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Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal aggression in service of radicalisation

Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal... ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 OPEN Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal aggression in service of radicalisation Awni Etaywe The social, discursive practice of othering in violent extremist discourse serves to present outgroups as distant yet real threats to the ideological and physical territories of an ingroup which a terrorist claims to represent. However, the role of grammatical choices (namely, non/transactive construction, voice, and mood) in enacting the othering act within the context of radicalisation to terrorism remains to be empirically verified. This paper explores the patterning and pragmatic functions—namely in framing situations, coercing into violence, and legitimising hostile actions against Others—of the syntactic structure of the othering utterances. The othering utterances, as realized in a set of eight public statements produced by former al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, were sorted manually and analysed qualita- tively to help understand and showcase how grammar was strategically leveraged in the process of radicalisation. Results show that the act of othering in the dataset operates within the victimization and injustice frameworks to morally sanction antagonism and aggression via: (i) overt othering, where transactive construction, only declarative mood and active voice are used, and (ii) covert othering, in which nontransactive construction, any mood type, and passive voice are utilized. Overt othering foregrounds, through assertions and statements of presumed facts, the negative agentive role of Others and the diagnostic framing of the causal relationships between Others and negative experiences. Covert othering backgrounds this agentive role to place prominence on immoral actions and to serve in the motivational function of framing. The grammatical patterns provide evidence of the strategic character of OBL’s verbal aggression and how different mood types tend to construct the directive, illo- cutionary point of the utterances and to enact prognostic framing. The analytical strategy aids in threat assessment and preventing radicalisation by sensitizing assessors to, first, the kind of semiotic clues to engagement in the social and discursive process of radicalisation where utterances count as calls for action and activators of a reality of deontology, and, second, to the social functioning of terrorist texts in: (i) promoting putative readers’ awareness of particular outgroups, and (ii) ideological positioning and encouraging and legitimating vio- lence that is liberty, loyalty and care metavalues-based. 1 ✉ University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. email: a.etaywe@unsw.edu.au HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 1 1234567890():,; ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 Introduction inguistic analysis of terrorism cases has been found to be practice of othering and hostile relationships are ideologically useful in helping security investigators to understand ter- motivated and can manifest in the patterns of the “relationship Lrorist discourse, explore terrorists’ ideological schemas (i.e. between language form [choice] and language use [which] how terrorists think about what is being talked about) and involves cognitive processes” (Verschueren, 2009, pp. 1–2). The identify the activities in which terrorists engage (Shuy, 2020). To practice of othering in terrorist communication is considered—in achieve this linguistic support for intelligence analysis and Min’s(2008, p. 74) terms—an “intrinsically face-threatening act” security tasks, a linguist may draw on a range of principles and which operates contrary to Leech’s(1980, 1983) maxims of tools including those in the disciplines of syntax, pragmatics and politeness (particularly the sympathy maxim) in relation to semantics (Shuy, 2010). Contributing to a better understanding of viewing outgroups (in contrast to viewing an ingroup). While the the discursive practice of othering and its moral reasoning in the notion of politeness—developed by Brown and Levinson context of radicalisation to terrorism, this paper showcases the (1978, 1987)—is usually employed “to show awareness” of exploration of different othering strategies, the syntactic resources another person’s or group’s face (Yule, 1996, p. 60), in the employed in these strategies and their pragmatic functions, as practice of othering a terrorist utilizes ‘impoliteness’ (e.g. realized in eight public statements produced by Osama bin Laden Culpeper, 2011) as public face attacks to show and promote (OBL, henceforth). Since pragmatics needs to “hook up” not only awareness of outgroups’ negative agentive role, as a way to cause to syntax and lexis but also to semantics, particularly, when offence or incite for an offence against people with distinct master interpreting the illocutionary acts or points of utterances (Butler, identities (e.g. religions) and social affiliations. 1988, p. 96), this paper expands its analytic scope to also include The concept of affiliation construction—i.e. constructing group this pragmatics semantics-hook up in the act of othering. membership (Higgins, 2007)—that is based on master identities is In this paper, ‘othering’ refers to the interpersonal act of also central to the act of othering and radicalising cross-border categorising the world into ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ based on (i) ingroup addressees to violence against ‘bad’ outgroups (see e.g. representing via grammar who is doing what to whom, and (ii) Straun, 2009; Mandel, 2010; Smith et al., 2016; Smith, 2018; building a dichotomy of opposing social groups with distinct Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021). Recent research into radicalised master identities whereby outgroups are depicted as a morally and violent extremist discourse (e.g. Chiluwa, 2015) reveals that distant, yet ‘real’ ideological and physical threat to the ingroup promoting these affiliations while positively constructing an that an author (e.g. OBL) allegedly represents. The significance of ingroup and negatively constructing particular outgroups is a examining the act of othering in terrorist context lies in illus- major strategy used in radicalist discourse. This exploitation of trating how investigators may obtain a fuller understanding of the identity and worldviews serves in influencing (i.e. constructing, strategic character of a terrorist’s verbal aggression via identifying maintaining, promoting, challenging and/or changing) the views the grammatical patterns used in othering and framing the of members of the ingroup and their perception of the way the divisive inter-group relationship. Exactly what role these gram- world should (not) be, which ultimately promotes ingroup pre- matical choices play and in which pattern they manifest in ter- judices and radicalises into hostile inter-group relationships based rorist language remain to be empirically verified, which is a on “an evaluative construct” of the world (Mandel, 2010; Adams contribution of this paper. This paper takes the dataset produced et al., 2011, p. 5). In this study, first, radicalisation is considered to by OBL as a case study. The paper also seeks to add to the tools be an evaluative construct, and, second, attention is drawn to the available for unlocking the links between morality, hate, identity, master identities constructed in discourse and to the linguistic framing, and the triune act of “stancetaking” (i.e. evaluation, dis/ strategy of constructing agency and affectedness—in terms of alignment, and ideological positioning) (Du Bois, 2007, p. 162) who is presented with roles of Agency or Affectedness—as an construed in the language choices made in the OBL radicalising evaluative strategy used to ideologically position putative readers texts. Focus is placed on how the syntactic construction serves to to favour ingroup and disfavour outgroups (see White, 2006). radicalise putative readers, to coerce (i.e. generate fear of ‘Others’ A well-established starting point to the study of the discursive in the ingroup members) (e.g. Cap, 2017), and to legitimise construction of otherness is the analysis of sentence structure, hostility and aggression against outgroups. The grammatical primary participants and their roles—primarily the verbs with choices are taken as markers of managing, (re)producing and/or which the participants are associated and the different types of sustaining negative perceptions of outgroups, and inter-group relationships these participants have to these verbs at the level of antagonism and aggressive relations. That is, in Crystal’s(2008,p. syntax (Sykes, 1988). By focusing on the construction of Agency 379) terms, these grammatical choices are considered here fea- and Affectedness, I argue, we can obtain a picture of how an tures that do play a role in the social functioning of terrorist texts extremist seeks to forge ingroup alignments, and disalignments and in “expressing a range of attitudes and relationships”. with outgroups, making the perceptions of who belongs to the in/ outgroup’saffiliation and who is assuming which role essential to the act of othering and radicalising into violence. This argument Literature review is aligned with recent research into the role of stancetaking and There are many approaches to the study of othering inside and identity in terrorist discourse which has found challenges tar- outside linguistics and to its social and ideological functions in geting ingroup values and master identities to be a basis for online and offline communication and in contexts of, for exam- inciting for violence and justifying personal and relational iden- ple, hate, racism, Islamophobia, media and politics (see e.g. tities (see e.g. Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021). That is, violence is Holslag, 2015; Silva, 2017; Lams, 2017, 2018; Farkas et al., 2018; promoted as “one form of response to these challenges” (Lutz and Perry and Mason, 2018). Othering, in these studies and also in Lutz, 2008, p. 100) and is justified on the basis that a terrorist is this paper, is considered an ideological, social and discursive “distant from/or superior to ‘Others’ vs. close to in-group’s practice par excellence. That is, since a language user can con- members” (relational identity) and is thus “aggressive and struct multiple versions of the social experiences by various lin- antagonistic towards ‘Others’ vs. caring towards in-group’s guistic choices, the strategic choice to use particular grammatical members” (personal identity) (Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021,p. options in discourse is never devoid of their ideological aspect or 10). In addition, aligned with Sykes’ (1988) suggestion that a social impact (Silverstein, 1992, p. 313; Butt et al., 2004). In this sentence structure-based analysis of the act of othering is useful, study, I adopt the general theoretical orientation that inter-group this paper allows for focusing on (i) participants’ roles within a 2 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE conflict context which “can also be impacted upon by syntactic immigrants) has identified a key role of language in the portrayal transformation”, and (ii) who is in the Agent role or Patient role of outgroups and shaping the ingroup audience’s awareness of undergoing particular experiences (Thetela, 2001, p. 352). Pandey and attitudes towards a ‘negative’ reality (e.g. migration flows). (2004) has found that focusing on some syntactic features can Such portrayal stimulates the putative readers’ compassion or yield insights into how strategic choices of grammar in particular adversarial stance towards outgroups. Lams’ (2017) critical dis- contexts may play a role in polarising identities and defining a course analysis of Chinese official media’s linguistic construction ‘Them’ versus ‘Us’ opposition. For example, the use of passive or of America and Japan has also highlighted the role of language in active voice can mitigate or stress othering (Pandey, 2004). promoting Others as foreign and antagonist within a victim/ This ‘Self versus Others’ construction of relationships and roles aggressor framework. This promotion has also been accomplished serves to promote collective hate actions and manages to present through the grammatical choices made by politicians such as Others as a threat and the ingroup’s violence as morally justified George W. Bush and military commanders like the British (Reicher et al., 2008). In this paper, attention is also drawn to the Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins: to endow positive semantic roles moral reasoning of ‘our’ violence against Others and to the to the exhorted coalition and troops deployed in Iraq and to “moral disengagement” from outgroups, specifically to “diffusion allocate negative roles to the incited-against Iraqis, to ultimately of responsibility”, that is, assigning blame and responsibility to legitimize the coalition’s operations in the 2003 war on Iraq (Butt outgroups to lay a moral ground for justifying hostility and vio- et al., 2004). lence against them (Bandura, 2016, p. 62). In short, I consider the In sum, as informed by the literature, this paper is concerned moral frameworks, or alternatively metavalues, that OBL draws with three aspects of analysis of the act of othering. The first is the on to provide clues to an extremist’s predisposition and ideological positioning and alignment of ingroup readers against assumptions about Self and moral reasonings behind othering outgroup social actors as realized in the assigned roles of Agency and hostility. Given the disdain many feel for terrorists and and Affectedness. The second is the “identity work” (Tracy and radical groups (Khosrokhavar, 2014), I argue that a terrorist Robles, 2002, p. 7) relating to informing an extremist’s linguistic mobilises these moral expectations to discourse in order to structure to frame experiences in a way that rationalizes hostility establish a connection between the advocated violence and the and creates, presents, sustains or/and challenges groups with ingroup addressees’ moral values so that the addressees are particular master identities (see e.g. Smith et al., 2016; Smith, morally disengaged from Others (and their immoral acts) and 2018). The third is the moral underpinning of grammatical morally engaged with the ingroup and for its benefit. According choices which can provide indications of predispositions and to Parvaresh (2019), a consideration of predispositions and assumptions relating to how the world ought (not) to be and how assumptions can provide clues as to how certain experiences are certain experiences should be responded to. These three aspects responded to and how social roles, expectations, rights and duties are aligned with recent findings of sociological research on are activated in discourse. Informed by recent literature on the radicalisation to terrorism (e.g. Smith, 2018) in that terrorist moral foundations of evaluation and acts of impoliteness (e.g. narratives and belief systems and identity processes, which Spencer-Oatey and Kádár, 2016; Kádár, 2017; Kádár et al., 2019), include framing social issues and experiences, are major facil- a particular set of metavalues can be identified as regulating and itators of radicalisation to terrorism. providing a reasoning for inter-group conflicts, evaluations and The grammatical choices used in the practice of othering are interpersonal relationships, just as a language user’s ideological investigated in terms of the degree of directness, or alternatively and cultural moral orders can set expectations for metavalues foregroundedness and obliqueness. In other words, the gram- such as ‘loyalty’ to the ingroup and ‘care’ for the ingroup’s vul- matical choices are examined as to how direct or indirect, or nerability (Van Langenhove, 2017). The construction of Agency alternatively “overt” or “covert” (Pandey, 2004, p. 161), othering and Affectedness, I argue, can provide insights into the moral is expressed and for what pragmatic purposes. This variable of orders constructed in discourse and the morality underpinning directness is established based on the straightforwardness in the the evaluative construct. causal relationship established between outgroup participants The grammatical construction of experiences can also serve to and their negative actions that influence ‘Us’. This relationship promote and manage awareness about Others and how to treat can be demonstrated, for example, through naming or pronom- them through particular framing—i.e. organising situations and inal references in, for example, Agent versus Patient role. establishing “definitions of a situation” (Goffman, 1974, p. 10). According to Sykes (1988), this role can be realized (in)directly in Grammatical options can facilitate our making-sense of dis- Subject and Object names/pronouns in (non)transactive and