The semantics of 'migrant', 'immigrant' and 'refugee': a cross-linguistic perspective

Abstract

Abstract: This paper investigates the meanings of words that denote people who change, either voluntarily or involuntarily, places where they live. More specifically, it contrasts the meanings of ‘migrants’, ‘immigrant’, ‘illegal immigrant’ in varieties of English (e.g. Australian, British, and American), by using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (e.g. Wierzbicka 1972, 1996; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014)and provides a cross-linguistic perspective by discussing the major meaning differences between yímí (‘emigrant/immigrant’) and nánmín (‘refugee’) in Chinese and their counterparts in English. Drawing on insights of NSM work on nouns for people (e.g. Wierzbicka 1986; Ye 2017c), this paper also discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of the study, particularly the role of lexico-conceptual analysis in understanding a speech community’s conceptualization of themselves and the Other.