Deception is a misrepresentation of reality that attracted many researchers examining it from various perspectives. However, no due attention has been given to the discursive deception strategies in the work of think tanks. This study aims at exposing the deception strategies deployed in the conservative American think tanks’ discourse which concern itself with the (re)production of socio-political realities. The study holds the significance of the detection and explication of argumentative and pragmatic discursive deception strategies which impose ideological hegemony and socio-political polarization of the positively presented Self against the negatively presented Other. This study attempts to answer a twofold question: what are the discursive deception strategies involved in the work of think tanks, and why/how these strategies are applied? To this end, eight political texts from three think tanks were analyzed adopting an eclectic model based on van Dijk (2000) and Yule (1996). The analyzed data mainly focuses on four political themes namely (1) terrorism in Islam, (2) Russian role in the Middle East, (3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, (4) the U.S. policy in the Middle East. The results demonstrate the pervasiveness of discursive deception strategies in the think tanks’ discourse which endeavor to communicate an ideological polarization of a positive presentation of the Self against a negative presentation of the Other and reinforce a hegemony of particular socio-political realities. Findings can be beneficial for students of (critical) discourse analysis, media, communications studies, and English for special purposes.
Deception is a misrepresentation of reality that attracted many researchers examining it from various perspectives. However, no due attention has been given to the discursive deception strategies in the work of think tanks. This study aims at exposing the deception strategies deployed in the conservative American think tanks’ discourse which concern itself with the (re)production of socio-political realities. The study holds the significance of the detection and explication of argumentative and pragmatic discursive deception strategies which impose ideological hegemony and socio-political polarization of the positively presented Self against the negatively presented Other. This study attempts to answer a twofold question: what are the discursive deception strategies involved in the work of think tanks, and why/how these strategies are applied? To this end, eight political texts from three think tanks were analyzed adopting an eclectic model based on van Dijk (2000) and Yule (1996). The analyzed data mainly focuses on four political themes namely (1) terrorism in Islam, (2) Russian role in the Middle East, (3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, (4) the U.S. policy in the Middle East. The results demonstrate the pervasiveness of discursive deception strategies in the think tanks’ discourse which endeavor to communicate an ideological polarization of a positive presentation of the Self against a negative presentation of the Other and reinforce a hegemony of particular socio-political realities. Findings can be beneficial for students of (critical) discourse analysis, media, communications studies, and English for special purposes
While relatively decent attention has been paid to the analysis of ideological discursive strategies deployed by the political policy-producing institutions of think tanks, this study uncovers the strategies in the discourse of American think tanks that attempt to ideologically (re)produce social realities and shape public opinion at the textual and semantic levels. To this end, an eclectic model of critical discourse analysis CDA is adopted to qualitatively and quantitatively deconstruct and interpret nine texts from three conservative think tanks focusing on three political issues namely (1) Islamic terrorism, (2) Russian role in the Middle East, and (3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The findings show the centrality of ideological discursive strategies in (a) polarizing a positive presentation of the US (in-group) against the negative presentation of THEM (out-group), and (b) advocating for a hegemony of current and/or desired socio-political realities.
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