachgutscheine) werden in Österreich als Lösung für das so genannte „Integrationsproblem“ beworben und gerechtfertigt. Hierbei können drei verschiedene Argumentationslinien ausgemacht werden, nämlich eine moralistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen“), eine paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen in ihrem eigenen Interesse Deutsch lernen“) und eine neo-paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen wollen“). Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird aus kritisch-diskursanalytischer Perspektive beleuchtet, welche diskursiven Strategien und linguistischen Mitteln dabei zum Einsatz kommen, wobei vor allem auf Nutzen-, Verantwortungs- und Kulturtopoi sowie auf Schlagwort- und Metaphernfelder einzugehen sein wird. Das der Analyse zugrundeliegende, österreichspezifische Material aus meiner Dissertation stammt aus dem Bereich politischer Werbung sowie aus Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen mit PolitikerInnen und BürgerInnen. Neben paternalistischen Diskursstrategien sollen abschließend vor allem auch jene anti-paternalistischen Positionen einer kritischen Reflexion unterzogen werden, die die paradoxen und verdeckten Formen des Neo-Paternalismus (bzw. des paternalistischen Empowerment) im sprachenpolitischen Kontext außer Acht lassen.
This thesis resulted from a project evaluating the "Mama lernt Deutsch" courses which have been i... more This thesis resulted from a project evaluating the "Mama lernt Deutsch" courses which have been initiated by the city of Vienna in 90 schools during the school term 2006/2007. "Mama lernt Deutsch" is a concept for L2-German courses for mothers with a L1 other than German which take place at the school the mothers' children attend. In order to account for the different perspectives of the various participants and to reach a triangulation, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods such as literature research, descriptive statistics, online survey, qualitative interviews and group discussion has been applied. A theoretical chapter at the beginning of the thesis concentrates on language and migration with a focus on the various factors which influence L2 acquisition of migrants in general, and of female migrants in particular. The results of the evaluation demonstrated that all participants considered the "Mama lernt Deutsch"-courses to be meaningful and effective in most points. The most important aims which have been formulated in the curriculum have been achieved according to the perception of the various participants and our analysis. The accessibility and the acceptance of the courses among the mothers proved to be one of the most important strengths of the "Mama lernt Deutsch"-project. The accessibility is primarily allowed by the course location at the school and the child care for the course participants' children, but also by the achieved strengthening of the mothers' self-confidence in the context of their empowerment. Considering the disadvantages of female migrants in the fields of integration and L2 acquisition, the courses proved to be helpful in removing these disadvantages. Vol. 2 represents the annex to Vol. 1 and contains documents which have been created and accumulated during the project such as interview guidelines, survey questions and information letters.
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums o... more Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the questi...
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums o... more Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the questi...
‚Mehrsprachigkeit‘ ist zu einem zentralen Schlagwort auch außerhalb des akademischen Diskurses ... more ‚Mehrsprachigkeit‘ ist zu einem zentralen Schlagwort auch außerhalb des akademischen Diskurses avanciert, vor allem auf der Ebene supranationaler EU-Politik. So trat etwa 2007 erstmals ein EU-Kommissar mit eigenem Portfolio für Mehrsprachigkeit sein Amt an. Aber kommen die sprachenpolitischen Kommunikationsbemühungen der EU bei ihren Adressaten, den nationalen Mitgliedsstaaten auch wirklich an?
In einer kritisch-diskursanalytischen Fallstudie wird untersucht, wie und in welchem Ausmaß die diskursiv betriebene Mehrsprachigkeitspolitik der EU in Österreich rezipiert wird. Darüber hinaus wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Sprache im Sinn von ‚Sprachigkeit‘ in der Politik, den Medien und der Bevölkerung Österreichs diskursiv konstruiert wird. Hierzu werden Interviews mit Politikern, Zeitungsartikel und Gruppendiskussionen mit BürgerInnen nach dem diskurshistorischen Ansatz analysiert, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf sprachbezogenen Nominations-, Prädikations- und Argumentationsstrategien liegt.
