Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 11:1 (2023) ► pp.121–143

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Dualisms in Jihad

The role of metaphor in creating ideological dichotomies

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad de Granada
Published online: 25 March 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00075.pat
Abstract
This paper explores how metaphors are employed in jihadist magazines to promote a dichotomist worldview of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, ‘good’ versus ‘bad’, ‘east’ versus ‘west’ and ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’. It argues that juxtapositions in both language and thought help writers to reaffirm and/or challenge certain paradigms. The approach uses critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) to investigate qualitative evidence of conceptual metaphors, focusing on the domains life is a seed, conflict is a relationship between predator and prey, and faith is light/lack of faith is darkness. Dichotomous language in these domains (e.g., ‘seed’ versus ‘weed’; ‘sheep’ versus ‘wolves’; the ‘spark of Jihad’ versus the ‘shadow’ of Western governments) helps to position extremist groups on the right side of a number of paradigms. The use of binary metaphors also permits simultaneously conflicting conceptualisations; for instance, jihadists are both innocent victims and merciless defenders of their faith, depending on with whom or what they are juxtaposed. The research concludes that the use of binary metaphors serves to underscore entrenched paradigms of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’, thus allowing the writers to frame their discourse in a way that justifies and promotes their extremist agenda.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1The (extreme) discourse of jihadism
    • 2.2Metaphor and ideology
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data: The magazines
    • 3.2Theoretical framework and procedure of analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Conflict as a prey versus predator relationship
    • 4.2‘Seed’ versus ‘weed’
    • 4.3Light of faith / heat of conflict
    • 4.4Superhero vs. villain
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Links
References (61)
References
Aggarwal, Neil K. 2019. Media Persuasion in the Islamic State. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Albtoush, Mohammad A., and Sakina S. Sahuri. 2017. “Beyond Predator and Prey: Figuring Corruption through Animal Metaphoric Scenarios in the Jordanian Context.” English Language and Literature Studies 7 (2): 110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asher, Jeffrey R. 2001. “Σπειρεται: Paul’s Anthropogenic Metaphor in 1 Corinthians 15: 42–44.” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (1): 101–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, Rachelle Vessey, and Tony McEnery. 2021. The Language of Violent Jihad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, and Rachelle Vessey. 2018. “A Corpus-Driven Comparison of English and French Islamist Extremist Texts.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23 (3): 255–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, Costas Gabrielatos, and Tony McEnery. 2012. “Sketching Muslims: A Corpus Driven Analysis of Representations around the Word ‘Muslim’ in the British Press 1998–2009.” Applied Linguistics 34 (3): 255–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benigni, Matthew C., Kenneth Joseph, and Kathleen M. Carley. 2017. “Online Extremism and the Communities that Sustain it: Detecting the ISIS Supporting Community on Twitter.” PLoS ONE 12 (12), e0181405. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benítez-Castro, Miguel-Ángel, and Encarnación Hidalgo-Tenorio. (forth., 2022). “A Detailed Analysis of Discursive Pathos through the Emotion/Opinion Interplay in Jihadist Magazines.” Pragmatics and Society. Special issue: Approaches to Discourse of Terror.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brookes, Gavin, and Tony McEnery. 2020. “Correlation, Collocation, and Cohesion: A Corpus-Based Critical Analysis of Violent Jihadist Discourse.” Discourse & Society 31 (4): 351–373. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burgers, Christian, Elly A. Konijn, Gerard J. Steen, and Marlies, A. R. Iepsma. 2015. “Making Ads less Complex, Yet More Creative and Persuasive: The Effects of Conventional Metaphors and Irony in Print Advertising.” International Journal of Advertising 34 (3): 515–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. The Communication of Leadership: The Design of Leadership Style. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018a. Fire Metaphors: Discourses of Awe and Authority. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018b. Analysing Political Speeches. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul A. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse. Theory and Practice. London, New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christie, Nils. 1986. “The Ideal Victim.” In From Crime Policy to Victim Policy, ed. by Ezzat A. Fattah, 17–30. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Downing, Joseph. 2019. “Blurring European and Islamic Values or Brightening the Good–Bad Muslim Dichotomy? A Critical Analysis of French Muslim Victims of Jihadi Terror Online on Twitter and in Le Monde Newspaper.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 12 (2): 250–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dunning, Ted. 1993. “Accurate Methods for the Statistics of Surprise and Coincidence.” Computational Linguistics 19 (1): 61–74.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El-Sharif, Ahmad. 2016. “A Theoretical Account on the Study of Metaphor in Didactic Discourse.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 7 (2): 100–112.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. “Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis.” Discourse & Society 3 (2): 193–217. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernandez, Miriam, and Harith Alani. 2021. “Artificial Intelligence and Online Extremism.” In Predicting Policing and Artificial Intelligence, ed. by J. McDaniel and K. Pease, 132–163. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forceville, Charles J., and Thijs Renckens. 2013. “The Good is Light and Bad is Dark Metaphor in Feature Films.” Metaphor and the Social World 3 (2): 160–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halmari, Sirkka H. 1990. “On Dichotomous Political Rhetoric: With Special Reference to Ronald Reagan’s Language.” Unpublished thesis. Available at: [URL]
