Language, Identity, and Syrian Political Activism on Social Media

Francesco L. Sinatora, assistant professor of Arabic, builds on the Bakhtinian concept of linguistic hybridity to conduct a longitudinal analysis of Syrian dissidents’ social media practices between 2009 and 2017. He shows how dissidents have used social media to emerge in the discourse about the Syrian conflict and how language has been used symbolically as a tool of social and political engagement in an increasingly complex sociopolitical context.