Discursive Practices and Narrative Building in Post 9/11 Among Young American Adults

Abstract

The changing undercurrents of the political situation of the world, in the aftermath of 9/11, seem to have affected the notion of the 'other' in the social, cultural and most expressively the discourse of literature. The power structures embedded in these discourses have influenced the social practices in the portrayal of the 'other'. The construction of the 'other' is epitomized through writings illustrating biases that reveal themselves in ostracizing communities and ideologies. The socio-political implications of the identity in post 9/11 require further investigation. The current study investigates the portrayal of the 'other' delineated in American young adults. The theoretical perspectives of Siegfried Jager and Teun van Dijk (2001) in the domain of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) were employed to analyze the data. The results of the investigation substantiated that the 'other' was redefined as an entity loaded with explicit negative implications and depicted by adding a prefix to the ‘other’ creating a ‘Muslim other’. The paper has implications for socio-political, education and cultural setting and practices in society.