Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted SAUDI ARABIA’S TRANSFORMATION AND ITS GLOBAL IMPACT ON LINGUISTIC AND DISCOURSE-PRAGMATICS(Indiana University, Bloomington, 2024-12) Althuwaini, Anas; Obeng, Samuel GyasiThis dissertation examines the evolving Western perceptions of Saudi Arabia under HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) leadership, focusing on U.S. online discourse and MBS’ communication strategies. Employing a multi-perspective analysis, the study investigates how MBS’ leadership has affected Western, particularly American, views of Saudi Arabia as reflected in media discourse and public opinion. The research is structured around three interconnected studies. The first study examines MBS’ hedging strategies in his 2023 Fox News interview with Bret Baier, highlighting how linguistic devices are employed to navigate sensitive topics, manage ambiguity, and maintain public image. The analysis reveals that MBS strategically uses hedges, such as modal verbs and approximators, to convey pragmatic functions such as caution and avoidance of firm commitments on controversial issues. It demonstrates that his use of hedging is comparable to that of other politicians, such as President Barack Obama (of the United States) and King Abdullah II (of Jordan). The second study employs Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology to subject YouTube comments on MBS’ 2023 Fox News interview to empirical inspection, focusing on adjacency pairs (AP) with the view to synthesizing and analyzing the interactional patterns and thematic content of the interview. This study reveals varied comments showing strong feelings about MBS’ leadership, vision for Saudi Arabia, and handling of international issues. User interactions demonstrate the negotiation of meaning, highlighting the contentious nature of MBS’ public image. The third study is a longitudinal analysis of Reddit users’ discourse from primarily US-focused subreddits about the political image of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2023, utilizing computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool. The study finds increased analytical thinking over time, particularly following major political events. Clout, authenticity, and emotional tone fluctuated, with clout peaking during significant events like the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The discourse generally maintained a negative emotional tone, with a slight positive trend in later years. By integrating pragmatic, conversational, and computational methodologies, this dissertation provides a nuanced understanding of how MBS’ leadership and Saudi Arabia’s reforms have been portrayed and debated in digital spaces. It contributes to discourse analysis, media studies, and international relations by offering insights into the interplay between leadership rhetoric, media representation, and public opinion in the digital age.31 0Item Restricted AVAILABILITY AND MAKING SIGNIFICANT CO- SPEECH GESTURES IN L2 CLASSROOMS(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-12-07) Allmulla, Ahmad Mohammad; Hazel, SpencerThe study describes the English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ recurrent hand gestures and the design of co-speech hand gestures with gaze immediately in IRE and repair sequences. The primary aim is to examine the hand gestures at the TRP and co-speech hand gestures along with other semiotic resources (such as gaze, body postures, locations, movement in space, moving his head around different students) that teachers draw on when they address students to answer questions and in and after repair initiation in various classroom contexts. The study adopts the methodological framework of Conversation Analysis to investigate the teachers’ hand gestures and co-speech hand gestures. The database consists of 30 video-recorded Saudi different EFL lessons from which 35 instances have been identified for the analysis. The study focuses on two embodied phenomena that are relevant to classroom participation. At first, the analysis of these hand gestures is combined with all other multimodal resources deployed by themselves and students to show their functions. One recurrent hand gesture is that the teachers insert their hands inside their pockets as they select the next speaker students for a turn and after they initiate other repairs designed for selected students. The hold of this gesture can elicit the students’ next action and encourage self-selection without being in a mutual orientation with the teachers. The second recurrent hand gesture is that teachers put one hand on their chin after they ask questions and after they initiate repair. It is found that the teachers circulate while sustaining such a hand gesture to select the next speaker. The hold of this gesture can elicit the students’ next action. These hand gestures pragmatically represent the teachers’ availability actions as the recipient of the students’ next actions which can be held until the students accomplish the next suitable interactional move. In addition, the analysis of these two hand gestures reveals that the pockets and chin are two temporary positions where another can perform various co-speech hand gestures that are deployed in a way that makes their gesture salient. Second, the study sheds light on the teachers’ gaze and co-speech hand gestures as they initiate other repairs for pursuing the students’ corrections/responses. The findings show that teachers are intelligible actors who can make value for their gesticulation.7 0