Identity, Ideology and Positioning in Discourses of Lifestyle Migration

This book uniquely integrates discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine representations of the self and other within lifestyle migration.  With a focus on British migrants living in the Ariège, south-west France, the study identifies common positioning strategies to demonstrate links between wider themes and local identity construction. Drawing on positioning theory and related analytical tools, Lawson is the first to integrate a corpus of British media texts with online and face to face discourse.  The book presents a detailed identification of ideologies relating to being British in France, and the linguistic analysis demonstrates how this value system is both taken up and habitually manipulated within local discourse as a resource for negotiating a particular kind of identity.  Using social theory to underpin the analysis of positioning strategies in interaction, the book enhances our understanding of the complex possibilities within processes of self-identification in a migration context.

Michelle Lawson is an Honorary Associate and an Associate Lecturer for the Open University, UK. She completed her doctorate in Applied Linguistics at Lancaster University and is a member of the Lifestyle Migration research hub. She contributed to an edited volume: Practising the Good Life: Lifestyle Migration in Practices, edited by K. Torkington, I. David, & J. Sardinha.