LIBERTE' EGALITE' DIVERSITE': DIVERSITY IN THE ENGLISH PRESS BEFORE AND AFTER THE PARIS TERRORIST ATTACK

iversità degli Studi di Siena Liberte' Egalite' Diversite': Diversity In The English Press Before And After The Paris Terrorist Attack The idea of a possible substitution of the last word of the French motto is not an original one. It has been used, for instance, for several headlines and by a French Corporate Theatre Company. Diversity, here, refers to the inclusive and empathic use of the word I investigated in my previous contributions to the LD discussion. The French Theatre Company site, for instance, lists as themes for the debate “Les discriminations ethniques, les préjugés, l'égalité hommes/femmes, la gestion des âges, le handicap”. A headline from Le Monde is for a review of a book on the political support given to the idea of diversity. Diversity is used instead of the traditional fraternity to stress the idea that also the more marginalized should be included and this is part of new policies and procedures introduced by political power. But today most of the results you get by googling the modified motto refer to a TV programme broadcast by the France Tv “Numéro 23”: a special edition dedicated to the consequences of the Paris attack. Does this imply that the recent events are changing our perception of what diversity 47 means and our support to diversity policies? Are policies changing as a result of this? Is this relevant for language users and translators? Following the previous discussions of ‘diverse diversities’ in the SiBol/Port diachronic corpus of Newspapers in English for the LD 2013 and 2014 conferences, this paper extends the analysis to a comparison with a new corpus that is being collected after the Paris attacks. It will include newspapers collected in the three months following the attack. The MdCADS methodology (Partington 2010), will be used to investigate discourse features related to diversity and power and “the broader societal and political framework in which such discourse is embedded” (Schäffner 1996: 201)