Abstract
Manipulative verbal influence is an immanent feature of modern international communication. Successful realization of the suggestive aspect allows the speaker to exert influence on the recipient’s worldview and ingrain certain ideological attitudes in their mind. This situation is characteristic of various types of discourse: political, advertising and media. However, the most dangerous for political stability and safety is utilization of persuasive linguistic devices by extremist groups and terrorist organizations. Thus, research in this field has become extremely relevant. The article presents linguistic analysis of such manifestations of destructive manipulation in the Islamic State (IS) speech, found in their official video messages. The analysis was carried out on the material of the official IS video messages, obtained through the selective sampling method on the video hosting website YouTube. Within the framework of the research we distinguish, classify and subject to a thorough linguistic analysis of conceptual metaphors which are used by the terrorists. The data obtained enables us to make a conclusion regarding the key role of conceptual metaphor in realization of the IS speaker’s communicative intention, which presupposes attracting the recipient’s attention to their activities and creating a radicalized ideological attitude in the minds of the audience. Furthermore, we prove that the metaphor is deliberately used by the terrorists to successfully fulfill their pragmatic intention, which involves manipulating the recipient. The provisions developed as part of the study and the results of the analysis can be further applied in modelling the mechanisms to confront and counteract terrorist suggestion in cyberspace and mass media.
Highlights
To date, extremist groups’ and terrorist organizations’ use of information and communication technologies is considered to be one of the most socially significant global problems
The analyzed set of conceptual metaphors in the Islamic State (IS) video messages allows us to conclude that, despite their varying linguistic expressions in terrorist discourse, all conceptual metaphors perform the same function — they contribute to realization of suggestive influence, which consists in embedding certain ideas into the public opinion and forming asocial, anti-political and pseudo-religious attitudes
The analysis has revealed that the Islamic State speakers employ a set of preemptively devised conceptual metaphors that could be distributed to three categories: orientational, ontological and structural
Summary
Extremist groups’ and terrorist organizations’ use of information and communication technologies is considered to be one of the most socially significant global problems. Linguistic manipulation, which is defined in the following way: hidden verbal influence on a recipient intentionally making them confused concerning the initial meaning and contents of speech (Danilova 2009: 12), is regarded as an immanent feature of modern international communication. Taking into consideration the fact that the main aim of subtle linguistic manipulation is forming definite attitude towards some public or political events in minds of target recipients, a speaker needs to pay special attention to putting new meanings and connotations into lexical formatives to be used, as well as to choosing a synonymous word containing either pejorative or meliorative emotive component (depending on the speaker’s intention). Baigarina (2004) notes that active use of a metaphor with its ability to change perception in a way it is desired should be seen as refusing to openly propagate ideas and shows a speaker’s intention to manipulate the general public subtly
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