‘Multilingualism’ has become one of the pivotal catchwords in a discourse which for several years has been spreading not only in the field of academics, but also in the public and private sphere, especially at the supranational European level. While the EU’s language political communication efforts are aimed at the national level, the member states often seem to follow language political principles that differ significantly from those of the EU.
With this perspective in mind and focussing on an Austrian case study, the present book investigates how and to what degree the EU’s discursively conducted multilingualism policy is perceived at the Austrian national level. Furthermore, it pursues the questions of how language (in the sense of ‘Sprachigkeit’ or ‘languageness’) is constructed discursively in politics, the media and among citizens in Austria. For this purpose, interviews with politicians, print media articles and focus group discussions are analysed following the discourse-historical approach with a focus on language-related nomination, predication and argumentation strategies.
CDA 2.0 - reader commentaries from a critical discourse analytical perspective. An exploratory ca... more CDA 2.0 - reader commentaries from a critical discourse analytical perspective. An exploratory case study on the discussion boards of the Austrian news portal derStandard.at
Project “migration.macht.schule”, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research within the programme “Sparkling Science” (project duration: 2010-2012, project manager: Rudolf de Cillia)
While certain web-based communicative forms, such as chat or e-mail, have become a preferred subject of linguistic analysis, little has been said about online discourses in general as well as discussion boards in particular. Furthermore, there are hardly any investigations of readers’ comments in discussion boards of online newspapers, even though they represent an online genre which seems to gain more and more popularity.
The fact that online discourses have hardly been subjected to discourse analysis, especially critical discourse analysis, is remarkable for several reasons. First, within online discourse analysis it is possible to build corpora consisting of easily available online texts which occur in a ‘natural’ communication situation. As the data is not elicited by the researcher, a bias towards social desirability can therefore be obviated during data gathering. Second, such online texts mirror discourses, which are not carried by public figures such as experts, journalists or politicians (in the sense of an institutional discourse or ‘elite-discourse’) but by ‘ordinary’ citizens being their recipients (in the sense of a non-institutional discourse or ‘everyday-discourse’). Third, online discourses like those related to the discussion boards of online newspapers contain profoundly opinion oriented and argumentative statements with regard to socially relevant topics and problems, and they are characterised by strong inter-discursive and inter-textual links. However, discussion boards allow readers not only to exchange opinions about journalistic articles and topics of public interest, but they often also include, at least implicitly, racist and discriminatory language usage.
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist and discriminatory discourse and argumentation strategies in the discussion boards of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. This news portal constitutes one of the most actively used news sites in Austria, which seems to be at least partly due to the integration of discussion boards on their sites. At first, we will consider discussion boards as a communicative form characterised by linguistic features different to chat and e-mail. We will also elaborate on the technical and functional composition of the discussion boards on derStandard.at. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication and Austrian migration politics. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberative democracy and the moderation (the ‘censoring’) of the discussion boards by the editorial staff of derStandard.at with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we will discuss chances and risks of the investigated discussion boards regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such discussion boards.
Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat sich in Europa ein spezifischer Diskurs über Sprache herausgebildet... more Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat sich in Europa ein spezifischer Diskurs über Sprache herausgebildet, der die Wahrnehmung von MigrantInnen sowie den Umgang mit ihnen auf gesellschaftlicher und politischer Ebene beeinflusst (und umgekehrt) – so auch in Österreich. Im Zentrum dieses Diskurses steht das Makrothema „Sprachigkeit“ und ein damit verbundener Komplex von Sprachideologien, d.h. Themen und Commonsense-Vorstellungen, die in erster Linie um bestimmte Formen von Sprachfähigkeit kreisen (z.B. Einsprachigkeit, Mehrsprachigkeit, Fremdsprachigkeit oder Deutschsprachigkeit). Vor allem MigrantInnen werden in diesem Diskurs mangelhafte Sprachkenntnisse zugeschrieben und in diesem Sinn als sprachlich (hilfs-)bedürftig konstruiert, während Kenntnisse in der Landes- bzw. Mehrheitssprache als selbstverständlicher Ausweg aus der sprachlich bedingten Bedürftigkeit propagiert werden.