cursively constructed social experiences, in terms of commu- active or passive constructions. Of interest to this paper is also nicating to putative readers a range of information about social the influence of choice of mood type in the pragmatics of actors and their roles and agency. This communication includes: othering. The role of mood types (declarative, imperative, and informing about who should be viewed as being responsible for interrogative) in the pragmatics of violent speech acts (e.g. the ‘bad’ goings-on (the “diagnostic” function of framing); sug- communicated threats) has been found to be crucial in activating gesting counteractions (the “prognostic” function); and motivat- the parameter of coercion, exercising power, and realizing a ing to violence as a duty (the “motivational” function)—for more violent actor’s commitment to violence (Martínez, 2013). As on the social functions of framing in contexts of radicalisation to such, a particular choice of syntactic construction: can give rise to terrorism and social activism, see Smith (2018) and Benford and negotiated inter-group relationships and facilitate communica- Snow (2000, pp. 615–618), respectively. This management of tion of information about different social actors and their social awareness thus has a rhetorical effect of guiding audiences on roles (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014); and can enable us to how they may structure a common worldview of a dichotomous identify the “illocutionary point” of an utterance, that is, its representation of who is good versus evil, right versus wrong, purpose, whether it is “assertive”, “directive”, “commissive”, acceptable versus unacceptable, and blameworthy versus praise- “expressive” or a “declaration” (Searle, 1999, pp. 147–150). worthy—a representation that serves in presenting a violent goal as an ingroup’s collective enterprise (see also Cap, 2017, for similar argument). Methodology Lams’ (2018) analysis of the discursive construction of other- Data. Eight written public statements produced by OBL over ness (in a different context though—that is, press narratives about 2001–2006 were analysed in this study. This paper does not seek HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 3 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 to investigate othering in all texts of OBL, nor does it claim to the sociopolitical environment that followed the 9/11 attacks. The provide findings that are representative of othering choices across OBL linguistic choices are taken as being influenced by his view other samples of OBL. Instead, it showcases how an extremist’s of the conflict with the Americans—that is, the US-led war is strategic, grammatical choices within a dataset can offer insights considered oppression, aggression and a crusade aimed at into the extremist’s aggression, audience manipulation and subjugating Muslims and desecrating Islam and, thus, requires stoking hate, by shedding light on the foregroundedness of power Muslims to fight the US aggression and drive the Americans and relations. The eight statements were taken from the publicly their allies out of the Muslim countries (Miller, 2015). Since I am available al-Buraq al-I’lamyiah’s ‘al-Archive al-Jami’ (i.e. the more concerned in this paper with the grammatical choices, Collective Archive) of the OBL statements. The translations were references to the context of the exemplified utterances are drawn from sources such as the Al-Jazeera news network, the CIA included in the “Results and discussion” section in brackets after Foreign Broadcast Information Service’s ‘January 2004 report’, each example, e.g. (OBL1). In addition, a short elaboration on the and the author of this paper (see e.g. FBIS Report, 2006). The context of an utterance is provided where needed. texts analysed were used in Etaywe and Zappavigna (2021)to identify the patterns of attitudinal meanings realized in repeated, evaluatively loaded lexical items, as a means to get at OBL’s Data analysis procedure. The analysis of the othering utterances personal and relational identities. For the purpose of this paper, at the syntactic level was undertaken as a lens on audience English translations of the same statements were analysed after manipulation and negotiating power relation-enactment and clause constructions were reviewed and verified as faithful to the blameworthiness. The meaning of an utterance or alternatively “a source texts’ grammatical structures as determined through sentence [was] determined by the meaning of the words and the comparison with the original texts. This review was undertaken syntactical arrangement of the words in the sentence” (Searle, by the author, a native speaker of Arabic and a recognized 1999, p. 140). To obtain a manageable number of utterances, the English–Arabic translator. analysis focused on the utterances in which violent parts of The texts are from OBL’s letters and speeches, or alternatively speech (i.e. words with violent content, e.g. death, killed, bom- public statements of his goals and values, and they communicate bardment) (see also Muschalik, 2018) were used and reference to inciting and threatening messages to multiple audiences (see primary participants was obvious. Analogising with Leets and Table 1). OBL1 and OBL3 are texts that communicate threats Giles’ (1997, p. 262) “fighting words”, the analysed utterances against the American people in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks were referred to as fighting utterances, given the fighting colour and in light of the US aggression against Iraq. OBL2, OBL4 and (i.e. load) strung throughout these utterances. The choice of OBL5 address the Iraqis and Muslims in general, inciting them to examining the primary participants in these utterances was driven jihad against the American troops in Iraq. OBL6 is a statement of by two factors. First, naming a third person (e.g. Americans, incitement against Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia Bush) as well as using additional referents (e.g. third person and his support of the Americans and his initiative for peace with pronouns such as they, he)reflects that the author has defined the Israel. OBL7 and OBL8 address the Pakistani and Afghan people, ‘our’ group to a great extent by the existence of opposing Others respectively, and incite them for jihad against the US-led (see also Pennebaker and Chung, 2007). Second, this analysis operations in Afghanistan. departs from the premise of ‘existential’ presupposition (see Yule, The OBL statements were produced in the period following the 1996), that is, the explicit naming of and pronominal reference to 9/11 attacks on the USA in 2001. In this period, the US President rival or opposing primary participants (i.e. America) presuppose George W. Bush declared the war against al-Qaeda and a number that the ‘X’ Other and ‘Their’ actions exist or are real. AntConc of Muslim countries (e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq) as a ‘crusade’, software (Anthony, 2019) was used to identify the prominent and Bush led a polarising campaign where countries worldwide actors, their pronominal references and the predicates associated were invited to choose to be either with or against America in this with these actors. This exploration allowed for focusing on the war (Ray, 2017). The aftermath of the 9/11 attacks created greater primary participants in discourse and considering the partici- distrust between the Americans and Arab/Muslim societies pants and their master identities to be the “deictic centre” (Cap, (Miller, 2015), particularly in light of declaring the so-called 2017, p. 5) of the othering practice in the dataset. The violent ‘global war against terrorism’ which targeted Muslim majority parts of speech that occurred more than once in the dataset were countries. In this polarising sociopolitical environment, the OBL identified, using AntConc. Then, the construction of the utter- statements were also of polarising and radicalising nature (Etaywe ances containing these words and the primary participants (or and Zappavigna, 2021). OBL’s public statements, thus, offer additional referents to them, e.g. pronouns) was analysed. For compellingly appropriate material for examining othering as a more accuracy in the choice of utterances analysed, the exact form of language aggression performed in a war context, and give utterances were sorted manually and were analysed qualitatively. a representation of utterances and grammatical structures used in This paper takes an independent “clause as speech act” the act of othering in conflict context. The offensive potential of (Halliday, 1973, p. 40). It also considers OBL’s strategic choices the grammatical choices in the dataset is interpreted in relation to “in the construction of linguistic forms—sentences” to be serving Table 1 Overview of the OBL dataset. Text code Title/topic Date of delivery OBL1 A message to the American People 29 Oct 2004 OBL2 A message to Iraqis in particular, and Muslims in General 18 Oct 2003 OBL3 A message to the American People (on Aggression on Iraq) 18 Oct 2003 OBL4 A message to the Muslim Ummah 7 Oct 2001 OBL5 A message to the People of Iraq in Particular, and Muslims in General (throw out regimes) 11 Feb 2003 OBL6 A statement on Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’ Initiative for Peace with Israel 28 Mar 2002 OBL7 A message to the Pakistani people 24 Sep 2001 OBL8 A message to the Afghan people 15 Aug 2002 4 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE in realizing “options in meaning […] and behaviour” (Halliday, moral actions, given that “performing illocutionary acts is 1973, p. 52). Each fighting utterance or sentence was examined imposing a type of status function” in an interpersonal relation- manually to identify its ship (Searle, 1999, p. 147). I argue for Heritage’s(2012,p.7) contention that consideration of the epistemic status of a speaker syntactic construction—transactive or non-transactive, i.e. in relation to the selected grammatical forms is “a critical resource clauses with ‘agent-verb-affected participant’ construction for determining the status of the utterance as an action” for or clauses with one participant construction, respectively radicalising stances and perceptions. (see Examples 1 and 16, respectively, in the section “Results The othering paradigm of analysis was based on the and discussion”). construction of ‘Us’, the oppressed and undergoing injustices, mood—clause type that is declarative, imperative or and ‘Them’, the oppressors, through grammatical choices. To interrogative, i.e. clauses with Subject^Finite, Predicator sensitize us to the role of identity work in informing the linguistic (non-finite) or Finite^Subject sequence, respectively (as in structure of framing the issues and situations that al-Qaeda seeks Examples 1, 10, and 19, respectively). to address, within the oppressed Muslims versus oppressor others voice—that is either active, i.e. a clause with normal linking dichotomy, three framing functions were considered as informed of Agent to Subject and Patient to Object, or passive which by Benford and Snow (2000): links Patient to Subject (see Examples 1 and 10, respectively). Diagnostic framing: in which a structure focuses on identification of a problem and source of the problem. Inspired by Cap’s(2017) discursive functions of othering and Motivational framing: in which a structure serves in threat-construction as well as by Pandey’s(2004) overt and covert providing a call or rationale for engaging in collective, othering, the grammatical selections were mapped onto two violent actions. broad types of othering: Prognostic framing: in which a structure implies the articulation of proposed solutions, or an action that Overt othering: in which the responsibility for perceived negative actions is overtly assigned to the (‘Other’) Agent as addresses the problem (e.g. incitement to ‘martyrhood a basis for othering. That is, the grammatical choices of operations’ against the Americans, and ‘civil disobedience’ construction, mood and voice are strategically deployed to against Arab rulers who support the Americans). foreground the exercise of power by ‘Others’ as well as the In addition, for a better understanding of the moral casual relationships between ‘Others’ and negatively assumptions and considerations underpinning the assigning of perceived actions/‘realities’ which are targeting ‘Our’ group. agency and affectedness roles of participants, four moral These choices are thought of as being in service of the metavalues were considered. In so doing, I draw on recent conceptualisation of others as a threat to ‘Us’, which serves research into the morality of social actions and evaluation to exclude ‘Them’ in a step towards coercing (generating suggesting that evaluation in aggression and conflictive contexts is fear of ‘Others’) and legitimating ‘Our’ hostile actions. sustained by culturally and contextually sensitive, moral founda- Covert othering: in which the causal relationship and tions (see e.g. Ståhl et al., 2016; Parvaresh, 2019; Etaywe and responsibility for negative actions targeting ‘Us’ is back- Zappavigna, 2021). These are: ingroup/loyalty; authority/(dis) grounded; yet it can be found to be relative to back- respect; harm/care; and liberty/oppression. In this paper, the grounded ‘Others’. The causal relationship can be signalled allocated social role (Agent or Patient) and the illocutionary by grammatical resources such as a possessive pronoun points are taken—in Van Langenhove’s(2017, p. 1) terms—“as (e.g. our), prepositional circumstantials with ‘by’ and the activators of moral orders” and contributors to our under- ‘from’, premodification or postmodification of a noun, standing of the link between agency and social structure. and so on (e.g. van Leeuwen, 1996). This mapping of grammatical selections onto the types of Results and discussion othering aims to highlight the directness in the realization of who This section reports and discusses the findings of the qualitative is responsible for the status quo and who is doing what to whom/ analysis of the fighting utterances. The following subsections what. This realization is taken as a clue to the practice of othering highlight the active role of the language user (OBL) in discourse which is chiefly driven by viewing the self/ingroup as being production and the pursued pragmatic functions, in relation to victimised and outgroups as being the victimizers. This kind of the framework of analysis of the two types of othering: overt evaluative construction, I argue, enables a terrorist to influence othering, and covert othering of primary deictic centers— the stances and actions of ingroup audiences against outgroups. America and the American allies (e.g. Israel) who belong to two The illocutionary points of the othering utterances—such as master identities that are distinct from OBL’s (Christianity and getting the putative reader to do something, thus a ‘directive’ Judaism). Prior to delving into the details of types of othering, point—were examined to provide evidence of the purpose behind their realizations and pragmatic functions, two primary deictic the utterances as acts of othering. The aim is to understand the centers are identified: coercive and offensive potential of OBL’s grammatical selections America/American* (60 explicit naming occurrences); alongside their pragmatic functions. In so doing, I adopt Searle’s Muslim(s) (80 occurrences), including people of Lebanon, (1999) notion of illocutionary points (i.e. what ‘count as’, for Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. example, a directive point or an assertive point) to establish a link between the mood type of an utterance and its pragmatic purpose Additional references to the primary participants come under in terrorist discourse. The focus of this analysis is on whether the two main polarised categories of pronouns: mood type asserts or requests information about or actions towards primary social actors, to enhance our understanding of First person pronouns (I, we, our, us), which refer to the the role of grammar insofar as asserting or requesting informa- ingroup, totalling 227 occurrences; tion and actions. This role sensitizes us to the consideration of the Third person pronouns (they, their, them, he, his), which epistemic and social status of the author (i.e. OBL) as a knowing refer to outgroups and outgroup agents such as George W. person and a person of higher moral status or a commander of Bush, totalling 248 occurrences. HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 5 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 The pronominal references to these primary participants are in (5) a. They [Bush and his supporters] [Subject: Agent] came out subjective case (e.g. we, they, he, I), possessive form (e.g. our, to fight [Verb] Islam [Object: Patient] under the falsifying their, his), and objective case (e.g. them, us) which makes focusing name of ‘fighting terrorism’. (OBL4) on the roles assigned to the primary participants crucial in the b. …America… [Subject: Agent] has trampled [Verb] all overt and covert acts of