The Metadiscursive Construction of Computer-mediated Discourse in Arabic Newspaper Articles

Document Type : Original Article

Author

College of Language and Communication, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport

Abstract

With the spread of the Internet in the Arab worldو, Arab speakers, especially purists have come to view Comuputer-mediated Discourse (CMD) as a threat to Arabic language, culture and identity. Arab newspapers and other media have thus long tended to portray CMD in a negative light. This metadiscourse (discourse about discourse) is worthy of research since it is a tool not only for reflecting attitudes and beliefs, but also for shaping ideologies. In this study, a number of articles discussing the effect of the Internet on the Arabic language were gathered from online Arabic newspapers from 2016 till 2022. Drawing upon methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1992, 1995), the sample articles are analyzed with the aim of investigating how traditional media portrays CMD. By examining this metadiscourse, the study seeks to find out the main themes in the discursive representation of the language of CMD in Arab newspaper articles. A number of salient themes were detected including primarily those that portray CMD as a threat to Arabic language and link it to the deterioration of linguistic proficiency among young people and their loss of identity. The study points, however, to a number of counter voices which point out the advantages of CMD as a modern and innovative form of communication. Therefore, the metadiscursive representation of CMD reveals a relationship between this discourse and a number of conflicting ideologies and points to a significant sociocultural change in the Arab world.

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