Sprachenpolitische Interventionen, die auf die „Sprachigkeit“ von MigrantInnen abzielen (bspw. Deutschlernpflichten oder Sprachgutscheine) werden in Österreich als Lösung für das so genannte „Integrationsproblem“ beworben und gerechtfertigt. Hierbei können drei verschiedene Argumentationslinien ausgemacht werden, nämlich eine moralistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen“), eine paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen in ihrem eigenen Interesse Deutsch lernen“) und eine neo-paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen wollen“). Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird aus kritisch-diskursanalytischer Perspektive beleuchtet, welche diskursiven Strategien und linguistischen Mitteln dabei zum Einsatz kommen, wobei vor allem auf Nutzen-, Verantwortungs- und Kulturtopoi sowie auf Schlagwort- und Metaphernfelder einzugehen sein wird. Das der Analyse zugrundeliegende, österreichspezifische Material aus meiner Dissertation stammt aus dem Bereich politischer Werbung sowie aus Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen mit PolitikerInnen und BürgerInnen. Neben paternalistischen Diskursstrategien sollen abschließend vor allem auch jene anti-paternalistischen Positionen einer kritischen Reflexion unterzogen werden, die die paradoxen und verdeckten Formen des Neo-Paternalismus (bzw. des paternalistischen Empowerment) im sprachenpolitischen Kontext außer Acht lassen.
This thesis resulted from a project evaluating the "Mama lernt Deutsch" courses which have been i... more This thesis resulted from a project evaluating the "Mama lernt Deutsch" courses which have been initiated by the city of Vienna in 90 schools during the school term 2006/2007. "Mama lernt Deutsch" is a concept for L2-German courses for mothers with a L1 other than German which take place at the school the mothers' children attend. In order to account for the different perspectives of the various participants and to reach a triangulation, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods such as literature research, descriptive statistics, online survey, qualitative interviews and group discussion has been applied. A theoretical chapter at the beginning of the thesis concentrates on language and migration with a focus on the various factors which influence L2 acquisition of migrants in general, and of female migrants in particular. The results of the evaluation demonstrated that all participants considered the "Mama lernt Deutsch"-courses to be meaningful and effective in most points. The most important aims which have been formulated in the curriculum have been achieved according to the perception of the various participants and our analysis. The accessibility and the acceptance of the courses among the mothers proved to be one of the most important strengths of the "Mama lernt Deutsch"-project. The accessibility is primarily allowed by the course location at the school and the child care for the course participants' children, but also by the achieved strengthening of the mothers' self-confidence in the context of their empowerment. Considering the disadvantages of female migrants in the fields of integration and L2 acquisition, the courses proved to be helpful in removing these disadvantages. Vol. 2 represents the annex to Vol. 1 and contains documents which have been created and accumulated during the project such as interview guidelines, survey questions and information letters.
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Papers by Niku Dorostkar
In einer kritisch-diskursanalytischen Fallstudie wird untersucht, wie und in welchem Ausmaß die diskursiv betriebene Mehrsprachigkeitspolitik der EU in Österreich rezipiert wird. Darüber hinaus wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Sprache im Sinn von ‚Sprachigkeit‘ in der Politik, den Medien und der Bevölkerung Österreichs diskursiv konstruiert wird. Hierzu werden Interviews mit Politikern, Zeitungsartikel und Gruppendiskussionen mit BürgerInnen nach dem diskurshistorischen Ansatz analysiert, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf sprachbezogenen Nominations-, Prädikations- und Argumentationsstrategien liegt.
‘Multilingualism’ has become one of the pivotal catchwords in a discourse which for several years has been spreading not only in the field of academics, but also in the public and private sphere, especially at the supranational European level. While the EU’s language political communication efforts are aimed at the national level, the member states often seem to follow language political principles that differ significantly from those of the EU.
With this perspective in mind and focussing on an Austrian case study, the present book investigates how and to what degree the EU’s discursively conducted multilingualism policy is perceived at the Austrian national level. Furthermore, it pursues the questions of how language (in the sense of ‘Sprachigkeit’ or ‘languageness’) is constructed discursively in politics, the media and among citizens in Austria. For this purpose, interviews with politicians, print media articles and focus group discussions are analysed following the discourse-historical approach with a focus on language-related nomination, predication and argumentation strategies.
