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Article published In:
Hate speech: Definitions, interpretations and practices
Edited by Fabienne H. Baider, Sharon Millar and Stavros Assimakopoulos
[Pragmatics and Society 11:2] 2020
► pp. 292–315

“They cowardly attack US, so we nobly eliminate them…”

The emergence of the translocal group in the propaganda of the Islamic State

| Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
ORCID logo | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

The threat of the Islamic State is realised both in its attacks and its discourse. To illustrate the role of linguistic threats, the present study investigates the ISIS online propaganda magazine Dabiq by combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics (Romero-Trillo 2008; Baker et al. 2008). Following the two groups described by van Dijk (2003), which are represented by the in-group (ISIS) and the out-group (against ISIS), we propose a third element: the translocal group (i.e., the people in between). The results show the substantial presence of linguistic strategies enhanced by Dangerous Speech (Benesch 2013) to create a high segregation between the groups. Also, the analysis shows the inextricable relationship between conflict and dangerous language and the need to investigate this link further, with special reference to the polarisation of the groups and to the subsequent escalation of violence in discourse.

Keywords: conflict, translocal group, Dangerous Speech, ISIS, Dabiq, propaganda
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Geopolitical context
    • 2.2Theoretical background
  • 3.Methodology and data description
  • 4.Analysis and results
    • 4.1Analysis of the categories
    • 4.2ISIS’ positive self-representation vs. negative other-representation
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18072.may
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