This chapter analyses a set of keywords which were used to refer to ‘Us’, that is the author of the text and the social group that they belong to, which includes the reader as a potential member of that group. The keywords examined in this chapter are Islam, Allah, Muslim, brothers, believers, Ummah and you. The chapter introduces the reader to the main method of analysis which involves identification of representation surrounding each keyword via grammatical patterns through the corpus analysis tool Sketch Engine.

This chapter functions as a literature review, beginning with a summary of some of the terminological issues surrounding the study of terrorism. This is followed by an overview of theorisations of terrorism as communication, that is, the theory that violent acts are communicative. We then discuss not the practices and (verbal) expressions related to clandestine violence undertaken by terrorist individuals or groups. We explore some of the findings from previous research relating to the patterns in terrorists’ words and communicative strategies. We then turn to violent jihadist discourse specifically considering issues around polarised language and its relation to grievance-based discourse, the creation of shared identity, intertextual use of historical and theoretical texts and evocation of authority. We conclude by suggesting why the dearth of research on terrorist discourse poses problems for the creation of viable counter-terrorism measures.

In this chapter, the focus remains on language but moves away from representations around particular words to instead consider the ways in which specific types of language are used as persuasive devices in themselves. Here, we take another meaning of discourse, one which relates to the concept of register, text-type or genre and involves issues relating to stylistic choice. We thus explore some of the specific linguistic strategies that authors use in the data in order to highlight how these might contribute to the legitimacy or persuasiveness of the extremist discourse. We examine keywords that index formal register, as well as those connected to the concepts of truth and quotation. This is followed by a consideration of how code-switching into Arabic is employed in the texts.

This chapter examines the language around harm, focussing on keywords related to the category of violence: jihad, kill, martrydom and paradise. We identify the frequent use of a religious journey metaphor which extremist writers have taken from the Qur’an and reworked to justify killing. A key stage on this path then, is the conceptualisation of jihad as literal fighting and as obligatory, desired by Allah and in is his name. Three representations around killing help to position Muslims as victims, giving a justification for killing civilians, and helping to assuage fears around losing one’s own life as the result of engaging in violent attacks, again by invoking Allah’s authority and approval. Violence is cast as heroic martyrdom and justified as occurring within the context of a war.

This chapter gives an account of our data and method, specifically outlining how we collected and prepared the texts containing extremist language that are the subject of this book, along with the different tools and techniques that were used for analysis. The chapter then carries out preliminary analyses of the data, using Biber’s multidimensional approach before moving on to describe a methodology called Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) which involves a collection of approaches that are united by their use of software to identify linguistic patterns in large, electronically-encoded sets of data. We also describe how we obtained and classified keywords across the three sub-corpora which were used as the basis of focussing our analysis on a manageable set of lexical items.

This chapter acts as a counter-point to the previous one, in that it also deals with how social actors are represented, but this time we look at those who are viewed as part of the out-group as opposed to the in-group, considering how the in-group use language to carry out ‘othering’ of the out-group. We examine how strategies of collectivisation, stereotyping, dehumanisation and separation are linguistically realised by examining the following keywords: kufr, disbelief, kuffar, disbeliever, America and evil.

In this concluding chapter we begin by reviewing our research questions, first by looking at differences between the Extreme, Fringe and Moderate texts, then by considering the aspects of language use that were frequently used to manipulate readers into accepting the ideology of violent jihad. Following these two sections we consider the implications of our findings for work aimed at creating and disseminating counter-discourses to extremism. We then reflect on the study itself in terms of the limitations and difficulties encountered, and consider how our work could be expanded in the future.

This chapter introduces the concepts that are central to the book, beginning with a discussion of the terms language, ideology, discourse and representation and then providing context around the concept of violent jihad. The chapter also introduces the data analysed in this book and considers their power to persuade people to carry out violence.