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is concerned with the oft-discussed metaphor of migrants are water in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800–2018
and the conventionalisation and evaluative patterns are presented. The findings confirm that the water metaphor has an extensive
discourse history regarding how migration is represented in the UK press, but also that evaluations may differ significantly. The paper
shows how metaphor can provide a way to find discourse evaluations and framings across different time periods. The use of second-order
collocates illustrates how corpus tools can help re-contextualise data to ensure interpretation heeds contemporary framings.
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