Representation of the discrimination of immigrants in the British press (original) (raw)

This thesis revolves around the notion of discourse and aims at the presentation of the way in which people use language influences, or even creates the world in which we live. It shows that the manner in which people communicate shapes reality and thus may be responsible for certain social problems. A number of social problems is reinforced and reproduced by the language of social institutions, which seem to influence the general social life. Institutions con-cerned with politics and media tend to have the biggest impact on behaviour and views of the public, the latter being particularly responsible for spreading frequently biased information. Such state of affairs creates a situation in which privileged groups, which media serve, exercise power and facilitate social inequality and oppression, victims of which are the members of frequently stigmatised groups, such as immigrants. Critical discourse analysis takes the perspective of such groups and strives to undermine une-qual social relations consolidated by means of language. Immigration seems to be a controversial issue today, especially in the United Kingdom. Although the views of British citizens vary, a number of people tend to ex-press discontent. Such reactions frequently stem from the influence of media discourse, which is rarely considered as constructed and biased. Quite conversely, it is taken for granted. The subject of this BA thesis is the investigation of the problem of the discrimi-nation of immigrants in the UK, particularly focusing on its discursive aspect in relation to mass media. The aim of the research is to critically analyse the data coming mostly from online versions of significant representatives of the British press media and pro-vide evidence that the language present in the data establishes anti-immigrant, discrimi-natory discourse and aims at the reproduction and dissemination of discrimination and prejudice against immigrant among the British society. The findings may later be prac-tically implemented, thus be useful in changing social reality and establishing a non-biased discourse. The thesis is composed of the Introduction, followed by three chapters and the Conclusion. The first chapter thoroughly discusses the concept of discourse and its rela-tion to mass media. The second chapter describes the social phenomena of immigration and discrimination, as well as presents the main features of critical discourse analysis, iii the tool to investigate these phenomena. The third chapter contains the description of context of the research problem, the data and provides the linguistic analysis of selected examples and the overall results.