Images of Migrants in Alice Munro's Short Stories: Dialogue Between Cultures

Abstract

This paper focuses on the issues of the mediating role of English language and specific accents in the process of communication between Canadians and migrants from Europe. The author uses methods of close reading to reveal a variety of specific social patterns illustrating different levels of interpersonal attitudes in dialogues with migrants on the material of short stories from the collection Runaway (2004) by Alice Munro. While depicting Aliens, the writer utilises speech characterization as one of the most important artistic tools. Furthermore, in the short stories by Alice Munro, an attitude to people who speak differently becomes a “litmus paper” to portray the decaying intellectual life of the New World.