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Abstract

By focussing on the dichotomized metaphorical strategy and myth creation, this study aims to analyze how the U.S. and the European Union (EU) media respond to the entrenched metaphor of migration and refugee “crisis”. In this respect, the U.S. and the EU media sources covering the time period from 2015 to 2016 were collected and analyzed in the theoretical framework of conceptual metaphor theory and critical metaphor analysis. By applying the metaphor identification procedure, it has been determined that most of the media narratives contribute to further developing the central bias of migration by means of metaphorical delegitimization that is discursively construed through the binary opposition between “them” and “us.” The metaphorical representation has been grouped into two kinds of ideologically represented story lines: (a) the myth of dehumanization, realized through the metaphors of Objects and Commodities; and (b) the myth of moral authority, realized through the metaphors of Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism. The findings have shown that most of the media narratives both delegitimize and stigmatize the status of a migrant by deeper entrenching the “outsider” stereotype and, therefore, create the general feelings of instability and intolerance within the EU.

Keywords

metaphor EU migration media discourse legitimization delegitimization myth

Introduction

The concept of migration is complex by its nature and is consequently metaphorized in its different genres of use. The meaning of migration is etymologically related to both animals and people, and it originally derives from the Latin migrationem (i.e., evidence for reference to people in the 1610s and animals in the 1640s) that means “to move from one place to another” with the Greek source of ameiben that means “to change” (see Harper, 2001, Oxford English Dictionary [OED]). Its different affiliations to either people or animals are, for that reason, provided in accordance with the genre and purpose of use. For instance, the Oxford Encyclopedia attributes migration to animal movements that are “periodic” and “usually associated with seasonal climactic changes or breeding cycles” (Isaacs & Law, 2004, p. 588), whereas the Oxford Dictionary of Politics defines migration as a “permanent movement of individuals or groups from one place to another” (McLean & McMillan, 2003, p. 347), and this trend of relating migration to both people and animals has led to far-reaching metaphorical extensions. In social sciences, migration has become a metaphor for movement and dislocation closely interrelated with the concept of “crossing boundaries” (Ahmed, 1999, p. 330). Migration is perceived as a troublesome journey that involves the crossing of borders in which a migrant plays the role of a nomad who has to “break barriers of thought and experience” (Chambers, 1994, p. 4). Ahmed (1999), in this sense, investigates the complex perception of migrations, and argues that migration as a journey is both literal and metaphorical, and that its metaphorical use, however, yields a more negative perception by highlighting the aspects of difference and estrangement. Another negative view of migration is grounded in the metaphorical system of market ideology where migrants are perceived as “labour force” or “labour migration,” in particular in the 1950s and early 1970s, and the importance of state migration “policies” related to “accumulation” on the part of receiving state is emphasized (Boswell, 2007). In a similar way, Schiller (2009, p. 111) argues that the bounded perception of migration leads to the container approach in society and public policy of exclusion. Based on that misconception, political and social scientists offer the concept of “transnational migration” that would encourage a broader theoretical approach to migration policies (Faist, 2000; Roberts, 1995; Urry, 2000).

A similar trend of negatively conceptualizing migration in discourse has been observed in sociolinguistic research in the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics (Gibbs, 1992; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989) and critical metaphor analysis (CMA; Charteris-Black, 2006; Hart, 2011; Musolff, 2011, 2012, 2015; O’Brien, 2003; Santa Ana, 2002). Both U.S. and European scholars discuss and demonstrate how negative representation of migration is realized through the use of metaphor, and what kind of social and political consequences it might lead to. From the U.S. perspective, scholars agree that migration metaphors are both degrading and dehumanizing. To exemplify, O’Brien (2003) focuses on the degrading use of organism, object, natural catastrophe/war, and animal metaphors in the 1900s in the U.S. immigration restriction debate that both dehumanized migrants and portrayed them as a threat to social functioning. Likewise, Santa Ana’s (1999, 2002) study into the dehumanizing use of metaphor in the Los Angeles Times in the 1990s discusses how political policies and electorate’s responses are shaped by public discourse and the Immigrants Are Animals metaphor.

European scholars approached metaphorical representation of migration from various perspectives, including different text genres and types of metaphor use. By analyzing immigration metaphor in the 2005 election campaign, Charteris-Black (2005) reveals how natural disaster and container metaphors contribute to heightening emotional fears and the formation of legitimacy in the right-wing political communication. A recent study by Musolff (2015) shows how dehumanizing metaphors, in particular parasite metaphors, are used in weblogs and discussion fora and mainstream newspaper coverage with a high degree of deliberateness instead of being wholly “unconscious” or “automatic.” More importantly, metaphor analysis can help understand the underlying perceptions behind migration discourse in migration studies, as with the metaphor of Time, whereby the past/future is conceptualized both as a foreign country and as a lost/undiscovered world, and proposals are made for reframing it (Lambkin, 2014).

This study is motivated by recent political events and the so-called migration “crisis” that has been represented as a public concern in the mainstream U.S. and the European Union (EU) media. The use of metaphorical words and expressions in the headlines of various media sources has led to the negative portrayals of migration and migrants: “Europe in Disarray Over Migrants” (2015), “As Migrant Toll Rises, IOM Urges Action to Identify Victims” (2016), “We Must Not Allow Our Horror at the Refugee Crisis to Be Blunted by Fatigue” (2016), “Europeans Distraught, Divided as Migrant Crisis Worsens” (2015), “‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx” (2015). As can be seen from the examples, it is obvious that the negative representation of migration heavily relies on the use of metaphors and their systematicity across media texts. The central metaphor around which the entire migration narrative is reproduced is migration “crisis” which also functions as the title for the media section under which the migration articles are displayed.