othering. human values… [Object: Patient]. (OBL8) The grammatical choices such as those in the examples Overt othering: Grammatical choices and their pragmatic above tend to realize: the enactment of responsibility- functions. The analysis has revealed an author who is decidedly attribution; the construction of a straightforward causal interpersonally involved in the communication and the act of relationship between the Agent and the processes targeting othering, particularly in terms of overt assigning of agency and ‘Us’; the presentation of who is in a position of power; and affectedness roles to the primary social actors. The findings show the divisive function of OBL’s texts. This direct patterns of use of grammatical choices that have constructed a responsibility-attribution and structure of ‘Their’ aggressive paradigm of Agents and Patients, where, on the one hand, ‘Them’ agentive role serve the purpose of diagnostic framing, that are constructed explicitly as Agents and responsible for harm is, the overt identification of the problem (e.g. injustice and caused to ‘Us’. On the other hand, ‘Us’ are constructed as Patients victimization) and the source of the problem who should be of ‘Their’ negative actions, or as Agents of negative acts that are blamed. That is, within this pattern of victimhood constructed as being morally justified and reactive actions. These construction, OBL maintains conventional Agent-Patient findings provide support to previous research (e.g. Bandura, 2016; roles through the use of transactive constructions. He also Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021) that blameworthiness and directly links Agent to Subject and Patient to Object in shifting-responsibility are key mechanisms through which a ter- utterances in active voice. In addition, the declarative mood rorist selectively morally disengages from accountability for has enabled conveying statements of presumed facts and harmful conduct they cause against outgroups. opinions about ‘Us’ and the Americans as ‘Others’. To elaborate, one pattern of grammatical choices that are used OBL’s utterances as such proffer othering as—in Bourdieu’s in overt othering manifests in the repeated employment of ‘Them’ (1991, p. 66) terms—an exchange that is “established within as Agent and ‘Us’ as Patient. Consider the examples below where a particular symbolic relation of power”. The pattern of the the fighting parts of speech are in bold. For instance, in Example grammatical choices of construction, voice and mood has 1, ‘The American forces’ are Agent (Subject) of the process (Verb) served, so far, the coercive function of seeking to influence ‘attacked’ while ‘us’ are Patient, that is, undergoing the harm of the ingroup audience’s stances, given projected personal others. In Example 2, America is the Agent of permitting ‘the physical consequences. In other words, the strategic choice Israelis’ to become Agent of a process (invade) whose Patient is of grammatical resources appeared to play a main role in ‘Lebanon’. In Example 3, ‘They’ are Agent of the process ‘terrorise’ the strategic stimulation of fear of and hostility towards the while the ingroup’s members in Lebanon and Palestine are in American ‘aggressors’, based on the constructed Patient Patient role. In Example 4, the Americans are also the Agent of role of ‘Us’. The assigned roles thus ultimately serve to urge the process (have supported); and the “beneficialised” (Van for supporting ‘Us’. Put differently, the roles activate the Leeuwen, 1996, p. 43) of this support are ‘the oppressor’ while the motivational framing, that is, they provide a rationale such ingroup’s members, that is, ‘the innocent child’, are the Patient as a religious motive, as in Example 5-a above, or a group (indirect Object) as realized by the grammatical signal (i.e. duty, for engaging in violence as an identity-protection preposition) ‘against’. In Example 5-a ‘Islam’ is the Patient enterprise. As such, this construction of the world appears undergoing the effect of the process ‘fight’, and so is ‘all human to enact—in Spencer-Oatey and Kádár’s(2016) terms— values’ (i.e. it is the Patient) undergoing the effect of the process interpersonal-links metavalues (namely, the ‘ingroup/loy- ‘trampled’ that is acted by ‘America’ (Example 5-b). This pattern alty’ metavalue) and inter-group relationships metavalues of direct assignment of Agency and Affectedness roles accords (chiefly, the ‘harm/care’ metavalue). The patterning of with previous work (e.g. Thetela, 2001) on the impact of syntactic syntactic construction appears to be driven by the moral features on promoting who is suffering and who is responsible for reasoning of obligations towards defending the ingroup and this suffering, and yielding insights into how these syntactic caring for harm being imposed upon the ingroup. features play a role in conflict contexts in polarizing the primary This moral reasoning has also been realized grammatically social groups on the basis of the master identities of the agents in the pattern of construction of ‘Our’ Agent role and/or and the affected (i.e. the Americans and their allies, and Muslims, ‘Their’ Patient role. The moral function of this construction respectively). This syntactic pattern serves to construct otherness is based on othering the Patient against whom ‘Our’ by building stereotypical images of social groups based on their Agentive role has been brought about as a reaction and a socioreligious affiliations and their associated actions. defensive act. That is, the act of othering is uttered after an offence by the ‘Other’. I term this kind of othering (1) The American forces [Subject: Agent] attacked [Verb] us retrospective othering (cf. Aijmer, 1996). Consider Example [Object: Patient] with smart bombs, bombs weighing 6 where ‘we’ is the Agent of the violent processes ‘punish’ thousands of pounds, cluster bombs, and bunker and ‘destroy’, and this agentive role is constructed as being busters. (OBL5) in retrospect of what the Americans previously did to ‘Us’ (2) …America [Subject: Agent] permitted [Verb] the Israelis to in Lebanon and elsewhere and thus ‘so that they [the invade [Verb] Lebanon [Object: Patient] supported by the Americans] taste some of what we tasted’. Similarly, ‘it’ American 3rd Fleet. (OBL1) (referring to America, in Example 7) is in Patient role while (3) They [the Israelis, the US ally] [Subject: Agent] terrorise ‘Allah’ (Subject) is presented as an ingroup Agent. OBL’s [Verb] the women and children [Object: Patient], and kill utterances as such proffer othering as—in Bourdieu’s(1991, [Verb] and capture [Verb] the men [Object: p. 66) terms—an exchange that is “capable of procuring a Patient]. (OBL1) certain material or symbolic profit” for al-Qaeda as well as (4) They [the Americans] [Subject: Agent] have supported the wider cultural/religious ingroup. ‘Their’ Agentive role in the oppressor against the innocent child [Object: previous aggression has served as premise for the Patient]! (OBL4) 6 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE retrospective othering that morally legitimises ‘Our’ reactive sanctioning enactment of aggressive interpersonal relationships, Agentive role in violence within the ‘liberty/oppression’ which is proportionate with Lams’ (2017) finding on the role of moral framework. That is, the ‘Our’ Agent-‘Their’ Patient assertive speech acts in othering. Second, this licensing of violence syntactic construction appears to be underpinned by values and its goal has the rhetorical effect of steering the ingroup that are concerned with resentment to oppression and addressees towards violence and is thus of directive point. The outgroups that are dominating ‘Our’ group or restricting declarative structure choice also serves to activate the point of ‘Our’ right to freedom. The construction of ‘Us’ as Agents counting the utterance as committing the author to the truth of is, thus, deployed—in Ståhl et al. (2016) terms—in response the propositional content about ‘Others’ and the subsequent to actions of dominators or to signs of restricting ‘Our’ sanctioning of violence. This assertion-based sanctioning could freedom, which serves to encourage actions to come also be enhanced by grammatical choices such as the conjunction together in solidarity for preserving freedom and to ‘so that’ in Example 6, where ‘so that’ (double underlined) overcome the oppressors. signalled rationalization—i.e. as a form of legitimation (see Van Leeuwen 2007)—of violent practices by reference to their effects (6) [W]e [Subject: Agent] should punish [Verb] the oppressor or goals, which is ‘so that…they [the Americans] refrain from in kind, and should destroy [Verb] towers in America killing our women and children’. Having reported and discussed so that they taste some of what we tasted, and they refrain the findings regarding overt othering, the next subsection focuses from killing our women and children. (OBL1) on covert othering. (7) Here is America! Allah [Subject: Agent] the glorified and the exalted has hit [Verb] it [Object: Patient] in one of its killing Covert othering: Grammatical choices and their pragmatic points, destroying its greatest buildings! (OBL4) functions. The analysis undertaken provides evidence of covert Othering utterances, as shown in Examples 1–7 above, offer othering-enactment, where the cause-effect relationship is back- evidence of patterns of syntactic choices that OBL deploys to grounded through a set of syntactic transformations. These include, foreground the causal relationship and responsibility for the inter alia, the use of passive voice. Eighty-six sentences of passive brought about state of affairs. The choices, which have enabled structure are observed in the dataset, revealing the strategic combi- OBL to overtly other the Americans and their allies, are: nation of voice options in the OBL texts where passive voice shifts the focus from who is doing what to the ‘immoral’ action offered as Transactive construction; a basis of othering. For instance, in Examples 8, 9 and 10, OBL uses Active voice construction; the passive construction. In this construction the ‘We’ group is in ONLY declarative structure: which encodes the othering Subject position but with Patient role. The passive voice here enables utterances with indicative mood type that conveys asser- the author to draw the putative readers’ attention more to others’ tions or statements of presumed facts about ‘Their’ group acts than to naming others, and to highlight the heinous, ‘unjustified’ versus ‘Our’ group or communicates the state of affairs and thus ‘immoral’ actions that are targeting ‘Us’.These findings which the threatening ‘Other’ has brought about or will be support findings of previous research (e.g. Pandey, 2004;Thetela, responsible for bringing it about. 2001) that the use of passive voice facilitates amplifying and fore- grounding the theme of ‘Us’ undergoing the negative acts while In sum, the analysis of OBL’s grammatical choices has revealed backgrounding the Agent, which here serves (i) in amplifying the the construction of overt othering. They display how OBL has discourse function of provoking hostility due to the physical harm sought to foreground others as being responsible for negative brought about, and (ii) in activating the motivational framing actions. That is, others are either the Agent of actions affecting function, urging for a response. ‘Us’ or the Patient of legitimated actions by ‘Us’. These grammatical choices have been strategically deployed to con- (8) …[T]he bombardment began, many [Subject: Patient] were ceptualise ‘Others’ as a physical threat to ‘Us’ as well as an killed and injured, and many others were terrorised and ideological threat to ‘Our’ symbolic self (i.e. the Muslim Ummah displaced. (OBL5) —the body of Muslim communities worldwide), which rhetori- (9) On 20 Rajab 1422 Hijri, corresponding to 7 October 2001 cally serves in legitimising violence against outgroups. These CE, our centres [Subject: Patient] were exposed to a findings offer support to previous research on threat-construction concentrated bombing as of the first hour of the American as a means for legitimising ingroup violence (e.g. Cap, 2017; campaign. (OBL5) Reicher et al., 2008). Findings also accord with Lams’ (2018) argument that such endowment of agency roles to participants (10) A million innocent children [Subject: Patient] are being serves to promote awareness of ingroup audiences about events killed up to this moment I am speaking to you! They with self-serving bias, and to stimulate creation of a discourse of [Subject: Patient] are being killed in Iraq for nothing wrong moral panic. they did. (OBL4) This stimulation has invested in the declarative syntax which While an ‘Other’ can be identified from the co-text, using facilitates the process of giving information by OBL as a knowing particular grammatical choices such as pre-modifications of and thus informing person of the ‘true’ events. In other words, the nominalisation (e.g. American campaign, underlined in declarative mood has been used to serve—in Heritage’s(2012) Example 9, and American law, in Example 11) is found to terms—in presenting the othering-information, which is within be a marker for identifying the Agent or who is in the the speaker’s epistemic domain, as a basis for the encouraged “activated” role (van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 44). In Example 12, social relationships and antagonistic actions against ‘Others’. The the Americans and their Israeli allies are the Agent realized declarative mood tends to be deployed as—in Van Langenhove’s in the post-modification of nominalisation (underlined) (2017) terms—an activator of moral orders and an enabler for while ‘our people’ are the Patient signalled by the certain positioning of moral agency based on assertions about the preposition, ‘against’ (double-underlined). Similarly, in world. The choice of declarative mood emphasizes the illocu- Example 13, OBL uses the active voice where the Agent tionary point of the othering utterances, which is here—in Cap’s (America) is not in Subject position, but its agency is (2017, p. 12) terms—of an “assertion-directive” link. That is, the realized by the preposition (by America). In Example 14, illocutionary point is, first, assertive in that the utterances serve in while ‘America’ is the Agent of the killing act, America’s HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 7 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 role is backgrounded by being placed in the Object position (‘the prisons’). Structure here also serves enacting the harm/ of the Verb ‘helped’. Notably, in Examples 11 and 14, the care metavalue and the prognostic function of framing ‘Us’ presentation of Self and Others is constructed in the that- versus ‘Them’ (the imprisoners). Noticeably, grammar still clause, which is a construction that facilitates background- performs a key function of othering in these examples, but ing the cause-effect relationship, a finding that is in accord through different choices from those used in overt othering. with Pandey’s(2004). In Example 15, ‘the Americans” (16) They are evildoers! (OBL4) interference in and control over Saudi Arabia’s decision is (17) They have followed the falsehood! (OBL4) backgrounded to the benefit of foregrounding the act of (18) O Allah, release our brother prisoners in the prisons betrayal by ‘Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz’ who supports of tyrants in America; Guantanamo; occupied Palestine; the Americans presence in Saudi Arabia and the American- al  Riyadh; and everywhere—that You are ‘over all things led coalition against Iraq and Muslim countries, as realized competent.’ (OBL2) in the Verb ‘betrayed’, which enacts the metavalue of disloyalty of Prince Abdullah to the ingroup. This The analysis has so far demonstrated that, in covert othering, the foregrounding also provides a clue to the authority/(dis) causal relationship as well as the responsibility for negative actions respect metavalue, that is, this foregrounding is under- targeting ‘Us’ is not grammatically direct. A reader or an analyst, pinned by assumptions about Arab officials in authority thus, cannot assume a one-to-one relationship between grammatical who are expected to be respectful to the Islamic traditions structure and function. This structure-function relationship can be and to obey God’s rules in making coalitions, and in joining realized as being backgrounded and thus requires accounting for and defending the Muslim ingroup affiliation. contextual factors as well as stylistic considerations while considering the following strategic grammatical choices: (11) On that day, I was assured that injustice and intentional killing of innocent women and children is an approved ● Non-transactive construction; American law, and that intimidation is freedom and ● Passive voice; democracy, while resistance is terrorism and ● Various forms of mood (as further demonstrated in backward. (OBL1) subsection “Various forms of mood and their illocutionary (12) But after enough was enough and we witnessed the injustice points”), including declarative. and tyranny of the American–Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, the idea [of More on passive voice, declarative mood, and illocutionary points.As 9/11] came to my mind. (OBL1) stressed earlier, in the utterances of passive voice and non- (13) Amid this unjust war, the war of infidels and debauchees transactive construction where the agentive role of ‘Others’ and waged by America along with its allies and traitor-agents, ‘Their’ responsibility is backgrounded, the negatively positioned we would like to emphasise on a number of important ‘Others’ are realizable in the use of other grammatical signals such as points. (OBL5) possessive pronoun, prepositions, and pre-modification and/or post- (14) We also make it clear that whoever helped America […]to modification of nominalisation. In addition, the declarative mood is kill Muslims in Iraq […] he is an apostate, outside of Islam found to be predominant. However, the illocutionary point of the circle, and it is permissible to take away their property and declarative structures varies. For example, the declarative point in spill their blood. (OBL5) Example 14 above counts as bringing about a change in the world by (15) Before that, he [Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz] betrayed the representing it as having been changed through a declaration of war two holy mosques when he allowed the Americans to enter against those declared as ‘infidel’ and declaring that it is morally the country of the two holy mosques under the false ‘permissible’ to take away the infidels’ lives and property. In other allegations of the need for their assistance for three months. instances,suchasExamples8–11 and Examples 15, 16, the illocu- (OBL6) tionary point of the declarative structure is assertive; that is, it activates the author’s commitment to the truth of the propositional In Examples 16 and 17, ‘they’ (the Americans) are in the content about others. In addition, the assertion-commissive point is Subject position, but they are the only participant; that is, also identified,asinExample 12,which appearstoserve in linkingto OBL practices symbolic othering through a non-transactive OBL a commitment to undertake a particular course of action, as construction where the Patient is not mentioned. Instead, represented in the propositional content (to attack America in the focus is on others’‘being’ and attributes, as realized in response to the US ‘injustice and tyranny’), while asserting the the Noun (‘evildoer’, in Example 16) and in the Object injustice and tyranny of America. The illocutionary points of the ‘falsehood’ (i.e. followers of falsehood), in a description of declarative structure as such vary to construct hostility as reasonable Arab officials, regimes, parties and religious scholars who and aggression as warranted. support America in Iraq and the US-sponsored options in That said, I also argue that despite different grammatical solving the conflict in Iraq and Palestine – thus negatively choices in the acts of othering including active and passive framing them within the butcher-victim framework: ‘They voice structures (as in Examples 3 and 8, respectively), the have supported the butcher against the victim’. This non- characterization and framing of outgroups as aggressors, transactive construction serves in emphasizing the immor- tyrants and unjust and the ingroup as victims remains explicitly ality of those included in the ‘Others’ category, which is also similar in both examples. This means that the same perception facilitated through the assertive point of the declarative of Self and Others would also remain the same in the OBL texts, structure which is underpinned by assumptions about even if we encounter a structure such as ‘Our women and loyalty to the ingroup and its jihadist option to solve the children are terrorized by the Israelis’ or a structure such as that conflict. In Example 18, the Patient role of ingroup in Example 3 (‘They terrorise the women and children’). In both members (‘prisoners’) not only originates in the Object active and passive voice structures, we continue to have the function but is also enhanced and signalled by the broad categorisation of overt and covert othering, but we possessive pronoun ‘our’ (underlined) whereas the Agent encounter an activation of two distinct functions of framing. In role of ‘Them’ is signalled by a prepositional circumstantial the passive structure, the perception of ‘Their’ immoral action with ‘in’ (double-underlined) that postmodifies the noun and ‘Our’ vulnerable situation is stressed, a perception that is 8 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE underpinned by OBL’s focus on and predispositions about the disaligned ‘Others’. These ‘Others’ and their role in attempting to need to care for the vulnerable and the harmful action targeting ‘scare’‘Us’ with their ‘weapons’ have been backgrounded to ‘Us’. In other words, the passive structure, first, is triggered by emphasise the command function of the utterance while OBL’s experiencing of harmful actions or signs of suffering, emphasizing the religious epistemic status of the informing or and, second, attests to the presence of expectations about the commanding person, as realized in the since-clause (underlined). need to defend the ingroup, which ultimately serves the motivational function of framing (i.e. a call for counteraction). (20) Do not let these thugs scare you with their weapons, since In contrast, in the active voice structure, the focus is on the Allah has wasted their plots and weakened their harmer and on an opposing coalition against which ‘We’ need might. (OBL2) to maintain a strong coalition, which ultimately serves the prognostic function of framing (i.e. identifying the source of the A clearer case of backgrounding the Americans, to emphasize conflict and who is responsible for ‘our’ unfavourable reality). the command or request for action, is expressed in Examples 21a That said, not only the use of voice but also the deployment of and 21b which are however in declarative form. In these various mood types (as explored in next subsection) is found to examples, the others’ role in invading ‘Our’ religious group be a critical resource to activate more framing functions and to members in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere is back- present the status of an utterance as an action or an act of grounded for the purpose of amplifying the directive point (i.e. urging for an action, which provides support to Heritage’s the inciting function) of the utterances against ‘Others’,as (2012)contentionin thisregard. indicated by the performative verb, incite, underlined. Despite the declarative form of these utterances, their point is not assertive Various forms of mood and their illocutionary points.Although but directive; that is, OBL is not informing but requesting actions. thechoiceof the declarativemoodtypeispredominant (see In sum, the close analysis of the illocutionary point of OBL’s use Examples 1 through 17)—which serves in building stereo- of various mood types provides evidence of (i) his strategic typical images of outgroups—utterances in interrogative and activation of the prognostic framing function which implies the imperative mood are also used to, respectively, convey ques- articulation of proposed solutions and (ii) his moral sanctioning tions that seek confirmation of a call for violence, and convey of violence within the framework of loyalty to the ingroup and the commands/directives. Regarding the interrogative mood, con- framework of liberty/oppression and self-defence. sider Example 19 where the interrogative form activates the structure of a rhetorical question that expects a ‘no’ answer, (21) a. We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to defend, with and the question thus counts as assertion-commissive. That is, all that they possess and are capable of, against the American through the interrogative structure, OBL not only commits Crusader forces invading Pakistan and Afghanistan. (OBL7) himself to the truth of the propositional content that frames b. We do incite our brothers to fight you, stab you, and inflict violence against ‘Others’ as being ‘self-defence’, but also pro- a massacre in you. (OBL3) motes his undertaking and commitment to this ‘self-defence’ violent course of action and mobilises similar response against ‘the aggressor’. The rhetorical question, as such, marks OBL’s epistemic domain in relation to a collective threat and his Conclusion and further research framing of violence as a collective defence. This question also Othering is an ideological, social and discursive practice in which a language user strategically deploys particular grammatical counts as trying to get the ingroup’s addressees to behave violently and to invite a match between their behaviours and choices whose patterns manifest and function—in Verschueren’s the propositional content, that is, to self-defense against (2012, p. 2) terms—as a powerful tool for coercing into and ‘Others’.In Heritage’s(2012) terms, the expected ‘no’ answer- legitimating aggressive attitudes, behaviours and negative con- interrogative serves to perceive the content as assertive rather sequences in terms of hostility and stereotyping. This study has than as questioning whether self-defence and punishing the explored the practice of othering through analysis of grammatical aggressor is justified. That is, the interrogative is perceived as a structure and its pragmatic functions, as realized in a set of texts positive assessment of ‘our’ violence to be agreed with (or communicated by OBL in the period following the 9/11 attacks. confirmed) rather than a request for information. The question The analytical procedure showcased has the potential to aid in here “is fundamentally an attitude… It is an utterance that hate and threat assessment by sensitizing security threat assessors “craves” a verbal or other semiotic (e.g., a nod) response. The to the kind of linguistic resources used in othering as a premise attitude is characterized by the [writer’s] subordinating himself for radicalisation to violence. The analysis has revealed how an to his [readers]” (Bolinger, 1957,p. 4)whose agreementand extremist may construe allegedly “reasonable hostility” (Tracy, confirmation he is trying to win as a step towards mobilising 2008, p. 169) in terms of attacking the public face of outgroups and radicalising them to violence. and inciting violence against them (Culpepper, 2011) within a moral struggle which an ingroup ought to resist. The findings (19) Is self-defence and punishing the aggressor in kind vilified contribute to threat assessors’ understanding of the relationship terrorism? (OBL1) between language and sociopolitically aggravated acts of othering and antagonism, by addressing terrorist public statements as a In the imperative form of the act of othering, OBL, as in site of “relatively durable set of [inter-group] social relations” (see Example 20, communicates a request for action through a also Bourdieu, 1991, p. 8; Malešević, 2019). The findings present negative command (‘do not…’) that is aimed at getting the the language of othering in terrorist discourse as being a code of addressees to act in a way that ensures some disadvantage to social attitudes, relationships and obligations, where the writer is ‘Others’ (i.e. the Americans, the “far enemy”, Miller, 2015, p. 12). in a constant negotiation of intragroup links and inter-group By uttering and thus performing an illocutionary act of a directive relationship, and presents himself as a “deontic” participant in a point, OBL imposes a moral status of a person who is not scared deontic action (Searle, 2009, p. 9) of defending the ingroup’s of ‘Others’—which serves in presenting himself as a leader or ideological and physical territories, for the defence of which he someone who is aligned with the putative readers and is in a also calls for a collective action. The findings support Searle’s position of a demander of actions and of firm stances against the (2009, p. 89) argument that utterances in a text promote a moral HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 9 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 order and create “a reality of deontology. It is a reality that utterance is conveying information or requesting/demanding confers rights, responsibilities, and so on”. The findings also action, has offered clues to the language user’s personal identity provide support to Van Langenhove’s(2017) argument that and relational identity as being deeply intertwined with his language users as agents in social structures have the deontic epistemic status and the mood of his utterances. Though there power to create, promote or negate some moral metavalues appeared to be an association between mood type (e.g. declara- through contributing to our understanding of the link between tive) and some illocutionary points (e.g. assertion or conveying agency and structure. information), this relationship has been found—as also argued by The argument on the role of syntax in the act of othering, in Heritage (2012)—not to be fixed. Utterances of declarative, this paper, accords with other studies that have noted the value imperative and interrogative forms tend to be of directive illocu- of syntactic features in the investigation of otherness (e.g. tionary point in the practice of othering within terrorism context, Pandey, 2004;Lams, 2018). These features have provided clues that is, they attempt to get the members of cultural/religious ingroup that can account for the strategic character of verbal aggression to behave violently, as a radicalising feature of discourse. in othering texts and the moral underpinnings therein, parti- Since this paper does not claim that its description of the cularly in circumstances of conflict and lack of security, where othering act is exhaustive or representative of othering in all —in Suleiman’s(2006)terms—particular identities tend to terrorist contexts, future research might expand the examination become more salient and polarised. The findings show that it is of othering undertaken in this study to consider the kind of not only a terrorist’s actions that can be aggressive but also their othering produced and the linguistic resources employed by linguistically realized attitudes and acts of othering which terrorists from different ideological backgrounds. The same involve acts of impoliteness. This finding accords with Janicki’s analytical procedures may also be extended to the study of the (2017) view of aggression which is inclusive of all kinds of othering act in other contexts, such as news media and political phenomena such as behaviours, activities, situations, attitudes, discourse, that utilize otherness for various ideological purposes. and so on. This aggression can be accomplished by two main That said, I hope that the approach showcased will provide a strategies of othering—overt othering, and covert othering—in useful complementary method to the investigative approaches to which choices with respect to outgroup participants are directly understanding the language of aggression and conflict, which is or indirectly represented as agentive of ‘bad’ actions, and crucial for maintaining peace, countering hate and preventing ingroup participants are represented as affected (i.e. acted- radicalisation to extremism worldwide. upon). This construction serves in establishing two opposing coalitions of distinct master identities, “expressed through the ideological us versus them binary opposition” (Thetela, 2001,p. Data availability 347). The various grammatical choices identified in terms of The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current mood type, clause voice, and non/transactive construction have study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable a potential to impact the addressees’ perception of outgroups request. which are seen as blameworthy and morally responsible for victimizing the ingroup and thus for ‘our’ reactive, defensive Received: 22 July 2021; Accepted: 25 April 2022; violence. While overt othering (in transactive construction, active voice, and only declarative mood) places increased emphasis on the perception of the agency of Others, covert othering (in nontransactive construction, passive voice, and any mood type) places more emphasis on the immoral actions. In References Van Dijk’s(1998, p. 207) terms, this consistent construction of Adams B, Brown A, Flear C, Thomson M (2011) Understanding the process of radicalisation: review of the empirical literature. 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Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal aggression in service of radicalisation

