Page - 113 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 2/2016

The paper analyses the use of metaphors in political speeches addressing the so-called “refugee crisis”. The respective speeches were given in 2015 in the German parliament, the Bundestag, by members of the government and opposition parties. 26 speeches, held by chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Volker Kauder (CDU), Siegmar Gabirel (SPD), Thomas Oppermann (SPD), Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Anton Hofreiter (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Dietmar Bartsch (Die Linke), Katja Kipping (Die Linke) and Sarah Wagenknecht (Die Linke) were taken into account. The paper starts with a brief summary of the discursive developments within the political and public debate on the topic of the increasing numbers of refugees arriving in Germany and its media reception. The key finding of this analysis is that the discourse itself became more and more self-referring and questions of rhetoric subtleties arose. In many respects the issue of responsibility came up, questioning the use of certain speech acts and rhetoric figures and their possible connection with a new discursive rawness but also with the rising number of hate-crimes committed against refugees and refugee accommodations. In this situation new rhetoric sensi- tivity seemed to be advised while at the same time populist movements in Germany (but also all across Europe) used such linguistic means to drive on an emotion-based schism. The success of those movements and/or parties led to an adaptation resp. creation of specific terms and phrasings which seemingly just described the situation in its “crisis-dimensions”. But as we take a closer look on these expressions we find that there is a critical unexpressed meaning-constituting background responsible for the fact that the respective expressions are understood in a certain way. They have so to speak a metaphorical dimension and thus we consider them to actually be metaphors. On this basis we took theoretical approaches into account that ranged from philosophical studies concerning metaphors and rhetoric itself (Hans Blumenberg and Andreas Hetzel), the sociological frame analysis (Erving Goffman), cultural studies (Stuart Hall) and discourse analy- sis (Jürgen Link) to neuro-linguistic frame analysis (Elisabeth Wehling). The benefit of bringing together these different approaches is that it allows us to analyse micro-dimensional phenomena (rhetorical figures and their use in political speeches) as well as their macro-dimensional embed- ding and effects. From all the metaphors we could find in the respective speeches, we chose four for deeper examination: combating the causes of flight, the European community of shared values, securing the external borders and legislative package. We chose these four metaphors due to the frequency Discourse, power and refugee policy Parliament addresses on refugees and asylum from the perspective of methaphorology and Cultural Studies Extended Abstract Arthur Depner and Simon Goebel Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal, Vol. 2 2016, 113-114 Editor reviewed article Open Access: content is licensed under CC BY 3.0