Discourse Analysis and Migration

Migration has been one of the most important fields of investigation of discourse analysis since the inception of the discipline in the 1960s. Drawing upon various theoretical approaches (e.g. social constructionism, social semiotics, multivocality and intertextuality), and methodologies (e.g. sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, narrative analysis, critical discourse analysis, social media discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis), migration discourse and its constructs (e.g. identity, subjectivity, citizenship, national belonging, ethnicity, homeland etc.) have been investigated through a variety of sophisticated quantitative and qualitative methods applied to the analysis of connected speech and writing in various domains (e.g. Education, Media, Political Communication and Social Media). In this Chapter, various areas of discourse analysis are illustrated with a focus on discourses about migration and migration self-narratives encompassing well-established and recent work in the field.