Immigrant, migrant and foreigner - words as indicators of attitudes and their frequency in Swedish media 1920-2013 : An onomasiological study with a diachronic perspective

This is an onomasiological study with a diachronic perspective. Its purpose is to examine the use of the four most frequent names for migrants in Sweden in Swedish newspapers 1923-2013. The four names are invandrare (roughly ’immigrant’), immigrant (‘immigrant’), migrant (‘migrant’) and utlänning (‘foreigner’). The results from 37 Swedish corpora show that invandrare is the most frequent word used by the media. The word is often used in contexts that discuss something problematic and sometimes even rather negative in regards to migrants, using that very word – invandrare. It often marks a thought of us-and-them. Utlänning is frequently used as a synonym for invandrare, although it carries a different meaning. Immigrant and migrant are seldom used and when they are, they generally refer to migrants in other countries than Sweden. All the words are used in order to convey a distance between migrants and what is considered ethnic Swedes. Language planning is a good tool in this case, but the ultimate key lies in the attitudes of the speakers. No matter how many times the names for migrants are changed, they will always end up negative if that is the speakers’ intention