Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
2 Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
The revolutionary waves of the Arab Spring generated an extensive array of political slogans. This study aims to examine the slogans collected from protest and sit-in sites in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. The primary research question asks: “How and through which discursive mechanisms did these slogans function as a medium for conveying political critique, and by adopting what strategies did they establish themselves as a distinct subgenre within Arab political discourse?”. This qualitative, descriptive-analytical research employs van Dijk’s method of political discourse analysis to explore the specific discursive structures and strategies utilized in these slogans to shape a subgenre of political discourse in the Arab world. Data were drawn from banners, graffiti, audiovisual materials, chants, speeches, poems, and songs to assess the extent to which these slogans serve as a medium for articulating and consuming political opinions and criticisms. Findings reveal that the topics, intertextual schemas, local semantics and vocabulary, syntactic forms, rhetorical operations, expressive structures, and speech acts of these slogans collectively demonstrate that Arab Spring slogans constitute a fundamental component of political discourse.
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