Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 18:2 (2019) ► pp.161–183

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

Individual moral otherness as a means to underscore sectoral otherness

 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Published online: 18 April 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.19012.shu
Abstract
This study examines the news broadcasts of the Israeli TV Channel 2. It focuses on coverage of instances in which Haredi ‘Jewish ultra-Orthodox’ individuals are accused of committing immoral acts such as child abuse, hit and run accident and rape. I argue that in all of these instances, the moral otherness of these individuals is linked to their Haredi identity, thus intensifying the negative-sectoral otherness of the entire Haredi community.
I discuss tagging, visual devices and especially discursive strategies used to link individual moral otherness to sectoral otherness at various levels of directness. Additionally, I analyze online comments written by viewers of the items discussed, which indicate the identification and interpretation of implications and implicatures conveyed by this rhetorical linkage.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Haredim and sectoral-Haredi otherness
  • 3.The corpus
    • 3.1Primary corpus
    • 3.2Secondary corpus
  • 4.Marking immoral individuals as Haredim
    • 4.1Over-tagging ‘Haredi(m)’ in items on immoral individuals
    • 4.2Visual devices for indicating the Haredi identity of immoral individuals
    • 4.3Linguistic markers for indicating the Haredi identity of immoral individuals
      • 4.3.1Markers that refer to the immoral individuals
      • 4.3.2Markers that refer to the environment of immoral individuals
  • 5.Interpretation of implications and implicatures by viewers
  • 6.Summary and interpretative framing
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bar-Lev, Yehuda. 2007. “Yitsug mi’utim ba-shidur ha-tsiburi” [Representation of minorities in public television news broadcasting]. Master’s thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ben-Rafael, Eliezer. 1998. “Nitschona shel ‘ha-safa ha-nechuta’” [The victory of the “inferior language”]. Panim 71: 38–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caplan, Kimmy. 2003. “Cheker ha-chevra ha-haredit be-Yisrael: Meafyenim, hesegim, ve-etgarim” [The study of Haredi society in Israel: Characteristics, achievements and challenges]. In Ḥaredim Yisraelim: Hishtalvut belo tmi’a? [Israeli Haredim: Integration without assimilation?], edited by Emmanuel Sivan and Kimmy Caplan, 88–112. Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and van Leer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Be-sod ha-siach ha-haredi [Internal popular discourse in Israeli Haredi society]. Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Etzioni-Halevy, Eva. 2000. Erets shesu’a: Haim milchemet tarbut hi bilti nimna’at? [The divided people: Can Israel’s Breakup Be Stopped?]. Kfar Saba: Arye Nir.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, and Ruth Wodak. 1997. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Introduction to Discourse Analysis, edited by Teun A. van Dijk, 258–284. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fetzer, Anita, Elda Weizman, and Lawrence N. Berlin, eds. 2015. The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-Ups. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
First, Anat, and Eli Avraham. 2007. “Kikar ha-shuk homa? Al ha-givun ha-tarbuti be-arutsey ha-televizia ha-mischari’im be-Yisrael ve-al ha-drachim le-shipuro” [Multi-cultural diversity on commercial television channels in Israel and ways to improve it]. In Ha-tikshoret ha-politit be-Yisrael [Political Communication in Israel], edited by Dan Caspi, 134–161. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert P. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, edited by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grylak, Moshe. 2002. Ha-haredim: mi anachnu be-emet [The Haredim: Who are we really?]. Jerusalem: Keter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood, and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halttunen, Karen. 1998. Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harré, Rom, and Grant Gillett. 1994. The Discursive Mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koren, Roselyne. 1997. “Matan shem ve-nekitat emda ba-itonut ha-politit be-Tsarfat” [Naming and side-taking in French political journalistic discourse]. Balshanut Ivrit 41–421: 109–117.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey Neil. 1974. Semantics. London: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perelman, Chaïm. 1983. Mamlechet ha-retorika [The realm of rhetoric]. Jerusalem: Magnes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perelman, Chaïm, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riffaterre, Michael. 1984. “Intertextual Representation: On Mimesis as Interpretive Discourse.” Critical Inquiry 11, no. 1: 141–162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. “Compulsory Reader Response: The Intertextual Drive. In Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, edited by Michael Worton and Judith Still, 56–80. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rogel, Nakdimon. 1995. Tadrich Nakdi: Tadrich chadashot ve-aktualia. [Nakdi Guidelines: Guidelines for coverage of news and current affairs] (internal document of the Israel Broadcasting Authority).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schorsch, Jonathan. 2005. “Blacks, Jews and the Racial Imagination in the Writings of Sephardim in the Long Seventeenth Century,” Jewish History 191: 109–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schrag, Calvin O. 2006. “Otherness and the Problem of Evil: How Does That Which Is Other Become Evil?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 601: 149–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sheleg, Yair. 2000. Ha dati’im ha-chadashim: Mabat achshavi al ha-chevra ha-datit be-Yisrael [The new religious Jews: A contemporary look at observant Jewish society in Israel]. Jerusalem: Keter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shukrun-Nagar, Pnina. 2009. “Quotation Markers as Intertextual Codes in Electoral Propaganda.” Text and Talk 29, no. 4: 459–480. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013b. “The Construction of Paradoxes in News Discourse: The Coverage of the Israeli Haredi Community as a Case in Point.” Discourse Studies 15, no. 4: 463–480. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “About 1000 Haredim, Members of Ha’eda HaHaredit: Linguistic Patterns and Rhetorical Functions of Generalizations in the Israeli News,” Israel Studies 19, no.3: 154–186. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stadler, Nurit. 2003. “Lehitparnes o lechakot le-nes: Ha-milkud ha-haredi ve-hishtakfuto be-yaḥasey tora ve-avoda” [Work, livelihood and the miraculous: Defining the Haredi dilemma in Israel]. In Ḥaredim Yisraelim: Hishtalvut belo tmi’a? [Israeli Haredim: Integration without assimilation?], edited by Emmanuel Sivan and Kimmy Caplan, 88–112. Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Van Leer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1991. Racism and the Press: Critical Studies in Racism and Migration. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2000. “New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach.” In Ethnic Minorities and the Media, edited by Simon Cottle, 33–49. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. “Ideology and Discourse Analysis.” Journal of Political Ideologies 111: 115–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Eersel, San, Chris Hermans, and Peter Sleegers. 2008. “Expressing Otherness in Interreligious Classroom Communication: Empirical Research into Dialogical Communication in Religiously Pluriform Learning Situations in Catholic Primary Schools. Journal of Empirical Theology 21, no. 1, 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda. 1998. “Emet o bdaya? Dibur yashir ba-itonut ha-yomit ha-ktuva” [True or False? Direct Speech in the Daily Press]. Balshanut Ivrit 431, 29–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda, and Marcelo Dascal. 1991. “On Clues and Cues: Strategies of Text Understanding.” Journal of Literary Semantics XX, no 1, 18–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Brigitta Busch. 2004. “Approaches to Media Texts. In The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies, edited by John D. H. Downing et al. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yeshuvi, Naama (ed.). 2001. Hadara ve-dimuy shlili: I-shivyon batikshoret ha-Yisraelit [Exclusion and Negative Image: Inequality in Israeli media] (internal document of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Robles, Jessica S. & Bingjuan Xiong
2024. How quotation marks do mockery in online politicized discourse. Journal of Language and Politics DOI logo
Hirsch, Galia
2020. Humorous and ironic readers' comments to a politician's post on Facebook: The case of Miri Regev. Journal of Pragmatics 164 ► pp. 40 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