Despite the fact that the metaphorical representation of migration has received sufficient attention from various scholars, this study aims to identify and clarify the ideological connotations of metaphors in relation to the specific political and social event—the movement of people into Europe in 2015 and 2016 in the context of the U.S. and the EU media. To achieve that, the following two research objectives were set: (a) to analyze how media responds to the entrenched metaphor of “migration crisis” in terms of the implied metaphorical strategy, (b) how the dichotomized metaphorical strategy of “them” and “us” contributes to the creation of myth. In the rest of the article, some of the literature on metaphor, ideology, and myth will be outlined, and the data and methods will be introduced. By reflecting on the mythological patterns and functions of the metaphors within the sociopolitical context of migration politics, the types of the metaphors will also be discussed in relation to the strategies of delegitimizing “them” and legitimizing “us.”

Metaphor and Ideology as Part of the Cognitive Unconscious

The concept of ideology plays a significant role in critical discourse analysis studies. Proposing a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of ideology, van Dijk (1998) locates ideology within “the conceptual and disciplinary triangle that relates cognition, society and discourse” (p. 5). This threefold approach to ideology is based on (a) its cognitive function representing a set of ideas or beliefs; (b) its social representation associated with group interests, conflicts, and struggle; and (c) its discursive aspect related to language use (van Dijk, 1998, 2011). By addressing the ideological representation of media discourse about migration within the context of “them” and “us,” this study empirically attempts to test and ground the discursive aspect of ideological representation in the mainstream media to identify how the media formulates its positioning toward migrants in 2015 and 2016. The importance of ideological positioning and its binary nature are pointed out by van Dijk (2006):

Thus, we assume that ideological discourse is generally organized by a general strategy of positive self-presentation (boasting) and negative other-presentation (derogation). This strategy may operate at all levels, generally in such a way that our good things are emphasized and our bad things de-emphasized, and the opposite for the Others whose bad things will be enhanced, and whose good things will be mitigated, hidden or forgotten. (p. 126)

As argued by van Dijk, ideological representation functions at all linguistic levels. However, this study will only focus on the metaphorical aspect of ideological representation, in particular the conventionalized and indirect metaphor use that is valued for its cognitive potential and systematicity across texts and within a discursive space. By the “cognitive potential” here is meant what cognitive linguists refer to conceptual metaphor and its realization through everyday language use or conventionalized metaphorical expressions (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Gibbs, 1999; Johnson, 1987; Kövecses, 2004; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Moreover, within this understanding, the term metaphor is used to highlight its experiential nature; thus, it is perceived not merely as a linguistic expression used for artistic or rhetorical purposes, but “as a process of human understanding by which we achieve meaningful experience that we can make sense of” (Johnson, 1987, p. 15). As a result, most of metaphorical use is initiated by cognitive mechanisms, whereby common subjective experiences are conventionally conceptualized (Gibbs, 2011; Johnson, 1987; Kövecses, 2002, 2005; Lakoff & Turner, 1989). Such cognitive mechanisms result in the emergence of primary and complex metaphors, where the former refers to the immediate conceptual mapping via neural connections whereas the latter is built up out of primary metaphors.

This metaphorical distinction between primary and complex metaphors helps realize the way through which human cognition and experience are organized by means of metaphorical framing. Primary metaphors are characterized by neural modeling in which neural connections in early childhood are established through coactivating cross-mapping domains in everyday experience (Grady, 1997; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Lakoff & Turner, 1989). For instance, the metaphor of Difficulties Are Burdens expresses the subjective experience of difficulty through the sensorimotor domain of muscular exertion and derives from the primary experience of “the discomfort or disabling effect of lifting or carrying heavy objects” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 50). In the process of human experience, primary metaphor use is contextualized within cultural models, knowledge, or beliefs that are widely accepted in a culture, and it is eventually built into complex metaphors such as The Physical Appearance Is a Physical Force, Emotional Experiences Are Physical Forces, and Life Goals Are Destinations (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).

Another significant characteristic of both primary and complex metaphors is related to the fact that they constitute the systematic part of the “cognitive unconscious,” which means that “most of the time we have no direct access to it or control over its use” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 73). This aspect is connected to the ideological meaning of metaphor that is part of the “cognitive unconscious,” and the hidden complexity of ideological meaning and its evaluative potential can therefore be discerned by analyzing metaphors (e.g., Charteris-Black, 2004; Goatly, 2007; Lakoff, 1996; Maalej, 2007; Musolff, 2006). The ideological and evaluative potential of metaphor use is directly linked with the ability to frame topics in specific ways that highlight some features and keep others in the background. The highlighted features, in turn, are motivated by pragmatic, ideological, cultural, and historical factors, which subsequently becomes part of explanatory narrative or grow into a myth (e.g., Charteris-Black, 2004, 2011).

Myth and Metaphor

The cognitive approach to metaphor has been employed to discuss the underlying perceptions of various kinds of narratives or myths. By myth is here meant what Charteris-Black (2009) refers to as “a narrative-based representation of intangible but evocative experiences that are unconsciously linked to emotions such as sadness, happiness and fear” (p. 100). As related to its emotional nature, myth is viewed as part of the implied ideology as myths are used for positive and negative evaluation, and heavily “rely on metaphor and symbols” (p. 101). In this context, myths can be articulated as a social story based on certain preconceptions, knowledge, and beliefs, which underlines explanatory values.

