CC BY
10https://doi.org/10.46991/AFA/2020.16.2.143
The Use of Manipulative Tactics in Hate Speech
Shushanik Paronyan
Yerevan State University
Abstract
The aim of the present article is to study some ways of verbal expression of adversary social relationships. It is a study based on the linguistic material of one online article, which shows clearly that the language resources used by the Azerbaijani propagandists manipulate the public, create an exaggeratedly negative image of Armenia as an aggressor state and impose anti-Armenian opinion on the readers. The need for a linguistic study of hate speech is quite actual since at the modern Information Age or New Media Age the confrontation between the conflicting sides is often escalated via verbal duelling, accusation and repudiation that spreads rapidly far and wide with the help of online resources. The spread of fake, misleading and falsified information that discredits the opposing side, inciting hatred and animosity against a group of people is growing dangerously. Worst of all, we cannot but admit the fact that, unfortunately, malice and antagonism are becoming part of modern civilization. The linguistic analysis carried out in the present article demonstrates how certain verbal manipulative tactical tools that are deliberately used by the author, create abusive hate speech against Armenia and its policy.
Key words: hate speech, conflict talk, manipulative tactics, verbal aggressiveness, rhetorics, persuasion, speech acts.
Introduction
The present article discusses the linguistic peculiarities of realization of hate speech in online media resources. Hate speech can be defined as a kind of conflict talk that attacks a person or a group on account of social attributes like
race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, and expresses prejudice, discrimination and hatred against that particular group (Massaro 1991; Herz, Molnar 2012; Waldron 2012; Mihajlova, Bacovska and Shekerdjiev 2013).
The topic of the present paper concerns the expression of hate speech against a group of people on account of national origin and religion, to be more specific, it discusses a case of realization of verbal aggression against Armenia and Armenians in an article entitled Armenia is Aggressor and Destroyer of Holy Mosques, it cannot be a Friend of any Muslim Country by Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan, published in the online medium azvision.az on 05 January 2018.1 This article is a classical sample of hate speech aimed at creating an ill-disposed image of Armenians as offenders and destructors of Muslim culture, and, naturally, arousing hostility toward Armenians in the Muslim world. In fact, the aims of the author are far-going.2 Arousing hatred against Armenians on account of faith by presenting the Azerbaijanis as political and cultural victims, is part of the plan. The situation can be viewed as worse if we take into consideration the fact that geographically the Republic of Armenia borders mostly Muslim countries (Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan). Furthermore, the existence of Armenian communities, the so-called Armenian Diaspora in many Muslim countries puts the security and quiet existence of many Armenians at stake. Hence it becomes greatly important to dispute this kind of vicious propaganda, object its impartiality and condemn the act of arousing hatred and negativity among people having different cultural backgrounds.
In order to reveal how hate speech is realized within the framework of digital media, the discourse analysis approach is adopted; the language material is analysed with the application of contextual-semantic and pragmatic methods of analysis.
Contextual analysis will be used to make qualitative and quantitative inferences about the language resources - words, expressions, constructions and speech acts that express hatred towards Armenians and Armenian culture in general.
On the Social and Linguistic Background of Conflict Talk
Conflict is a social notion, contradictory and adversary social behaviour which can break out in a situation where disagreement between groups of people or countries arises. It can also be a period of military clash, an instance of relationship when ideas, viewpoints of different groups of people are opposed. Having different forms of realization - social, geopolitical, linguistic, military and so on, conflict can be viewed as animosity which necessarily has two or more sides opposing one another. Conflict situations and deteriorated relations have always been a matter of lengthy discussions among sociologists, anthropologists, politicians, economists, journalists, linguists and many other specialists in the humanities.
In linguistics conflict is usually studied from different aspects of its verbal realization - lexico-grammatical, stylistic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic and so on. Contradictory interaction or conflict talk is treated as a social type of discourse which reflects the adversary relationships between people. Linguists usually focus on the language resources, content and communicative structure of verbal aggression and distinguish types of conflict talk according to the intensity of contradictory interaction and the situational context - disagreement, dispute, wrangle, scuffle, row, etc. (Kakava 2003; Paronyan, Bekaryan 2013).
