مجلة الاربعين المحكمة
The paper looks into how the English media language frame of Arba’een pilgrimage of Imam Hussain can be used to expand the notion of religious identity. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by adopting Fairclough’s three- dimensional model (1995) to analyse four media texts in order to know how discourse practices have been used to create the perceptions of Shia Islamic identity in the global spectrum. The study aims to investigate the lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical devices used in media to frame the Arba’een pilgrimage and to how the linguistic framing of the Arba’een pilgrimage in English discourse influences public perceptions of Shia Muslim identity, communal solidarity, or geopolitical narratives. The analysis shows that media forms relying on the orientalist models tend to focus on spectacle and neglect spiritual meaning and construct a number of antinomies between secular Western and religious Eastern worldviews. The results have shown that language can play an important role in protecting the picture of religious practices and personal identity in the minds of people through the correct use of use of headlines text, descriptive language and framing the context of the language. The paper concludes that the way power relations incorporated in media discourse led to the marginalisation or legitimisation of religious communities. These results have impacts on examining the representation of religious minorities in the media and language, which is used to create otherness across the world