This volume analyzes the negative views on immigration in contemporary discourse of politicians, journalists, and the general public. Through the methodological lens of discourse analysis, the authors of each chapter highlight the main topics, metaphors, and collocations associated with immigrants and refugees.
In some chapters, the corpora include diverse official texts posted by politicians (Fabienne H. Baider; Agnes Bolonyai & Kelsey Campolong; Massimiliano Demata) and public broadcasters (Tatjana Radanović Felberg & Ljiljana Šarić). Other chapters analyze the public's response on official sites (Jelena Petrovic), social media (Natalia Knoblock), and online discussion forums (Nicholas Close Subtirelu). The first four chapters of the volume focus on the immigrant and refugee crisis in different places of Europe, including Cyprus (Baider), Serbia (Petrovic; Radanović Felberg & Šarić), Croatia (Radanović Felberg & Šarić), and Hungary (Bolonyai & Campolong). The last three chapters analyze Donald Trump's opinions and proposed policies to fight (illegal) immigration in the United States and the reactions of his supporters (Demata; Knoblock; Close Subtirelu).
The chapters by Baider, Petrovic, Bolonyai & Campolong, and Demata state that the language used in these corpora contributes to the construction of a Self/Other dichotomy. The Self constitutes a positive image of the nation undergoing the burden of immigration. Contrarily, the Other is a negative entity, which includes immigrants, left-wing politicians, and/or other nations. The chapter by Petrovic describes an exception, because in this case the Serbian discourse creates a positive image of the asylum-seeker. In consequence, Serbians can benefit from that image, as they are also asylum-seekers escaping from Serbia. Thus, in this example, the Self and the Other are both migrants. The Self are those Serbians seeking asylum in other European countries, whereas the Other are the non-Serbian immigrants, the problematic second-tier Europeans.
The construction of the Other is achieved using different metaphors and collocations. The most common metaphors used to refer to immigrants include invasion (Baider), water/flooding (Radanović Felberg & Šarić; Demata), disease, and livestock/animals (Knoblock). The water/flooding metaphor is complex: it always entails danger and damage, but in some cases refers to immigrants themselves (Demata), while in others alludes to logistical problems and poor management by the government (Radanović Felberg & Šarić). Regarding collocations, immigrants and refugees are often associated with a threat (to cultural integrity or to the economy), illegality, transgression, and even criminality. The immigrant/criminal collocation is particularly pervasive in Trump's discourse (Demata; Knoblock).
Due to these negative and dangerous features associated with immigration, another recurrent topic is the need for cleansing (Baider), purge (Petrovic), or at least control. The main instrument of control is the fence/wall (Radanović Felberg & Šarić; Demata), a symbol of power sought after by several leaders.
This volume makes a valuable contribution by analyzing different types of data both from qualitative and quantitative approaches. It is worth noting, however, that the studies focus on the United States and a few European countries. Future research should analyze these negative discourses towards immigration in a wider range of countries, to highlight that regardless of the geopolitical context, the linguistic strategies used to construct otherness are similar across cultures.