In the last decade a new term for naming the contradictory social relationship was coined - hate speech. Hate speech can be defined as "speech or expression that denigrates a person or persons on the basis of (alleged) membership in a social group identified by attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, and others" (Curtis 2010:599).
As it is, the term hate speech appears in social and legal studies where unallowable attacks on a person or a group on the basis of the mentioned attributes (race, religion, ethnic and/or national origins, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity) are criticised. The analysis in these studies goes along defining lawful actions for all citizens, trying to expel or banish discriminatory acts, attitude and speech against the groups of people mentioned above. These discussions necessarily concern the interrelation between the
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freedom of speech and human rights (Kendall 2013). Thus, on the one hand, it becomes necessary to fight against hate speech and prevent harmful attacks on a definite socio-cultural group, on the other hand, it is necessary to protect offensive speech, criticizing and disputing, in order to maintain the human right for freedom of speech. How to define a particular piece of speech or writing as being abusive or threatening another group of people without violating the person's right for freedom of speech? Hence questions like What is considered hate speech in Canada?, or What is considered hate speech in Great Britain? may arise. To address this problem, many democratic countries like the USA, Great Britain, Canada and many others have created hate speech laws which regulate abusive attacks legally. For example, Canada has established its own hate speech laws. Section 3 of the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on "race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted" (Hate Speech Laws in Canada 2019).
Hate speech in a multicultural country like the United States is not regulated, but the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hate speech is legally protected free speech under the First Amendment. Anyhow, it became necessary to define the types of speech that are not protected by the First Amendment, the so-called free speech exceptions that violate the legal rights of others. They include the following categories: obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action and true threats (Hate Speech in the United States 2020).
If we look at the problem of hate speech from a linguistic perspective, its social and legal parameters are not enough to identify it since any speech containing negative content, abusive information and bias cannot be labelled as hate speech; it cannot be banned or condemned socially and the deliverers of verbal abuse cannot be punished legally. Since hate speech, as the wording of the term itself implies, is realized through communication, it becomes obvious that a thorough linguistic analysis is necessary to define the limits of this kind of verbal aggressiveness.
As we have already stated, the analysis of contradictory verbal behaviour, conflict talk, the ways and forms of verbal and non-verbal duels have been in the focus of linguistic analysis for a long time. Meanwhile the linguistic study of hate speech, which was undertaken quite recently, is aimed at revealing the language resources used to express verbal aggressiveness on account of certain socio-cultural attributes like gender, religion, race, colour and so on. Thus hate speech can be considered a type of conflict talk where animosity, violence and discrimination against a person or a group of persons is spread, incited, promoted or justified for a variety of socio-political reasons.
Hate Speech against Armenia and Language Manipulation
The present paper is a case study of hate speech against a group of people on account of national origin and religion. As we have already mentioned, it discusses the linguistic strategies of realization of verbal aggression against Armenia and Armenians by pro-Azerbaijani propaganda through media, on the example of one specific article published in the online medium azvision.az on 05 January 2018. The reason for the long lasting hostile relationship between the two South Caucasian countries, and the motivations for mutual negative attitude are deeply rooted in certain historical, geopolitical, psychological and socio-cultural factors of the past, many of which were the result of the wrong policy of the former USSR and its political leaders.3 Without going into the essence of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in our linguistic study, and leaving the analysis and assessment of this tense situation and complex geopolitical problem to politicians, I will concentrate on the analysis of hate speech provoked by Azerbaijani mass media against Armenia.
As we have already stated, the socio-political interpretation of hate speech as a kind of harmful attack on a socio-cultural group needs linguistic specification since not all instances of verbal aggression can be considered as hate speech. Generally speaking, typical hate speech does not differ from any conflict talk in its linguistic realization since the expression of hatred, malice and negativity is not case-specific.