In metaphor research, the representation of myths in political discourse is investigated, and storylines can implicitly be traced in political leaders’ speeches by analyzing metaphors, which indeed reveal leaders’ moral positioning as well as their emotional and rational appeal to the public (Charteris-Black, 2009, 2011). To give an example, Charteris-Black’s (2011) metaphor analysis of Thatcher’s speeches has shown how the combination of the values, the social expectations placed upon a woman, with the “aggressive masculine stance” can contribute to the creation of the Boudicca Myth in Thatcher’s rhetoric (pp. 165-167). Even more, as argued and illustrated by Charteris-Black a gender-based political myth is created by contrastive metaphors that rely “on a discourse of conflict” (p. 177). Another example can be provided by Musolff’s (2007) metaphor analysis of Hitler’s anti-Semitic imagery in Mein Kampf that demonstrates how the illness-cure scenario can be manipulated for the purposes of racist stigmatization and dehumanization in the wider context of “a pseudo-religious, apocalyptic narrative of a devilish conspiracy against the grand design of the creator” (p. 41). In his study, Musolff focuses on how the most powerful and the most destructive conceptual construct is reproduced through the ideological metaphor of body politics and its multilayered illness-cure scenario. By analyzing Taiwanese political discourse, Lu and Ahrens (2008) demonstrate how the building metaphor used by successive Taiwanese presidents can have different ideological implications.

In media discourse, the role of metaphor is not less significant or ideologically grounded. Nerlich and Koteyko (2009, pp. 160-165) analyze the metaphorical representation of a superbug or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and argue that its “narrative framing” is based on “stereotypical plot lines, characters and other historical or fictional narratives” such as the struggles between heroes and villains, between contamination and purity, and between intelligence and stupidity. Koller’s (2004) analysis of business media discourse has shed more light on the gendered nature of metaphors, and what they could mean for women in business where the use of violent metaphors is prevalent. The ambiguous role of metaphor in media representations has been acknowledged by Hellsten (2000), who, by analyzing the Clones Are Mass Products metaphor, shows how the same issue can be represented in ideologically opposite ways.

One of the most elaborative insights into the role of myth in shaping stereotypes and entrenching ideology is presented by Wolf (1991) in her book Beauty Myth. The author argues that the “beauty myth” is based on the story in which beauty is reflected as a universal and objective phenomenon realized through the embodiment of the specified physical attributes possessed by a woman (p. 17), and that beauty is neither objective nor embodied but is a purely subjective belief system determined by politics where the value assigned to women is based on vertically organized power relations as a consequence of which woman is reduced to “formulaic and endlessly reproduced ‘beautiful’ images” (p. 20). To Wolf (p. 29), this myth, providing “a dream language of meritocracy” through statements such as “Get the body you deserve,” “entrepreneurial spirit,” “Make the most of your natural assets,” and “Your facial lines are within your control”, has been circulated in the media since the 1980s, and the use of such an ideologically entrenched narrative creates a reality which “keeps women consuming their advertisers’ products in pursuit of the total personal transformation in status that the consumer society offers to men in the form of money” (p. 35).

In addition, the negative effect of capitalism metaphors on both women and men in the most general sense of their well-being has been discerned through the use of frequently realized conceptual metaphors such as Quality Is Wealth/Money or Quality Is Quantity (Goatly, 2007). Goatly argues that the former is the most important metaphor generated by the political and economic philosophies of Hobbes and Hume, whereas the latter is emblematic of Smith’s economic visions. Such metaphors might result in reductionism in which human beings are perceived as animals, machines, commodities, or just objects (Goatly, 2007). Commenting on the idea of metaphorical reductionism, Cameron (2003, p. 39) argues that metaphors might provide an illusionary sense of understanding by excluding alternative views, which, in fact, fits well into Goatly’s (2007) argument that metaphors “have a tendency to form ‘regimes of truth’ to create a (model of) reality,” and that it is, thus, vital to be suspicious about “all metaphors, all language and all knowledge, if we are to be open to the realities beyond it” (p. 402).

This study, in this context, aims to address the ideological complexity and mythical power of metaphor use to be critically open and unconstrained by the discursive nature and its mythological representation through metaphor of the current migration into Europe.

Data and Method

The data for this study consist of 57 media articles totaling 47,446 words in the time period of 2 years (2015-2016) accessed from the following EU and U.S. online media sources: BBC, Reuters, The Independent, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Telegraph, The Daily Express, Der Spiegel, CNN, The Washington Post, New Statesman, Daily Mail. It should be noted that the data cover both reporting articles and commentary articles, and that this study will not address the issues of genre and gender, and focus on whether there are differences in metaphor usage between genders and across various media-related text types. Instead, this study will investigate the metaphorization of migration into Europe, and its ideological and mythical representation. The data were collected by following the search criteria of (a) topicality (i.e., migrant/migration/refugee/crisis), (b) time span between 2015 and 2016 with an attempt to collect a sufficient number of the most recent articles published in various U.S. and EU media sources, and (c) language (written and published in English).

