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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:6 (2018) ► pp.769–788

The significance of the discursive strategies in al-Baghdadi’s and al-Zawahiri’s hortatory speeches

A multidisciplinary approach

| College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya University
| School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Recently, jihadi rhetoric has been employed extensively to ordain a justified violence and to incorporate radical groups’ identifications. In this article, the researchers take Reisigl’s and Wodak’s discourse – historical approach (2001; 2009), van Dijk’s ideological square (1998: 267) and Chilton’s binary concepts in political discourse (2004: 197–205) to show the significance of the discursive strategies in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s jihadi rhetoric used to establish their so-called Islamic State. We present two exemplary calls for jihad by al-Zawahiri (2006) and al-Baghdadi (2015) to exemplify their jihadist ideology giving much focus to in-group and out-group representations in their speeches and to their social impacts on Muslim societies over the last ten years. We argue further that such calls are abusive to Islamic religion and are designed in historical, pragmatic and communicative contexts (as mental models) to gain political legitimacy.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, hortatory discourse, jihadist ideology, jihad, allusions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Language, politics and religion
    • 2.2Previous studies on Al-Qa’ida and ISIS leaders’ speeches
  • 3.Theoretical framework
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Data analysis
    • 5.1Referential strategy in constructing of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ in Texts 1 and 2
    • 5.2Mobilizing support for jihadi activities through religious allusions
    • 5.3Making arguments via topoi and fallacies to gain political legitimacy
    • 5.4Constructing an extremist Sunni identity via micro-legitimatory tools
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17048.moh
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