Beyond the Desert and the Veil?

Abstract

This thesis explores textual and visual representations of the Saudi people, Saudi culture, and Saudi Arabia as a country in three Anglophone memoirs, published in 1991, 2009, and 2019. This thesis conducts an investigation of the discursive practices used to construct such representations, with the main aim of examining the nature of Saudi representation as a presumed Other, how this came to be, and what factors influence its construction. This study is based, largely, on the theoretical work of Stuart Hall (1997) and his understanding of representation. The examination of data is conducted through an application of a mixed-method approach to data analysis. The textual analysis will draw on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach(Reisigl & Wodak, 2005), investigating how the five proposed discursive strategies of this approach construct the representations about Saudi Arabia in Anglophone discourse. Analysis of visual representations follows the Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) method of grammar of visual design, in order to explore the meaning of the images (cover images) used to represent Saudi Arabia. The findings of this study demonstrate the complex and constructed nature of representation and how representations of Saudi Arabia operate within a closed circle of interpretation that emerges from an orientalist master discourse. In addition, this thesis shows the remarkable consistency in the manner in which Saudi Arabia has been represented in Anglophone discourse. These findings contribute towards highlighting the importance of historical contextualisation in the analysis of discourse and understanding the hidden cultural and ideological factors that shape this representation, which in turn shapes the social reality of the presumed Other.