Abstract

Today new global centripetal forces are pushing from without the borders of developed countries. This calls for a careful review of and reflection on the concepts of identity, citizenship and rights. This paper analyses how various terms are employed to indicate the different and/or similar statuses of people moving into or across national and supranational borders. Ten selected keywords were studied as used in the europa.eu portal as representative of institutional legal English. After reviewing the terms' etymology, historical development and current usage, this study analyses their discursive connotations with a critical discourse analysis approach. From a terminological viewpoint, two trends were identified: the emergence of new European Legal English collocations and the coexistence of native English collocations. From a critical discourse analysis perspective, high EU prescriptivism was found, as well as inclusiveness/exclusiveness collocations resulting from specific authority and power relations.