A Critical Discourse Analysis of Joint Political Press Conferences between the Egyptian FM Ahmed Abul-Gheit and the Israeli FM Sylvan Shalom

Abstract

This study analyzes the discursive language in four Egyptian-Israeli political press conferences by using an eclectic approach within the framework of critical discourse analysis. The title of this study should be modified to encompass the political press conferences attended by Egyptian and Israeli politicians other than the former FM. Abulgheit and FM. Shalom. The rationale for the present title was that the political press conference between Mr. Abulgheit and Mr. Shalom contains most, if not all, of the linguistic aspects pertaining to the analysis of ideology and power relationships evolving through transitivity, presuppositions, allusions and cultural lacunae. The data consists of four Egyptian-Israeli political press conferences held between 1977 and 2006. However, the analysis is carried out, not according to the order of occurrence of each conference, i but according to the above mentioned pragmalinguistic (linguistic pragmatics, pragmatic linguistics) features within the unique genre of jointpress conferences highlighting both the surface and undercurrent ideological and power conflicts and cross-cultural gaps decoded from the abstruse political spin especially between representatives of Egypt and Israel; the two major political and military powers in the Middle East (ME). The analysis is conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the data is placed within its historical and political context, second, is the multi-level pragmalinguistic analysis within the framework of CDA, and the third final part presents a discussion of the findings resulting from the application of the principles of CDA to the analysis of the political discourse used in Egyptian-Israeli political press conferences.