A Crytical Discourse Analysis of the Ukrainian War Refugees’ Image in British Press

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines the peculiarities of the image construction of the Ukrainian war refugees as the consequence of political changes that swept the world in the war in Ukraine unleashed by Russia on February, 24, 2022. The relevance of the study is due to the growing scientific interest in the phenomenology of the discourse of migrants and refugees and its aspects.Methods. The research of mass media discourse was conducted in the context of critical discourse analysis (CDA).Results. The study based on the material of the British press analyses the mechanisms of the refugees’ image formation. As an instrument of the impact on the society, mass media discourse is structured and meets certain requirements. We identify the discourse topics where the Ukrainian refugees are presented as the threat to European security, as the most socially vulnerable individuals suffering the consequences of the war in their home country or as heroes forced to risk their lives. As social actors, Ukrainian refugees are represented either as a collective identity, or as individuals. The study concludes about the strategies that form the image of refugees (impersonification, victimization, referential, in-group and out-group framing), about the linguistic means verbalizing the strategies (generalised nouns, numerals, adjectives, idioms and collocations), and the stylistic figures (metaphors, allusions, oxymoron, hyperbolas, personification). Discussion. The prospects for further exploration we see in the study of the image of the Ukrainian refugees in the social media discourse.