الفهرس 
Theoretical FrameworkOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The Syrian refugees have been grabbing the global attention. Their images have widely spread on the social networking sites, such as Facebook. Consequently, western commentators show their opinions and express their feelings towards the Syrian refugee issues. The refugees flee to the western communities in search for a safe haven and start a new life after their homes have been destroyed in the Civil War. As a result of bearing the burden of the refugees, the western commentators argue for or against the existence of the refugees in the west. In this regard, such controversial comments on Facebook are analyzed under the framework of the Critical Discourse Analysis set by Van Dijk. The rationale of adopting this framework is to demonstrate the western commentators’ ideology and the representation of the Self and the Other, and explain power relations and racism. Such notions are discussed through the use of the appraisal model, the conceptual metaphor theory, and the semiotic choices in the approach of Machin and Mayr (2012). To illustrate, the appraisal model focuses on the emotions of both the western commentators and the Syrian refugees. It also shows how the host western countries suffer from the continuous inflow of the refugees. On the other hand, the conceptual metaphor theory tackles the cognitive representation of the Syrian refugees: their behaviour, lifestyle, and culture, and the causes of their victimization. In addition, the conceptual metaphor theory tackles the cognitive image of the Syrian refugees in the minds of the western commentators. It also plays a persuasive role in expressing opinions and defending stances. The researcher uses UAM CorpusTool to manually annotate the appraising items and the metaphorical expressions in the data. Then the results are automatically retrieved to find out the ideologies. Finally, the refugees’ thirty images on the European borders, in the camps, and while fleeing are also analyzed. The visual representation of the refugees is performed by analyzing the semiotic choices developed by Machin and Mayr (2012). Therefore, the study is based on quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Appraisal Model, Conceptual Metaphor, UAM CorpusTool, semiotic choices, Syrian refugees