Haslam, Nick. 2006. “Dehumanization: An Integrative Review.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 10 (3): 252–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hegghammer, Thomas. (ed.), 2017. Jihadi Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hervik, Peter. 2019. “Ritualized Opposition in Danish Online Practices of Extremist Language and Thought.” International Journal of Communication 131: 3104–3121.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hidalgo-Downing, Laura, and Blanca Kraljevic-Mujic. 2017. “Metaphor and Persuasion in Commercial Advertising.” In The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language, ed. by Elena Semino and Zsófia Demjén, 323–336. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Houck, Shannon C., Meredith A. Repke, and Lucian G. Conway. 2017. “Understanding what Makes Terrorist Groups’ Propaganda Effective: An Integrative Complexity Analysis of ISIL and Al Qaeda.” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism 12 (2): 105–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jäkel, Olaf. 2002. “Hypotheses Revisited: The Cognitive Theory of Metaphor Applied to Religious Texts.” Metaphorik.de 2 (1): 20–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeffries, Lesley. 2010. Opposition in Discourse: The Construction of Oppositional Meaning. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Amanda K. 2009. “Assessing the Effectiveness of Deradicalization Programs for Islamist Extremists.” Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. Available at: [URL]
Kilp, Alar. 2011. “The Ontology and Epistemology of Extremism.” Estonian National Defence College Proceedings 14 (2): 9–25. Available at: [URL]
Kirkwood, Rachel J. 2019. “‘Stand still in the Light’: What Conceptual Metaphor Research Can Tell Us about Quaker Theology.” Religions 10 (1): 41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language.” The Journal of Philosophy 77 (8): 453–486. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawther, Cheryl. 2014. “The Construction and Politicisation of Victimhood”. In Victims of Terrorism: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Study, ed. by O. Lynch and J. Argomaniz, 10–31. London: Taylor and Francis. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levy, Arnon, and Peter Godfrey-Smith. (eds.) 2019. The Scientific Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macdonald, Stuart, Nyasha Maravanyika, David Nezri, Elliot Parry, and Kate Thomas. 2018. “Online Jihadist Magazines and the ‘Religious Terrorism’ Thesis.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 11 (3): 537–550. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marcellino, William M., Kim Cragin, Joshua Mendelsohn, Andrew M. Cady, Madeline Magnuson, and Kathleen Reedy. 2016. “Measuring the Popular Resonance of Daesh’s Propaganda.” Journal of Strategic Security 10 (1): 32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, Paul C. 2013. “The Exploratory and Reflective Domain of Metaphor in the Comparison of Religions.” Zygon 48 (4): 936–965. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matusitz, Jonathan, and James O. Olufowote. 2016. “Visual Motifs in Islamist Terrorism: Applying Conceptual Metaphor Theory.” Journal of Applied Security Research 11 (1): 18–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, Ben, Weeda Mehran, Yassin K. Alsahlani, and Harron Qahtan. 2019. “Metaphors of Radicalization: A Computational and Qualitative Analysis of Jihadi Propaganda.” In Online Terrorist Propaganda, Recruitment, and Radicalization, ed. by John R. Vacca, 215–225. CRC Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mölder, Holger. 2011. “The Culture of Fear in International Politics – A Western-Dominated International System and Its Extremist Challenges.” KVÜÕA toimetised 141: 241–263.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Naser, Hayder S., and Ali B. Mohammed. 2020. “The Persuasive Power of Religious Metaphor in Selected Qur’anic and Biblical Verses.” Al-Adab Journal 2 (135): 11–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Regan, John, and Betzel, Anne. 2015. Critical Discourse Analysis: A Sample Study of Extremism. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Patterson, Katie J. 2020. “The Path to Jihad: A Critical Metaphor Analysis of Religious Conceptualisations in Jihadist Magazines.” Cambridge Open Engage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2022. (in press) “Under the Shadow of Swords: The Rhetoric of Jihad. A Corpus Based Critical Analysis of Religious Metaphors in Jihadist Magazines.” Pragmatics and Society, Special issue: Approaches to Discourse of Terror. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prentice, Sheryl, Paul Rayson, and Paul J. Taylor. 2012. “The Language of Islamic Extremism: Towards an Automated Identification of Beliefs, Motivations, and Justifications.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 17 (2): 259–286. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ranstorp, Magnus. 1996. “Terrorism in the Name of Religion.” Journal of International Affairs 50 (1): 41–62.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwager, Elaine. 2004. “Transforming Dualism and the Metaphor of Terror, Part I: From Genocidal to Dialogic Mentality: An Intergenerational Struggle.” The Psychoanalytic Review 91 (3): 347–394. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Mike. 2012. WordSmith Tools Manual, Version 6. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software Ltd. Available at: [URL]
Siddiqui, Abdul H. 2008. “Translation of Sahih Muslim.” University of Southern Carolina Centre for Muslim-Jewish Engagement. Available at: [URL]
Tannen, Deborah. 2002. “Agonism in Academic Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 34 (10–11): 1651–1669. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thornton, Pip. 2015. “The Meaning of Light: Seeing and Being on the Battlefield.” Cultural Geographies 22 (4): 567–583. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 2005. “Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis.” In Language and Peace ed. by Christina Schäffner and Anita Wenden, 41–58. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. “Ideology and Discourse Analysis”. Journal of Political Ideologies 11 (2): 115–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019. “Ideologies, Racism, Discourse: Debates on Immigration and Ethnic Issues.” In Comparative Perspectives on Racism ed. by Jessika ter Wal and Maykel Verkuyten, 91–115. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2006. “Mediation between Discourse and Society: Assessing Cognitive Approaches in CDA.” Discourse Studies 8 (1): 179–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Links
Prevent Strategy. 2011. Available at: [URL]
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Friedman, Elie
2023. The “Balfour Gang” versus “the Saladin Gang”: Geographic metaphors and metonyms in Israel as securitized, polarizing constructs. Language & Communication 93 ► pp. 125 ff. DOI logo
Giménez García, Roser & Sheila Queralt
2023. Pragmatic linguistic analysis of the videos by terrorists of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 96 ► pp. 287 ff. DOI logo
Giménez García, Roser & Sheila Queralt
2024. Grounds for Exemption from Criminal Liability? How Forensic Linguistics Can Contribute to Terrorism Trials. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique 37:2 ► pp. 623 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue