Identity through the lense of language: Media representation of Central Asian countries

Photo: Almaty, Kazakhstan by Kundyz Mukhangali

Have you ever wondered how your nation is portrayed in the news media? Or how its relations with neighboring countries are depicted in foreign media? Last week members of the Corvinus Metaphor Workshop, Lilla P. Szabó, Kundyz Mukhangali and associate professor András Rácz (Institute of Global Studies, CUB) gave a talk on the media representation of Central Asian countries at the online workshop titled “Language Thought and Society: An Exploration of Identities through Cognitive (Socio)Linguistics”.   

Their study entitled “Not in “Russia’s backyard”? The conceptualization of Central Asian countries in Western news media” examines the role of conceptual metaphors in the identity formation process of five Central Asian nations, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in international news media. It also provides insights into how their complex and intricate relationship with the northern neighbor Russia is represented in the western context. Specifically, the corpus consisted of news published in Euronews and CNN, showcasing the possible metaphorical frame of these nations by European and American news outlets. 

Preliminary results demonstrate that partnership frames are pervasive in the context of the West and Central Asia, as well as Russia and Central Asia relations. Additionally, media discourse employs metonymies such as Central Asia and Former Soviet Nation to refer to the five Central Asian countries.   

The workshop was organized by the School of English, Thessaloniki Cognitive Linguistics Research Group at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. It brought together scholars working with conceptual metaphor theory, including cognitive linguists, sociolinguists, and social scientists, to explore the common theme of identity formation.