This article examines 180 texts that together form a newspaper-mediated debate of language policy in reaction to US Senate legislation declaring English the national language of the United States. Drawing on theories of genre networks and intertextuality, the article examines the ways in which dominant texts and ideologies within this corpus of texts are taken up, dropped, and perpetuated through linked genres over a 37-day period. The analysis begins by describing the social backdrop in which the debate occurred, the Senate legislation, and the Senate discussion. Next, the article details the newspaper framing of the Senate legislation and the subsequent uptake of an assimilationist ideology, through a range of discursive strategies employed by both newspaper writers and readers.
Ana, O.S. (1999) `"Like an Animal I was Treated": Anti-Immigrant Metaphor in US Public Discourse', Discourse & Society10(2): 191-224.
2.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (V.W. McGee , Trans.; C. Emerson and M. Holquist, eds). Austin, TX : University of Texas Press.
3.
Bazerman, C. (1994) `Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions', in A. Freedman and P. Medway (eds) Genre and the New Rhetoric , pp. 79-101. Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis.
4.
Berkenkotter, C. (2001) `Genre Systems at Work: DSM-IV and Rhetorical Recontextualization in Psychotheraphy Paperwork', Written Communication18(3): 326-47.
5.
Charteris-Black, J. (2006) `Britain as a Container: Immigration Metaphors in the 2005 Election Campaign', Discourse & Society17(5): 563-81.
6.
Devitt, A.J. (1991) `Intertextuality in Accounting', in C. Bazerman and J. Paradis (eds) Textual Dynamics of the Professions, pp. 336-57. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Dicker, S.J. (2003) Languages in America: A Pluralist View, 2nd edn. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
9.
Flowerdew, J., Li, D.C.S. and Tran, S. (2002) `Discriminatory News Discourse: Some Hong Kong Data', Discourse & Society13(3): 319-45.
10.
Freadman, A. (1994) `Anyone for Tennis?', in A. Freedman and P. Medway (eds) Genre and the New Rhetoric, pp. 43-66. Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis.
11.
Goldstein, L.M. (2001) `Three Newspapers and a Linguist: A Folk Linguistic Journey into the Land of English as the Official Language', in R.D. González and I. Melis (eds) Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement, Volume 2, pp. 221-44. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
12.
Hauser, G.A. (1999) Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
13.
Hill, J.H. (2001) `The Racializing Function of Language Panics', in R.D. González and I. Melis (eds) Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement, Volume 2, pp. 245-67. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
14.
Huckin, T. (2002) `Textual Silence and the Discourse of Homelessness' , Discourse & Society13(3): 347-72.
15.
Inhofe, Sen. [OK] (2006) `Amendment no. 4064, to Declare English the National Language of the United States', in Congressional Record 152, S4735, 18 May. Retrieved 25 November 2007 from the Library of Congress: THOMAS.
16.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
17.
Mehan, H. (1997) `The Discourse of the Illegal Immigration Debate: A Case Study in the Politics of Representation', Discourse & Society8(2): 249-70.
18.
Rutenberg, J. (2006) `Bush Enters Anthem Fight on Language', New York Times, 29 April. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/washington/29bush.html (retrieved 10 December 2007).
19.
Salazar, Sen. [CO] (2006) `Amendment no. 4073, to Declare that English is the Common and Unifying Language of the United States', in Congressional Record 152, S4757, 18 May. Retrieved 25 November 2007 from the Library of Congress: THOMAS.
20.
Schmid, C. (1992) `The English Only Movement: Social Bases of Support and Opposition among Anglos and Latinos', in J. Crawford (ed.) Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the Official English Controversy, pp. 202-9. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
21.
Scollon, R. (1998) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse. New York: Longman .
22.
Swales, J.M. (2004) Research Genres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
Tardy, C.M. (2003) `A Genre System View of the Funding of Academic Research', Written Communication20(1): 7-36.
24.
Teo, P. (2000) `Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers', Discourse & Society11(1): 7-49.
25.
Tse, L. (2001) Why Don't They Learn English? Separating Fact from Fallacy in the US Language Debate. New York: Teachers College Press.
26.
US Senate (2006) Congressional Record, 109th Congress152(62): S4735-S4770, 18 May.
27.
Van der Valk, I. (2003) `Right-Wing Parliamentary Discourse on Immigration in France', Discourse & Society14(3): 309-48.
28.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1993) Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
29.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1998) Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
30.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2000) `New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach' , in S. Cottle (ed.) Ethnic Minorities and the Media. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
31.
Wodak, R. (1997) `The Discursive Construction of the Other', in C. Florian (ed.) The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, pp. 127-50. London: Blackwell.
32.
Yates, J. and Orlikowski, W. (2002) `Genre Systems: Chronos and Kairos in Communicative Interaction', in R. Coe, L. Lingard and T. Teslenko (eds) The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
