الانكليزية كرمز للمكانة: تحليل نقدي لخطاب استخدام اللغة الانكليزية في القنوات الفضائية العراقية

Abstract

Since 2003, Iraqi satellite television has been one of the public spheres where English is spoken, displayed and performed, and at the moment, many Iraqi channels broadcast talk shows, entertainment programs, morning shows and lifestyle programs where presenters and guests use English words and phrases as part of their otherwise fluent Iraqi Arabic in a discussion of everyday topics like technology and connectivity, social media, fashion and style, and health and fitness. This study examines thirty authentic utterances of English on Iraqi satellite television, and it uses Critical Discourse Analysis in order to investigate English not just as a neutral feature of broadcasting language, but as a social resource with ideological meaning. Drawing on Fairclough's three-dimensional model of discourse, van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach, and Bourdieu's concept of linguistic capital, the study argues that English on Iraqi satellite television functions as symbolic capital circulated through the mass-mediated public sphere: English words in the domains of technology, social media, fashion, and health are not used to fill lexical gaps in Arabic, but are ideologically motivated, projecting an on-screen persona of modernity, cosmopolitanism, and global membership that viewers are invited to emulate. In conclusion, the study suggests that CDA can shed light on how the routinised, broadcast-mediated mixing of English and Iraqi Arabic on satellite television functions as a powerful engine for the diffusion of prestige ideologies, cultural identity, and language attitudes across post-conflict Iraqi society.