Contrasting language attitudes: The case of Spanish in Basel

Abstract

Abstract Two concurrent discourses on the presence of non-national languages such as Spanish and its speakers circulate in Switzerland’s public sphere: one that conceives this presence positively and another that considers it negatively. Following a multimodal discursive-interactive approach, in this study I seek to determine which of these discourses is reproduced in the individual, private accounts of five Swiss nationals. My results show that these individuals echo both of the readily available dominant discourses, meaning that they construct contrasting attitudes related to said presence, regardless of whether these attitudes are deployed as part of their own set of beliefs or that of other Swiss nationals like them. These results build on prior research that shows that the private attitudes of individuals are often strongly affected by various elements of the situational context (e.g., dominant discourses, the immediate surroundings, etc.) and, as a consequence of this, variable by nature. More generally, my results demonstrate the need to reframe how certain aspects of prominent social topics such as the presence of migrants and their languages are treated by authorities and in public media outlets.