Discourses of Forced Migrations in the Media

This book adopts a triangulated approach to explore the complexity of migration discourses, bringing together argumentation analysis and corpus linguistics to the study of the “European refugee” crisis.

Drawing on a corpus with data from across British, Polish, and Spanish newspapers, Zawadzka-Paluektau explores how migration from Asia and Africa to Europe over the 2015-2018 period was conceptualized as a period of crisis for Europe. The volume makes the case for a triangulated approach to understanding these dynamics more fully with its combination of robust quantitative corpus-based studies and richly detailed qualitative discourse analysis. Zawadzka-Paluektau uses this perspective to draw readers’ attention to recurring patterns in how refugees were represented in the European press across geographic contexts but also differences owing to extra-linguistic factors, including historical, cultural, and sociopolitical factors. In light of growing forced displacement and migration “crises” globally, the volume offers important insights into the study of immigration discourses in Europe and beyond and future directions for further research.

This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, political discourse, media discourse, and migration studies.