What is it about?

This paper is an investigation, from a forensic linguistic lens, of the construction of otherness and its role in the context of radicalization to terrorism as realized in the violent extremists' representation of social groups/actors. Contributing to the global commitment to fighting crimes and countering radicalization to terrorism, this paper showcases the role of terrorist discourse in radicalization of putative readers to violence against 'outgroups', by: first, viewing the social discursive process of radicalization as being an evaluative construct; second, focusing on syntactic patterns (within the Agency-Affectedness framework) and their pragmatic functions as identified in a set of texts produced by former al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.

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Why is it important?

This research article defines an analytical strategy that aids in threat assessment and preventing radicalisation by sensitizing assessors to, first, the kind of semiotic clues to engagement in the social and discursive process of radicalisation where utterances count as calls for action and activators of a reality of deontology. Second, the paper sensitizes analysts to the social functioning of terrorist texts in: (i) promoting putative readers’ awareness of particular outgroups, and (ii) ideological positioning and encouraging and legitimating violence that is liberty, loyalty and care metavalues-based. This paper helps investigators and forensic linguists to better understand terrorists’ ideological schemas (i.e. how terrorists think about what is being talked about) and identify the activities in which terrorists engage and their moral reasoning.

Perspectives

I hope that the insights introduced in this paper are interesting and a valuable contribution to both the scientific community and to the general public. I also hope that the forensic linguistic community find the analytical strategy a useful complementary method to the investigative approaches to understanding the language of aggression and conflict, which is crucial for maintaining peace, countering hate and preventing radicalisation to extremism worldwide.

Dr Awni Etaywe
Charles Darwin University

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This page is a summary of: Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal aggression in service of radicalisation, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, May 2022, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5.
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