Arabic Political Discourse

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Analyzing political discourse can be done through Critical Discourse Analysis or the (Socio)-linguistic Analysis. Following the (socio)-linguistic approach, this course introduces the descriptive, rhetorical and sociolinguistic approaches to the analysis of Arabic political discourse. The course will survey a variety of studies on the Arabic political discourse and their linguistic and rhetorical strategies for achieving a wide range of political objectives such as influence and persuasion. The linguistic tools for analyzing the discourse include word choice, naming and reference, predication, sentence constructions (such as transitivity, modality), speech acts, presupposition, rhetorical devices (such as metaphors, puns), code switching. Students will analyze a variety of texts on the Arabic political discourse. Readings will be in Arabic and English. The class will be conducted in Arabic and the homework and the research will be written in Arabic. Students are expected to be in the post advanced level of Arabic.