Stereotyping and translation in Arabic and English news texts with reference to Islamophobia and the Arab-Israeli conflict School of Languages, Cultures and Societies University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 By Shifa Askari Supervised by Professor James Dickins May, 2019 DECLARATION AND STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2019 The University of Leeds and Shifa Askari The right of Shifa Askari to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Dedication To my beloved parents who I love beyond words. To my brother Ayman whose infinite support and guidance helped me see the light at end of the tunnel. To my sister Maha, the bright dentist. You left early, but your soul never departed. We love you now and forever. Acknowledgements Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Professor James Dickins for his patience, constant support and understanding through difficult times. His copious knowledge and close guidance throughout my project, his attentiveness and encouragement have been crucial for this project to be realised. Sincere gratitude also goes to Mrs Karen Priestley for her brilliant support and professionality. Karen has never only been an Education Service Officer; she has been the big heart that understood, sympathised and took concrete steps to help, encourage and motivate. Karen made sure we were never on our own! Of course profound gratitude goes to my brother Ayman who kindly extended his support, guidance and affection. His sense and sensibility were there to shelter me at very critical times. A thank you is not enough! Finally, I would like to thank all my friends in Syria and Jordan who believed in me, encouraged me and supported me in this long journey. 4 Abstract Stereotyping, as defined in this thesis, is the use of generalization or shorthand for describing groups of people, cultures, religions or ethnicities. Stereotypes are to be distinguished from ideologies, which, as defined in this thesis, are sets of attitudes that manage social and political interests including the media. Ideologies work to serve particular interests by setting agendas and managing people’s opinions to serve the ultimate goal of the ruling class. Stereotypical images can be used to serve certain ideologies especially when this is done systematically and in an organised manner. Technological advances, and especially the internet, have increased the volume of language and media exchange, hence increasing the translation of news texts. This research is concerned with tracking the role of translation in rendering stereotypical and ideological expressions between English and Arabic in relation to news texts extracted from two news services: BBC and Reuters. The general theory adopted is critical discourse analysis. The news texts are pertinent to two topics: the Israel/Palestine question and Islamophobia. The data is collected over one month: May 2016. The methodology followed for the purpose of analysis is the Discourse Historical Approach developed by Ruth Wodak et al. The methodology identifies a number of strategies which can be used to identify evaluative/stereotypical presentations in news texts: nomination, predication, perspectivation, mitigation and argumentation. It tries to incorporate as much relevant available knowledge as possible about the historical sources and the background of the social and political context in which discursive practices are embedded. The selected texts are analysed using the above methodology. Background information is gathered as part of the methodological approach. The analysis is followed by a comparative qualitative analysis of both the English and Arabic texts. A quantitative analysis is also conducted, by assigning numerical categories to the stereotypes/ideologies defined within the texts. Here, two types of stereotypes/ideologies are identified: those of the news service, and those of the likely 5 reader. News service stereotypes/ideologies are identified through analysis of the relevant aspects of the text. Likely reader stereotypes/ideologies are identified where possible by determining the ‘typical’ or ‘average’ reader through extrapolation from statistically reliable quantitative publicly available sources, such as public opinion surveys conducted in America, Britain and the Arab world. The quantitative results are analysed, and then those for news service stereotypes/ideologies are compared to the qualitative analysis to provide a composite qualitative-quantitative analysis of each text. The results endorse the view that images of Islam in Islamophobia-related texts are generally negative for both English and Arabic texts, but more negative for English ones. For Sunni Islam, the stereotypes are consistently very negative. For Shia Islam the stereotypes vary between fairly and very negative for both English and Arabic texts. For the Israel/Palestine texts, the ideological and stereotypical expressions in the English texts are more pro-Israel than those in the Arabic ones. This research demonstrates that stereotypes are used in media to enhance the ideological agenda of the news service. It also shows that media contributes to developing new stereotypes. 6 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 4 Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... 7 List of tables and figures..........................................................................................................10 Appendices: ............................................................................................................................11 Introduction ............................................................................................................................12 0.1 Background to the study ................................................................................................12 0.2 Research Scope and Statement of the Problem .............................................................13 0.3 Research questions ........................................................................................................14 0.4 Significance of the research ...........................................................................................15 0.5 Methodology and Data ..................................................................................................15 0.6 Structure of the thesis ...................................................................................................16 Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................19 1.1Introduction ...................................................................................................................19 1.2 The relationship between Language and Culture ...........................................................19 1.3 Language Utilisation in the Light of Mass Communication and New Technologies..........22 1.4 The growing effect of modern media tools on shaping people’s opinions ......................25 1.5 The notion of Stereotyping ............................................................................................30 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................52 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................52 2.2 Ideology ........................................................................................................................52 2.3 Stereotyping ..................................................................................................................55 2.4 Stereotyping and Ideology .............................................................................................57 2.5 Discourse .......................................................................................................................58 2.6 Discourse and ideology/stereotyping .............................................................................61 2.7 Translation and ideology ...............................................................................................62 2.8 Critical discourse analysis ..............................................................................................69 2.9 CDA approaches ............................................................................................................72 2.9.1 The Semiotic Approach ...........................................................................................74 2.9.2 Rhetorics ................................................................................................................75 2.10 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................77