Pragglejaz group’s Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP by Pragglejaz Group, 2007) was employed as a research tool to manually identify metaphorical expressions in the selected texts. According to this procedure, an expression is regarded as metaphorically used when (a) the contextual meaning differs from its basic meaning that is more physical and concrete (although not necessarily more frequent), and (b) the contextual meaning can be articulated in comparison with the basic meaning (e.g., the use of flow to describe the increasing number of migrating people as in “migration flow ,” although its basic meaning refers to “the steady movement of a liquid, gas or electricity”). Two dictionaries were used as a point of reference for the establishment of basic meanings: (a) the corpus-based Macmillan Dictionary Online (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/) and (b) the corpus-based Oxford Dictionaries online complemented by OED (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/). A number of metaphorical expressions, where the relevant contextual meaning was also included in the dictionaries, were also classified. For instance, the use of the noun “crisis” in a highly conventionalized metaphorical expression “migration crisis ” suggests how critical the current situation is. The relevant contextual meaning corresponds to one of the meanings listed in the dictionaries ( “a time of intense difficulty or danger,” OED), but (a) contrasts with a more concrete basic meaning (“the turning point of a disease, when an important change takes place, indicating recovery or death,” OED), and (b) can be understood in comparison with the basic meaning. As will become clear in the discussion of the findings, this maximal approach to potential metaphoricity is particularly effective in discerning the implied ideological meaning and its contribution to myth creation.

The manual analysis of metaphorical expressions was carried out by highlighting and assigning semantic tags or labels corresponding to their literal meanings (e.g., Natural Phenomena, Journey, War, Commodity). Both authors participated in the coding of lexical units that was performed in two stages: During the initial stage, the coders separated the texts into lexical units, and established the contextual and basic meanings, while in the second stage an occurrence of cross-domain meaning was established. The first reading was carried out in the strict manner provisioned by MIP (2007), while the second reading was applied in a more streamlined way with the purpose of looking for the systematic and interrelated instances of metaphoricity in the wider discourse context (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). Also during the second stage, the tags were related to both “source” and “target domains” of Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory by using the formula A IS B (Kövecses, 2002, 2004), where A stands for the target domain, while B refers to the source domain. Metaphorical expressions that shared the semantic tags were assigned to the corresponding source domains (e.g., Natural Phenomena, Crime, Journey, etc.). The most typical examples of metaphor use provided in the practical part are underlined, and it should be noted that in some cases the metaphorical instances are represented not only by single lexical units but also by lexical clusters that are context bound.

Finally, the ideological effects of the discerned conceptual metaphors were considered using Charteris-Black’s (2004) CMA, whereby the pragmatic factors of metaphor use were taken into account, especially the evaluative aspect of metaphor use (positive vs. negative). This was complemented by van Dijk’s (2011) approach to the ideological meaning of discourse, in particular its two strategies, legitimization and delegitimization, as related to metaphor use in this study. Finally, the ideological meaning of metaphor usage was linked to the overall underlying narrative line that was found as dominant in the collected data.

Findings and Discussion

The analysis of the collected data has demonstrated that delegitimization is a key discursive strategy of the representation of migration through metaphor usage in the mainstream U.S. and EU media sources. It has also been noted that delegitimization overlaps with the implicitly realized strategy of legitimization, and that their ideological unity creates the overall negative migration narrative. To begin with, conventionalized metaphorical expressions are the most common ones in the media narrative, and most of them are not very emotionally appealing in terms of novelty and frequency as indicated in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Metaphor Frequencies.

Media source	Total no. of words	No. of metaphorical expressions	Metaphorical frequency per 1,000 words
BBC	13,050	148	11.3
The Guardian	5,788	92	15.9
The Telegraph	2,066	31	15
The Independent	5,873	96	16.3
Bloomberg	2,096	22	10.5
Reuters	2,730	20	7.3
Der Spiegel	2,131	37	17.3
New Statesman	403	5	12.4
The Daily Express	1,319	9	6.8
Daily Mail	940	9	9.6
CNN	4,177	63	15.1
The Washington Post	4,742	58	12.2
Total	47,446	590

The metaphorical frequency in the media texts varies from 7 to 16 metaphorical expressions per 1,000 words, which is a general trend for metaphorical density in media texts (De Landtsheer, 2009; Steen et al., 2010). This is explained by the fact that most of the metaphors in the media discourse include conventionalized expressions, the metaphorical meaning of which is deeply entrenched in the collective unconscious by sounding very familiar, and not requiring any specific effort on the part of the recipient to recognize and utilize the meaning of the produced text. However, the conventionalized metaphor usage, playing a significant role in terms of creating stereotypes and myths, can still be considered as the most ideologically grounded one.

The metaphors that described migrants, refugees, and migration were highly consistent across different media sources, which might also signify their ideological nature.¹ The most prevalent source domains and their frequency, evaluation, and ideological meaning in terms of legitimization/“us” and delegitimization/“them” are summarized in Table 2 below.

Table 2.

Prevalent Source Domains and Their Ideological Meaning.

Source domains	Frequency	%	Ideology
Natural Phenomena	108	18.3	Them
Objects	90	15.3	Them
Commodity	75	12.7	Us and them
Crime	70	11.8	Them and us
Container	32	5.4	Them
Terrorism	22	3.7	Them
Total	397	67^a	Delegitimization

The other 33% constituted metaphors such as Migration As A Journey, Morality As Accounting, Life As A Struggle, Migration As A Disease, To Be Moral Is To Be High/To Be Amoral Is To Be Low, and so on; as their use was not systematic and more fragmented throughout the data, it does not contribute to the creation of migration myth, thus less frequent and unsystematic metaphors (i.e., in terms of their average frequency per 1,000 words) were not considered as part of this study.

The overlapping source domains across the data give evidence for the overall negative evaluation toward migrants and refugees by evoking the common strategy of delegitimization or misrepresentation of the reference group that is targeted as “them” or the Other. Furthermore, the calculations have shown that such negatively used conventionalized metaphors make up 67% of the collected data, which might stand for its ideological significance in terms of creating social reality and “migration” myth. The content analysis of metaphor usage in detail allowed us to discern two kinds of ideological story lines that can be summarized as complementary parts of two hegemonic myths, dehumanization and moral authority, as provided in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1.

