A Lexical Semantics for Refugee , Asylum Seeker and Boat People in Australian English
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12059307 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lochlan Morrissey (0000-0003-1056-9607, Griffith University and Karlstad University, corresponding author), Andrea C Schalley (0000-0003-1323-1548, Griffith University and Karlstad University) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 389-423 |
| Publication date | 2017-08-10 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Journal of Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0726-8602 • E-ISSN: 1469-2996 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07268602.2017.1350130 |
| OpenAlex | W2745240362 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 34 |
The terms refugee, asylum seeker and boat people are of particular prominence in the Australian discourse surrounding immigration policy, and are widely used in day-to-day conversation among Australians. Despite their frequency of use, a lexico-semantic study of the terms has not been carried out to date. This paper fills this gap by proposing a semantic analysis of them. The study is based on a corpus created from online comments to the Australian television programme Go Back To Where You Came From (Season 1, SBS 2011). After introducing the data and analytical framework—object-oriented semantics—we discuss the terms’ lexical semantics. While the discussion of immigration issues is emotionally laden, our results suggest that the default semantics of the terms do not include evaluative components. Rather, speakers tend to evaluate the agreed-upon semantic specifications differently depending on their political views. We show how each term represents a specific node in a network of concepts for translocating individuals, but may in context also be applied to neighbouring nodes that lack a lexicalization. While the terms are seemingly used interchangeably, our analysis instead emphasizes the influence of the underlying conceptual structure and the resulting constrained plasticity of nominal meaning in context
Context (archaeology · Conversation · Immigration · Lexical item · Lexical Semantics · Lexicalization · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Political science · Refugee · Semantics (computer science · Sociology · Communication · Computer Science · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
“Asylum seekers”, “boat people” and “illegal immigrants”
Plan 9 From Cyberspace
A unitary approach to Lexical Pragmatics
The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English
Fleeing, Sneaking, Flooding
From White Australia to Woomera
A Less than 'Pacific' Solution for Asylum Seekers in Australia
Starving for freedom
Working the borders in racist discourse
Despair as a Governing Strategy
Constructions of racism in the Australian parliamentary debates on asylum seekers
A Phantom Menace and the New Apartheid
Common Sense and Original Deviancy
New Deterrence Scripts in Australia's Rejuvenated Offshore Detention Regime for Asylum Seekers
From compassion to compliance? Trends in refugee and humanitarian migration in Australia
Disturbing Practices”
Fear and Loathing Down Under
Formal Philosophy
Community Antagonism Towards Asylum Seekers in Port Augusta, South Australia
Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1969
The representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in British newspapers
Who's Driving the Asylum Debate? Newspaper and Government Representations of Asylum Seekers
The refugee crisis and fear
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |