Interpretation of the Concept FEAR in Political Migration Discourse

Introduction. The article is considered the concept FEAR as a special emotional and psychological tool in the field of migration policy. The relevance of the work is related to the fact that the research is conducted within the framework of migration linguistics, the tasks of which include the study of migration discourse, migration policy and the specifics of its linguistic implementation, as well as the low level of study and development of the Englishlanguage political migration discourse. The purpose of the article is to explore the semantic potential of the lexeme fear, identify the relevant semantic components of its meaning in political migration discourse. The lexeme fear is an actualizer of the same name concept.

Methodology and sources. Interpretation, categorization, systematization and contextual analysis were used as the main research methods. The material for the work was an article by B. Gundogmus, M. Mete “The Politics of Fear: Fear of Migrants as an Instrument Shaping the Political Environment”. The research is based on theoretical work in the fields of conceptology, discursology and migration linguistics. 

Results and discussion. The article was examined the main tasks of migration linguistics, defines migration discourse in terms of interference and institutionality, and revealed the genre structure of migration discourse. The paper also was substantiated the position of including the concept under study in the migration conceptosphere. The article was presented the actual semantic components of the lexeme fear, which are not recorded in lexicographic sources. All components were divided into two large groups: general and political (power and migration). 

Conclusion. As a result of the research, 24 relevant semantic components functioning in the political migration discourse have been identified. The concept FEAR is considered as a tool for shaping migration policy, the purpose of which is to cause citizens to feel fear and distrust of migrants, which consequently leads to a tightening of migration policy and a decrease in the level of tolerance.

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