The Representation of Palestinian and Israeli Communities in Cameron’s Speech: A critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

One of the main functions of critical discourse analysis (CDA) is to connect the linguistic categories to the ideological functions. The way Palestinians and Israelis are represented ideologically and grammatically are taken into account in this current study. The interpretation between ideology and discourse are considered within the scope of critical discourse analysis. The present study follows the method of CDA for its functional importance in the field of discourse analysis. To achieve that, the researcher adopts the CDA framework which is stated by Fairchough in his book “language and power” as it is a systematic and helpful way in the analysis. It has three dimensions; description, interpretation and explanation. Following his framework, the researcher tries to shed the light on grammatical, linguistic and social relational features, as well as micro and macro analysis. The selected data is the speech of Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain, to the Knesset in 2014. The researcher tries to spot the representations of both Palestinian and Israeli communities in his speech. This study aims to investigate if his speech is neutral or it contains any bias. The results show that most of Cameron’s representations are used to support the Israeli community rather than the Palestinian community.