PECULIARITIES OF VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT REFUGEE IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article deals with verbalizers of the concept REFUGEE and peculiarities of its content in political discourse. Analysis of dictionary definitions, synonymous rows and definitions of the term “refugee” in the UN official documents shows that lexemes refugee, asylum seeker and displaced person are the most frequent language representatives of the concept REFUGEE. The main conceptual feature of the concept is ‘to be forced to flee his or her country and seek sanctuary in another country’. However, the concept REFUGEE acquires new conceptual features because of the development of world events. This fact is directly related to the crisis of refugees that forced governments to redefine already existent definitions of the term “refugee”. In order to determine language means that verbalize the concept REFUGEE in political discourse speeches of politicians were analyzed. The speeches were given by native speakers (Barack Obama, Theresa Mary May, Catherine Branson) as well as by non-native speakers of English (Grzegorz Schetyna, Morgan Johansson, António Guterres, Volker Türk). These politicians used both key lexemes-verbalizers of the concept (refugee, asylum seeker, displaced person) and free word combinations (vulnerable people who have come to seek protection, people in need of protection, people in need of shelter, people in need) to represent the concept in their speeches. Native speakers mainly express neutral or positive attitude toward refugees. Non-native speakers sometimes use verbalizers that have negative connotations.