Abstract:
This qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) aims to analyse travel vlogs produced/uploaded
on YouTube by foreign tourists in Sri Lanka with a special focus on linguistic imperialism.
Linguistic imperialism is a theoretical perspective developed by Robert Phillipson (1992)
that argues linguistic resources act as a new method of perpetuating imperialism. It also argues
that linguistic discrimination is a subtle yet powerful social phenomenon which has been materialised
through the perpetuation of colonial languages such as English and French. Phillipson
argues that native-English speakers prioritise their linguistic, cultural experiences as superior
to the colonised, local, indigenous languages, which are represented as sub-standard or inferior
to English as a lingua franca. This qualitative study analyses seven YouTube videos selected
through the purposive sampling method. A corpus was created based on the transcripts of those
videos. Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional method was used to analyse the transcripts
in the corpus along with Robert Phillipson’s theories. The language as text in the transcripts
demonstrates that lexical choices and material processes in transcripts nuance linguistic imperialism.
The analysis of language as discursive practice proves that videos are distributed
and consumed as an exoticised, dominant hegemonic narrative, which validates foreign, native-
English speakers’ role as key informants/knowledge sharers within the larger discourse on travel
and tourism. The analysis of language as social practice proves that videos function within the
larger narrative of neo-liberalism and globalisation, and represent Sri Lanka as “stunning” and
“absolutely gorgeous” in terms of travel and tourism, along with an ethos on the “eco-friendly”
global market. Along with these findings, this study argues that the discourse on travel and
tourism has been produced/disseminated by foreign English-native speakers as a cumulation of
linguistic imperialism, neo-liberalisation and globalisation. Therefore, the study suggests that
Phillipson’s thesis on ‘linguistic imperialism’ should be updated to ‘digital linguistic imperialism’
to analyse ‘digital connoisseurs’. The study recommends that further research incorporating
visual research methodologies should be done to nuance the understanding of ‘digital
linguistic imperialism’.
