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Article published In:
Terminology as a Societal Resource: Possibilities and Responsibilities in a Changing World
Edited by Nina Pilke, Niina Nissilä and Hans Landqvist
[Terminology 27:1] 2021
► pp. 35–55

Migration terminology in the EU Institutions

Overview and patterns of use of terms from 1950 to 2016

| Communications Consultant at European Commission

‘Migration’ has recently become a single domain for specialized terminology in the European Union, linked to the crisis which has been rapidly unfolding in Europe since 2015. The migration crisis, with the dramatic increase in arrivals of migrants in Europe, has highlighted the uncertainty of institutional classifications used to describe and manage migration flows. What is a migrant in the EU Institutions and how is the term refugee or asylum seeker respectively classified? The present study delves into Migration from a terminological perspective and investigates how migrants have been mirrored through terminology in institutional texts from 1950 to 2016 by analyzing two sets of corpora: the European Migration Network glossaries (EMN) of the European Commission and the EU database of official legislative text, EUR-lex EN 2/16. This paper aims to show how migration phenomena can be narrated through the lens of terminology and how term choice plays a vital role in making an impact in the representation of migrants and refugees in political institutions and society.

Keywords: migration crisis, EU terminology, corpus analysis, EU glossaries
Article outline
  • 1. Migration terminology from 1950 to 2016
  • 2.Coining terminology in the EU Institutions
    • 2.1IATE: The interactive terminology database for Europe
  • 3.The corpus analysis
    • 3.1Terminology tools: The European Migration Network official glossaries
    • 3.2Results in EU Glossaries
    • 3.3Results in EUR-lex 2/16 EN
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
  • Online sources
Published online: 5 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00057.mar
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Online sources

Study on Immigration in Europe by the European Commission
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United Nations Campaign “Word Choice Matters”
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Comparative study conducted by Licia Corbolante about the terminology of migration at the United Nations and in the EU Institutions
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