Food fight: conflicting language ideologies in English and French news and social media

Although social media provide new opportunities for minority language use and communication, the extent to which they differ from mainstream news media requires more investigation. This paper addresses this issue by comparing French and English language ideologies in Canadian news media and on Twitter. These ideologies are investigated using a specific case study where an Italian restaurant owner in French-speaking Canada was challenged for using Italian words on a menu. This generated extensive media coverage and Twitter activity. A corpus-assisted discourse study sheds insight on the complex dynamics of language politics and how they play out on different media platforms. It also indicates that minoritised groups are under growing pressure to translate linguistic cultures into English and globalised, market-driven contexts