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ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 OPEN Exploring the grammar of othering and antagonism as enacted in terrorist discourse: verbal aggression in service of radicalisation Awni Etaywe The social, discursive practice of othering in violent extremist discourse serves to present outgroups as distant yet real threats to the ideological and physical territories of an ingroup which a terrorist claims to represent. However, the role of grammatical choices (namely, non/transactive construction, voice, and mood) in enacting the othering act within the context of radicalisation to terrorism remains to be empirically verified. This paper explores the patterning and pragmatic functions—namely in framing situations, coercing into violence, and legitimising hostile actions against Others—of the syntactic structure of the othering utterances. The othering utterances, as realized in a set of eight public statements produced by former al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, were sorted manually and analysed qualita- tively to help understand and showcase how grammar was strategically leveraged in the process of radicalisation. Results show that the act of othering in the dataset operates within the victimization and injustice frameworks to morally sanction antagonism and aggression via: (i) overt othering, where transactive construction, only declarative mood and active voice are used, and (ii) covert othering, in which nontransactive construction, any mood type, and passive voice are utilized. Overt othering foregrounds, through assertions and statements of presumed facts, the negative agentive role of Others and the diagnostic framing of the causal relationships between Others and negative experiences. Covert othering backgrounds this agentive role to place prominence on immoral actions and to serve in the motivational function of framing. The grammatical patterns provide evidence of the strategic character of OBL’s verbal aggression and how different mood types tend to construct the directive, illo- cutionary point of the utterances and to enact prognostic framing. The analytical strategy aids in threat assessment and preventing radicalisation by sensitizing assessors to, first, the kind of semiotic clues to engagement in the social and discursive process of radicalisation where utterances count as calls for action and activators of a reality of deontology, and, second, to the social functioning of terrorist texts in: (i) promoting putative readers’ awareness of particular outgroups, and (ii) ideological positioning and encouraging and legitimating vio- lence that is liberty, loyalty and care metavalues-based. 1 ✉ University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. email: a.etaywe@unsw.edu.au HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 1 1234567890():,; ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 Introduction inguistic analysis of terrorism cases has been found to be practice of othering and hostile relationships are ideologically useful in helping security investigators to understand ter- motivated and can manifest in the patterns of the “relationship Lrorist discourse, explore terrorists’ ideological schemas (i.e. between language form [choice] and language use [which] how terrorists think about what is being talked about) and involves cognitive processes” (Verschueren, 2009, pp. 1–2). The identify the activities in which terrorists engage (Shuy, 2020). To practice of othering in terrorist communication is considered—in achieve this linguistic support for intelligence analysis and Min’s(2008, p. 74) terms—an “intrinsically face-threatening act” security tasks, a linguist may draw on a range of principles and which operates contrary to Leech’s(1980, 1983) maxims of tools including those in the disciplines of syntax, pragmatics and politeness (particularly the sympathy maxim) in relation to semantics (Shuy, 2010). Contributing to a better understanding of viewing outgroups (in contrast to viewing an ingroup). While the the discursive practice of othering and its moral reasoning in the notion of politeness—developed by Brown and Levinson context of radicalisation to terrorism, this paper showcases the (1978, 1987)—is usually employed “to show awareness” of exploration of different othering strategies, the syntactic resources another person’s or group’s face (Yule, 1996, p. 60), in the employed in these strategies and their pragmatic functions, as practice of othering a terrorist utilizes ‘impoliteness’ (e.g. realized in eight public statements produced by Osama bin Laden Culpeper, 2011) as public face attacks to show and promote (OBL, henceforth). Since pragmatics needs to “hook up” not only awareness of outgroups’ negative agentive role, as a way to cause to syntax and lexis but also to semantics, particularly, when offence or incite for an offence against people with distinct master interpreting the illocutionary acts or points of utterances (Butler, identities (e.g. religions) and social affiliations. 1988, p. 96), this paper expands its analytic scope to also include The concept of affiliation construction—i.e. constructing group this pragmatics semantics-hook up in the act of othering. membership (Higgins, 2007)—that is based on master identities is In this paper, ‘othering’ refers to the interpersonal act of also central to the act of othering and radicalising cross-border categorising the world into ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ based on (i) ingroup addressees to violence against ‘bad’ outgroups (see e.g. representing via grammar who is doing what to whom, and (ii) Straun, 2009; Mandel, 2010; Smith et al., 2016; Smith, 2018; building a dichotomy of opposing social groups with distinct Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021). Recent research into radicalised master identities whereby outgroups are depicted as a morally and violent extremist discourse (e.g. Chiluwa, 2015) reveals that distant, yet ‘real’ ideological and physical threat to the ingroup promoting these affiliations while positively constructing an that an author (e.g. OBL) allegedly represents. The significance of ingroup and negatively constructing particular outgroups is a examining the act of othering in terrorist context lies in illus- major strategy used in radicalist discourse. This exploitation of trating how investigators may obtain a fuller understanding of the identity and worldviews serves in influencing (i.e. constructing, strategic character of a terrorist’s verbal aggression via identifying maintaining, promoting, challenging and/or changing) the views the grammatical patterns used in othering and framing the of members of the ingroup and their perception of the way the divisive inter-group relationship. Exactly what role these gram- world should (not) be, which ultimately promotes ingroup pre- matical choices play and in which pattern they manifest in ter- judices and radicalises into hostile inter-group relationships based rorist language remain to be empirically verified, which is a on “an evaluative construct” of the world (Mandel, 2010; Adams contribution of this paper. This paper takes the dataset produced et al., 2011, p. 5). In this study, first, radicalisation is considered to by OBL as a case study. The paper also seeks to add to the tools be an evaluative construct, and, second, attention is drawn to the available for unlocking the links between morality, hate, identity, master identities constructed in discourse and to the linguistic framing, and the triune act of “stancetaking” (i.e. evaluation, dis/ strategy of constructing agency and affectedness—in terms of alignment, and ideological positioning) (Du Bois, 2007, p. 162) who is presented with roles of Agency or Affectedness—as an construed in the language choices made in the OBL radicalising evaluative strategy used to ideologically position putative readers texts. Focus is placed on how the syntactic construction serves to to favour ingroup and disfavour outgroups (see White, 2006). radicalise putative readers, to coerce (i.e. generate fear of ‘Others’ A well-established starting point to the study of the discursive in the ingroup members) (e.g. Cap, 2017), and to legitimise construction of otherness is the analysis of sentence structure, hostility and aggression against outgroups. The grammatical primary participants and their roles—primarily the verbs with choices are taken as markers of managing, (re)producing and/or which the participants are associated and the different types of sustaining negative perceptions of outgroups, and inter-group relationships these participants have to these verbs at the level of antagonism and aggressive relations. That is, in Crystal’s(2008,p. syntax (Sykes, 1988). By focusing on the construction of Agency 379) terms, these grammatical choices are considered here fea- and Affectedness, I argue, we can obtain a picture of how an tures that do play a role in the social functioning of terrorist texts extremist seeks to forge ingroup alignments, and disalignments and in “expressing a range of attitudes and relationships”. with outgroups, making the perceptions of who belongs to the in/ outgroup’saffiliation and who is assuming which role essential to the act of othering and radicalising into violence. This argument Literature review is aligned with recent research into the role of stancetaking and There are many approaches to the study of othering inside and identity in terrorist discourse which has found challenges tar- outside linguistics and to its social and ideological functions in geting ingroup values and master identities to be a basis for online and offline communication and in contexts of, for exam- inciting for violence and justifying personal and relational iden- ple, hate, racism, Islamophobia, media and politics (see e.g. tities (see e.g. Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021). That is, violence is Holslag, 2015; Silva, 2017; Lams, 2017, 2018; Farkas et al., 2018; promoted as “one form of response to these challenges” (Lutz and Perry and Mason, 2018). Othering, in these studies and also in Lutz, 2008, p. 100) and is justified on the basis that a terrorist is this paper, is considered an ideological, social and discursive “distant from/or superior to ‘Others’ vs. close to in-group’s practice par excellence. That is, since a language user can con- members” (relational identity) and is thus “aggressive and struct multiple versions of the social experiences by various lin- antagonistic towards ‘Others’ vs. caring towards in-group’s guistic choices, the strategic choice to use particular grammatical members” (personal identity) (Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021,p. options in discourse is never devoid of their ideological aspect or 10). In addition, aligned with Sykes’ (1988) suggestion that a social impact (Silverstein, 1992, p. 313; Butt et al., 2004). In this sentence structure-based analysis of the act of othering is useful, study, I adopt the general theoretical orientation that inter-group this paper allows for focusing on (i) participants’ roles within a 2 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE conflict context which “can also be impacted upon by syntactic immigrants) has identified a key role of language in the portrayal transformation”, and (ii) who is in the Agent role or Patient role of outgroups and shaping the ingroup audience’s awareness of undergoing particular experiences (Thetela, 2001, p. 352). Pandey and attitudes towards a ‘negative’ reality (e.g. migration flows). (2004) has found that focusing on some syntactic features can Such portrayal stimulates the putative readers’ compassion or yield insights into how strategic choices of grammar in particular adversarial stance towards outgroups. Lams’ (2017) critical dis- contexts may play a role in polarising identities and defining a course analysis of Chinese official media’s linguistic construction ‘Them’ versus ‘Us’ opposition. For example, the use of passive or of America and Japan has also highlighted the role of language in active voice can mitigate or stress othering (Pandey, 2004). promoting Others as foreign and antagonist within a victim/ This ‘Self versus Others’ construction of relationships and roles aggressor framework. This promotion has also been accomplished serves to promote collective hate actions and manages to present through the grammatical choices made by politicians such as Others as a threat and the ingroup’s violence as morally justified George W. Bush and military commanders like the British (Reicher et al., 2008). In this paper, attention is also drawn to the Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins: to endow positive semantic roles moral reasoning of ‘our’ violence against Others and to the to the exhorted coalition and troops deployed in Iraq and to “moral disengagement” from outgroups, specifically to “diffusion allocate negative roles to the incited-against Iraqis, to ultimately of responsibility”, that is, assigning blame and responsibility to legitimize the coalition’s operations in the 2003 war on Iraq (Butt outgroups to lay a moral ground for justifying hostility and vio- et al., 2004). lence against them (Bandura, 2016, p. 62). In short, I consider the In sum, as informed by the literature, this paper is concerned moral frameworks, or alternatively metavalues, that OBL draws with three aspects of analysis of the act of othering. The first is the on to provide clues to an extremist’s predisposition and ideological positioning and alignment of ingroup readers against assumptions about Self and moral reasonings behind othering outgroup social actors as realized in the assigned roles of Agency and hostility. Given the disdain many feel for terrorists and and Affectedness. The second is the “identity work” (Tracy and radical groups (Khosrokhavar, 2014), I argue that a terrorist Robles, 2002, p. 7) relating to informing an extremist’s linguistic mobilises these moral expectations to discourse in order to structure to frame experiences in a way that rationalizes hostility establish a connection between the advocated violence and the and creates, presents, sustains or/and challenges groups with ingroup addressees’ moral values so that the addressees are particular master identities (see e.g. Smith et al., 2016; Smith, morally disengaged from Others (and their immoral acts) and 2018). The third is the moral underpinning of grammatical morally engaged with the ingroup and for its benefit. According choices which can provide indications of predispositions and to Parvaresh (2019), a consideration of predispositions and assumptions relating to how the world ought (not) to be and how assumptions can provide clues as to how certain experiences are certain experiences should be responded to. These three aspects responded to and how social roles, expectations, rights and duties are aligned with recent findings of sociological research on are activated in discourse. Informed by recent literature on the radicalisation to terrorism (e.g. Smith, 2018) in that terrorist moral foundations of evaluation and acts of impoliteness (e.g. narratives and belief systems and identity processes, which Spencer-Oatey and Kádár, 2016; Kádár, 2017; Kádár et al., 2019), include framing social issues and experiences, are major facil- a particular set of metavalues can be identified as regulating and itators of radicalisation to terrorism. providing a reasoning for inter-group conflicts, evaluations and The grammatical choices used in the practice of othering are interpersonal relationships, just as a language user’s ideological investigated in terms of the degree of directness, or alternatively and cultural moral orders can set expectations for metavalues foregroundedness and obliqueness. In other words, the gram- such as ‘loyalty’ to the ingroup and ‘care’ for the ingroup’s vul- matical choices are examined as to how direct or indirect, or nerability (Van Langenhove, 2017). The construction of Agency alternatively “overt” or “covert” (Pandey, 2004, p. 161), othering and Affectedness, I argue, can provide insights into the moral is expressed and for what pragmatic purposes. This variable of orders constructed in discourse and the morality underpinning directness is established based on the straightforwardness in the the evaluative construct. causal relationship established between outgroup participants The grammatical construction of experiences can also serve to and their negative actions that influence ‘Us’. This relationship promote and manage awareness about Others and how to treat can be demonstrated, for example, through naming or pronom- them through particular framing—i.e. organising situations and inal references in, for example, Agent versus Patient role. establishing “definitions of a situation” (Goffman, 1974, p. 10). According to Sykes (1988), this role can be realized (in)directly in Grammatical options can facilitate our making-sense of dis- Subject and Object names/pronouns in (non)transactive and cursively constructed social experiences, in terms of commu- active or passive constructions. Of interest to this paper is also nicating to putative readers a range of information about social the influence of choice of mood type in the pragmatics of actors and their roles and agency. This communication includes: othering. The role of mood types (declarative, imperative, and informing about who should be viewed as being responsible for interrogative) in the pragmatics of violent speech acts (e.g. the ‘bad’ goings-on (the “diagnostic” function of