Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Parisa Rezaei Fedeshkoyeh ¹
• Bahram Akhavan Kazemi ²

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

Introduction
The revolutionary movements of the Arab Spring, which began in 2010, did more than reshape political regimes; they marked a watershed in the evolution of political discourse across the Arab world. This period witnessed a linguistic and rhetorical explosion in the public sphere, most notably in the widespread use of street slogans. Relying on colloquial language, cultural metaphors, political humor, and music, these slogans became vehicles for expressing anger, articulating demands, and forging collective identity. In contexts where official media were tightly controlled by authoritarian regimes, slogans functioned as alternative tools for articulating protest, opinion, and public sentiment. They not only conveyed political messages but also generated meaning and redefined the discursive terrain of power.
The present research aimed to analyze the function of language in the production and representation of political discourse through Arab Spring slogans. It sought to answer the following research questions: How did the grassroots slogans of the Arab Spring function as media for conveying political criticism? Through which discursive mechanisms did they operate? And what discursive strategies enabled them to establish themselves as a distinctive subgenre within Arab political discourse? The study is based on hypothesis that the slogans of the Arab Spring employed key discursive strategies, including message simplification, moral polarization (we/they), appeals to a wounded collective identity, and emotional mobilization through rhythmic chants and symbolic imagery. These strategies supposedly functioned not only as effective alternative media for expressing radical political and social criticism, but also as means of reinterpreting and expanding the norms of political discourse. In doing so, they established themselves as a distinct, dynamic, and persuasive subgenre within contemporary Arab political discourse.
Literature Review
The literature examined the relationship between language and politics in the context of the Arab Spring. In this respect, studies such as Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories From the Arab Revolutions (Al-Saleh, 2024) offered vivid first-hand accounts of participant experiences.  Concerning political linguistics, several scholars have explored the ways slogans express ideology. Notable examples include: “The Rhetorical Functions of Slogans: Classifications and Characteristics” (Denton, 1980), Advertising Slogans of America (Sharp, 1984), and Crafting Equality: America’s Anglo-African Word (Condit & Lucaites, 1993). However, most of these studies focus on the symbolic or rhetorical dimensions of revolutions rather than on slogans themselves. Even in studies that address Arab Spring slogans, analysis has often emphasized thematic or ideological content rather than linguistic structure.
The current study differs in two main respects. First, it goes beyond the discourse of the Egyptian revolution to examine slogans used in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Although these countries shared similar grievances, their slogans may reveal notable ideological and dialectal differences. Second, unlike previous research, this study does not merely classify thematic content; instead, it offers a detailed discourse–analytic examination of the strategies protesters used to persuade audiences of the legitimacy of their demands.
Materials and Methods
As a qualitative, descriptive–analytical inquiry, the present study employed van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework to examine the structures, rhetorical strategies, and ideological dimensions of slogans collected from Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. The data was collected from banners, graffiti, videos, speeches, chants, poems, and songs associated with the uprisings.
Results and Discussion
According to the results, Arab Spring slogans did more than simply convey direct criticism; they also redefined the parameters of political discourse. The findings support the hypothesis that their emergence as a distinct and effective subgenre of political discourse can be attributed to four key strategies: message simplification, absolute moral polarization (we/they), appeals to collective identity, and emotional mobilization. These strategies did not operate in isolation; rather, they interacted across three macro-level functions: delegitimizing the existing regime, legitimizing a revolutionary alternative, and mobilizing collective action through the construction of a shared identity.
Concerning the first level, message simplification was achieved through syntactic brevity, including verbless nominal clauses, imperatives, and elisions; moreover, moral polarization was produced through a binary lexical–pronominal system (i.e., an inclusive we versus an excluded they). They helped divide the social world into two opposing camps of good and evil. This mechanism articulated a critical and delegitimizing message about the common enemy in a way that was clear, forceful, and easily understood and transmitted to mass audiences.
At the second level, the antagonism was not merely destructive. Instead, by invoking a wounded collective identity, it redefined a we that demanded justice, dignity, and freedom. The use of vocative and exhortative verbal forms directly engaged audiences and helped construct a coherent, utopian revolutionary identity in opposition to the hegemonic discourses of the regimes. In this way, the slogans functioned to legitimize the alternative identity they sought to represent.
Finally, the most effective factor in consolidating this subgenre was emotional mobilization through rhetorical and expressive devices. Rhyme, parallelism, alliteration, repetition, and multimodality (i.e., the combination of text with image and music) transformed complex political messages into powerful, memorable, and transmissible semantic units in the form of slogans. As these slogans spread like semantic viruses, they functioned effectively as an alternative medium, evolving into striking, memorable, and replicable instruments that amplified shared affect and collective resolve. Through speech acts such as commands and imperatives, slogans ceased to be mere critiques and instead became agents that claimed sovereign prerogatives and worked to establish a new discursive order. In this way, slogans moved beyond criticism and turned became symbolic acts that created a space for the enactment of popular power.
Conclusion
Arab Spring slogans displayed distinct discursive patterns designed to generate meaning, persuade audiences, and mobilize society. They fall into four main categories: anti-regime slogans; identity-forming slogans invoking Islamic or pan-Arab solidarity; socioeconomic protest slogans addressing economic and livelihood concerns; and political humor slogans mocking leaders and challenging official legitimacy. As concise yet content-rich texts, these slogans compressed multiple semantic layers into compact forms.
Relying on a combination of these strategies, Arab Spring slogans expanded the boundaries of political discourse. By moving beyond formal, unidirectional modes of communication, they fostered a participatory, multimedia, and affect-driven discourse in which language itself became a political act—reclaiming the right to speak and redefining power relations. This discursive model constituted a meaning-making ecosystem in which every linguistic element—from a pronoun to a rhyme—would work in concert both to dismantle the symbolic world of authoritarian regimes and to construct a new symbolic order grounded in collective will. Thus, these slogans established themselves not merely as an alternative medium but as a distinct, dynamic, and persuasive subgenre within contemporary Arab political discourse, whose effectiveness was proved in practice.

Keywords

• Political Slogan
• Political Discourse Analysis
• Van Dijk
• Arab World
• Arab Spring

Main Subjects

• Political Sociology