Researching and Documenting Key Words in European Migration Discourses

The way that politics, institutions, organisations and the media debate immigration is influenced by historical development and culture specific dispositions, and also by related discourses such as national identity and demographic development. These discourses are influenced by resourceful discourse participants and they generate a socially shared body of 'knowledge' about, who is affected (negatively or positively) by immigration and what should be done about it. Discourses thereby influence citizens' perceptions of social reality. It is important to understand what influences the develpment of such discourses in order to understand ways in which migration is framed as a 'challenge' or 'problem', and what can(not) be said or done about it. Comparative analyses of migration discourses across different societies and languages will foster a deeper understanding of factors that determine discourses by highlighting the cultural and social 'knowledge' that becomes embedded in discourses and by pointing out the resulting differences of such discourses across societies. This has important implications for translation of discourses or discourse key words (DKW) in European public spheres and civic education. Discursively established ways of talking e.g. about migration are often taken for granted. Highlighting differences between discourses across societies and languages may increase awareness not only about others, but also of the specifics of the own histories and approaches to debating migration. Without suggesting that 'discourse' as a phenomenon could be boiled down to the level of words only, DKW will be understood as 'discourse in a nutshell': DKW - such as "asylum seekers", "fortress Europe" - emerge, become prominent and decline in prominence in discursive contexts. They are semantically complex, as they often pertain to issues that feature a variety of aspects and a range of evaluations, such as "multicultural society". They occur as part of a set of DKWs that accommodates different perspectives, such as "illegal" vs. "illegalised" immigrants. DKW must be studied in discourse context, but they are phenomenologically distinct enough to realistically accommodate the complexities involved in comparative discourse analyses.

The aim of the planned project is to bring together migration discourse researchers with a background in different languages and discourse communities (UK, France, Germany, Italy), corpus linguists and cognitive linguists in order to share experience, discuss concepts and agree on a methodology for comparative analyses of European migration DKWs. This is a necessary first step for the overall aim to produce a freely accessible online dictionary of European migration DKWs. At the networking stage, conceptual issues such as a shared understanding of the concept of DKWs need to be exchanged, as well as results from/experiences with research into migration discourse(s). Practical issues like the need of comparable, sizeable textcorpora need to be discussed and concrete steps for corpus building need to be agreed. Participants should arrive at a shared understanding of the desirability and feasibility of quantitative and/or qualitative methods of analysis for such a project, to result in a preliminary checklist of analytical steps. Last but not least, participants will have to discuss how the results of such a comparative analysis could be presented in form of a Discourse Key Word Dictionary, with the aim to produce a template discourse dictionary structure suitable to represent the comparative scope of the project, and to reflect the added value of the comparative approach. Impact partners will be invited already at the networking stage to create awareness from the start of the potential value of comparative discourse (key word) analysis for European civic education and critical language awareness of discourse participants.

The networking project will provide an opportunity to lay the foundations for comparative research and lexicography of European migration discourse key words. The impact of such comparative discourse key word (DKW) research can be seen in terms of European citizenship education and critical language awareness. The concept of DKW as 'discourse in a nutshell' is of epistemological value especially for educational purposes: Discourses are highly complex, constituted in numerous texts of different genres and comprised of a multitude of arguments and positions. They are therefore hard to come by analytically and in lay language criticism. DKW entail enough of the complexity of discourses, but at the same time they are familiar and at a highly accessible language level. Yet they are semantically determined by their use in public debates that offer analytical views of the discourses 'behind' them, and therefore, DKW lend themselves to educational purposes in creating 'critical - and in the comparative dimension also interdiscursive - language awareness'. Comparative DKW research has implications for civic education and public critical language awareness. The investigators will invite impact partners from these areas to discuss the following aspects from the beginning, and who will collaborate on ways of rolling these out to the wider public.

1. Migration has become an important topic in civic education, with the aim not only to inform citizens about the history and politics of (im)migration, but also to encourage pluralism and tolerance. The envisaged comparative DKW research will enhance such efforts by adding a discourse dimension. It will help to implement into civic education an awareness of how societies refer to migrants and how they debate immigration, fostering the insight that it is a matter not of choosing the right word in terms of etymology or clearly defined meanings in standard language dictionaries, but subject to 'discourse evolution', influenced by discourse stakeholders with different perspectives and sometimes even the power to define what is to be considered 'a problem' that needs to be dealt with in a certain way, and what is not deemed to be worth considering. The 'cultural histories' of discourse key words as they can be described in such a dictionary allow insights into the premises for debating an important current issue like (im)migration across societies and cultures. Moreover, the comparative element allows illustrating similarities and differences in the sets and semantics of discourse key words generated by discourses that are subject to differing premises. This will further highlight the general insights about 'discourse evolution', but it will also demonstrate discourse semantic variation and discourse key word alternatives in showing that discourses do not have to take certain routes, and that 'problems' cannot only be dealt with in different ways, but may even be discursively constructed in different ways, which would then implicate a different course of action as a response.

2. A related aim is to embark on a dialogue with influential discourse participants to foster critical language awareness and raise awareness of the 'discourse evolution' to which they contribute and where or whether a better understanding of this process would enhance their options of positioning. It will also be of interest for journalists and translators to be aware of differing discourse semantics of what seems to be the same discourse key word in a different language to avoid interdiscursive misunderstanding and to prevent an imposition of the own taken for granted discourse premises on discourses determined by different premises. 'Critical discourse awareness' will be needed for mediators between cultures and societies and could be developed on the basis of comparative discourse analyses, with discourse key words offering an accessible pool of examples.