Mythical representation of metaphor usage.

The entire story of negative representation is developed through two kinds of mythical narratives: The first myth of dehumanization is recreated using two metaphorical scenarios—Migrants as Objects and Migrants as Commodities. This leads to the suppression of any kind of emotions or feelings toward migrants that become a legitimate Other, and migrants are further delegitimized through the scenarios of Crime and Terrorism, as a consequence of which the myth of moral authority based on the idea of knowing what is right for the Other and how the Other can be punished if necessary is evoked. The chain of these metaphors results in strong emotional charge achieved primarily through suppressing any kind of positive emotions such as empathy or compassion toward migrating people, by representing them as inanimate objects, and further intensified by heightening various kinds of negative emotions, fear for security and life, in particular through the use of natural phenomena, crime, and terrorism metaphors.

The Myth of Dehumanization

In the chain of mythical representation (Figure 1), the so-called myth of dehumanization is recreated through two kinds of metaphorical source domains: objects and commodities, which make up 28% of 67% of negative representation. Their use heavily contributes to the creation of social reality based on the mythical narrative that migration is not related to people, their lives and fate, but is rather a process based on the exchange of commodified relations between countries or governments. The examples below reveal typical media accounts representing migrants and refugees via the Object metaphor.

Example 1

Turkish president says Europe not doing enough to redistribute the 3 million Syrians living in Turkey. (“Erdoğan Calls,” 2016)

Example 2

To do so, Erdogan wouldn’t even have to put the migrants in buses and drive them to the border. (“Refugee Wrangling,” 2016)

Example 3

Britain has pledged to take 20,000 people in from such camps. (“Heading for Britain,” 2015)

Example 4

. . . asylum-seekers who had packed Budapest’s central train station . . . (“‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx,” 2015)

Example 5

. . . whether Britain should accept a share of refugees . . . (“Britain Should Not Take More Middle East Refugees,” 2015)

Example 6

It’s important to recognize that this is hardly the first time the West has warily eyed masses of refugees . . . (The Washington Post, “Europe’s fear of Muslim refugees,” 2015, September 2)

Example 7

Britain last week recorded its highest-ever net migration total—330,000 more people came to Britain than left over the previous year. (“Refugee Crisis: Number of Syrian Refugees,” 2015)

Example 8

. . . help to ease the burden on countries along the continent’s southern periphery, where most migrants arrive . . . (“Refugee Crisis: Number of Syrian Refugees,” 2015)

Example 9

Several countries have balked at an earlier proposal to redistribute 40,000, whittling that number down to 32,000. (Bloomberg News, “Vivian Nereim Donna, Abu-Nasr Deema Almashabi. Refugees Brave Europe’s Deadly Seas Over Wealthy Arab Neighbors,” 2015, September 4)

Example 10

Migrants, however, are processed under the receiving country’s immigration laws . . . (CNN, by “Michael Martinez,” 2015, August 31)

The examples show that the descriptions of migrants, refugees, and migration do not only involve a relatively large number of metaphorical expressions related to the source domain of Objects but also reveal a greater complexity of semantic combinability within the context. This is explained by the fact that most of the examples include numbers that intensify the meaning of the Migrants Are Objects metaphor. The metaphorically used verbs such as “take,” “process,” “redistribute,” and “pack,” or nouns such as “share,” “burden,” “net,” and “masses” share the same semantic property of “objectification”; that is, their basic meaning involved the concept of inanimate thing or object that undergoes an action. For instance, “take” in its basic meaning refers to either “lay hold of something” or “remove something from a particular place” (Oxforddictionaries.com). Similarly, “process,” “redistribute,” or “pack” all refer to the action presupposing an object and the mechanical performance it has to undergo. This is also related to the metaphorically used nouns, for example, “share,” “burden,” “net,” “masses,” where the basic meaning of a weighty object or a heavy load is contextually associated with migrants and refugees.

As the examples show, the use of the Object metaphors creates an ideological proximity from migrants or “them” who are detached both physically and emotionally from “us.” This kind of use has two ideological functions: The first is that it explicitly delegitimizes “them” as a social group, whereas the second is about the fact that it implicitly legitimizes “us,” and our actions and decisions toward “them.” The emotional effect of this metaphor is also two sided: Its use negatively characterizes migrants as inanimate things overloading “our” emotional and physical “comfort zone” in rising numbers, and suppresses any positive emotions toward “them” at the same time as it is natural not to feel anything toward an object, especially toward the one that “burdens” “our” environment.

A similar ideological representation is further developed by the Commodity metaphor, in which the source domain of commodity is mapped onto migrants and refugees that extends the legitimacy of “us” as people to “us” as “countries” and “governments.” It should also be mentioned that the Commodity metaphor is central in representing the EU migration policy, and is practically implemented through the so-called policy of the “EU-Turkey migration/refugee deal.” Within this complex frame, governments are metaphorically represented as countries, while politics is represented through the source domain of business which fundamentally causes migration policy to be viewed as a deal. The basic meaning of “deal” refers to the “commercial trading of a particular commodity” (see Oxforddictionaries.com), which involves migrants or refugees, and unearths how the Commodity metaphor is realized linguistically, for example,

Example 11

In exchange for those countries taking back migrants, they would be given extensive EU investment. (“Europe in Disarray Over Migrants,” 2015)

Example 12

A deal between Turkey and the EU has, to a degree, reduced the numbers seeking to enter Europe from the warzones of Syria and Iraq. (“We Must Not Allow Our Horror at the Refugee Crisis to Be Blunted by Fatigue,” 2016)

