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DOI: 10.18413/2313-8912-2018-4-4-0-8

Вопросы социальной адаптации иммигрантов в британском обществе с лингвистической точки зрения

Aннотация

 Настоящее исследование направлено на изучение особенностей лингвистического закрепления единиц, вербализующих процессы взаимной социальной адаптации как иммигрантов-мусульман, так и членов британской лингвокультуры. Изучение этих вопросов позволяет представить картину функционирования в языке процессов, приводящих к изменению семантики значения релевантных лексических единиц. Изучение этих процессов осуществляется на материале анализа анонимных писем, получивших значительное распространение в британском обществе. Эти письма были распространены среди британцев с противоположными целями, однако, вполне сопоставимы для проведения такого рода исследования. В результате изучения писем были выявлены и классифицированы лексические единицы, отражающие в языке необходимые изменения, но и как изменение их семантики задействуется в аксиологическом аспекте, что позволяет оценить степень, а также возможные средства манипулирования мнением носителей. Таким образом, по итогам исследования был выявлен ряд лексем, характеризуемых ассоциативной связью с понятием иммигрантов-мусульман. В дальнейшем, результаты настоящего исследования лягут в основу уровневой модели вариативности языка. При дальнейшем углублении лингвистического аспекта исследования возможно составление базы данных для изучения манипулятивных стратегий регулирования общественным мнением, а, как следствие, и изменений на вербальном уровне.


К сожалению, текст статьи доступен только на Английском

INTRODUCTION. As it is known, the cultural worlds of the West and the East are not the same. Recently, due to the political situation and the emerging local conflicts of various levels and scale, the largest number of refugees has arrived in Europe from such countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. These are Muslim countries with their own special mentality, lifestyle, norms and values, in which the most important role is played by religion, the code of laws spelled out in the most important book of Muslims – the Koran – in opposition to the liberal attitude to religious issues on the part of Europeans. In Europe, it is not accepted to practice any religious cult publicly. Muslims pray right in the streets without any embarrassment, but it should be noted that the main reason for this is the lack of mosques. It is also important that the overwhelming number of refugees are young men who are very aggressive and may increase the crime rate. The second important difference is the overall cultural level of those arriving in Europe, which is quite low.

In Western culture, the society is settled to the principle that if a serious social problem has arisen, it is necessary to conduct a serious, expensive advertising campaign. The fact is obvious that the money spent on educating citizens is not so large in comparison with possible costs of eliminating the consequences of their unconsciousness. The UK Government has recently closed the Marketing and Communications Agency of the Central Information Office, and the Cabinet of Ministers closely monitors the information reflected in advertising messages. The topic of the problem of migration is very sensitive, which can lead to accusations of human rights abuses, racism and intolerance.

Theoretical review. From the terminological point of view, these questions deal with such abstract things as values and ethics. So, values are defined by The Cambridge Dictionary as the beliefs people have, especially about what is right and wrong and what is most important in life, that control their behavior. The Collins Dictionary explains values as the moral principles and beliefs or accepted standards of a person or social group. According to The Cambridge Dictionary morals are standards for good or bad character and behavior. The Collins Dictionary defines morals as principles of behavior in accordance with standards of right and wrong. Definition of ethics in The Cambridge Dictionary is the study of what is morally right and wrong, or a set of beliefs about what is morally right and wrong. According to The Collins Dictionary ethics has several meanings:

1) the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy;

2) a social, religious, or civil code of behavior considered correct, especially that of a particular group, profession, or individual;

3) the moral fitness of a decision, course of action, etc.

The problem of cultural interaction between the countries of the East and the West is also demonstrated by migrants who have been living in Europe for quite a long time, however, they don’t hurry to adopt the cultural traditions of the West, remaining true to the Islamic law and laws. In general, one can note the aggravation of relations between the indigenous population and migrants, which is promoted a lot by the behavior of the refugees themselves, disrespect for the culture of the host countries, and even the commission of crimes.

