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This book compares how British and Spanish media have covered the French ban on hijab wearing in public schools. Using interdisciplinary approaches ranging from social psychology, semiology, cognitive linguistics and sociology, it seeks to explain how the hijab is interpreted as a sign by the mainstream culture, and hijab-wearing Muslim sub-culture.
Based on an analysis of 108 articles published in the national newspaper from each context, this comparative study operates on two levels: a micro-level analysis of within-culture variations between mainstream culture and the hijab-wearing women; and a macro-level analysis of the cross-cultural variation between the British context and the Spanish one. The result is a profound insight into how each discourse reveals the different level of social integration of hijab-wearing women in these two different contexts.
The Analysis methodology combines between Critical Discourse Analysis CDA, Conceptual Metaphor Theory CMT, and Cognitive Linguistics CL. The book introduces a novel analysis methodology for social and linguistic sciences. It is the Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis methodology CCDA.
List of contents
The Politics of Identity.- Intersectional Euro-Muslim Women.- The Hijab Sign System.- Data Review.- Framing National Hijab in the European Mind.- Framing National Hijab-Wearing Women in the European Mind.- Conceptual Metaphors in the Hijab Debate.- Conclusions.
About the author
Dr. Ghufran KhirAllah is a professor of sociolinguistics in Nebrija University of Madrid. She is also a post-doctoral researcher at Complutense University of Madrid. Her research focuses on European political and public discourse around hijab-wearing women in the public sphere. Dr. KhirAllah has developed a strong academic and empirical background on how group minorities or majorities identify their belonging, and how they go through integration and multi-identity challenges.