We assume that the linguistic mechanism of arousing negative attitude toward a particular group of people is usually realized with the help of manipulative language tactics. Manipulation is one of the most important language strategies used in political discourse. As the Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary explanation suggests, the verb to manipulate, which has the inherent negative connotational meaning of disapproving, means "to control or influence sb/sth, often in a dishonest way so that they do not realise it" (OED 2006:898). Therefore, language manipulation and manipulative speech in general are related to persuasive communications where speech has an effect on others due to the persuasive tactics used during the act of communication. Language manipulation is often studied as a form of persuasive tactics used in political or advertising discourse. Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan's article can be viewed as an example of political discourse since it addresses political issues having national interest. By using the term manipulation in this context we mean that the language resources are intentionally and purposefully used to create the intended effect and persuade the readers that the opinions, ideas, viewpoints expressed by the author are true. In fact, the language resources that can be used to realize the manipulative language tactics can range from suprasegmental, prosodic level to the highest - textual level. The present article will focus on the use of language resources from semantic and pragmatic perspectives.
Manipulative Tactics of Presenting Armenia in a Negative Light via Lexical-Semantic Language Resources
Hate speech which is intended to incite hatred or violence against a group -involves words with negative denotational meaning, expressions with harmful content, epithets and slurs insulting the target group of people and statements that promote malicious stereotypes. Hate speech can also include non-verbal forms of communication - pictures and symbols.
One of the main elements of manipulative demonstration of hate speech on the lexical level is the use of words that carry negative or positive associations. Hence the semantic analysis of the word-stock of the article under question has
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enabled us to single out two groups of words with opposing denotational meanings: negative - words referring to Armenia and Armenians, and positive -words referring to Azerbaijan. Our analysis has revealed that the Armenians are referred to through the following words:
Nouns Adjectives Verbs
aggressor unacceptable loot
destroyer unsustainable tarnish
conspirator biased threaten
destructor slanted spoil
threat notorious falsify
violation outdated
fantasy dangerous
enraged
The article is also abundant in word combinations and expressions with openly negative evaluation of Armenia, its policy and culture, for example: ill informed, badly looted Azerbaijan's rich cultural treasures, blind inclination, illegal occupation, a looming security threat, the continued occupation of Azerbaijani territories, threat to peace and stability in the South Caucasus, a source of destabilisation for the region, hideous crimes, Armenia's direct and deliberate attacks, illegally change, serious violations, notorious for cultural and heritage terrorism, Armenian aggressors, purposefully extinguishing, etc.
Contrary to this, in contexts where Azerbaijan is mentioned, words with positive denotational meaning or word combinations expressions describing Azerbaijanis positively are used, for example: Azerbaijan's successive leaders and people have been striving hard to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia that shows its firm belief in diplomacy and dialogue, helpless Azerbaijanis, rich cultural treasures, helpless Azerbaijani people, precious lives, beloved country, rich enough to flourish, full of life, colour, energy and
humanity, icon of multiculturalism, patriots, have an emotional attachment with, decent, and so on.
Another language tactics which is essential for manipulative demonstration of hate speech on the lexical level is labelling - describing Armenia in a particular way that helps realize discrimination and creates a disadvantageous picture of it. It follows that in Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan's article Armenia and Azerbaijan are explicitly opposed to one another by a biased and prejudiced description that can be interpreted as labelling:
The Republic of Azerbaijan is a civilised country whereas Armenia has already been labeled as "conspirator". Azerbaijan is a decent country whereas Armenia has been categorised as a destructor of humanity and an enemy of economic development as well.
Armenia has been notorious for its ethnic cleansing, prejudice, bigotry and state terrorism.
Azerbaijan has always been oppen for dialoggue whereas
Armenia undertakes consistent measures to consolidate the results of its occupation policy and to maintain an unacceptable and unsustainable status quo. Armenia's direct and deliberate attacks against the Azerbaijani civilian population and civilian objects, constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The Republic of Azerbaijan is a fascinating country whereas Armenia is a fanatic one by nature.
Azerbaijan has achieved tremendous sco-economic prosprity, geo-plitiad stability and geo-stratei importance after the restoration of independence in 1991 under the leadership of National Leader H.E. Heydar Aliyev and President H.E. Ilham Aliyev. On the other hand, brain drain is the hallmark of Armenian macro-economy.
