TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of social affiliation in incitement
T2 - a social semiotic approach to far-right terrorists’ incitement to violence
AU - Etaywe, Awni
AU - Zappavigna, Michele
PY - 2024/9/1
Y1 - 2024/9/1
N2 - One key aspect of threat in terrorists' language is incitement to violence. Contributing to a fuller understanding of how terrorists use language to encourage people to join their cause, this article examines the role of evaluative language in incitement strategies used by a far-rightist to align with and alienate particular social groups. The Affiliation framework (Knight 2010a; Zappavigna 2011; Etaywe & Zappavigna 2021; Etaywe 2022a), as grounded in systemic functional linguistics, is used to understand how values and social bonds are leveraged in the process of incitement, as explored in a manifesto published online by Brenton Tarrant, preceding his 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand. The findings reveal two main affiliation strategies used for incitement: communion (forging solidarity and alignments) and alienation. These strategies function to construct opposing social groups in discourse, with the condemned groups positioned as a threat, hostility legitimated as morally reasonable, and violence as warranted.
AB - One key aspect of threat in terrorists' language is incitement to violence. Contributing to a fuller understanding of how terrorists use language to encourage people to join their cause, this article examines the role of evaluative language in incitement strategies used by a far-rightist to align with and alienate particular social groups. The Affiliation framework (Knight 2010a; Zappavigna 2011; Etaywe & Zappavigna 2021; Etaywe 2022a), as grounded in systemic functional linguistics, is used to understand how values and social bonds are leveraged in the process of incitement, as explored in a manifesto published online by Brenton Tarrant, preceding his 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand. The findings reveal two main affiliation strategies used for incitement: communion (forging solidarity and alignments) and alienation. These strategies function to construct opposing social groups in discourse, with the condemned groups positioned as a threat, hostility legitimated as morally reasonable, and violence as warranted.
KW - Far-right extremism, incitement, hate crimes, affiliation, morality of terrorism, forensic linguistics, conspiracy theory discourse
KW - forensic linguistics
KW - conspiracy theory discourse
KW - hate crimes
KW - incitement
KW - affiliation
KW - morality of terrorism
KW - Far-right extremism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85208237214&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0047404523000404
DO - 10.1017/S0047404523000404
M3 - Article
SN - 0047-4045
VL - 53
SP - 623
EP - 648
JO - Language in Society
JF - Language in Society
IS - 4
ER -