Nominalization as racialization in the Italian press

Abstract

In this article we discuss the language used by the Italian media to refer to immigrant and other minority groups. In particular, we focus on one linguistic device commonly used when referring to minorities, namely, the use of nominalised forms of ethnic, nationality or religious-based adjectives, which leads to talk of ‘the Romanian’, ‘the Muslim’, and so on. We show that such nominalisation has recently become the subject of criticism both from courts and from journalists’ associations. We consequently examine a corpus of articles drawn from the two main Italian dailies, La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera, from 1992 onwards. Whilst we find no global trends, we find that some references - to Romanians, Albanians, and ‘islamici’ - have become more nominalised over time, at least in La Repubblica. Trends in nominalisation for Il Corriere are stable or declining, but start from a higher rate. Based on these results, we argue that la Repubblica is catching up with a pattern of prejudicial coverage which is likely to date back to before 1992.