As it was mentioned above, the topic of the problem of migration is very sensitive, which can lead to accusations of human rights abuses, racism and intolerance. In this respect, it is very difficult to find examples of social advertising on the topic of migrants in British sources. However, recently, in April 2018, the letters were sent to the residents of London urging not to remain indifferent to the problem of Muslims who had migrated to their country. First, people received the ‘Punish a Muslim day’ letters (Punish a Muslim Day, 2018), urging people not to remain indifferent to the actions of Muslims that infringe upon the European population and to take active steps, including killing, and to drive them out of the country. Then, in response to this propaganda, the ‘Love a Muslim day’ letters (Love a Muslim Day, 2018) were sent with opposing ideas.

Research Results and Discussion. Before proceeding to the lexical analysis, it is worth noting that the letters are identical in structure, use of fonts, arrangement of characters, as well as grammatical and syntactic structures. The main feature of the letters is their complete opposition, they contain a lot of opposition.

Thus, a primary lexical analysis was conducted. The lexeme ‘Punish’ in the title of the letter is opposed to the lexeme ‘Love’. The Cambridge Dictionary gives the following definitions:

Punish – 1) to make someone suffer because they have done something bad.

Love – 1) to like someone very much and have romantic or sexual feelings for them; 2) to like a friend or a person in your family very much; 3) to enjoy something very much or have a strong interest in something.

The letter begins with a description of the activities of Muslims living among Europeans. The verb ‘hurt’ is opposed by the verb ‘love’. The Cambridge Dictionary suggests the following meaning:

Hurt – 1) to cause someone pain or to injure them; 2) If a part of your body hurts, it is painful; 3) to cause emotional pain to someone; 4) to have a harmful effect on something.

Then, the expression ‘made you loved ones suffer’ is contrasted with ‘madeyou so many carries and kebabs’. From the expressions we can single out the most emotionally colored words such as ‘suffer’ and ‘carries and kebabs’. Then the negative word ‘pain and heartache’ is again contrasted with the word ‘love’. Further, the text matches words in quotes in a figurative sense: the word ‘sheep’ in the sense of people who do not have the courage to express their opinions and stand out from the crowd, and the word ‘normal’ in the meaning of most people who have no opinion and act like everyone else. It may be noted that, despite the radically opposite ideas of these letters, the words ‘sheep’ and ‘normal’ in the context of these letters have similar meanings. These words can be distinguished as a “red rag” technique for the reader. After all, it is known that for the British it is of great importance to be special, standing out from the crowd. Thus, the appeal of this kind attracts the reader and forces to delve into the essence of the problem.

Further, the text provides a number of arguments for the benefit and for the harm that Muslims bring in immigrants. Among the arguments from the letter ‘Punish a Muslim Day’, one can single out the following key phrases: to become democracies, to become harm, to turn democracies. Among the arguments from the letter ‘Love a Muslim Day’, the following key phrases can be identified: tocontribute billions of pounds, thousands of doctors, to contribute to our democracies. Obviously, in a return letter, there are more arguments about the benefits of Muslim immigrants than in the first.

The letters resent the actions to be carried out in tables. Actions are ranked. The importance of the action depends on the “rewards” that the performer will receive. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to conduct a lexical analysis due to the high degree of syntactic integrity.

However, this actions ranking is developed as visual lists of values ​​in order from the least significant to the most significant. In the letter ‘Love a Muslim Day’, the highest value is the lifetime trip to Mecca and the least significant is to smile at a Muslim. In the letter ‘Punish a Muslim Day’, the highest value is to nuke Mecca, and the least valuable is to verbally abuse a Muslim. Moreover, it should be noted that these values ​​are inextricably linked with the idea of ​​the values ​​of Muslim immigrants. In the letter ‘Love a Muslim Day’, values ​​are compared with the estimated values ​​of Muslim immigrants, and in the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letter values ​​are related to the alleged anti-values ​​of Muslim immigrants. The values ​​from the last letter are anti-values ​​from a humanistic point of view, therefore we will denote them further as anti-values. We have compiled an analytical report with expressions used in the letters considered that reflect values ​​and anti-values ​​(ranked by an axiological trigger, the term “axiology” is borrowed from N.N. Kazydub (Kazydub, 2008)).

So, vital values, that are life-death, health-sickness oppositions, are represented in the ‘Punish a Muslim Letter’ by:

  • to throw acid in face;

  • to beat up;

  • to torture;

  • to butcher;

which are PRO-Muslim, and are represented by:

  • to hurt smb;

  • to cause pain and heartache;

  • to do harm;

which are CONTRA-Muslim. Vital values of the ‘Love a Muslim Letter’ are represented by:

  • to heal the sick;

which is PRO-Muslim. CONTRA-Muslim phrases were not outlined.

