The Discursive Construction of Migrant Identities

This edited volume explores how migrant identities are created and constructed in discourse both by migrants themselves and by others. The contributors reveal how migrant identities are discursively constructed by those with lived experiences of mobility and those who view themselves as part of the ‘host’ population. This dual focus responds to a lack of previous research examining migration representation from both perspectives. Readers will discover how the discursive constructions of migrant identities in different domains relate to one another. The case studies include a broad range of text types from film, government documents and narrative accounts to newspapers and Twitter. They also cover a wide range of contexts including Argentina, Australia, Italy, Romania, and UK, making this is a more comprehensive account of the framing of migration than has been previously accomplished. The chapters all follow the same structure to help the reader learn how to investigate migration discourses using qualitative and quantitative (critical) discourse analytic approaches.

Charlotte Taylor is Professor of Discourse and Persuasion at the University of Sussex, UK. Her current research is concerned with the intersection between migration discourses and memory. Her publications include Corpus Approaches to Discourse (with Anna Marchi), Absence and Silence in Discourse (with Melani Schroeter) and Patterns and Meanings in Discourse (with Alan Partington and Alison Duguid).

David Machin is Professor of Media and Communication at Örebro University, Sweden.

Simon Goodman is Associate Professor in Psychology at De Montfort University, UK. He is currently outgoing chair of the British Psychological Society's Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section.

JOHN E. RICHARDSON is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Loughborough University, UK.

Stuart Dunmore is Associate Tutor at the Institute for Language Education at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and works in language policy. His research has examined language ideologies, cultural identities and minority language use.