Arab Uprisings and the Politics of Language
| Dates: | 1 April 2014 |
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| Times: | 17:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Speaker: | Dr Anisa Daoudi |
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Fifth Seminar in MES Research Seminar Series, 2013-2014
There is no doubt that the so called ‘Arab spring’ continues to affect the MENA region in all aspects, including language. The names given to the uprisings in the MENA region varied between orientalised connotations, such as ‘Arab Spring’, ‘Jasmine Revolution’ to views which are more dismissive of the Arab people’s participation in the uprising, such as ‘Facebook Revolution’. The latter brings back the myth that ICT positively promotes freedom and generates the tools and services enabling citizen participation in decision making and as a consequence democracy is achieved (Aouragh, 2012). The literature about the role of ICT/Internet in the MENA region has seen a boom. The use of metaphors to describe revolutions is not new. Examples include, Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, Ukraine Orange Revolution, Iranian Green-Twitter Revolutions and so on. Research on metaphors in rhetoric and politics also saw a growth, particularly after Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory (1980), which has since been developed and elaborated. In all cases, there is evidence of politics in language use. In fact, Peterson (1987) argues that ‘language is the tool of politics’. For him, political language is not only metaphorical but the tool for political analysis is metaphorical. Research points to a ‘linguistic revolution’ par excellence. This revolution does not only affect the words people use in their daily lives, nor reflect the importance of mastering ‘the symbolic power’ of language (Bourdieu, 1991) but, it is in fact a revolution against all the ‘canons’, including the language.
Speaker
Dr Anisa Daoudi
Role: Language Co-ordinator for Arabic
Organisation: University of Birmingham
Travel and Contact Information
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A102
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
