Language Use and Migration: Discursive Representations of Migrants in European Media in Times of Crisis

Language Use and Migration: Discursive Representations of Migrants in European Media in Times of Crisis

November 1, 2019

Working Paper

This paper investigates the discursive representation of migrants in European media, illustrating the social inequalities and structures of discrimination against migrant minorities inherent to the migration discourse and (re)produced through language use. The authors take a mixed-methods approach, combining computational and critical approaches to media texts. The focus is on the concepts of linguistic modifiers and semantic surroundings to capture the language employed in the discursive construction of migrants in five European countries: Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Hungary.