The identity of the British inmigrants in Valparaíso in The Star of Chile: (1904-1906)

Abstract

The study of identity has been widely examined within several fields of linguistics and also among the social sciences. However discourse analysis applied to newspapers is a relatively recent field. Thus, the present study based on the framework of evaluation in language developed by Martin and Rose (2008) focuses on the means by which editorials of the newspaper The Star of Chile convey a sense of identity of the British community in Valparaíso at the turn of the 20th century. To develop this study, five editorials of the The Star of Chile from the years 1904, 1905 and 1906 were selected for the analysis. Each of them representing relevant aspects of the British immigrants’ culture, religious and political beliefs, and significant historical events of that time. The analysis included the tracking of the participants and the options used by the author for their appraisal with the aim of unveiling their identity. The results elucidate how the British immigrants perceived themselves and how they depicted those outside their immediate community at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Valparaiso. Additionally, the present research also offers valuable glimpses of information into the contributions of the British colony in Chile.