Alzahrani, Rajab Gamaan Muhsen (2013) A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of the Ideological Representations and Legitimation in the Salafi Discourse in Saudi Arabia (1980-2000). PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
This thesis examines the ideological representations of the Salafi discourse in Saudi Arabia from 1980 to 2000. It attempts to answer the following overarching question: To what extent and how is Salafi discourse in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s-1990s homogenous? Utilizing a composite of methodological tools from CDA; DHA (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, 2009; Wodak, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2007), social actor theory (van Leeuwen 1996, p. 32-70; 2008, pp. 23-54), corpus linguistics (Baker et al. 2008) and argumentation theory (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004), I examine the most salient discursive features of semantic foci, social actor representation and argumentation schemes in religious discourses of two Saudi Salafi strands. I have built two corpora composed of the writings of two prominent Saudi Salafi writers that reflect religious discourses in Saudi Arabia of two Salafi strands; religiously based Salafi discourse as exemplified in the writings of AbdulAziz Ibn Baz and politically-oriented Salafi discourse as exemplified in the writings of Safar Alhawali. The whole thesis is based on analysing keywords utilizing collocates, word clusters and concordance-based analysis to identify similarity and/or differences in the ideological representations of the two aforementioned Salafi strands. Results show that the two Salafi writers share some ideological representation (both theological and political). However they have different ideological representations that are politically motivated such as Alhawali's negative representations of the West and the American-led Allied forces during the Gulf Crisis.