framing); sug- communicated threats) has been found to be crucial in activating gesting counteractions (the “prognostic” function); and motivat- the parameter of coercion, exercising power, and realizing a ing to violence as a duty (the “motivational” function)—for more violent actor’s commitment to violence (Martínez, 2013). As on the social functions of framing in contexts of radicalisation to such, a particular choice of syntactic construction: can give rise to terrorism and social activism, see Smith (2018) and Benford and negotiated inter-group relationships and facilitate communica- Snow (2000, pp. 615–618), respectively. This management of tion of information about different social actors and their social awareness thus has a rhetorical effect of guiding audiences on roles (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014); and can enable us to how they may structure a common worldview of a dichotomous identify the “illocutionary point” of an utterance, that is, its representation of who is good versus evil, right versus wrong, purpose, whether it is “assertive”, “directive”, “commissive”, acceptable versus unacceptable, and blameworthy versus praise- “expressive” or a “declaration” (Searle, 1999, pp. 147–150). worthy—a representation that serves in presenting a violent goal as an ingroup’s collective enterprise (see also Cap, 2017, for similar argument). Methodology Lams’ (2018) analysis of the discursive construction of other- Data. Eight written public statements produced by OBL over ness (in a different context though—that is, press narratives about 2001–2006 were analysed in this study. This paper does not seek HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 3 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 to investigate othering in all texts of OBL, nor does it claim to the sociopolitical environment that followed the 9/11 attacks. The provide findings that are representative of othering choices across OBL linguistic choices are taken as being influenced by his view other samples of OBL. Instead, it showcases how an extremist’s of the conflict with the Americans—that is, the US-led war is strategic, grammatical choices within a dataset can offer insights considered oppression, aggression and a crusade aimed at into the extremist’s aggression, audience manipulation and subjugating Muslims and desecrating Islam and, thus, requires stoking hate, by shedding light on the foregroundedness of power Muslims to fight the US aggression and drive the Americans and relations. The eight statements were taken from the publicly their allies out of the Muslim countries (Miller, 2015). Since I am available al-Buraq al-I’lamyiah’s ‘al-Archive al-Jami’ (i.e. the more concerned in this paper with the grammatical choices, Collective Archive) of the OBL statements. The translations were references to the context of the exemplified utterances are drawn from sources such as the Al-Jazeera news network, the CIA included in the “Results and discussion” section in brackets after Foreign Broadcast Information Service’s ‘January 2004 report’, each example, e.g. (OBL1). In addition, a short elaboration on the and the author of this paper (see e.g. FBIS Report, 2006). The context of an utterance is provided where needed. texts analysed were used in Etaywe and Zappavigna (2021)to identify the patterns of attitudinal meanings realized in repeated, evaluatively loaded lexical items, as a means to get at OBL’s Data analysis procedure. The analysis of the othering utterances personal and relational identities. For the purpose of this paper, at the syntactic level was undertaken as a lens on audience English translations of the same statements were analysed after manipulation and negotiating power relation-enactment and clause constructions were reviewed and verified as faithful to the blameworthiness. The meaning of an utterance or alternatively “a source texts’ grammatical structures as determined through sentence [was] determined by the meaning of the words and the comparison with the original texts. This review was undertaken syntactical arrangement of the words in the sentence” (Searle, by the author, a native speaker of Arabic and a recognized 1999, p. 140). To obtain a manageable number of utterances, the English–Arabic translator. analysis focused on the utterances in which violent parts of The texts are from OBL’s letters and speeches, or alternatively speech (i.e. words with violent content, e.g. death, killed, bom- public statements of his goals and values, and they communicate bardment) (see also Muschalik, 2018) were used and reference to inciting and threatening messages to multiple audiences (see primary participants was obvious. Analogising with Leets and Table 1). OBL1 and OBL3 are texts that communicate threats Giles’ (1997, p. 262) “fighting words”, the analysed utterances against the American people in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks were referred to as fighting utterances, given the fighting colour and in light of the US aggression against Iraq. OBL2, OBL4 and (i.e. load) strung throughout these utterances. The choice of OBL5 address the Iraqis and Muslims in general, inciting them to examining the primary participants in these utterances was driven jihad against the American troops in Iraq. OBL6 is a statement of by two factors. First, naming a third person (e.g. Americans, incitement against Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia Bush) as well as using additional referents (e.g. third person and his support of the Americans and his initiative for peace with pronouns such as they, he)reflects that the author has defined the Israel. OBL7 and OBL8 address the Pakistani and Afghan people, ‘our’ group to a great extent by the existence of opposing Others respectively, and incite them for jihad against the US-led (see also Pennebaker and Chung, 2007). Second, this analysis operations in Afghanistan. departs from the premise of ‘existential’ presupposition (see Yule, The OBL statements were produced in the period following the 1996), that is, the explicit naming of and pronominal reference to 9/11 attacks on the USA in 2001. In this period, the US President rival or opposing primary participants (i.e. America) presuppose George W. Bush declared the war against al-Qaeda and a number that the ‘X’ Other and ‘Their’ actions exist or are real. AntConc of Muslim countries (e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq) as a ‘crusade’, software (Anthony, 2019) was used to identify the prominent and Bush led a polarising campaign where countries worldwide actors, their pronominal references and the predicates associated were invited to choose to be either with or against America in this with these actors. This exploration allowed for focusing on the war (Ray, 2017). The aftermath of the 9/11 attacks created greater primary participants in discourse and considering the partici- distrust between the Americans and Arab/Muslim societies pants and their master identities to be the “deictic centre” (Cap, (Miller, 2015), particularly in light of declaring the so-called 2017, p. 5) of the othering practice in the dataset. The violent ‘global war against terrorism’ which targeted Muslim majority parts of speech that occurred more than once in the dataset were countries. In this polarising sociopolitical environment, the OBL identified, using AntConc. Then, the construction of the utter- statements were also of polarising and radicalising nature (Etaywe ances containing these words and the primary participants (or and Zappavigna, 2021). OBL’s public statements, thus, offer additional referents to them, e.g. pronouns) was analysed. For compellingly appropriate material for examining othering as a more accuracy in the choice of utterances analysed, the exact form of language aggression performed in a war context, and give utterances were sorted manually and were analysed qualitatively. a representation of utterances and grammatical structures used in This paper takes an independent “clause as speech act” the act of othering in conflict context. The offensive potential of (Halliday, 1973, p. 40). It also considers OBL’s strategic choices the grammatical choices in the dataset is interpreted in relation to “in the construction of linguistic forms—sentences” to be serving Table 1 Overview of the OBL dataset. Text code Title/topic Date of delivery OBL1 A message to the American People 29 Oct 2004 OBL2 A message to Iraqis in particular, and Muslims in General 18 Oct 2003 OBL3 A message to the American People (on Aggression on Iraq) 18 Oct 2003 OBL4 A message to the Muslim Ummah 7 Oct 2001 OBL5 A message to the People of Iraq in Particular, and Muslims in General (throw out regimes) 11 Feb 2003 OBL6 A statement on Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’ Initiative for Peace with Israel 28 Mar 2002 OBL7 A message to the Pakistani people 24 Sep 2001 OBL8 A message to the Afghan people 15 Aug 2002 4 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE in realizing “options in meaning […] and behaviour” (Halliday, moral actions, given that “performing illocutionary acts is 1973, p. 52). Each fighting utterance or sentence was examined imposing a type of status function” in an interpersonal relation- manually to identify its ship (Searle, 1999, p. 147). I argue for Heritage’s(2012,p.7) contention that consideration of the epistemic status of a speaker syntactic construction—transactive or non-transactive, i.e. in relation to the selected grammatical forms is “a critical resource clauses with ‘agent-verb-affected participant’ construction for determining the status of the utterance as an action” for or clauses with one participant construction, respectively radicalising stances and perceptions. (see Examples 1 and 16, respectively, in the section “Results The othering paradigm of analysis was based on the and discussion”). construction of ‘Us’, the oppressed and undergoing injustices, mood—clause type that is declarative, imperative or and ‘Them’, the oppressors, through grammatical choices. To interrogative, i.e. clauses with Subject^Finite, Predicator sensitize us to the role of identity work in informing the linguistic (non-finite) or Finite^Subject sequence, respectively (as in structure of framing the issues and situations that al-Qaeda seeks Examples 1, 10, and 19, respectively). to address, within the oppressed Muslims versus oppressor others voice—that is either active, i.e. a clause with normal linking dichotomy, three framing functions were considered as informed of Agent to Subject and Patient to Object, or passive which by Benford and Snow (2000): links Patient to Subject (see Examples 1 and 10, respectively). Diagnostic framing: in which a structure focuses on identification of a problem and source of the problem. Inspired by Cap’s(2017) discursive functions of othering and Motivational framing: in which a structure serves in threat-construction as well as by Pandey’s(2004) overt and covert providing a call or rationale for engaging in collective, othering, the grammatical selections were mapped onto two violent actions. broad types of othering: Prognostic framing: in which a structure implies the articulation of proposed solutions, or an action that Overt othering: in which the responsibility for perceived negative actions is overtly assigned to the (‘Other’) Agent as addresses the problem (e.g. incitement to ‘martyrhood a basis for othering. That is, the grammatical choices of operations’ against the Americans, and ‘civil disobedience’ construction, mood and voice are strategically deployed to against Arab rulers who support the Americans). foreground the exercise of power by ‘Others’ as well as the In addition, for a better understanding of the moral casual relationships between ‘Others’ and negatively assumptions and considerations underpinning the assigning of perceived actions/‘realities’ which are targeting ‘Our’ group. agency and affectedness roles of participants, four moral These choices are thought of as being in service of the metavalues were considered. In so doing, I draw on recent conceptualisation of others as a threat to ‘Us’, which serves research into the morality of social actions and evaluation to exclude ‘Them’ in a step towards coercing (generating suggesting that evaluation in aggression and conflictive contexts is fear of ‘Others’) and legitimating ‘Our’ hostile actions. sustained by culturally and contextually sensitive, moral founda- Covert othering: in which the causal relationship and tions (see e.g. Ståhl et al., 2016; Parvaresh, 2019; Etaywe and responsibility for negative actions targeting ‘Us’ is back- Zappavigna, 2021). These are: ingroup/loyalty; authority/(dis) grounded; yet it can be found to be relative to back- respect; harm/care; and liberty/oppression. In this paper, the grounded ‘Others’. The causal relationship can be signalled allocated social role (Agent or Patient) and the illocutionary by grammatical resources such as a possessive pronoun points are taken—in Van Langenhove’s(2017, p. 1) terms—“as (e.g. our), prepositional circumstantials with ‘by’ and the activators of moral orders” and contributors to our under- ‘from’, premodification or postmodification of a noun, standing of the link between agency and social structure. and so on (e.g. van Leeuwen, 1996). This mapping of grammatical selections onto the types of Results and discussion othering aims to highlight the directness in the realization of who This section reports and discusses the findings of the qualitative is responsible for the status quo and who is doing what to whom/ analysis of the fighting utterances. The following subsections what. This realization is taken as a clue to the practice of othering highlight the active role of the language user (OBL) in discourse which is chiefly driven by viewing the self/ingroup as being production and the pursued pragmatic functions, in relation to victimised and outgroups as being the victimizers. This kind of the framework of analysis of the two types of othering: overt evaluative construction, I argue, enables a terrorist to influence othering, and covert othering of primary deictic centers— the stances and actions of ingroup audiences against outgroups. America and the American allies (e.g. Israel) who belong to two The illocutionary points of the othering utterances—such as master identities that are distinct from OBL’s (Christianity and getting the putative reader to do something, thus a ‘directive’ Judaism). Prior to delving into the details of types of othering, point—were examined to provide evidence of the purpose behind their realizations and pragmatic functions, two primary deictic the utterances as acts of othering. The aim is to understand the centers are identified: coercive and offensive potential of OBL’s grammatical selections America/American* (60 explicit naming occurrences); alongside their pragmatic functions. In so doing, I adopt Searle’s Muslim(s) (80 occurrences), including people of Lebanon, (1999) notion of illocutionary points (i.e. what ‘count as’, for Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, etc. example, a directive point or an assertive point) to establish a link between the mood type of an utterance and its pragmatic purpose Additional references to the primary participants come under in terrorist discourse. The focus of this analysis is on whether the two main polarised categories of pronouns: mood type asserts or requests information about or actions towards primary social actors, to enhance our understanding of First person pronouns (I, we, our, us), which refer to the the role of grammar insofar as asserting or requesting informa- ingroup, totalling 227 occurrences; tion and actions. This role sensitizes us to the consideration of the Third person pronouns (they, their, them, he, his), which epistemic and social status of the author (i.e. OBL) as a knowing refer to outgroups and outgroup agents such as George W. person and a person of higher moral status or a commander of Bush, totalling 248 occurrences. HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 5 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 The pronominal references to these primary participants are in (5) a. They [Bush and his supporters] [Subject: Agent] came out subjective case (e.g. we, they, he, I), possessive form (e.g. our, to fight [Verb] Islam [Object: Patient] under the falsifying their, his), and objective case (e.g. them, us) which makes focusing name of ‘fighting terrorism’. (OBL4) on the roles assigned to the primary participants crucial in the b. …America… [Subject: Agent] has trampled [Verb] all overt and covert acts of othering. human values… [Object: Patient]. (OBL8) The grammatical choices such as those in the examples Overt othering: Grammatical choices and their pragmatic above tend to realize: the enactment of responsibility- functions. The analysis has revealed an author who is decidedly attribution; the construction of a straightforward causal interpersonally involved in the communication and the act of relationship between the Agent and the processes targeting othering, particularly in terms of overt assigning of agency and ‘Us’; the presentation of who is