A Critical Discourse Analysis Of British Articles On Migrant Crisis

Currently,the study of various types of discourse has become the most relevant direction of linguistics,formed in recent decades.Since discourse analysis is a fairly new linguistic discipline,a single approach has not yet been developed that would be shared by all discourse experts.The main directions of discourse analysis are formed on the basis of studies of individual scholars and their followers.Among them are the representative of the system-functional grammar(SFG)of Halliday,the works of T.Van Dijk(1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2001),Ruth Wodak(1987,1989,1995,1996,1999,2000,2008)and Norman Fairclough(1989,1992,1995,1997).Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)is,along with political discourse analysis,one of the most popular once.Fairclough's(1989)three-dimensional model is the one that is widely adopted to the analysis of news and political discourse.His approach to CDA includes three analytical directions: text analysis,discursive practice analysis,and socio-cultural practice analysis.Many linguistic studies deal with the“migrant” phenomenon,but very few CDA papers focus on the “migrant crisis” theme,and they did not use Fairclough's model as an approach.On the other hand,the study of cultural aspects by Hofstede was not applied to the study of CDA in relation to the subject of the“migrant crisis”.This work is devoted to the study of the main issue related to how discourses influence on society,what symbols and hidden meanings in them are embodied on the example of studying the “migrant crisis” in Britain.The actual “migrant crisis”,that is affecting Europe and the whole world,began in 2015 with the ever-rising influx of immigrants from the war-stricken Middle East.This growing issue has caught many European governments unprepared,especially the governments of countries that are directly stricken by it,as UK,and the controversy that the “migrant crisis” raises in the public is of great interest for the media as well as CDA.The investigation is using Fairclough's three-dimension model as an approach.For the text analysis Halliday's SFG is used and for the analysis of cross cultural issues Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions are implemented.Fifteen articles from three different British newspapers with different political stances were collected;they are THE GUARDIAN,THE TELEGRAPH and DAILY MAIL.Based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model,the 1st dimension analysis of the structure of transitivity shows that all articles mainly demonstrate objectivity.The study of nominalization and lexicalization has shown that British newspapers are quite aggressive in analyzing the topic of the “migrant crisis”;refugees and migrants are the “dark side” of the current reality.The study of modal elements shows that these three newspapers are mostlyobjective,since the model elements are mostly of weak or moderate importance.According to the information provided by the DAILY MAIL,THE TELEGRAPH and THE GUARDIAN to audience,there is definitely exists unequal power relation between migrants and political actors in the EU.In addition to this,an analysis of 2nd dimension makes it possible to understand the interpretation of meanings in articles;the newspaper uses the humanitarian discourse for interpretational level and when it comes to negative image in newspapers,the journalists use the fatalistic colors,showing that refugees and migrants are the “dark side” of the present reality.Also the analysis showed that journalistic discourse of the three media sources can also have a big impact on the audience.The results of 3rd dimension showed that British articles mainly criticize not migrants,but their own officials who can not solve the problem properly,as well as that British society which is inclined to support equality attitude in the analyzed articles;migrants and refugees do also have their human rights.The results of analyzes show that there were many discourses related to migrants and various representations of migrants.When certain features of a certain group are summarized,stereotypes and ideologies are constructed-with the help of the study of representation of migrants we can realize and analyze stereotypes and ideologies.The British Media are using quotes from various authorities to show the objectivity of their messages;journalists make it in tricky way hiding their ideologies behind the linguistic chooses.Consequently,news that is generally presented to the reader as “just reports” is inevitably linked to the influence of power and ideology.The theoretical significance of the work is in developing the theory and practice of critical discourse analysis,describing the news discourse and language means of constructing social versions of reality used in discourse,identifying conventional structures,and deepening knowledge in such traditional areas of modern science as “language and society”,“language and culture”,“language and man”.The practical value of the work is determined by the possibility of applying its results in the further study of the migration crisis;they can also be used by specialists in sociology,journalism,international relations and public relations.The thesis consists of an abstract,introduction,four chapters,conclusion,list of references,list of tables and acknowledgment.The introduction formulates the goals and objectives of the study;the second chapter reviews the related literature;the third chapter provides the theoretical framework;the fourth chapter describes the research process;the fifth chapter presents the results and reasoning.In conclusion,the general results of the study are presented,limitations and prospects for further work in the proposed direction are indicated.