ORIENTALISM AND THE LANGUAGE OF IDEOLOGY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ROBERT SPENCER’S “THE TRUTH ABOUT MUHAMMAD”

Abstract

The present study tries to lay bare the ideological stance of Robert Spencer in his book The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion by using Fairclough’s (1989)[1] three-dimensional model of CDA. It tries to analyze how Spencer (2006)[2], despite his avowed claims of neutral scholarship, has tried to paint Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam as a religion in a typical orientalist perspective. This Orientalist treatment of Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is neither new nor novel; however, in his effort to present his great scholarship about Islam and Muhammad, the linguistic structures Spencer has used are ideologically motivated and make his efforts at maintaining impartiality questionable. Such biased treatment of Islam contributes to the islamophobia that is prevalent in the West. The present study tries to expose the ideological biases of the writer through his linguistic choices with the help of three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis by Fairclough (1989).