Vom Flüchtlingsstrom bis hin zum Flüchtlingstsunami?

In the public debate on immigration and migration, metaphors such as „flood of refugees“, „wave of refugees“, „avalanche of refugees“ and even „tsunami of refugees“ are used primarily in the mass media. These figures of speech influence our thoughts, actions and speech and often provoke fear. On behalf of the editorial staff of The Austrian Open Access Journal on Adult Education (Magazin erwachsenenbildung.at, Meb), the author of this article goes in search of the function and power of metaphors in public and political speech and specifically investigates how we talk about immigration and migration. Her conclusion: the use of metaphors for immigration and migration that focus on aspects of meaning such as „great danger“ (natural catastrophe) or a „never-ending, large movement“ (stream of water) narrows the perspective on the situation. And what is more: metaphors such as flood, wave, avalanche and tsunami contribute to a negative linguistic contextualization and assessment of the group of people known as migrants. (Ed.)