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Azerbaijan is now a reggional economic leader in the South Caucasus and an impportant economic actor in the Caspian region.
The development and achievements of Azerbaijan are a pride of all Muslim countries and an example of good governance for a number of countries. Moreover, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first democratic republic in the Muslim world. One of the achievements of the republic was that women were ggranted with the right to vote much earlier than in many European countries whereas Armenia has been seriously denying basic human rights to its citizens due to which human misery is ramppant and unemployment, price hikes and debt burdens are sky high in the country.
Hate speech is also realised in the article on account of religion. Christian Armenia is presented not only as an aggressor, but also as a destructor of Muslim cultural values, enemy of Muslim religion. Contrary to this, Azerbaijan is presented positively in the context of the following three Muslim states having friendly ties - Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Turkey. Exerting hatred towards Armenians on the basis of faith, Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan evaluates positively the existence of common interests and culture of the Muslim countries which are strategic partners. For example:
Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey are strategic partners. Diplomatic relations between Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey are based on mutual respect and unique commonalities of historical, religious and political nature. Right from the beginning, the governments and political leaderships of these countries have been keen to further develop and consolidate the bond of friendship and brotherhood.
On the basis of the religious, cultural, political ties between Azerbaijan and Pakistan, the Pakistani Parliament and Senate, as stated in the article, demonstrate solidarity with the government and people of the Republic of Azerbaijan and condemn the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia; reaffirm the sovereignty and territorial integgrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognised borders; Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey's relations are based on a concept of "sharedprosperity' and rigorous commercial tdiplomacy and are consolidated on greater "ouio-euonomU connectivity, better plitical understanding and geo-stratei cooperation along with increasing military coopperation; The government of Pakistan considers Azerbaijan and Turkey reliable security partners in the rapidly changing geo-political and geo-strategic world.
Meanwhile, Christian Armenia is pictured in the negative light and Pakistan still does not recognise Armenia as an independent state because of its occupation of Azerbaijani territories.
In the article hate speech is also addressed to the Pakistani writer and blogger Sarmad Iqbal, who, as we have already mentioned, tried to stress the background and mutual cultural ties between Pakistan and Armenia in the article Can Harissa Act as an Ice-breaker between Armenia and Pakistan? published in the Daily Times. This article sounded for Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan like a threat that categorically tried to tarnish the bilateral relations of Pakistan with Azerbaijan and Turkey. It obviously stimulated and inspired the expression of hate speech not only towards Armenians but also towards Sarmad Iqbal. The latter is discredited in the eyes of the Azerbaijani readers as having a blind inclination towards Armenia, the agggressor and "cultivation of genocide".
Interestingly enough, this passage also contains linguistic elements of hate speech which is expressed indirectly: Sarmad Iqbal is being accused not only for defending Armenia, but also for deteriorating the trilateral Azerbaijan -Pakistan - Turkey cooperation. Naming Armenia an aggressor and initiator of cultivation of genocide, the author indirectly condemns Sarmad Iqbal, naming his intention to prevent the conflict a blind inclination, an attempt to spoil the trustworthy bilateral relations of Pakistan with strategic partners.
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The author also criticizes Iqbal for the idea expressed by the latter in his article that Pakistan is harsh towards Armenia because of Azerbaijan and Turkey. He calls this idea baseless and factually incorrect since the three Muslim countries are in brotherly relationships. By condemning Iqbal, Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan indirectly expresses hate speech towards Armenians. This can be deduced from the abundant use of the lexical-semantic language resources that name and imply antagonism, malice and malevolence. He indirectly accuses Armenia for trying to deteriorate the cooperation of the three Muslim countries, to spoil this partnership through spreading information which is considered to be fake.
We can conclude that the act of manipulation of the readers of the article under question, which is aimed at stressing the level of negativity of hate speech towards Armenia, is realized on the semantic level with the help of lexical units, word combinations and expressions that denigrate Armenia, blame its policy and accuse it unjustly of being guilty of aggression.