in a position of power; and affectedness roles to the primary social actors. The findings show the divisive function of OBL’s texts. This direct patterns of use of grammatical choices that have constructed a responsibility-attribution and structure of ‘Their’ aggressive paradigm of Agents and Patients, where, on the one hand, ‘Them’ agentive role serve the purpose of diagnostic framing, that are constructed explicitly as Agents and responsible for harm is, the overt identification of the problem (e.g. injustice and caused to ‘Us’. On the other hand, ‘Us’ are constructed as Patients victimization) and the source of the problem who should be of ‘Their’ negative actions, or as Agents of negative acts that are blamed. That is, within this pattern of victimhood constructed as being morally justified and reactive actions. These construction, OBL maintains conventional Agent-Patient findings provide support to previous research (e.g. Bandura, 2016; roles through the use of transactive constructions. He also Etaywe and Zappavigna, 2021) that blameworthiness and directly links Agent to Subject and Patient to Object in shifting-responsibility are key mechanisms through which a ter- utterances in active voice. In addition, the declarative mood rorist selectively morally disengages from accountability for has enabled conveying statements of presumed facts and harmful conduct they cause against outgroups. opinions about ‘Us’ and the Americans as ‘Others’. To elaborate, one pattern of grammatical choices that are used OBL’s utterances as such proffer othering as—in Bourdieu’s in overt othering manifests in the repeated employment of ‘Them’ (1991, p. 66) terms—an exchange that is “established within as Agent and ‘Us’ as Patient. Consider the examples below where a particular symbolic relation of power”. The pattern of the the fighting parts of speech are in bold. For instance, in Example grammatical choices of construction, voice and mood has 1, ‘The American forces’ are Agent (Subject) of the process (Verb) served, so far, the coercive function of seeking to influence ‘attacked’ while ‘us’ are Patient, that is, undergoing the harm of the ingroup audience’s stances, given projected personal others. In Example 2, America is the Agent of permitting ‘the physical consequences. In other words, the strategic choice Israelis’ to become Agent of a process (invade) whose Patient is of grammatical resources appeared to play a main role in ‘Lebanon’. In Example 3, ‘They’ are Agent of the process ‘terrorise’ the strategic stimulation of fear of and hostility towards the while the ingroup’s members in Lebanon and Palestine are in American ‘aggressors’, based on the constructed Patient Patient role. In Example 4, the Americans are also the Agent of role of ‘Us’. The assigned roles thus ultimately serve to urge the process (have supported); and the “beneficialised” (Van for supporting ‘Us’. Put differently, the roles activate the Leeuwen, 1996, p. 43) of this support are ‘the oppressor’ while the motivational framing, that is, they provide a rationale such ingroup’s members, that is, ‘the innocent child’, are the Patient as a religious motive, as in Example 5-a above, or a group (indirect Object) as realized by the grammatical signal (i.e. duty, for engaging in violence as an identity-protection preposition) ‘against’. In Example 5-a ‘Islam’ is the Patient enterprise. As such, this construction of the world appears undergoing the effect of the process ‘fight’, and so is ‘all human to enact—in Spencer-Oatey and Kádár’s(2016) terms— values’ (i.e. it is the Patient) undergoing the effect of the process interpersonal-links metavalues (namely, the ‘ingroup/loy- ‘trampled’ that is acted by ‘America’ (Example 5-b). This pattern alty’ metavalue) and inter-group relationships metavalues of direct assignment of Agency and Affectedness roles accords (chiefly, the ‘harm/care’ metavalue). The patterning of with previous work (e.g. Thetela, 2001) on the impact of syntactic syntactic construction appears to be driven by the moral features on promoting who is suffering and who is responsible for reasoning of obligations towards defending the ingroup and this suffering, and yielding insights into how these syntactic caring for harm being imposed upon the ingroup. features play a role in conflict contexts in polarizing the primary This moral reasoning has also been realized grammatically social groups on the basis of the master identities of the agents in the pattern of construction of ‘Our’ Agent role and/or and the affected (i.e. the Americans and their allies, and Muslims, ‘Their’ Patient role. The moral function of this construction respectively). This syntactic pattern serves to construct otherness is based on othering the Patient against whom ‘Our’ by building stereotypical images of social groups based on their Agentive role has been brought about as a reaction and a socioreligious affiliations and their associated actions. defensive act. That is, the act of othering is uttered after an offence by the ‘Other’. I term this kind of othering (1) The American forces [Subject: Agent] attacked [Verb] us retrospective othering (cf. Aijmer, 1996). Consider Example [Object: Patient] with smart bombs, bombs weighing 6 where ‘we’ is the Agent of the violent processes ‘punish’ thousands of pounds, cluster bombs, and bunker and ‘destroy’, and this agentive role is constructed as being busters. (OBL5) in retrospect of what the Americans previously did to ‘Us’ (2) …America [Subject: Agent] permitted [Verb] the Israelis to in Lebanon and elsewhere and thus ‘so that they [the invade [Verb] Lebanon [Object: Patient] supported by the Americans] taste some of what we tasted’. Similarly, ‘it’ American 3rd Fleet. (OBL1) (referring to America, in Example 7) is in Patient role while (3) They [the Israelis, the US ally] [Subject: Agent] terrorise ‘Allah’ (Subject) is presented as an ingroup Agent. OBL’s [Verb] the women and children [Object: Patient], and kill utterances as such proffer othering as—in Bourdieu’s(1991, [Verb] and capture [Verb] the men [Object: p. 66) terms—an exchange that is “capable of procuring a Patient]. (OBL1) certain material or symbolic profit” for al-Qaeda as well as (4) They [the Americans] [Subject: Agent] have supported the wider cultural/religious ingroup. ‘Their’ Agentive role in the oppressor against the innocent child [Object: previous aggression has served as premise for the Patient]! (OBL4) 6 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE retrospective othering that morally legitimises ‘Our’ reactive sanctioning enactment of aggressive interpersonal relationships, Agentive role in violence within the ‘liberty/oppression’ which is proportionate with Lams’ (2017) finding on the role of moral framework. That is, the ‘Our’ Agent-‘Their’ Patient assertive speech acts in othering. Second, this licensing of violence syntactic construction appears to be underpinned by values and its goal has the rhetorical effect of steering the ingroup that are concerned with resentment to oppression and addressees towards violence and is thus of directive point. The outgroups that are dominating ‘Our’ group or restricting declarative structure choice also serves to activate the point of ‘Our’ right to freedom. The construction of ‘Us’ as Agents counting the utterance as committing the author to the truth of is, thus, deployed—in Ståhl et al. (2016) terms—in response the propositional content about ‘Others’ and the subsequent to actions of dominators or to signs of restricting ‘Our’ sanctioning of violence. This assertion-based sanctioning could freedom, which serves to encourage actions to come also be enhanced by grammatical choices such as the conjunction together in solidarity for preserving freedom and to ‘so that’ in Example 6, where ‘so that’ (double underlined) overcome the oppressors. signalled rationalization—i.e. as a form of legitimation (see Van Leeuwen 2007)—of violent practices by reference to their effects (6) [W]e [Subject: Agent] should punish [Verb] the oppressor or goals, which is ‘so that…they [the Americans] refrain from in kind, and should destroy [Verb] towers in America killing our women and children’. Having reported and discussed so that they taste some of what we tasted, and they refrain the findings regarding overt othering, the next subsection focuses from killing our women and children. (OBL1) on covert othering. (7) Here is America! Allah [Subject: Agent] the glorified and the exalted has hit [Verb] it [Object: Patient] in one of its killing Covert othering: Grammatical choices and their pragmatic points, destroying its greatest buildings! (OBL4) functions. The analysis undertaken provides evidence of covert Othering utterances, as shown in Examples 1–7 above, offer othering-enactment, where the cause-effect relationship is back- evidence of patterns of syntactic choices that OBL deploys to grounded through a set of syntactic transformations. These include, foreground the causal relationship and responsibility for the inter alia, the use of passive voice. Eighty-six sentences of passive brought about state of affairs. The choices, which have enabled structure are observed in the dataset, revealing the strategic combi- OBL to overtly other the Americans and their allies, are: nation of voice options in the OBL texts where passive voice shifts the focus from who is doing what to the ‘immoral’ action offered as Transactive construction; a basis of othering. For instance, in Examples 8, 9 and 10, OBL uses Active voice construction; the passive construction. In this construction the ‘We’ group is in ONLY declarative structure: which encodes the othering Subject position but with Patient role. The passive voice here enables utterances with indicative mood type that conveys asser- the author to draw the putative readers’ attention more to others’ tions or statements of presumed facts about ‘Their’ group acts than to naming others, and to highlight the heinous, ‘unjustified’ versus ‘Our’ group or communicates the state of affairs and thus ‘immoral’ actions that are targeting ‘Us’.These findings which the threatening ‘Other’ has brought about or will be support findings of previous research (e.g. Pandey, 2004;Thetela, responsible for bringing it about. 2001) that the use of passive voice facilitates amplifying and fore- grounding the theme of ‘Us’ undergoing the negative acts while In sum, the analysis of OBL’s grammatical choices has revealed backgrounding the Agent, which here serves (i) in amplifying the the construction of overt othering. They display how OBL has discourse function of provoking hostility due to the physical harm sought to foreground others as being responsible for negative brought about, and (ii) in activating the motivational framing actions. That is, others are either the Agent of actions affecting function, urging for a response. ‘Us’ or the Patient of legitimated actions by ‘Us’. These grammatical choices have been strategically deployed to con- (8) …[T]he bombardment began, many [Subject: Patient] were ceptualise ‘Others’ as a physical threat to ‘Us’ as well as an killed and injured, and many others were terrorised and ideological threat to ‘Our’ symbolic self (i.e. the Muslim Ummah displaced. (OBL5) —the body of Muslim communities worldwide), which rhetori- (9) On 20 Rajab 1422 Hijri, corresponding to 7 October 2001 cally serves in legitimising violence against outgroups. These CE, our centres [Subject: Patient] were exposed to a findings offer support to previous research on threat-construction concentrated bombing as of the first hour of the American as a means for legitimising ingroup violence (e.g. Cap, 2017; campaign. (OBL5) Reicher et al., 2008). Findings also accord with Lams’ (2018) argument that such endowment of agency roles to participants (10) A million innocent children [Subject: Patient] are being serves to promote awareness of ingroup audiences about events killed up to this moment I am speaking to you! They with self-serving bias, and to stimulate creation of a discourse of [Subject: Patient] are being killed in Iraq for nothing wrong moral panic. they did. (OBL4) This stimulation has invested in the declarative syntax which While an ‘Other’ can be identified from the co-text, using facilitates the process of giving information by OBL as a knowing particular grammatical choices such as pre-modifications of and thus informing person of the ‘true’ events. In other words, the nominalisation (e.g. American campaign, underlined in declarative mood has been used to serve—in Heritage’s(2012) Example 9, and American law, in Example 11) is found to terms—in presenting the othering-information, which is within be a marker for identifying the Agent or who is in the the speaker’s epistemic domain, as a basis for the encouraged “activated” role (van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 44). In Example 12, social relationships and antagonistic actions against ‘Others’. The the Americans and their Israeli allies are the Agent realized declarative mood tends to be deployed as—in Van Langenhove’s in the post-modification of nominalisation (underlined) (2017) terms—an activator of moral orders and an enabler for while ‘our people’ are the Patient signalled by the certain positioning of moral agency based on assertions about the preposition, ‘against’ (double-underlined). Similarly, in world. The choice of declarative mood emphasizes the illocu- Example 13, OBL uses the active voice where the Agent tionary point of the othering utterances, which is here—in Cap’s (America) is not in Subject position, but its agency is (2017, p. 12) terms—of an “assertion-directive” link. That is, the realized by the preposition (by America). In Example 14, illocutionary point is, first, assertive in that the utterances serve in while ‘America’ is the Agent of the killing act, America’s HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 7 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 role is backgrounded by being placed in the Object position (‘the prisons’). Structure here also serves enacting the harm/ of the Verb ‘helped’. Notably, in Examples 11 and 14, the care metavalue and the prognostic function of framing ‘Us’ presentation of Self and Others is constructed in the that- versus ‘Them’ (the imprisoners). Noticeably, grammar still clause, which is a construction that facilitates background- performs a key function of othering in these examples, but ing the cause-effect relationship, a finding that is in accord through different choices from those used in overt othering. with Pandey’s(2004). In Example 15, ‘the Americans” (16) They are evildoers! (OBL4) interference in and control over Saudi Arabia’s decision is (17) They have followed the falsehood! (OBL4) backgrounded to the benefit of foregrounding the act of (18) O Allah, release our brother prisoners in the prisons betrayal by ‘Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz’ who supports of tyrants in America; Guantanamo; occupied Palestine; the Americans presence in Saudi Arabia and the American- al  Riyadh; and everywhere—that You are ‘over all things led coalition against Iraq and Muslim countries, as realized competent.’ (OBL2) in the Verb ‘betrayed’, which enacts the metavalue of disloyalty of Prince Abdullah to the ingroup. This The analysis has so far demonstrated that, in covert othering, the foregrounding also provides a clue to the authority/(dis) causal relationship as well as the responsibility for negative actions respect metavalue, that is, this foregrounding is under- targeting ‘Us’ is not grammatically direct. A reader or an analyst, pinned by assumptions about Arab officials in authority thus, cannot assume a one-to-one relationship between grammatical who are expected to be respectful to the Islamic traditions structure and function. This structure-function relationship can be and to obey God’s rules in making coalitions, and in joining realized as being backgrounded and thus requires accounting for and defending the Muslim ingroup affiliation. contextual factors as well as stylistic considerations while considering the following strategic grammatical choices: (11) On that day, I was assured that injustice and intentional killing of innocent women and children is an approved ● Non-transactive construction; American law, and that intimidation is freedom and ● Passive voice; democracy, while resistance is terrorism and ● Various forms of mood (as further demonstrated in backward. (OBL1) subsection “Various forms of mood and their illocutionary (12) But after enough was enough and we witnessed the injustice points”), including declarative. and tyranny of the American–Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, the idea [of More on passive voice, declarative mood, and illocutionary points.As 9/11] came to my mind. (OBL1) stressed earlier, in the utterances of passive voice and non- (13) Amid this unjust war, the war of infidels and debauchees transactive construction where the agentive role of ‘Others’ and waged by America along with its allies and traitor-agents, ‘Their’ responsibility is backgrounded, the negatively positioned we would like to emphasise on a number of important ‘Others’ are realizable in the use of other grammatical signals such as points. (OBL5) possessive pronoun, prepositions, and pre-modification and/or post- (14) We also make it clear that whoever helped America […]to modification of nominalisation. In addition, the declarative mood is kill Muslims in Iraq […] he is an apostate, outside of Islam found to be predominant. However, the illocutionary point of the circle, and it is permissible to take away their property and declarative structures varies. For example, the declarative point in spill their blood. (OBL5) Example 14 above counts as bringing about a change in the world by (15) Before that, he [Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz] betrayed the representing it as having been changed through a declaration of war two holy mosques when he allowed the Americans to enter against those declared as ‘infidel’ and declaring that it is morally the country of the two holy mosques under the false ‘permissible’ to take away the infidels’ lives and property. In other allegations of the need for their assistance for three months. instances,suchasExamples8–11 and Examples 15, 16, the illocu- (OBL6) tionary point of the declarative structure is assertive; that is, it activates the author’s commitment to the truth of the propositional In Examples 16 and 17, ‘they’ (the Americans) are in the content about others. In addition, the assertion-commissive point is Subject position, but they are the only participant; that is, also identified,asinExample 12,which appearstoserve in linkingto OBL practices symbolic othering through a non-transactive OBL a commitment to undertake a particular course of action, as construction where the Patient is not mentioned. Instead, represented in the propositional content (to attack America in the focus is on others’‘being’ and attributes, as realized in response to the US ‘injustice and tyranny’), while asserting the the Noun (‘evildoer’, in Example 16) and in the Object injustice and tyranny of America. The illocutionary points of the ‘falsehood’ (i.e. followers of falsehood), in a description of declarative structure as such vary to construct hostility as reasonable Arab officials, regimes, parties and religious scholars who and aggression as warranted. support America in Iraq and the US-sponsored options in That said, I also argue that despite different grammatical solving the conflict in Iraq and Palestine – thus negatively choices in the acts of othering including active and passive framing them within the butcher-victim framework: ‘They voice structures (as in Examples 3 and 8, respectively), the have supported the butcher against the victim’. This non- characterization and framing of outgroups as aggressors, transactive construction serves in emphasizing the immor- tyrants and unjust and the ingroup as victims remains explicitly ality of those included in the ‘Others’ category, which is also similar in both examples. This means that the same perception facilitated through the assertive point of the declarative of Self and Others would also remain the same in the OBL texts, structure which is underpinned by assumptions about even if we encounter a structure such as ‘Our women and loyalty to the ingroup and its jihadist option to solve the children are terrorized by the Israelis’ or a structure such as that conflict. In Example 18, the Patient role of ingroup in Example 3 (‘They terrorise the women and children’). In both members (‘prisoners’) not only originates in the Object active and passive voice structures, we continue to have the function but is also enhanced and signalled by the broad categorisation of overt and covert othering, but we possessive pronoun ‘our’ (underlined) whereas the Agent encounter an activation of two distinct functions of framing. In role of ‘Them’ is signalled by a prepositional circumstantial the passive structure, the perception of ‘Their’ immoral action with ‘in’ (double-underlined) that postmodifies the noun and ‘Our’ vulnerable situation is stressed, a perception that is 8 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 ARTICLE underpinned by OBL’s focus on and predispositions about the disaligned ‘Others’. These ‘Others’ and their role in attempting to need to care for the vulnerable and the harmful action targeting ‘scare’‘Us’ with their ‘weapons’ have been backgrounded to ‘Us’. In other words, the passive structure, first, is triggered by emphasise the command function of the utterance while OBL’s experiencing of harmful actions or signs of suffering, emphasizing the religious epistemic status of the informing or and, second, attests to the presence of expectations about the commanding person, as realized in the since-clause (underlined). need to defend the ingroup, which ultimately serves the motivational function of framing (i.e. a call for counteraction). (20) Do not let these thugs scare you with their weapons, since In contrast, in the active voice structure, the focus is on the Allah has wasted their plots and weakened their harmer and on an opposing coalition against which ‘We’ need might. (OBL2) to maintain a strong coalition, which ultimately serves the prognostic function of framing (i.e. identifying the source of the A clearer case of backgrounding the Americans, to emphasize conflict and who is responsible for ‘our’ unfavourable reality). the command or request for action, is expressed in Examples 21a That said, not only the use of voice but also the deployment of and 21b which are however in declarative form. In these various mood types (as explored in next subsection) is found to examples, the others’ role in invading ‘Our’ religious group be a critical resource to activate more framing functions and to members in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere is back- present the status of an utterance as an action or an act of grounded for the purpose of amplifying the directive point (i.e. urging for an action, which provides support to Heritage’s the inciting function) of the utterances against ‘Others’,as (2012)contentionin thisregard. indicated by the performative verb, incite, underlined. Despite the declarative form of these utterances, their point is not assertive Various forms of mood and their illocutionary points.Although but directive; that is, OBL is not informing but requesting actions. thechoiceof the declarativemoodtypeispredominant (see In sum, the close analysis of the illocutionary point of OBL’s use Examples 1 through 17)—which serves in building stereo- of various mood types provides evidence of (i) his strategic typical images of outgroups—utterances in interrogative and activation of the prognostic framing function which implies the imperative mood are also used to, respectively, convey ques- articulation of proposed solutions and (ii) his moral sanctioning tions that seek confirmation of a call for violence, and convey of violence within the framework of loyalty to the ingroup and the commands/directives. Regarding the interrogative mood, con- framework of liberty/oppression and self-defence. sider Example 19 where the interrogative form activates the structure of a rhetorical question that expects a ‘no’ answer, (21) a. We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to defend, with and the question thus counts as assertion-commissive. That is, all that they possess and are capable of, against the American through the interrogative structure, OBL not only commits Crusader forces invading Pakistan and Afghanistan. (OBL7) himself to the truth of the propositional content that frames b. We do incite our brothers to fight you, stab you, and inflict violence against ‘Others’ as being ‘self-defence’, but also pro- a massacre in you. (OBL3) motes his undertaking and commitment to this ‘self-defence’ violent course of action and mobilises similar response against ‘the aggressor’. The rhetorical question, as such, marks OBL’s epistemic domain in relation to a collective threat and his Conclusion and further research framing of violence as a collective defence. This question also Othering is an ideological, social and discursive practice in which a language user strategically deploys particular grammatical counts as trying to get the ingroup’s addressees to behave violently and to invite a match between their behaviours and choices whose patterns manifest and function—in Verschueren’s the propositional content, that is, to self-defense against (2012, p. 2) terms—as a powerful tool for coercing into and ‘Others’.In Heritage’s(2012) terms, the expected ‘no’ answer- legitimating aggressive attitudes, behaviours and negative con- interrogative serves to perceive the content as assertive rather sequences in terms of hostility and stereotyping. This study has than as questioning whether self-defence and punishing the explored the practice of othering through analysis of grammatical aggressor is justified. That is, the interrogative is perceived as a structure and its pragmatic functions, as realized in a set of texts positive assessment of ‘our’ violence to be agreed with (or communicated by OBL in the period following the 9/11 attacks. confirmed) rather than a request for information. The question The analytical procedure showcased has the potential to aid in here “is fundamentally an attitude… It is an utterance that hate and threat assessment by sensitizing security threat assessors “craves” a verbal or other semiotic (e.g., a nod) response. The to the kind of linguistic resources used in othering as a premise attitude is characterized by the [writer’s] subordinating himself for radicalisation to violence. The analysis has revealed how an to his [readers]” (Bolinger, 1957,p. 4)whose agreementand extremist may construe allegedly “reasonable hostility” (Tracy, confirmation he is trying to win as a step towards mobilising 2008, p. 169) in terms of attacking the public face of outgroups and radicalising them to violence. and inciting violence against them (Culpepper, 2011) within a moral struggle which an ingroup ought to resist. The findings (19) Is self-defence and punishing the aggressor in kind vilified contribute to threat assessors’ understanding of the relationship terrorism? (OBL1) between language and sociopolitically aggravated acts of othering and antagonism, by addressing terrorist public statements as a In the imperative form of the act of othering, OBL, as in site of “relatively durable set of [inter-group] social relations” (see Example 20, communicates a request for action through a also Bourdieu, 1991, p. 8; Malešević, 2019). The findings present negative command (‘do not…’) that is aimed at getting the the language of othering in terrorist discourse as being a code of addressees to act in a way that ensures some disadvantage to social attitudes, relationships and obligations, where the writer is ‘Others’ (i.e. the Americans, the “far enemy”, Miller, 2015, p. 12). in a constant negotiation of intragroup links and inter-group By uttering and thus performing an illocutionary act of a directive relationship, and presents himself as a “deontic” participant in a point, OBL imposes a moral status of a person who is not scared deontic action (Searle, 2009, p. 9) of defending the ingroup’s of ‘Others’—which serves in presenting himself as a leader or ideological and physical territories, for the defence of which he someone who is aligned with the putative readers and is in a also calls for a collective action. The findings support Searle’s position of a demander of actions and of firm stances against the (2009, p. 89) argument that utterances in a text promote a moral HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 9 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 order and create “a reality of deontology. It is a reality that utterance is conveying information or requesting/demanding confers rights, responsibilities, and so on”. The findings also action, has offered clues to the language user’s personal identity provide support to Van Langenhove’s(2017) argument that and relational identity as being deeply intertwined with his language users as agents in social structures have the deontic epistemic status and the mood of his utterances. Though there power to create, promote or negate some moral metavalues appeared to be an association between mood type (e.g. declara- through contributing to our understanding of the link between tive) and some illocutionary points (e.g. assertion or conveying agency and structure. information), this relationship has been found—as also argued by The argument on the role of syntax in the act of othering, in Heritage (2012)—not to be fixed. Utterances of declarative, this paper, accords with other studies that have noted the value imperative and interrogative forms tend to be of directive illocu- of syntactic features in the investigation of otherness (e.g. tionary point in the practice of othering within terrorism context, Pandey, 2004;Lams, 2018). These features have provided clues that is, they attempt to get the members of cultural/religious ingroup that can account for the strategic character of verbal aggression to behave violently, as a radicalising feature of discourse. in othering texts and the moral underpinnings therein, parti- Since this paper does not claim that its description of the cularly in circumstances of conflict and lack of security, where othering act is exhaustive or representative of othering in all —in Suleiman’s(2006)terms—particular identities tend to terrorist contexts, future research might expand the examination become more salient and polarised. The findings show that it is of othering undertaken in this study to consider the kind of not only a terrorist’s actions that can be aggressive but also their othering produced and the linguistic resources employed by linguistically realized attitudes and acts of othering which terrorists from different ideological backgrounds. The same involve acts of impoliteness. This finding accords with Janicki’s analytical procedures may also be extended to the study of the (2017) view of aggression which is inclusive of all kinds of othering act in other contexts, such as news media and political phenomena such as behaviours, activities, situations, attitudes, discourse, that utilize otherness for various ideological purposes. and so on. This aggression can be accomplished by two main That said, I hope that the approach showcased will provide a strategies of othering—overt othering, and covert othering—in useful complementary method to the investigative approaches to which choices with respect to outgroup participants are directly understanding the language of aggression and conflict, which is or indirectly represented as agentive of ‘bad’ actions, and crucial for maintaining peace, countering hate and preventing ingroup participants are represented as affected (i.e. acted- radicalisation to extremism worldwide. upon). This construction serves in establishing two opposing coalitions of distinct master identities, “expressed through the ideological us versus them binary opposition” (Thetela, 2001,p. Data availability 347). The various grammatical choices identified in terms of The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current mood type, clause voice, and non/transactive construction have study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable a potential to impact the addressees’ perception of outgroups request. which are seen as blameworthy and morally responsible for victimizing the ingroup and thus for ‘our’ reactive, defensive Received: 22 July 2021; Accepted: 25 April 2022; violence. While overt othering (in transactive construction, active voice, and only declarative mood) places increased emphasis on the perception of the agency of Others, covert othering (in nontransactive construction, passive voice, and any mood type) places more emphasis on the immoral actions. In References Van Dijk’s(1998, p. 207) terms, this consistent construction of Adams B, Brown A, Flear C, Thomson M (2011) Understanding the process of radicalisation: review of the empirical literature. 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J Lang Aggress Confl 7(1):79–104 Pennebaker J, Chung C (2007) Computerized text analysis of al-Qaeda transcripts. Competing interests In: Krippendorff K, Bock M (eds) A content analysis reader. Sage, Thousand The author declares no competing interests. Oaks, CA Perry B, Mason G (2018) Special edition: discourses of hate-guest editors’ intro- duction. Int J Crime Justice Soc Democr 7(2):1–3. https://doi.org/10.5204/ Ethical approval ijcjsd.v7i2.521 Not applicable as this study did not involve human participants. HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2022) 9:177 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 11 ARTICLE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01178-5 Informed consent Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by the Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, author. adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party Additional information material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Awni Etaywe. indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. 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