Rhetorical differences for a novel translator.?

Question

I am working in translation and I will be so thankful to get your answers on the rhetorical differences between the following confused -for me- words:

Immigration/migration
Society/community
Goal/objective/target
Denounce (v)/condemn (v)/rail (v)
radicalism/extremism
courtesy/decency
begin/start
sociologically/socially
extricate/free/release
underpin/support/shore up
denigrate/defame/discredit

Thank you for help.

Answer 1

Migration is seasonal. Birds migrate. Workers who pick a particular crop during a particular season are migrant workers. Immigration is typically permanent. One immigrates and stays there, or goes back only to visit.

Society is the entire set of people who are remotely like you; community is a local and finite set. The United States is a single society (or close to it), a community is the size of a city at most.

Goal is more visceral, objective is more clinical, target is in the middle.

Rail sounds like someone is violently angry, denounce sounds like a purely political move, condemn is more neutral.

Radicalism and extremism sound pretty interchangeable to my ears.

Courtesy is what you do when others are watching, how you act in public, your manners. Decency is what you do when nobody knows it's you.

Begin is more formal than start.

Sociologically is looking at a matter from an academic or scientific perspective, socially from almost any perspective.

Extricate implies that the act of freeing was difficult or dangerous. Release and free sound pretty interchangeable to me.

To shore up implies that you are improving a bad situation, support may be in any situation. Underpin doesn't quite fit in with the other two. The underpinnings of a theory, for example, are the ideas without which the theory could not survive.

Discredit implies a justified condemnation. Denigrate sounds petty, as does defame. Both of them may or may not be justified.

Hope this helps.