Is there anything wrong with the expression “a bunch of migrants”?

Abstract

By analysing some of the syntagmatic lexical relations of the phrase “a bunch of”, the paper deals with the question whether the outbreak of public anger caused by David Cameron’s use of the phrase “a bunch of migrants” was understandable or not. In an attempt to answer this question, sources such as the contemporary dictionary definitions of the lexeme “bunch” (when used to refer to people) as well as the instances of its modern usage were used. The modern contexts were retrieved from the written corpus which included some of the UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers analysed by means of a corpus analysis tool WebCorp. The results led to the conclusion that the said outbreak of anger was fairly justified as, besides very few instances of its neutral usage, the phrase “a bunch of” has a strong tendency to be used negatively and with dislike when describing groups of people.