Example 13

. . . as part of a hotly disputed bargain on migration . . . (“Turkey Fails to Meet Criteria,” 2016)

Example 14

So far 511 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Europe from Turkey, under the one-for-one scheme. (“Turkey Fails to Meet Criteria,” 2016)

Example 15

Running costs are supposed to be subsidised by the funding the EU is releasing as part of their deal with Turkey to “exchange” refugees. (“Turkish Town at Centre of Syrian,” 2016)

Example 16

. . . the conflict over German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee deal with Turkey . . . (“Refugee Wrangling,” 2016)

Example 17

. . . Cooper has suggested a target of 10,000 refugees being taken by the UK . . . (“Britain Should Not Take More Middle East Refugees,” 2015)

Example 18

As for other countries, Britain, Ireland and Denmark will not have to take part in any mandatory scheme, but Ireland has already said it will take in more refugees. (BBC, 2015, September 3)

Example 19

If we don’t succeed in fairly distributing refugees then of course the Schengen question will be on the agenda for many . . . (The Washington Post, “Europe had a dream of a land without borders,” 2015, September 2)

Example 20

Mr Haber’s resignation is a bad sign ahead of the scheduled publication of a European Commission report on the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement . . . (“EU Envoy to Turkey Resigns After Breakdown,” 2016)

As the examples show, the Commodity metaphor is a contextually extended version of the Object metaphor. Their meanings are interrelated in the sense that the use of these two metaphors blends two vehicles of objects and commodities into one frame where migrants are perceived as commodified objects; that is, the objects that can be “traded,” “exchanged,” “bargained,” “fairly shared,” or “fairly distributed.” Migrants as a commodity become a legitimate tool of migration policy based on seeking “benefits,” “gains,” or “profits.”

In a similar way, the Commodity metaphor has a strong ideological potential to suppress any positive emotions toward migrants and refugees. This kind of metaphor offers a pragmatic approach to migration politics, the one that is solely governed by pure self-interest and self-oriented concerns. As a commodity, migrants are to be treated in the realm of capitalist ideology, and its defining laissez-faire market principles with well-balanced supply (i.e., migrants) and demand (i.e., visa travel bans) as if creating a political-economic reality (i.e., EU-Turkey migration/refugee deal) that will be positively affecting common EU welfare. This kind of narrative does not only delegitimize migrants as people but also commodifies them by legitimizing interpersonal relationships based on pragmatism and individual short-term benefits as a collective standard. In the modern world, the Other as a commodity has become a common metaphor for many social groups—women, employees, students, language, or political minorities, including migrants.

To summarize, the myth of dehumanization is reproduced through the conventionalized metaphors of Objects and Commodities, the usage of which has a twofold ideological function: First, it suppresses any (positive) emotions toward the Other who is deprived of human qualities and described as a commodified object that can be counted, moved, distributed, traded, exchanged, and so on. Second, by dehumanizing the Other/“them,” the usage of Object and Commodity metaphors legitimizes “us” and “our” decisions toward “them” as appropriate and morally acceptable. It can, therefore, be argued that depersonification is an implicit ideological attempt to legitimize political decisions by suppressing emotions and objectifying people for the sake of manipulating the moral stance toward migrants as a social group. In this case, the current migration policy is represented in business terms in which migrants and refugees are becoming an object of trade between countries and their representative governments. The idea created by the myth of dehumanization is that as objects, migrants cannot have feelings or rights, it is, for that reason, the countries and governments who decide how these “objects” can be “located” usefully. This kind of myth helps organize power relations within the society where the discourse of the powerful is seen as a source of legitimacy and moral righteousness. However, such attempts are more implicit, which is actually different from the myth of moral authority discussed in greater detail below.

The Myth of Moral Authority

In contrast to the myth of dehumanization realized through Object and Commodity metaphors, the myth of moral authority involves metaphors arousing emotions such as fear for security and life. Three kinds of source domains, Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism, are metaphorically used to describe migrants, refugees, and the process of migration in general. This metaphorical usage contributes to the creation of the overall feeling of insecurity caused by migration in the EU. The most effective metaphor in that sense is realized through the source domain of Natural Phenomena associated with migrants/refugees/migration. The statements below exemplify how this metaphor is linguistically construed:

Example 21

Hungary has joined Greece and Italy as a migrant hotspot . . . (BBC, “Migrant crisis: Hungary’s,” 2015, September 3)

Example 22

. . . to stem the human flow to the Mediterranean . . . (“Turkish Town at Centre of Syrian,” 2016)

Example 23

The huge number of migrants flooding into Germany . . . (“Germany,” 2015)

Example 24

“People in Europe are full of fear” over refugee influx . . . (“‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx,” 2015)

Example 25

The refugee crisis in Hungary took another disturbing turn . . . (“‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx,” 2015)

Example 26

. . . to get a grip on the migrant crisis that is engulfing the EU . . . (“Isil Exploiting Migrant Routes,” 2016)

Example 27

In 2014, the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and people forced to flee within their country surged to nearly 60 million people. (The Washington Post, “Europe’s fear of Muslim refugees,” 2015, September 2)

Example 28

Of the 4 million Syrians who have fled their country since the war began, including hundreds of thousands who have poured into Europe. (“Refugee Crisis: Number of Syrian Refugees,” 2015, September 2)

Example 29

. . . as the EU borders buckle under the weight of migrant flows from Syria . . . (Bloomberg News, 2015, September 4)

Example 30

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germans should be happy they’re rich as refugees flock to their country . . . (Bloomberg News, 2015, September 4)

As the examples show, the Natural Phenomena metaphor is evoked by verbal occurrences such as “flood,” “engulf,” “surge,” “pour,” and “flock” that characterize a naturally forced movement and by the use of noun phrases such as “flow,” “influx,” and “hotspot” that refer to a massive and uncontrolled movement. All of these metaphorical expressions contribute to the expressions of the negative evaluation of migration movement by implying its unpredictable nature (i.e., “hotspot”) and forcefulness (i.e., “flood,” “surge,” “engulf”). Their usage also creates a feeling of insecurity and panic that people generally experience in the face of natural disasters. Differently from the previously discussed metaphors, the Natural Phenomena metaphor creates an image of migrants as a living but dangerous to other people’s life force. Migrants are no longer represented as inanimate objects but as a natural force that can cause severe damage and destroy the generally established welfare with all its benefits.