Project “migration.macht.schule”, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research within the programme “Sparkling Science” (project duration: 2010-2012, project manager: Rudolf de Cillia)
While certain web-based communicative forms, such as chat or e-mail, have become a preferred subject of linguistic analysis, little has been said about online discourses in general as well as discussion boards in particular. Furthermore, there are hardly any investigations of readers’ comments in discussion boards of online newspapers, even though they represent an online genre which seems to gain more and more popularity.
The fact that online discourses have hardly been subjected to discourse analysis, especially critical discourse analysis, is remarkable for several reasons. First, within online discourse analysis it is possible to build corpora consisting of easily available online texts which occur in a ‘natural’ communication situation. As the data is not elicited by the researcher, a bias towards social desirability can therefore be obviated during data gathering. Second, such online texts mirror discourses, which are not carried by public figures such as experts, journalists or politicians (in the sense of an institutional discourse or ‘elite-discourse’) but by ‘ordinary’ citizens being their recipients (in the sense of a non-institutional discourse or ‘everyday-discourse’). Third, online discourses like those related to the discussion boards of online newspapers contain profoundly opinion oriented and argumentative statements with regard to socially relevant topics and problems, and they are characterised by strong inter-discursive and inter-textual links. However, discussion boards allow readers not only to exchange opinions about journalistic articles and topics of public interest, but they often also include, at least implicitly, racist and discriminatory language usage.
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist and discriminatory discourse and argumentation strategies in the discussion boards of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. This news portal constitutes one of the most actively used news sites in Austria, which seems to be at least partly due to the integration of discussion boards on their sites. At first, we will consider discussion boards as a communicative form characterised by linguistic features different to chat and e-mail. We will also elaborate on the technical and functional composition of the discussion boards on derStandard.at. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication and Austrian migration politics. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberative democracy and the moderation (the ‘censoring’) of the discussion boards by the editorial staff of derStandard.at with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we will discuss chances and risks of the investigated discussion boards regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such discussion boards.
Sprachenpolitische Interventionen, die auf die „Sprachigkeit“ von MigrantInnen abzielen (bspw. Deutschlernpflichten oder Sprachgutscheine) werden in Österreich als Lösung für das so genannte „Integrationsproblem“ beworben und gerechtfertigt. Hierbei können drei verschiedene Argumentationslinien ausgemacht werden, nämlich eine moralistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen“), eine paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen in ihrem eigenen Interesse Deutsch lernen“) und eine neo-paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen wollen“). Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird aus kritisch-diskursanalytischer Perspektive beleuchtet, welche diskursiven Strategien und linguistischen Mitteln dabei zum Einsatz kommen, wobei vor allem auf Nutzen-, Verantwortungs- und Kulturtopoi sowie auf Schlagwort- und Metaphernfelder einzugehen sein wird. Das der Analyse zugrundeliegende, österreichspezifische Material aus meiner Dissertation stammt aus dem Bereich politischer Werbung sowie aus Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen mit PolitikerInnen und BürgerInnen. Neben paternalistischen Diskursstrategien sollen abschließend vor allem auch jene anti-paternalistischen Positionen einer kritischen Reflexion unterzogen werden, die die paradoxen und verdeckten Formen des Neo-Paternalismus (bzw. des paternalistischen Empowerment) im sprachenpolitischen Kontext außer Acht lassen.
In einer kritisch-diskursanalytischen Fallstudie wird untersucht, wie und in welchem Ausmaß die diskursiv betriebene Mehrsprachigkeitspolitik der EU in Österreich rezipiert wird. Darüber hinaus wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Sprache im Sinn von ‚Sprachigkeit‘ in der Politik, den Medien und der Bevölkerung Österreichs diskursiv konstruiert wird. Hierzu werden Interviews mit Politikern, Zeitungsartikel und Gruppendiskussionen mit BürgerInnen nach dem diskurshistorischen Ansatz analysiert, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf sprachbezogenen Nominations-, Prädikations- und Argumentationsstrategien liegt.
