Conceptual Blends and the Representation of the Syrian Refugees in the UNHCR Press Releases between 2011 and 2021

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of refugees in a non-governmental organisation’s media discourse. This study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis and more specifically Van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach and Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier & Turner 2002) through the focus on the two notions of representation and conceptual blends. The corpus analysed is made up of 331 press releases about the Syrian refugees posted between 2011 and 2021 on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ home website. The metaphor identification procedure and a reading of the concordances relating to the Syrian refugees led to the identification of the conceptual blends. Analysis of the conceptual blending networks relating to the Syrian refugees unveils how they are represented in the press releases over a decade. Analysis also reveals the UNHCR’s conceptualisations of ‘the crisis’, the refugees, and other parties. The study also shows that the management of ‘the burden’ reveals the kind of representations backgrounded due to fostering a categorisation of Us and Them instead of Us vs. Them.