The shift from inanimate objects to animate natural force is also observed when the source domain of Animals is evoked and cooccurs as part of the Natural Phenomena frame, for example,

Example 31

Hungarian authorities apparently laid a trap for thousands of asylum-seekers . . . (“‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx,” 2015)

Example 32

We could offer sanctuary to 10,000 refugees . . . (“Britain Should Not Take More Middle East Refugees,” 2015)

Example 33

Cameron referring to the migrants as “a swarm” . . . (“Refugee Crisis: Number of Syrian Refugees,” 2015)

Example 34

Even over a yearslong view, the European external borders remain the biggest deathtrap for migrants and refugees. (“Things to Know About Europe’s Migrant,” 2015)

Example 35

Because of its proximity to Libya, Italy feels it has done more than its fair share of picking up, sheltering and feeding migrants. (“Things to Know About Europe’s Migrant,” 2015)

Example 36

There are also concerns that the village, of around 350 people, would be unprepared to deal with hundreds of stranded migrants. (“Migration Fears Spark Italy-Austria Border,” 2016)

The Animals metaphors in these examples (e.g., “stranded,” “sanctuary,” “swarm,” “pick up, shelter and feed,” “lay a trap”) cooccur with the Natural Phenomena metaphor in the sense that their uncontrolled movement and unpredictability are implied (“swarm,” “deathtrap”), which explains the necessity to “trap” them. However, the use of this metaphor offers a slightly different evaluation of migrants despite being negative. The Animals metaphor creates an idea that migrants are dangerous but can be dealt with and taken care of (i.e., “pick up, shelter and feed,” “offer sanctuary”). This metaphor, offering a more compassionate view toward “them” (i.e., “stranded,” “trapped”), implicitly victimizes migrants and portrays them as if they run through suffering. The Animals metaphor as part of the Natural Phenomena frame, in this respect, creates an emotional distance, and further detachment between “us” and “them” by dehumanizing migrants and implying their lower moral status in the hierarchy of moral authority known as the Great Chain of Being (Lakoff & Turner, 1989) in which human beings and animals are successively defined by rational thought and instinct while natural phenomena are defined by natural physical things and behavior.

The myth of moral authority represented by the combinability of Natural Phenomena with the Animals metaphor creates a stereotypical migrant image of living entities who are not rational but rather instinctive in their self-expression, and can naturally cause chaos and danger to the security of rational and organized human beings/“us.” The mythical line of the Other as Dangerous to Security and Life is further developed and crystallized by two more source domains: Crime and Terrorism. The following statements below elucidate the way these two metaphors create a negative image of migration by heightening the feelings of insecurity and fear toward the Other/“Them,” for example,

Example 37

Immigrants are escorted by German police to a registration centre . . . (Reuters, “Michelle Martin Migrants linked to 69,000 would-be or actual crimes in Germany in first three months of 2016: Police,” 2016, June 8)

Example 38

Orban has vowed to seal Hungary’s borders by Sept. 15 empowered by emergency measures expected to be approved by the country’s parliament. (“‘People in Europe Are Full of Fear’ Over Refugee Influx,” 2015)

Example 39

When Austria announced plans for tighter border controls, Italy reacted angrily at first but has since increased measures to keep migrants from travelling north. (“Migration Fears Spark Italy-Austria Border,” 2016)

Example 40

What the last few months have shown us is that many governments (notably in central and eastern Europe) are far more interested in preventing illegal migration . . . (“Europe’s Migrant Story Enters New Phase,” 2016)

Example 41

Bulgaria—not in Schengen—has also put up a razor-wire fence on its border with Turkey, to keep migrants out. (BBC, “Migration crisis: The volunteers,” 2015, September 3)

Example 42

Effective common rules would mean sharing data on migrants, such as fingerprints and other key ID, so that their movements could be tracked. (BBC, “Migration crisis: The volunteers,” 2015, September 3)

Example 43

. . . she recently had CCTV cameras installed because she was concerned about crime emanating from the migrant centre. (“Refugee Crisis: Number of Syrian Refugees,” 2015)

Example 44

“The external border of the UK is now the front line in the fight against terrorism.” (“1 in 50 Syrian Refugees in Europe,” 2015)

Example 45

. . . the migration crisis may be being used as cover for terrorists seeking to commit violent acts in Europe. (“1 in 50 Syrian Refugees in Europe,” 2015)

As examples above show, both Crime and Terrorism metaphors represent the most negative evaluation that directly creates xenophobia and stereotypical migrant images. These metaphors are ideologically significant for their strong emotional appeal and internal conceptual structure. Within these metaphorical frames, migration is described using criminal and terrorism lexical representations (e.g., “movements tracked,” “fingerprints,” “escorted by police”). Moreover, migration policy itself is based on the idea of “containment,” and the attempts to deal with migration are, therefore, all about “sealing borders” and “putting up fences.” In this case, razor-wire fences are literal, but the idea behind the erected “razor-wire” fences is metaphorical and imaginary—the belief that migrants are threatening “our” security and life. The threat to security is described through the use of “crime” metaphor, and migration policy and migrants are represented by criminal lexis. Threat to life is metaphorized through the use of “terrorism” metaphor when the description of migration is associated with terrorism both directly (e.g., “terrorist infiltration of refugees”) and indirectly (e.g., “migration crisis cover for terrorism”).

