Findings from this study have revealed some striking differences between the way in which migrants talk about themselves and their experiences and the way they are represented in media discourse. Table 12.1 compares the metaphors used in media discourse with those collected from this study.

Major differences in types of metaphors found between media discourse and talk about migration by migrants themselves include the frequency of metaphors such as WATER, CRIMINALS and ILLNESS/DISEASE which appear in both media and migrant discourse; in migrant discourse they only appear as occasional metaphors whereas in media discourse they are dominant ones. Furthermore, the majority of the metaphors in media discourse are negative while the opposite is true in the metaphors used by migrants themselves. Finally, in the metaphors that were the same (even though the frequency of use was different) such as WATER, WAR and CRIMINALS, the ways in which they were used were often qualitatively different. This qualitative difference provides an interesting look at how the two perspectives differ and can be seen in the following examples from each type of discourse. For example, in media discourse about immigration, WATER metaphors are largely negative, and blend migrants and migration with WATER, which results in the following mappings:

Not only does this metaphor highlight a perspective that views migrants as a single mass, it privileges a view based on the topos (e.g. theme) of danger. Thus, the water found in these metaphors is DANGEROUS FLOWING WATER that needs to be stopped, as in the following example: Britain is facing a nightly tidal wave of asylum seekers... (Hart, 2010: 156).