Manipulative Tactics of Presenting Armenia in a Negative Light via Logical Fabrications of Utterances
Manipulative language tactics can also be realized by expressing false or falsified ideas, viewpoints and judgements. In this case the language resources under question are mainly representative speech acts whose truth condition, and, naturally, the truthfulness of the propositional content condition, are usually considered to be unquestionable and beyond doubt. Needless to say, the perlocutionary effect of these self-evident truisms is to create an intentional manipulative effect, and persuade the readers that Armenians are savage aggressors and should be punished.
Political discourse can be viewed as rhetorical situation where rhetorical strategies for persuasion or persuasive tactics aimed at manipulation are employed (Perelman, Olbrechts-Tyteka 1969; Hodge, Kress 1993; Chilton 2004; Nikitina 2011). In this regard manipulation should be viewed as part of discursive strategy which is based on three types of rhetorical appeals, or
persuasive strategies which are used in arguments to support claims and respond to opposing arguments:
• Logos or the appeal to reason relies on logic or reason;
• Ethos or the ethical appeal which is based on the character, credibility, or reliability of the writer;
• Pathos, or emotional appeal, appeals to an audience's needs, values, and emotional sensibilities (Business Communication for Success 2019).
A good argument will generally use a combination of all three appeals to make its case. In the present article, trying to reveal the realization of these manipulative tactics, we will look at one type of rhetorical appeal used for manipulation, logos (Covino, Jolliffe 1995; Aristotle 2007). We will try to reveal how the intentionally created fallacies of inductive and deductive reasoning create a negative image of the target point, Armenians in this case, creating an atmosphere of hatred and animosity.
When speaking about logos, it is well known that it often depends on the use of inductive or deductive reasoning. When reasoning is based on real and objective facts, it contributes to creating realistic and objective logical ties and conclusions. Anyhow, these strategies can also be used to interpret fake or false facts, and in this case the author may deliberately manipulate the public by proposing the logical way of thinking via introducing falsified propositional content.
Let us analyse the use of inductive reasoning as manipulative tactics. Inductive reasoning is said to take a specific representative case or facts and then draw generalizations or conclusions from them. Normally, it must be based on a sufficient amount of reliable evidence. In other words, the facts drawn on through inductive reasoning must fairly represent the larger situation or population. Let us examine a stretch of statements where, in order to prove that Armenia is purposefully destroying items of Islamic culture, the author gives fake facts:
Armenia illegally changes the demographic, cultural and physical character of the occupied territories. Holding of military drills, census, resettlement of Syrian Armenians,
referendum and elections are serious violations of international law and ceasefire agreement. Armenia is notorious for cultural and heritage terrorism. Since the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and occupation of Azerbaijani territories, Armenian aggressors badly looted Azerbaijan's rich cultural treasures. Armenia is purposefully extinguishing Azerbaijan's culture, heritage and historical places, buildings and monuments of Islamic culture.4
In this example the specific case of Armenia being an aggressor and harming the most sacred values of the Muslim world, its mosques, is used as the starting point for the more generalized claim - accusation that Armenia's policy is unacceptable for the Muslim culture. As for deductive reasoning, it is said to begin with a generalization and then apply it to a specific case. The generalization that is presented at the start of the paragraph must have been based on a sufficient amount of reliable evidence. In the following example the author begins with a generalized claim about the partnership among Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and from this draws more localized or specific facts about their cultural ties and reasons for their close relationship:
Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey are strategic partners. Diplomatic relations between Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey are based on mutual respect and unique commonalities of historical, religious and political nature. Right from the beginning, the governments and political leaderships of these countries have been keen to further develop and consolidate the bond of friendship and brotherhood.''
This paragraph is placed at the beginning of the article and from the very start advances the idea that its author is going to support Azerbaijan's policy.
Manipulative tactics can also be employed through inductive and deductive reasoning, when the logical relationship of the thought is deliberately broken. This kind of tactical tools are called logical fallacies, "slips" in the logical chain of reasoning that undermine the logic of the argument. Among the logical fallacies slippery slope, hasty generalization, post hoc ergo propter hoc, genetic fallacy, begging the claim, circular argument, either/or, ad hominem, ad populum and red herring can be mentioned (Business Communication for Success 2019). Our analysis comes to prove that some of these tools are used in the article under question for the purpose of manipulating the audience and disseminating false ideas.
