Changes in Attitudes to Immigrants in Britain, 1921-2021:From Alien to Migrant

This book reviews changes in attitudes towards immigrants in Britain and the language that was used to put these feelings into words between 1921 and 2021. It analyses in what context attitudes were articulated and where they came from. To determine what was specifically British, it makes international comparisons. It applies a historical and linguistic method for an analysis of so far relatively unused primary sources. It also explores secondary resources and, to provide context, engages with the existing literature that deals with immigration but is not focused on attitudes or not always covers the entire period after 1921, and links post-1921 developments to what was set in motion before 1921 to sketch a long history that runs into the present. The linguistic historical approach applied in this book brings it all together for the first time. It discovers when and how attitudes to immigrants in Britain changed after 1921, where they originated and what language was used to voice these attitudes, in particular specific words, their meanings, the under- or overtones they bore, and what people meant or felt when they used them