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    A corpus-driven comparison of English and French Islamist extremist texts

    Vessey, Rachelle (2018) A corpus-driven comparison of English and French Islamist extremist texts. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23 (3), pp. 255-278. ISSN 1384-6655.

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    Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.17108.bak

    Abstract

    This paper uses corpus linguistics and qualitative, manual analysis to compare corpora of English and French Islamist extremist texts to determine the extent to which messages in different languages draw upon similar and distinct themes and linguistic strategies. Findings show that both corpora focus on religion and rewards (i.e. for faith) and strongly rely on othering strategies. However, the English texts appear to be more concerned with world events pertaining to Islam and the French texts focus on issues specific to France. Also, while the English texts draw on code-switching to Arabic as a form of legitimation, the French texts use a formal register and draw heavily on quotation from scripture in order to discuss permissions, rights, obligations and laws. Finally, the English texts refer to and justify violence to a greater extent than the French texts. This paper contributes towards understanding both extremist discourse and comparative corpus research.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This article has been accepted for publication in the journal cited above. (c) John Benjamins Publishing. The publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): French, English, jihad, extremism, cross-linguistic corpus analysis, corpus-driven discourse analysis
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 26 Jul 2018 10:54
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:44
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/23339

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