This chapter outlines how the discourse analysis of print media can be used to examine language attitudes and discusses the main strengths and limitations of this method. One significant strength lies in the fact that the printed press is an important means by which ideas about language are (re)produced. Analyses of the metalanguage used in the press can therefore be particularly revealing about language attitudes in a given society. An example of a limitation is the fact that print media texts vary enormously in terms of their context and audience. This makes a restricted practice of discourse analysis problematic, but equally too broad a practice may become effectively meaningless. The chapter provides an overview of the main discourse analytical approaches that have been applied to language attitude studies, and then narrows the focus to examine critical discourse analysis (CDA) in particular, outlining its strengths and limitations, giving examples of how it can be used to analyse and interpret data, and discussing key practical issues in planning and designing CDA research. The chapter concludes with a case study evaluating attitudes towards French using a corpus of language columns in French newspapers, thereby exemplifying the main points made in the chapter.

This chapter analyses the role of grammars, dictionaries and other metalinguistic texts in the history and present practice of language standardization, with examples and case studies taken from a broad range of European and non-European languages. The chapter presents a typology of codification types, with examples: standard-creating, modernizing, archaizing and standard-descriptive. It argues that dictionaries, grammars and related texts participate in a historical discourse tradition, with a number of shared features, but where participation in that discourse tradition does not necessarily indicate the presence of a standard language ideology. It presents that discourse tradition in five broad (and inevitably sometimes overlapping) phases: early practical (professional or pedagogical) codifications; patriotic codifications (from the sixteenth century onwards in Europe); public-orientated codifications (rationalist, democratizing codifications, with a wider intended reach, from the late eighteenth century); national and nationalist codifications; and post-national(ist) challenges to standard ideologies. It also looks at the important role of grammars and dictionaries for foreign language learners in the history of language standardizations and the connections to language purism. Finally, the chapter presents a framework to evaluate the difficult question of the authority, reach and ultimate influence of grammars, dictionaries and related texts on usage.