‘Multilingualism’ has become one of the pivotal catchwords in a discourse which for several years has been spreading not only in the field of academics, but also in the public and private sphere, especially at the supranational European level. While the EU’s language political communication efforts are aimed at the national level, the member states often seem to follow language political principles that differ significantly from those of the EU.
With this perspective in mind and focussing on an Austrian case study, the present book investigates how and to what degree the EU’s discursively conducted multilingualism policy is perceived at the Austrian national level. Furthermore, it pursues the questions of how language (in the sense of ‘Sprachigkeit’ or ‘languageness’) is constructed discursively in politics, the media and among citizens in Austria. For this purpose, interviews with politicians, print media articles and focus group discussions are analysed following the discourse-historical approach with a focus on language-related nomination, predication and argumentation strategies.
Project “migration.macht.schule”, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research within the programme “Sparkling Science” (project duration: 2010-2012, project manager: Rudolf de Cillia)
While certain web-based communicative forms, such as chat or e-mail, have become a preferred subject of linguistic analysis, little has been said about online discourses in general as well as discussion boards in particular. Furthermore, there are hardly any investigations of readers’ comments in discussion boards of online newspapers, even though they represent an online genre which seems to gain more and more popularity.
The fact that online discourses have hardly been subjected to discourse analysis, especially critical discourse analysis, is remarkable for several reasons. First, within online discourse analysis it is possible to build corpora consisting of easily available online texts which occur in a ‘natural’ communication situation. As the data is not elicited by the researcher, a bias towards social desirability can therefore be obviated during data gathering. Second, such online texts mirror discourses, which are not carried by public figures such as experts, journalists or politicians (in the sense of an institutional discourse or ‘elite-discourse’) but by ‘ordinary’ citizens being their recipients (in the sense of a non-institutional discourse or ‘everyday-discourse’). Third, online discourses like those related to the discussion boards of online newspapers contain profoundly opinion oriented and argumentative statements with regard to socially relevant topics and problems, and they are characterised by strong inter-discursive and inter-textual links. However, discussion boards allow readers not only to exchange opinions about journalistic articles and topics of public interest, but they often also include, at least implicitly, racist and discriminatory language usage.
Our contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist and discriminatory discourse and argumentation strategies in the discussion boards of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. This news portal constitutes one of the most actively used news sites in Austria, which seems to be at least partly due to the integration of discussion boards on their sites. At first, we will consider discussion boards as a communicative form characterised by linguistic features different to chat and e-mail. We will also elaborate on the technical and functional composition of the discussion boards on derStandard.at. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication and Austrian migration politics. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberative democracy and the moderation (the ‘censoring’) of the discussion boards by the editorial staff of derStandard.at with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we will discuss chances and risks of the investigated discussion boards regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such discussion boards.
Sprachenpolitische Interventionen, die auf die „Sprachigkeit“ von MigrantInnen abzielen (bspw. Deutschlernpflichten oder Sprachgutscheine) werden in Österreich als Lösung für das so genannte „Integrationsproblem“ beworben und gerechtfertigt. Hierbei können drei verschiedene Argumentationslinien ausgemacht werden, nämlich eine moralistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen“), eine paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen in ihrem eigenen Interesse Deutsch lernen“) und eine neo-paternalistische („MigrantInnen sollen Deutsch lernen wollen“). Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird aus kritisch-diskursanalytischer Perspektive beleuchtet, welche diskursiven Strategien und linguistischen Mitteln dabei zum Einsatz kommen, wobei vor allem auf Nutzen-, Verantwortungs- und Kulturtopoi sowie auf Schlagwort- und Metaphernfelder einzugehen sein wird. Das der Analyse zugrundeliegende, österreichspezifische Material aus meiner Dissertation stammt aus dem Bereich politischer Werbung sowie aus Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen mit PolitikerInnen und BürgerInnen. Neben paternalistischen Diskursstrategien sollen abschließend vor allem auch jene anti-paternalistischen Positionen einer kritischen Reflexion unterzogen werden, die die paradoxen und verdeckten Formen des Neo-Paternalismus (bzw. des paternalistischen Empowerment) im sprachenpolitischen Kontext außer Acht lassen.