The master’s thesis focuses on the reporting of two Slovene daily newspapers, i.e. Delo and Slovenske novice, about the refugee crisis. The attention is focused on the use of metaphorical expressions analyzed from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, wherein metaphors are not only defined as a language phenomenon, but entail a crucial part of a reader's experiential world and play a major role in defining our reality. Such metaphorical mappings have a significant influence on the shaping of individuals world views and public opinion when used in media discourses. The purpose of master’s thesis is to determine which abstract concepts the selected media sources apply when reporting about refugees and their arrival and what connotations these terms carry. Through the analysis nine different conceptual metaphors were identified. In order to determine the implications and the negative impact of these metaphors on public opinion, I carried out a quantitative analysis in the form of a structured questionnaire. The results of both exploratory studies show, that the identified conceptual metaphors used by the selected newspapers contain abstract terms with negative connotations that create negative images of refugees and their arrival. The use of such metaphors in the media discourses on migration shows that negative representations of refugees are becoming well-established conceptualizations that legitimize intolerance.
|
