تمثيل النسوية في احتجاجات تشرين العراقية لعام ٢٠١٩ في بعض وسائل الإعلام الغربية: تحليل أيجابي للخطاب

The Representation of Feminism in the Iraqi October Protests 2019 in Some Western Media: A Positive Discourse Analysis

Abstract
The current study is a positive discourse analysis (PDA) of the representation of feminism in the Iraqi October protests of 2019 in some Western media. This research aims to probe the linguistic resources through which texts and speakers come to express, negotiate, and naturalise particular inter-subjective and ideological positions. Likewise, it seeks to investigate the theme of solidarity regarding the role of women during the Iraqi protests of 2019 to uncover the hidden ideology of the writers.
The study endeavours to answer the following research questions: (a) what are the lexical items used by the writers to construct a positive image of the role of women during the protests of 2019? (b) what are the speech acts utilised in the texts to emphasise the positive images and solidarity during the protests of 2019? (c) how is the discursive strategy of collective pronoun utilised in the texts to support the theme of solidarity? And (d) what ideology does the Western media try to disseminate to the public?
The researcher uses an eclectic model for the analysis, consisting of Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory, Searle’s (1979) speech acts, and Wilson’s (1990) strategic use of pronouns to carry out a PDA analysis. Additionally, a qualitative approach is used in data analysis.
Based on the findings, the study concludes that the writers utilise multiple attitude resources in the texts that represent the role of women during the Iraqi protests of 2019. Further, diverse attitudes such as affect, judgment, and appreciation are used, and most of these attitudes are positive feelings. Moreover, the writers employ different speech acts and utilise collective pronouns to convey facts and images of solidarity about women’s participation and role. Ideologically speaking, the writers display the conflicting polarisation between feminists’ “self” and those against them and societal norms as “other”.