Xenophobic hate speech in Malta

Abstract

This thesis seeks to uncover the ideologies and values imbued within the language used to describe migrants in below-the-line newspaper comment data in Malta. More precisely, it seeks to understand how the representation of social actors involved in discourse about migration reveals axiological information and stance pertaining to migrants. The complexity of this research goal necessitates an interdisciplinary methodological approach within which to frame the analysis. Hence, the research of this thesis is embedded within Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies. A number of corpora were constructed using data from the Times of Malta online newspaper forum to investigate the linguistic constructions of the social actors represented in the data, and the way that those constructions reveal ideologies and values therewith. Specifically, topic modelling was used to extract a subset of the Times of Malta comment data directly pertaining to migration, while multiple annotators were used to additionally formulate a sub-corpus of xenophobic hate speech therein. Subsequently, the data were analysed within the scope of van Leeuwen’s (2008) semantic representation of social actors, and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) system of transitivity. Further, following the analysis of the annotated hate speech data, broader generalisations were made using corpus methods in an attempt to extrapolate the findings to the full Times of Malta dataset. Through the analysis, this thesis shows that the Maltese are represented as the undisputed in-group – they are patriots and protectors, while a specific group of migrants are the definite out-group, who are not welcome on the island. The language used to describe this latter group consistently represents them in a position of subordination through which they are described as unwelcome guests who should return from whence they came. The Maltese, on the other hand, are consistently represented as the dominant group whose resources are being depleted by these undesirable people. In this respect, the discourse examined offers valuable insight into real-world treatment of the out-group whereby they are excluded from housing and other resources, in addition to facing discrimination daily.