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The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

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The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications. / Prentice, Sheryl; Rayson, Paul; Taylor, Paul.
In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2012, p. 259-286.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Prentice, S, Rayson, P & Taylor, P 2012, 'The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications', International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 259-286. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre

APA

Prentice, S., Rayson, P., & Taylor, P. (2012). The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(2), 259-286. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre

Vancouver

Prentice S, Rayson P, Taylor P. The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 2012;17(2):259-286. doi: 10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre

Author

Prentice, Sheryl ; Rayson, Paul ; Taylor, Paul. / The language of Islamic extremism : towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications. In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. 2012 ; Vol. 17, No. 2. pp. 259-286.

Bibtex

@article{22ee0d62779049fc872c5e06b586e844,
title = "The language of Islamic extremism: towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications",
abstract = "Recent studies have sought to understand individuals{\textquoteright} motivations for terrorism through terrorist material content. To date, these studies have not capitalised on automated language analysis techniques, particularly those of corpus linguistics. In this paper, we demonstrate how applying three corpus-linguistic techniques to extremist statements can provide insights into their ideology. Our data consisted of 250 statements (»500,000 words) promoting terrorist violence. Using the online software tool WMatrix, we submitted these data to frequency count, key word and key concept, and concordance analyses. Results showed that authors centre their rhetoric on themes of morality, social proof, inspiration and appeals to religion, and refer to the world via contrasting concepts, suggesting a polarised way of thinking compared to a general population usage. Additionally, we show how collocation can aid the establishment of networks between people and places. We discuss how such analyses might support the formulation of evidence based counter-terrorism strategies.",
keywords = "ideology, terrorism , rhetoric , forensic research",
author = "Sheryl Prentice and Paul Rayson and Paul Taylor",
year = "2012",
doi = "10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre",
language = "English",
volume = "17",
pages = "259--286",
journal = "International Journal of Corpus Linguistics",
issn = "1384-6655",
publisher = "John Benjamins Publishing Company",
number = "2",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - The language of Islamic extremism

T2 - towards an automated identification of beliefs, motivations and justifications

AU - Prentice, Sheryl

AU - Rayson, Paul

AU - Taylor, Paul

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Recent studies have sought to understand individuals’ motivations for terrorism through terrorist material content. To date, these studies have not capitalised on automated language analysis techniques, particularly those of corpus linguistics. In this paper, we demonstrate how applying three corpus-linguistic techniques to extremist statements can provide insights into their ideology. Our data consisted of 250 statements (»500,000 words) promoting terrorist violence. Using the online software tool WMatrix, we submitted these data to frequency count, key word and key concept, and concordance analyses. Results showed that authors centre their rhetoric on themes of morality, social proof, inspiration and appeals to religion, and refer to the world via contrasting concepts, suggesting a polarised way of thinking compared to a general population usage. Additionally, we show how collocation can aid the establishment of networks between people and places. We discuss how such analyses might support the formulation of evidence based counter-terrorism strategies.

AB - Recent studies have sought to understand individuals’ motivations for terrorism through terrorist material content. To date, these studies have not capitalised on automated language analysis techniques, particularly those of corpus linguistics. In this paper, we demonstrate how applying three corpus-linguistic techniques to extremist statements can provide insights into their ideology. Our data consisted of 250 statements (»500,000 words) promoting terrorist violence. Using the online software tool WMatrix, we submitted these data to frequency count, key word and key concept, and concordance analyses. Results showed that authors centre their rhetoric on themes of morality, social proof, inspiration and appeals to religion, and refer to the world via contrasting concepts, suggesting a polarised way of thinking compared to a general population usage. Additionally, we show how collocation can aid the establishment of networks between people and places. We discuss how such analyses might support the formulation of evidence based counter-terrorism strategies.

KW - ideology

KW - terrorism

KW - rhetoric

KW - forensic research

U2 - 10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre

DO - 10.1075/ijcl.17.2.05pre

M3 - Journal article

VL - 17

SP - 259

EP - 286

JO - International Journal of Corpus Linguistics

JF - International Journal of Corpus Linguistics

SN - 1384-6655

IS - 2

ER -