Analyse how Text A uses language to create meanings and representations.
Text A is an opinion article from the British daily newspaper 'The Guardian', which has a reputation as a platform for liberal and left wing editorial. It was written by David Marsh, a writer who addresses his strong opinions on the term 'migrants' and the stigma which surrounds that term as he clearly argues is wrong and unnecessary, as he labels it 'badly tarnished after years of abuse by those who seek to strip refugees of their humanity'. This is firstly conveyed through the heading 'We deride them as 'migrants'. Why not call them people?'. The transitive verb 'deride' conveys an immediate negative tone as it denotes a sense of ridicule and mockery that migrants receive because of their identity. The rhetorical question which then follows this again exposes the bias that migrants face as some don't even seem to consider them as individuals anymore. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to inform readers about the controversy one simple word can cause, and about the overall effects of immigration expressed through widespread media and politics today, which is an affordance of the text as the writer is trying to spread knowledge on this topic by creating awareness. Another is that the article has used trustworthy sources such as a quote from Prof Alexander Betts to enforce a point about this topic. Yet a constraint of this could be the article's reliability, as it was written through only one individual's perspective and the type of newspaper is left wing therefore any facts or statistics used could have been twisted when trying to gain the audience's best interests.
Although the text's mode is a written article from a newspaper therefore there could be difficulty in trying to gain a relationship between the reader and writer, the asyndetic list used at the beginning suggests otherwise. 'They are people - men, women and children, fathers and mothers, teachers and engineers, just like us - except they come from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and elsewhere', this implies variety and tries to immediately make it personal to the reader to make them feel sympathetic. This is also an unknown quote to appeal to the audience and encourages people to agree with their views. Furthermore, the famous examples of migrants who are glorified and thought of as British such as Mark Carney, Kevin Pietersen etc show the inequality of the social hierarchy in Britain, as if it was just a normal migrant being spoken about they would only be labelled as stealing everyone's jobs rather than being praised for the successes they've achieved on their own but with a lower social status.
This leads onto the simple sentence 'yes, they are all migrants - or, if you prefer, immigrants' which justifies each noun's connotations. The first noun 'migrants', could suggest that their identity is not helped, there is nothing they can do being one, but the second noun 'immigrant' used with the personal pronoun 'if you prefer' establishing involvement, could suggest a sense of invasion rather being somebody who was born and raised as a migrant. The term 'economic migrants' that is said to be used by media and politicians further shows the exploitation migrants receive as there seems to be a restraint on a migrant being economically successful unless they are directly in the public eye as a banker or sports star. Other than that a direct quote says they only seem to be "marauding" across Europe, which is underlined in the text to highlight the importance of this statement to support the argument. Additionally, Text A continues to discuss the stigma around the term 'migrant' as there's been a lot of talk around people from the UK moving abroad being called "expats", never emigrants or migrants which highlights hypocrisy as if it was the other way round, migrants moving to the UK, the term would be seen as 'toxic, used to frighten us by conjuring images of a 'swarm' and threatening our way of life' as politicians such as David Cameron would say. This highlights the use of extreme vocabulary reinforced by the media. A semantic field used towards the end of the article including the alternative terms that could be used such as 'refugees', 'displaced people' and 'asylum seekers' emphasises a more positive approach to avoid backlash from using the original term, 'migrant'.
Finally, the last two pages of the article truly reveal the discrimination those higher in the world of media have against migrants and the writer uses quotes to support this. For example, as stated, the aims and intentions of the text is 'the idea to alarm, not inform, the public and propagate an agenda that says: migrants = bad; (and then to blame the European Union).' This is because people such as broadcaster's online editor, Barry Malone, are using their platform to generalise the word more, as they don't refer migrants as normal human beings. 'It is not hundreds of people...nor even hundreds of refugees...it is hundreds of migrants' this conveys the attitude that people aren't taking the horror 'migrants' face on a frequent basis seriously and all they are seen as now is vulnerable as 'migrant is a word that strips suffering of voice'. They're being treated as an excuse. Although journalists, like politicians, seem to be recognising this internal crisis as alliteration is used to label their situation as a 'sorry saga' which is making them lose sight of the fact they are people. This gives us as a reader hope for future change. Therefore Text A has been represented as there being a very unbalanced debate over 'migrant', and the whole situation surrounding it. Again, 'this is a story about humanity' which the newspaper wants everyone to understand.
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