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Conceptualising the Other: Online discourses on the current refugee crisis in Cyprus and in Poland

Conceptualising the Other: Online discourses on the current refugee crisis in Cyprus and in Poland AbstractFramed within cognitive linguistics, Critical Metaphor Analysis and social psychology, the present paper explores the dynamics of the online construction of the Other in the context of migration and current refugee crisis. Thematically, it scrutinizes online refugee- and migrant-related mainstream and social media discourses in two European countries, Cyprus and Poland, in 2015–2016. On the theoretical and methodological level, it looks at the constituted and constitutive nature of metaphorical conceptualisations of migrants/refugees, their axiological and emotional potential for threat construction, and thus impact on possible cognitive-affective attitudes of the host countries’ citizens. It is theorized here, in line with Conceptual Metaphor Theory, that the choices of particular metaphors and their frequency of usage are likely to influence the salience of issues among the public, activate certain moral evaluations and generate fear, thereby creating grounds for verbal and physical aggression targeted at the Other. The paper addresses the following questions: 1) How is the Other conceptualised as a THREAT in both physical and symbolic sense? 2) To what extent are particular metaphorical conceptualisations within the representation of migrants and refugees common to corpora from both countries and/or socio-cultural context dependent? 3) How can metaphors, including dehumanization, serve as a springboard for individual acts of prejudice, as well as systematic discrimination, and violence? The analysed data was collected within the European project C.O.N.T.A.C.T., exploring various aspects of hate speech and hate crime in ten EU countries. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Lodz Papers in Pragmatics de Gruyter

Conceptualising the Other: Online discourses on the current refugee crisis in Cyprus and in Poland

Baider, Fabienne; Kopytowska, Monika
Lodz Papers in Pragmatics , Volume 13 (2): 31 – Dec 20, 2017
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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
1898-4436
eISSN
1898-4436
DOI
10.1515/lpp-2017-0011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractFramed within cognitive linguistics, Critical Metaphor Analysis and social psychology, the present paper explores the dynamics of the online construction of the Other in the context of migration and current refugee crisis. Thematically, it scrutinizes online refugee- and migrant-related mainstream and social media discourses in two European countries, Cyprus and Poland, in 2015–2016. On the theoretical and methodological level, it looks at the constituted and constitutive nature of metaphorical conceptualisations of migrants/refugees, their axiological and emotional potential for threat construction, and thus impact on possible cognitive-affective attitudes of the host countries’ citizens. It is theorized here, in line with Conceptual Metaphor Theory, that the choices of particular metaphors and their frequency of usage are likely to influence the salience of issues among the public, activate certain moral evaluations and generate fear, thereby creating grounds for verbal and physical aggression targeted at the Other. The paper addresses the following questions: 1) How is the Other conceptualised as a THREAT in both physical and symbolic sense? 2) To what extent are particular metaphorical conceptualisations within the representation of migrants and refugees common to corpora from both countries and/or socio-cultural context dependent? 3) How can metaphors, including dehumanization, serve as a springboard for individual acts of prejudice, as well as systematic discrimination, and violence? The analysed data was collected within the European project C.O.N.T.A.C.T., exploring various aspects of hate speech and hate crime in ten EU countries.

Journal

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics – de Gruyter

Published: Dec 20, 2017

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