'Discourse on the Go': Thematic Analysis of Vehicle Graffiti on the Roads of Egypt

This paper investigates graffiti drawn on vehicles in Egypt as an expression of their authors' social values, religious ideologies and political affiliations. Little research has been done in Egypt on these meaning-loaded messages. This paper gives further evidence that graffiti are a very powe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in language and literary studies 2016-10, Vol.7 (5), p.227
Main Authors: El-Nashar, Mohamed, Nayef, Heba
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Art Expression
Beliefs
Christianity
Classification
Discourse Analysis
Foreign Countries
Graffiti
Identification (Psychology)
Ideology
Innovation
Islam
Language usage
Language Variation
Political Affiliation
Political discourse
Popular Culture
Social Values
Vehicles
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Summary:This paper investigates graffiti drawn on vehicles in Egypt as an expression of their authors' social values, religious ideologies and political affiliations. Little research has been done in Egypt on these meaning-loaded messages. This paper gives further evidence that graffiti are a very powerful mode of expression for groups that feel disenfranchised by the wider society. The data comprise (614) written graffiti taken from both highway and in-city vehicles from different parts of Egypt. This paper employs Fairclough's (1995) post-structuralist model of discourse analysis which extends the concept of discourse from the traditional and natural 'language in use' to be a social practiceper se.One of the aims of this study is to explore the various discourse domains of vehicle graffiti in Egypt through thematically analyzing their patterns of usage. For this aim, the authors have devised a four-pronged thematic classification of such graffiti. The paper also tackles some of the lexical features of graffiti and addresses the language and language variations used. Results show that religious expressions constitute more than half the data. It is also shown that graffiti about the self or car are positive whereas statements about 'the other' are negative. The analysis reveals a strong positive inclination in the social and philosophical expressions with almost nonexistent political graffiti.
ISSN:2203-4714
2203-4714
DOI:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.5p.227