Interpretation of immigration in media discourse: metaphors with the semantics of water

The subject of this study is the peculiarities of using water metaphors, which serve as one of the most stable and influential tools for constructing immigration issues in British political media discourse. The aim of this article is to analyze the use of water metaphors for conceptualizing immigration in the leading British publication "The Guardian" from 2025 to the present and to identify their ideological and cognitive functions. A metaphor is not just a means of expression but a fundamental tool for understanding and structuring reality. In media discourse, metaphorical models play a particularly important role in shaping public perceptions of complex social phenomena. Immigration, as one of the key political and social phenomena of our time, is constantly in the focus of political media attention. The foundation of contemporary studies on political metaphor lies in the cognitive theory developed by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. According to this theory, a metaphor is understood not as a trope but as a fundamental mechanism of thought that allows us to comprehend abstract and complex concepts (target domain) through more concrete and familiar ones (source domain). The main findings of the conducted study are that water metaphors (metaphors of water/flow) in The Guardian are used to construct the image of mass immigration not only in a negative light but also in a more positive aspect, namely, to reflect the positive (economic) impact of mass immigration on the UK. On one hand, The Guardian employs the same conceptual metaphors as right-leaning publications, reflecting the deep-rootedness of these cognitive structures in language. On the other hand, the contextual environment of these metaphors in The Guardian often neutralizes their negative potential. However, even with positive contextualization, water metaphors retain a dehumanizing effect, as they conceptualize people as an inanimate force and reinforce the opposition of "us – them." This creates a paradoxical situation: a publication with liberal views, striving for a positive representation of immigrants, finds itself trapped in cognitive structures that have historically been used for their discrimination.