The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences Analyzing Stance in Online Threat Discourse by Anti-Immigration Attackers: An Integrated Approach A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Applied Linguistics In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Under the Supervision of Dr. Reem Bassiouney By Marwa Hossameldin Mustafa May 2020 Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to the American University in Cairo for its efforts in the time of Corona virus. Without its persistence to keep the educational process on, I would not be able to graduate on time, safely from home. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor Prof. Reem Bassiouney for her insightful comments in every stage of the thesis writing. Prof. Bassiouney is not just my thesis advisor and professor; she is indeed my mentor and my role model. Thanks to her thoughtful changes and her deep belief in me, I was able to expand my theoretical knowledge of the field and uncover potential interdisciplinary relations highlighted in this work. Prof. Bassiouney held my hand during my darkest moments when I was about to give up on my project. I sincerely thank you for your constant support and guidance not just during the time of writing this research, but over the past five years during which I was proudly your student and research assistant. You truly taught me how to be a hardworking graduate student. Secondly, I would like to deeply thank my committee members, Dr. Nihal Nagi and Dr. Rania Al Sabbagh, for their thoughtful comments. I am honestly indebted to your ingenious suggestions and modifications on different points of this research. I am also very grateful to Prof. Amira Agameya for her continuous support and for sharing valuable references. You have saved no effort to educate and support all of us in different courses, thank you. A special thanks goes to Hala Said, another TESOL fellow, whose thesis has hugely inspired and guided me in writing mine. Thirdly, I would like to acknowledge a number of my TESOL fellows who stood by my side and supported me throughout this long journey. I am deeply thankful to Salma Farid, Salah Ahmed, Duaa Zein, Sarah Matlack, Lobna Sherif, Dalia Metwally, and Alex Anderson for sharing your knowledge and experience, for your inspirational messages and voice notes, and for your faith in me. Finally, I am whole heartedly grateful to all my family members. I would like first to thank my beloved dad for having faith in me and for being my lifetime hero, thank you so much for everything you did and still do for me. I am also very thankful to my mum for all the prayers, encouragement and patience, thank you for being there whenever I needed you. You are both the blessing of my life. A special thanks goes to my little brother who was always available to babysit my kids whenever I was on campus. Another special thanks is due to my mother-in-law who has been forever supportive and encouraging; thank you for believing in me and in my work. Lastly, I must express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my husband, the partner of my life and the father of my amazing kids. Thank you for your patience, nurture, and assistance at every step of this journey. “If we are able to influence people’s minds – for example, their knowledge, attitudes, or ideologies – we indirectly may control (some of) their actions, as we know from persuasion and manipulation.” Teun Van Dijk Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... i List of Figures .............................................................................................................................ii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. iii List of Abbreviations................................................................................................................... iv Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Study Background ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2. Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 2 1.3. Statement of Research Problem ..................................................................................... 2 1.4. Delimitations............................................................................................................... 3 1.5. Constructs & Operational Definitions .............................................................................. 3 1.5.1. Constructs ........................................................................................................... 3 1.5.2. Operational Definitions .......................................................................................... 6 Chapter Two: Literature Review ................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Stance ........................................................................................................................ 8 2.1.1. Stance in threat communication acts ......................................................................12 2.2. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)....................................................................................16 2.2.1. Definitions & Features ..........................................................................................16 2.2.2. Ideology & Power.................................................................................................20 2.2.3. New Racism ........................................................................................................24 2.3. Computer-Mediated Discourse .....................................................................................26 2.4. Corpus Linguistics .......................................................................................................29 Chapter Three: Methodology......................................................................................................32 3.1. Research Design .........................................................................................................32 3.2. Data Selection ............................................................................................................33 3.3. Instruments & Procedures............................................................................................34 3.4. Methods of Data Analysis .............................................................................................35 3.4.1. Part One: Critical Discourse Analysis .......................................................................35 3.4.2. Part Two: Methods of Corpus Linguistics .................................................................42 Chapter Four: Data Analysis........................................................................................................44 4.1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................44 4.2. Data Classification .......................................................................................................45 4.3. Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................................................................46 4.3.1. Self-Representation & In-group Representation........................................................46 4.3.2. The Other Representation & Out-group Representation.............................................55 4.4. Corpus Linguistics .......................................................................................................63 4.4.1. Corpus A: Manifesto A ..........................................................................................63 4.4.2. Corpus B: Manifesto B ..........................................................................................70 4.5. Common Patterns in Manifestos A & B ...........................................................................73 Chapter Five: Results & Discussion ..............................................................................................75 5.1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................75 5.2. Results ......................................................................................................................77 5.2.1. Stance Components in Both Manifestos ..................................................................77 5.2.2. Manifesto A ........................................................................................................79 5.2.3. Manifesto B ........................................................................................................86 5.2.4. Summary of Results..............................................................................................91 5.3. Discussion ..................................................................................................................94 5.4. Conclusions & Implications ......................................................................................... 101 Security Alert .................................................................................................................