The use of Crime and Terrorism metaphors in news media discourse is heightening negative emotions to their extremes toward migrants due to the feeling of insecurity and danger to one’s life that is implied by their use. These metaphors also lead people to think that any kind of strict measures as part of migration policy can be justified as that would stop migration metaphorically paralleling “crime” and “terrorism,” which is exactly how the myth of moral authority is recreated. The negative and amoral frame evoked by the Migration Is a Crime/Terrorism metaphor immediately legitimizes any actions undertaken against migrants. This results in the imaginary perception that “our” actions are morally legitimate and necessary, and are aimed to protect ourselves against crime and terrorism, metaphorically represented as “them” or migrants. The dichotomy of “us” and “them” is, as a result, ideologically justified by deeper entrenching the moral authority myth and incriminating fear toward the Other/“them.”

The fact that media discourse produces such complex but coherent combinations of metaphors (i.e., Object and Commodity for suppressing emotions, while Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism for heightening negative emotions) suggests that these ways of thinking about migrants and migration are becoming well-established conceptualizations for legitimizing one’s moral stance toward the Other/“them.”

Concluding Remarks

This study addressed the ideological nature of metaphor usage in the mainstream media coverage of the 2015 EU migration, and focused on how the metaphors of Objects, Commodities, Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism created an imaginary reality where migrants were represented as objects, physical force or criminals and terrorists. Classifying the metaphors in accordance with their ideological significance to create a mythical narrative about migration, we found out that the metaphors of Migrants as Objects and Commodities ideologically reproduced the myth of dehumanization in which migrants were mechanically objectified in political and economic terms, which, in fact, serves as an emotional suppressant toward migrants by implicitly delegitimizing “them” and legitimizing “us” and any of our decisions toward “them.” It was also revealed that the metaphors of Migrants as Natural Phenomena, Migration as Crime and Terrorism were ideological constructs in terms of creating xenophobic attitudes toward the Other, and metaphorically drawing a social divide between “us” as “morally right” or “insiders” and “them” as “morally wrong” or “outsiders,” and that the social boundary between two groups was based on the myth of moral authority exercised by “us.”

This study also confirmed the importance of conventionalized metaphor usage in recreating ideological positioning based on the dichotomy of “us” and “them.” More specifically, it was found that the negative evaluation of the Other could be realized both more implicitly (suppressing emotions through objectification, that is, Objects and Commodities source domains) and more explicitly (through heightening emotions of insecurity and fear, that is, Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism source domains).

It was also demonstrated how the same instances of metaphor usage were involved in simultaneously delegitimizing “them” and legitimizing “us.” The content analysis of Objects and Commodities metaphors showed how the myth of dehumanization created an imaginary reality in which people (i.e., migrants) were perceived as tradable objects of political “bargaining.” The use of Natural Phenomena, Crime, and Terrorism metaphors, similarly, created an unpredictable and threatening to security and life scenario, which raised expectations for the “adequate” response, and fueled panicking fear and hatred toward the Other.

The analysis of the metaphors used in the mainstream media, responding to critical situations like the 2015 EU migration, unearths a well-established and relatively stable conceptualization of migration, and suggests that adversarial approach to relationship, whether it is at interpersonal, social, political, or cultural levels, dominates “our” perceptions toward the Other. The negative offering of the Other, be it a migrant, a refugee, a female, a Muslim, or any other minority, further entrenches a competitive, hierarchical, and violent acceptance of life as a standard of morality and legitimacy, and it, for that reason, deepens the divide between various social and cultural groups. This sort of positioning actually becomes a fertile ground for creating and establishing stereotypical and xenophobic attitudes, as a consequence of which hatred becomes an acceptable reality. The metaphors used in the media in reference to migration can contribute to a greater awareness of the dominant views toward the Other (i.e., migrants, refugees) with the purpose of highlighting the necessity to reinterpret the current migration policy, and to transform it to a noncompetitive, nonhierarchical, and nonviolent reality.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Liudmila Arcimaviciene is an associate professor of English Linguistics at Vilnius University,Lithuania,teaching discourse analysis of media and political communication at the Department of Philology,Institute of Foreign Languages. Her research interests lie in cognitive linguistics,critical metaphor analysis and ideology in the media,conflict scenarios and populist metaphor use in political discourse.

Sercan Hamza Baglama graduated from the Department of English Language and literature at Hacettepe University,Turkey,in 2010. He,then,completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Patricia Waugh at Durham University,United Kingdom,in 2018. The title of his PhD thesis is “Rethinking Marxist Aesthetics: Race,Class and Alienation in Post-War British Literature.” He visited the University of California,Berkeley,as a research scholar in 2017. He now works in the Department of English Literature at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University,Turkey. His research interests lie in postwar British literature,literary theories,and political philosophy.

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Migration,Metaphor and Myth in Media Representations: The Ideological Dichotomy of “Them” and “Us”

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Metaphor and Ideology as Part of the Cognitive Unconscious

Myth and Metaphor

Data and Method

Findings and Discussion

The Myth of Dehumanization

The Myth of Moral Authority

Concluding Remarks

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Author Biographies

References