METAPHOR AND IDEOLOGY IN MEDIA DISCOURSE ON MIGRATION

Mariana NeaguMariana Neagu University of GalaUniversity of Galaţţii

The XIII th International Conference Cognitive Modeling in Linguistics,

Corfu, Greece, September 22-29, 2010

OUTLINEOUTLINE

Introduction Introduction

1.1. Some preliminary considerations: CMT and Some preliminary considerations: CMT and CDACDA

2. 2. Data and methodData and method

3. 3. FindingsFindings

Closing remarksClosing remarks

Introduction II

Motivation

- The choice of one metaphor rather than another is a sympton of ideology (Stockwell, 2000)

- Although the importance of culture to

metaphoric patterns has been underlined, the centrality of ideology to culture has not been enough discussed.

1. Some preliminary considerations: CMT and CDA

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT): Lakoff, 1991; Steen, 1999.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) “Language is not powerful on its own – it gains power by the use people make of it and by the people who have access to language means and public fora”. Van Dijk (1995):

The aim of CDA is “to investigate critically social inequality, as it is expressed, signalled, constituted, legitimized and so on by language use.” (Wodak and Meyer, 2001)

2. Data and method

- articles related to immigration in UK, published 2006-2011:The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Mail

Romanian quality papers (Adevărul and Cotidianul)

Searched key words: migration, (im)migrant, Romanian, Britain.

3. Findings

The British corpus:- 5 source domains matching the

target domain of migration: flood container threat invasion exploitation

Interim conclusions: The British Corpus

Metaphoric Patterns

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total

1. MIGRATION AS FLOOD - 9 4 3 4 6 26

2.1. UK AS CONTAINER6 2 1 1 5 -

15

19

2.2. EU AS CONTAINER - 1 - - 2 1 4

3. MIGRATION AS THREAT 1 6 - 1 1 1 10

4. MIGRATION AS EXPLOITATION - - 1 1 - 3 5

5. MIGRATION AS WAR - 2 - - - - 2

6. MIGRATION AS INVASION - 1 - - - - 1

7. MIGRATION AS FIRE - 1 - - - - 1

The Romanian Corpus Articles on Romanian emigration to the UK

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

MH NMH MH NMH MH NMH MH MH MH NMH MH

NMH

Adevărul 1 30 4 24 2 7 2 22 4 50 2 23

Cotidianul 3 13 5 11 - 1 2 10 5 43 1 27

Total no. of articles

4 43 9 35 2 8 4 32 9 93 3 50

47 44 10 36 102 53

Metaphoric Headline = MHNon-metaphoric Headline = NMH

YearMetaphoric Patterns

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total

BP RP BP RP BP RP BP RP BP RP BP RP

1. MIGRATION AS FLOOD - - 9 2 4 - 3 1 4 3 6 - 32

2.1. UK/LONDON AS CONTAINER 6 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 5 1 - - 1631

2.2. EU AS CONTAINER - - 1 - - - - 1 2 - 1 - 5

3. MIGRATION AS THREAT 1 - 6 2 - 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 18

4.1. MIGRATION AS EXPLOITATION - 1 - 1 1 - 1 1 - - 3 - 811

4.2. CHILDREN AS GOODS - - - - - 1 - - - - - 2 3

5. MIGRATION AS WAR - - 2 1 - - - 1 - 1 - - 5

6. MIGRATION AS INVASION - - 1 2 - 1 - - - 1 - - 5

7.1. MIGRANTS AS HUNTERS - - - - - - - - - 2 - - 24

7.2. MIGRANTS AS HUNTED ANIMALS - 1 - 1 - - - - - - - - 2

8. MIGRATION AS FORCE - 1 - 1 - - - - - 1 - - 3

9. MIGRATION AS FIRE - - 1 - - - - - - - - - 1

10. ECONOMY AS LIVING ORGANISM - 1 - - - - - - - - - - 1

11. EU INTEGRATION AS AN UNREALISTIC ISSUE - - - 1 - - - - - - - - 1

Summing up: British and Romanian Press

Conclusions (I)Conclusions (I)

- the FLOOD metaphor has the highest frequency ->the imminence and

force of migration; migrants viewed as an undifferentiated mass.

- the CONTAINER metaphor implies an INSIDE and an OUTSIDE, representing

the US and THEM. can be looked at as a rhetorical legitimization

strategy of the right

Conclusions (II)

- topics discussed in relation to migration: negative socio-economic consequences (unemployment, reduction of social benefits and wages, raise of taxes, human trafficking)

- the attitudes that emerge from the body of English newspapers are mainly negative esp. n conservative tabloids (e.g. Daily Mail)

Conclusions(III)

- Romanian tabloids do not approach the topic of migration

- Romanian headlines are by far less metaphorical than British headlines. However, some metaphors migrate from British newspapers to Romanian newspapers (e.g. MIGRATION AS FLOOD, MIGRATION AS THREAT)

- the only new metaphor in Romanian newspapers: MIGRATION AS HUNT (MIGRANTS ARE HUNTERS and MIGRANTS ARE HUNTED ANIMALS)

Conclusions (IV)

- ideological orientation goes hand in hand with the presence of metaphor

- combined metaphors (e.g.FLOOD + THREAT, FLOOD + THREAT + CONTAINER) reinforce ideological positions

- conventional metaphor in the jounalistic discourse may determine our way of thinking (and acting) in the social sphere

Selected References (I)

Charteris-Black, J. 2006. Britain as a container: immigration metaphors in the 2005 election campaign. Discourse and Society, vo. 17, no.5, pp. 563-581.

Colipcă, G. I., I. Ivan-Mohor, M. Praisler, G. Dima, A. M. Dumitrascu, M. Neagu. 2010. National Case Study – National Identity and the Media (WP4): Romania, available online at http://www.gemic.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ WP4-Report-Romania-final.pdf.

Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing Discourse. Textual Analysis for Social Research. London and New York: Routledge.

Lakoff, G. 1991. Metaphor in politics. Available at http://www.uoregon.edu/~uophil/metaphor/lakoff-l.htm

Selected References (II)

Neagu, M. 2009. “The difference is that Romanians are now Europeans like us”. Functions of intertextuality in hard news reports. In Melanges francophnes. Actes de la conference annuelle “Formes textuelles de la communication. De la production a la reception”. Galati: Galati University Press, pp. 65-73

Steen, G. 1999. From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps. In Gibbs R.W. and G. J. Steen. eds. Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 57-77.

Van Dijk. T. 1995. The Mass Media Today. Discourses of domination or diversity? Javnost/The Public (Ljubljana), 2(2), pp. 27-45.

Wodak, R.2006. [2001] What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In Wodak, R. and M.Meyer. eds. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, pp. 1-13.

THANK THANK YOU!YOU!