The second detected axiological trigger is sacred values. It is represented by the opposition Motherland-Foreign land. The ‘Punish a Muslim Letter’ shows only CONTRA-Muslim direction verbalized by:

  • to turn democracies into Sharia.

The ‘Love a Muslim Letter’ presents only a PRO-Muslim component verbalized by

  • to contribute to politics, the media, the judiciary and to democracies;

without CONTRA-Muslim component.

Hedonic values, as Happiness-Grief opposition, are represented in the ‘Punish a Muslim Letter’ by:

  • verbally abuse;

which is PRO-Muslim. The CONTRA-Muslim component is represented by

  • to make your loved ones suffer.

‘Love a Muslim Letter’ presents hedonic values only in PRO-Muslim component by:

  • to love you;

  • to create so much love

phrases. CONTRA-Muslim elements are absent here.

Social values, i.e. Labour-Idleness opposition, is not represented in the ‘Punish a Muslim Letter’ both in PRO- and CONTRA- components. But the ‘Love a Muslim Letter’ presents both of them. Social values are represented here by:

  • to buy a coffee with cake;

  1. to invite to your home;

  2. to take a weekend trip;

and that is a PRO-Muslim component. The CONTRA-Muslim component is represented by:

  1. to make so many curries and kebabs.

Next outlined axiological triggers are material and intellectual values, oppositions Wealth-Poverty and Sense-Stupidity sequentially. But these values are present only in the ‘Love a Muslim Letter’ and are of the PRO-Muslim component:

  1. to do a fund raiser for the needy;

  2. to contribute billions of pounds;

  3. to educate our children.

Another group of values of the adjacent meaning is moral and emotional. Oppositions that correspond them are Truth-False and Laugh-Sadness, and they are less represented in both studied materials. ‘Punish…,’ a PRO-Muslim component, is verbalized by

  • not to be a ‘sheep’

and the CONTRA-Muslim component in ‘Love…’ is verbalized by:

  • not to be a ‘normal’ person;

  • to smile;

  • to throw flowers.

Finally, the analysis outlined the religious values with the opposition Heaven-Hell. The phrases verbalizing the PRO-component of religious values in the ‘Punish a Muslim Letter’ are:

  • to pull the head scarf’ off a Muslim ‘woman’;

  • to burn or bomb a mosque;

  • to nuke Mecca.

The PRO-component of the ‘Love a Muslim Letter’ is verbalized by:

  • to fast in Ramadhan with a Muslim and to celebrate Eid;

  • to buy a Hajj package for a Muslim family.

CONCLUSIONS. These letters present the basic meaning with value coloring in verb expressions. The given letters analysis presents that in the letters studied there are all kinds of values ​​and anti-values ​​according to the grouping. However, their ratio in letters is different. In the ‘Punish’ letter, more preference is given to vital and religious values ​​and anti-values, and in the Love’ letter social-utilitarian and religious are dominant. Also there is a division of expressions with a value reflecting on the focus on actions that are aimed at Muslims and on actions that are produced by Muslims. Thus, it is clearly seen that in the ‘Punish’ letter anti-value-oriented actions directed at Muslims significantly prevail in number over anti-value-oriented actions emanating from Muslims. However, it is also worth noting that the value-ignored actions from the ‘Love’ letter are the most diverse in value types and in the number of uses in the text.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that the values ​​from the letter ‘Punish’ are anti-values ​​from a humanistic point of view, but in this situation from the point of view of the British themselves, infringed upon the actions of migrants, these actions are values ​​and are aimed at protecting their existence.

The analysis allows us to conclude that when the complex, ambiguous with axiological picture of the world, arises for a certain linguistic culture of the situation, even a limited set of lexical tools with the axiological meaning attracted allows you to freely use the concept of values ​​and, if desired, replace them.

Acknowledgements. Published with the support of the Fund of the President of Russia for young scientists – PhD №MD-2687.2017.6 “Variation of English language in Great Britain in the aspects of political, social and economic factors (based on Internet discourse)”.

 

Конфликты интересов: у авторов нет конфликта интересов для декларации.

Conflicts of Interest: the authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

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