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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: "Emigrate to" is defensible (Was Re: English: USA supreme court this fall)
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References: <4j9tmn$uva@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <4l5flf$1q7@airdmhor.gen.nz> <3178e324.5874723@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <1996Apr21.070846.17475@sq.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 22:04:29 GMT
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In article <1996Apr21.070846.17475@sq.com>, Mark Brader <msb@sq.com> wrote:

>Well, not quite.  As Simon Hosie notes:
>
>> > So if you're standing in Europe, for example, watching all this do you
>> > just refer to it as migrating/migration?
>
>Most people wouldn't.  They might refer to immigration, or emigration,
>or simply to moving: "Bob moved from the US to NZ."
>
>Bob responds to Simon's question:
>
>> I suppose you could, but it doesn't sound quite right to me.
>> To me "migrate" applies to people or animals that move regularly
>> back and forth.
>
>Well, it does have that meaning, of course.  But the sense that covers
>both immigration and emigration also exists -- one sees it used by people
>who report on population statistics.  In particular, I'm pretty sure I've
>seen "net migration" used to mean the number of immigrants to a country
>(or region) minus the number of emigrants from it.

There is also the term "return migration", which refers to the process
by which emigrants from country A who have immigrated to country B
return to country A.  Return migration flows from the rest of Western
Europe to Spain and from the USA to Korea have become significant in
recent years as the economies of the migrants' countries of origin
have gone from having a labour surplus to a labour shortage.

"Migration"--under that name--has become a very hot topic for Europe
over the past few years for several reasons, including the elimination
of border controls in the EC and the rise of xenophobia in Northern
Europe.  I must have seen a half-dozen books with "migration" in the
title over the past year or two.

In short, nothing strikes me at all odd about the use of "migration" as 
a collective term for "immigration", "emigration", and "return migration",
though from the sound of it, it might strike other people as sociological 
jargon.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
