THE REPRESENTATION OF IRAN-SAUDI CONFLICT IN THE NEWSPAPERS REGARDING MINA HAJJ STAMPEDE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE ARAB NEWS AND THE TEHRAN TIMES

The Hajj 2015 shows a significance flashpoint of the long-term history of tension between Tehran (Iran) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) regarding the Hajj: Iran and Saudi Arabiaexchanged the accusation of standing behind the tragedy of Hajj stampede in Minna SaudiArabia, 2015. Printed media is the crucial for ideology production; this study focuses on therepresentation of the Iran-Saudi conflict on Hajj stampede 2015 in two newspapers, namely theArab News and the Tehran Times newspapers. The study uses a critical discourse analysis,mainly macrostructures analysis by Van Dijk (1980 & 1983). Three texts have been chosenfrom each newspaper and the macro-rules (selection, deletion, generalization, andconstruction) have been used to decrease the information in the micro-level yielding macropropositions in the macro-level; the global topics/themes of the discourse. Ten macrostructuresin the second level of analysis were identified from the Arab News newspaper out of 30 macropropositions in the first level and 21 macrostructures in the second level of analysis out of 43 inthe first level of analysis from the Tehran Times newspaper. The results showed that the Tehran Times newspaper has represented Saudi Arabia more negatively by 66.7% than the Arab Newswhich represented Iran negatively by 50% of the total texts. This indicates the ideologicalsignificance boundary between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ in both newspapers. In addition, the resultsshowed that there is an Islamic ideological competition for taking the Islamic leadershipbetween the Shi’a ideology of Iran and the Sunni Wahabi of Saudi Arabia in the Middle Eastand the Arab World. The study suggested that the discourse of Hajj must be separated from thepolitical discourse between Iran and Saudi Arabia because whenever there is a politicaltension there is a Hajj conflict

THE REPRESENTATION OF IRAN-SAUDI CONFLICT IN THE NEWSPAPERS REGARDING MINA HAJJ STAMPEDE 2015: A Critical Discourse Analysison the Arab News and Tehran Times

The Hajj of 2015 showed a significance flashpoint of the long-term history of tension between Tehran (Iran) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Iran and Saudi Arabia exchanged the accusation of standing behind the tragedy of Hajj stampede in Minna, Saudi Arabia. The representation of the tension in the media becomes the focus of the present study, which examines the representation of the Iran-Saudi conflict on Hajj stampede of 2015 in two newspapers, namely the Arab News and the Tehran Times. More specifically, this study examines (1) how the Iran-Saudi conflict regarding the Mina Hajj Stampede of 2015 is represented in the Arab News newspaper, (2) how the Iran-Saudi conflict regarding the Mina Hajj Stampede of 2015 is represented in the Tehran Times newspaper, and (3) the ways in which the Islamic ideological competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia for taking the Islamic leadership in the Arabic world is represented in the Arab News and Tehran Times newspapers regarding Mina Hajj Stampede of 2015. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis as the main framework, focusing on the analysis of macrostructures developed by Van Dijk (1977, 1980, and 1983). Three texts have been chosen from each newspaper and the macro-rules (selection, deletion, generalization, and construction) have been applied to reduce the information in the micro-level into macro-propositions in the macro-level or the global topics/themes of the discourse. The results show that the Tehran Times newspaper has represented Saudi Arabia more negatively by 66.7% than the Arab News, which represented Iran negatively by 50% of the total texts. This indicates the ideological boundary between ‘US’ and ‘THEM’ in both newspapers. In addition, the results show that there is an Islamic ideological competition for taking the Islamic leadership between the Shi’a ideology of Iran and the Sunni Wahabi of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and the Arab World. The study suggests that the discourse of Hajj be separated from the political discourse between Iran and Saudi Arabia because whenever there is a political tension, a Hajj conflict tends to occur

APOLOGIZING IN ARABIC AND ENGLISH: An Interlanguage Pragmatic Case Study of Students at an Islamic Boarding School in Indonesia

The selection and production of appropriate semantic formulas of apologizing for paying off violation of social norms to restore harmony is a hard task. Students of Senior Boarding School in Indonesia find it harder to form appropriate apology formulas in the Arabic and English as non-native languages due to the lack of pragmatic competence. The selection and production of the semantic formulas of apologizing by students of an Islamic Boarding School become the focus of this dissertation, which examines their pragmatic competence in the realization of the apology strategies in the Arabic and English languages. More specifically, this dissertation examines (1) what apology strategies used by Senior Boarding School Students in Arabic and English?, (2) how contextual factors (external vs. internal) influence the students’ apologizing?, (3) in what ways Senior Boarding School Students make pragmatic transfer when apologizing in Arabic and English? The participants are 202 students recruited to fill in a DCT, which consists of eight situations about the violation of the rules of the boarding school — utilizing the five semantic formulas of apologizing from Olshtain and Blum-Kulka 1983 (CCSARP). The results show that the students used identical semantic formulas in both languages. They prefer to use the Expression of regret and Promise for Forbearance strategies. The results also reveal that the internal and external factors affect the students’ selection and production of the apology strategies in both languages. Besides, the students’ pragmatic transfer occurs in linguistic areas like overgeneralization, inappropriateness, and conceptual transfer from L1 to L2. Overall, the students showed low proficiency in the pragmatic competence of the speech acts of apologizing in the English and Arabic, because successful communication is built-in two-way interaction pure of linguistic barriers