A quest for democracy or for a conservative social ideal? A cognitive semantics perspective on the role of Sharia concepts in the discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring from a linguistic anthropology and cognitive semantics perspective aiming to uncover a native view on the Egyptian revolution of January 25, 2011. I focus on three salient concepts of the revolutionary discourse: ẒULM (injustice, oppression, wrong), QIṢĀṢ (retaliation), and FULŪL (a newly coined moniker for the enemies of the REVOLUTION). These concepts are interwoven with belief systems that shape Arab sociopolitical reality. The new Egyptians concept of REVOLUTION differs from its antecedents as modern electronic media has turned the January 25 revolution into a multimodal communication event. The discourse of the Egyptian Arab Spring appears to be far more conservative than the Western account of the revolution suggests and its key ideas have mostly been lost in translation provided by Western media.
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