Naslov
From “Migrant Waves” to “Refugee Flows”: A Case Study on Imposing and Shaping Conceptual Metaphors in Croatian Expert and Public Discourse

Autori
Tanja Gradečak ; Milić, Goran ; Župarić-Iljić, Drago

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
Figurative Thought and Language in the Human Universe / Brdar, Mario ; Milić, Goran ; Vidaković Erdeljić, Dubravka ; Brdar-Szabó, Rita - Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021, 47-72

ISBN
1-5275-7246-3

Skup
3rd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL3)

Mjesto i datum
Osijek, Hrvatska, 26.04.2017. - 28.04.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
migrations, conceptual metaphor, keyness, collocation, n-gram

Sažetak
Our study tests the resilience of conceptual metaphors in the public discourse on refugees as a reflection of the situation when Croatia became a part of the refugee and other migrant routes in the summer of 2015 and when there was an obvious increase in reports on the treatment of refugees during their passage through the Croatian national territory. A comparison is made with the RASIM project (Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Immigrants and Migrants) conducted at the University of Lancaster from 1996 to 2006 which explored the discourses surrounding refugees and asylum seekers at the territory of the UK, examining both how that discourse has evolved and how it has constructed both groups. The qualitative text analyses of the study suggested aggregation, collectivisation and functionalisation as the most widespread strategies in negative representations of RASIM throughout the 10-year period, by using some stock metaphorical expressions to talk about (and consequently conceptualize) migrants as bodies of water (‘flood of refugees’, ‘wave of refugees’) aimed to trigger a number of topoi Wodak's (2009), background knowledge structures with potential discoursive effects. Charteris Black (2006) noticed that in the period of high growth of economic immigration in the UK the topic served as a major political issue for the British political right while in Croatia in late 2015 the treatment of refugees became a prime- time topic in preelectional arguments in both right- and left- wing parties with almost the same arguments and linguistic tools used in the media discourse. The circularity of the idea of refugees as a threat, burden or challenge to the state or to domicile population obviously holds the appeal of an emotionally charged discourse topic with the conceptual metaphors for migrant people used as a pool of prototypical referential expressions with a high potential for numerous connotative meanings (or topoi, as mentioned above). Opposed to this automatic reaction by the media centres there is a plea by experts on migrations which urged the public to employ a more neutral set of expressions, like 'migration/migrant flow' (Glas Slavonije, 24.10. 2015), which, despite relying on the same metaphorical domain of water, foreground its less biased set of properties. This initiative prompted the initial corpus study on the Google search machine which showed that in 2015 the expression izbjeglički/migrantski tok 'refugee/migration flow' was being steadily introduced in the Croatian public discourse and the typical sources for this expression were either the academic papers in the sociology of migrations or some official documents and translations of EU directives in English. This example may be a case study on how politically correct, top-down approach is used to promote linguistic shaping of the public opinion where experts have tried to impose an objective and scientifically grounded view on the otherwise simplified and severely reduced image that refugees and migrants were attributed in the Croatian media. It may also be an example of linguistic import, where it is obvious that the English expression, together with the universally established conceptual metaphor, created a nest for developing a set of novel concepts and phrases in the Croatian language.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija, Filologija, Kognitivna znanost (prirodne, tehničke, biomedicina i zdravstvo, društvene i humanističke znanosti)

POVEZANOST RADA