Disseminating knowledge: A discourse analysis of terrorism in TED talks

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the linguistic mechanism of disseminating knowledge about terrorism by professionals to laypersons in TED Talks. The study examines the interface between knowledge, meaning and social practices in terms of text and context when speakers cognitively reconceptualize terrorism discourse as a professional practice and maintain their stance over social issues. Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach of discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, the study sets out to analyse the discursive representation of terrorism in TED talks delivered between 2002 and 2019, focusing on explanation strategies of definition, description, denomination and metaphor. The results revealed that TED talks’ discourse was a less popularised genre regarding terrorism, marked by specialised terms of traditional right discourse of military actions, and impersonal reference for private intentions of building up expert identity.

Keywords

• TED Talks
• Terrorism
• Popularization discourse
• Discourse analysis
• Corpus linguistics