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Critical Semiotic Order Theory: the Misconstruction of Arab and Muslim Identities and Voices in Hollywood Movies

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Critical Semiotic Order Theory: the Misconstruction of Arab and Muslim Identities and Voices in Hollywood Movies Critical Semiotic Order Theory: The Misconstruction of Arab and Muslim Identities and Voices in Hollywood Movies Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Al Balushi, Iqbal Abdul Qadir Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 26/09/2021 10:46:19 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/344217 CRITICAL SEMIOTIC ORDER THEORY: THE MISCONSTRUCTION OF ARAB AND MUSLIM IDENTITIES AND VOICES IN HOLLYWOOD MOVIES By Iqbal Abdul Qadir Al Balushi __________________________ Copyright © Iqbal Abdul Qadir Al Balushi A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the GRADUATE INTERDISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND TEACHING In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2014 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Iqbal Abdul Qadir Al Balushi, titled Critical Semiotic Order Theory: The Misconstruction of Arab and Muslim Identities and Voices in Hollywood Movies and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/03/2014 Linda R. Waugh _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/03/2014 Chantelle Warner _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 12/03/2014 Richard Ruiz Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 12/03/2014 Dissertation Director: Linda R. Waugh 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Iqbal Abdul Qadir Al Balushi 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank, Almighty Allah for giving me the strength, courage, perseverance, patience, and inspiration to do my research. I want to thank Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Sultan of Oman, for giving me the opportunity for the scholarship. I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Linda Waugh, Chantelle Warner, and Richard Ruiz for their support. My special thanks to Linda Waugh for being there whenever I needed her, and for helping and advising me to navigate many uncertain occasions during these last five years of my studies. I am deeply indebted to Linda Waugh for her kind support, dedication, hard work, professionalism, and her willingness and to listen patiently to my ideas for hours. I am thankful to her for sending me pages from Bartlett’s book, from which the ideas of my theory started to develop. I am thankful and most grateful to my wife’s love, support and constant encouragement during my studies in Tucson, Arizona. I am indebted to her sacrifice of her own career for my professional development. I am also thankful and grateful that I have a wise mother who planted the first seed for my big dreams and always told me that one day I would be a doctor. While I was pursuing my dream, my younger brother Abdul Halim passed away on the other side of planet earth, in Oman and I could not attend his funeral. It was painful and may Allah have mercy on him. My journey to seek out knowledge and be educated started on the tiny Island of the Kingdom of Bahrain when I was five and a half years old in the late sixties. Today, five decades later, I am ending my journey as a student and a scholar on the other side of planet earth from home, in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, Arizona. I have had some major stops on my journey that include four countries and three 5 continents. I attended the Teacher’s Training Institute in Muscat, Oman in 1979, and some years later, Moray House College, University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. I also attended the University of Bristol in Bristol, England in the late eighties and the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio in the nineties. My love to all. 6 DEDICATION I dedicate this research to Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Sultan of wisdom and peace who has dedicated his life to making Oman a modern country, and to spreading peace and tolerance around the globe. He once stated: “Extremism, under whatever guise, fanaticism of whatever kind, factionalism of whatever persuasion, would be hateful poisonous plants in the soil of our country (Oman) which will not be allowed to flourish” on the Occasion of the 24 th National Day of Oman (11/18/1994). “The suppression of ideas and thought is a major sin, and we will never allow anyone to stifle freedom of thought.” Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Sultan Qaboos University, May 2 nd , 2000. I also dedicate this research to my younger brother Abdul Halim who was kind and very humble and looked after my parents. He always wanted to finish his education but fate had other ideas for him. Finally, I also dedicate this research to all the victims of racism, oppression and Neo- Imperialism. This study gives voice to the voiceless who cry freedom from their graves for justice to be served and justice for all. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….....13 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH..15 Part One: Introduction……………………………………………………………………..15 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….15 Background to the study ………………………………………………………….16 Statement of the problem …………………………………………………………16 Research questions ………………………………………………………………..17 Purpose of the study……………………………………………………………….17 Significance of the study ………………………………………………………….18 Part Two: Background to the Research…............................................................................19 Negative Stereotyping …………………………………………………………….19 How Hollywood Vilifies Arabs and Muslims …………………………………….23 Hollywood and Washington ………………………………………………………23 The movies………………………………………………………………...25 The press …………………………………………………………………..29 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK…34 Part One: Literature Review………………………………………………………………..34 Critical discourse analysis………………………………………………………….34 Ideology ……………………………………………………………………………35 Multimodal social semiotic ………………………………………………………..39 Orders of indexicality ……………………………………………………………...44 Orders of polycentricity ……………………………………………………………47 Part Two: Theoretical Framework………………………………………………………….50 Background to the critical semiotic order theory ………………………………….50 Relationship of CSOT to other work…………………………………………….....51 The inspiration for the CSOT hypotheses………………………………………….53 The Critical Semiotic Order Theory ……………………………………………….55 The four hypothesis of critical semiotic order theory ………………………….......57 The positive and negative order hypothesis ………………………………………..57 The zero value order hypothesis …………………………………….......................59 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued The semiotic indices order hypothesis…………………………………………….60 The chaos order hypothesis …………………………………………....................61 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY………………….63 Types of critical semiotic orders ………………………………………………….63 The criteria for choosing the critical semiotic orders …………………………….64 The critical semiotic orders list …………………………………………………...65 Research methodology …………………………………………………………....66 The three movies ……………………………………………………….................67 The reasons behind choosing these movies ………………………………………68 CHAPTER 4. ANALYSIS OF THE THREE MOVIES………………………………….70 Part One: Analysis of Movie One: Ali Baba Bound (1940) ……………………………...70 A short summary of the movie……………………………………………………71 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..71 Background of the cartoon……………………………………………………....... 71 The Critical Semiotic Orders List…………………………………………………………72 1. The positive and negative orders………………………………………….72 2. The image construction order…………………………………………….73 10 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued 3. The bits and pieces order………………………………………………....73 3.1 Bits and pieces order against Muslims…………………………….75 4. The critical image metonymic order……………………………………..75 5. The chaos order…………………………………………………………..78 6. The turns at talk order……………………………………………………78 7. The hybrid voice order…………………………………………………...79 8. The zero value order……………………………………………………..79 9. The disinformation order………………………………………………...80 10. The propaganda order……………………………………………………80 11. The association order…………………………………………………….83 12. The ideological order…………………………………………………….83 13. The critical music order………………………………………………….83 Part Two: Analysis of Movie Two: True Lies (1994) …………………………………..84 A short summary
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