Let us analyse an example of the slippery slope. This is a case of logical fallacy where the conclusion is based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, Y, Z will happen, too, basically equating A and Z. So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either.
Armenia occupied more than 20 percent of Azerbaijan whereas Nagorno-Karabakh remained an ancient and historical part of Azerbaijan. Now the continued occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenian armed forces is a threat to peace and stability in the South Caucasus as well as a source of destabilisation for the region in the future.
The manipulative tactics of hate speech is acknowledged by the fact that Armenia occupied Azerbaijani territories5 which results in fake logical deduction that Armenia will go on occupying more territories, which is hazardous.
The next example is a case of hasty generalization, i.e. a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence. The writer deliberately makes the reader rush to a conclusion before having all the relevant facts.
Armenia undertakes consistent measures to consolidate the results of its occupation policy and to maintain an unacceptable and unsustainable status quo.
The conclusion that the Armenian army is a source for destabilization in the region is drawn hastily, without any supporting evidence. In fact, the manipulative tactics employed by this statement aims at adding one more negative element to the disgraceful image of Armenia, and persuading the readers that it is an evil country.
The next example is a case of ad hominem, that is a tactical tool employing verbal attack on the character of a person rather than opinions or arguments. In this case the manipulative hate speech is addressed to the general image of Armenia as "a country with a bad reputation" - The Republic of Azerbaijan is a civilised country whereas Armenia has already been labeled as "conspirator". Azerbaijan is a decent country whereas Armenia has been categorised as a destructor of humanity and an enemy of economic development as well. Armenia has been notorious for its ethnic cleansing, prejudice, bigotry and state terrorism.
Hence, he author opposes Armenia and Azerbaijan by using contrasting label-descriptions: civilised - conspirator, decent - destructor and enemy. The countries are labelled by the author without mentioning any names, proofs or facts evaluating them on their merits. The manipulative attack on Armenians sounds like an emotional appeal that speaks of the negative evaluation of Armenians as a nation and Armenia as a country.
Lastly, the manipulative tool of ad populum can be illustrated in the following example:
Azerbaijan's culture is rich enough to flourish and does not require any "alien land"like Armenia's borrowed concept of food, music, living or survival. Azerbaijan is fill of life, colour, energy and humanity. Azerbaijan is icon of multiculturalism whereas Armenia is the champion of ethnic cleansing.
Ad populum is an emotional appeal that creates positive (such as patriotism, religion, democracy) or negative (such as terrorism or fascism) concepts rather than the real issue at hand. In this passage the author expresses negative evaluation of Armenians and positive - of Azerbaijanis. Hence being Azerbaijani is equated with a positive conceptual image, icon of multiculturalism, meanwhile, being Armenian is equated with a negative conceptual image, the champion of ethnic cleansing.
Thus, we can conclude that in the mentioned article the act of manipulation is realized by deforming the logical ties of the utterances deliberately and creating exaggerated and false effects of negativity. The author employs hate speech against Armenia both by explicit verbal aggression and by implicit manipulative rhetorical appeal concerning the logical area of Logos.
Conclusion
The analysis of the manipulative tactics of the given article enables us to conclude that certain language resources are deliberately used by the author in order to create a hard-hitting hate speech, denouncing and abusing Armenia and its policy. The abundant use of words, word combinations and expressions that have negative denotational and connotational meanings results in creating a situational context where two targets having opposite values are confronted: Armenia is evaluated as a dangerous aggressor, notorious destroyer, threat to peace, enemy of Muslim countries and culture, meanwhile Azerbaijan is evaluated as rich, full of life, decent and patriotic.
Furthermore, the deliberate falsification of the propositional content of the representative speech acts and the manipulative play on the logical chain of the content contributes greatly to the realization of the author's intended perlocutionary effect, that is, persuading the reader that Armenians are aggressive and dangerous enemies of Muslim countries.
Notes:
1. The Azerbaijanian online paper Azerbaijani Vision (en.azvision.az) has a special news line called "Armenian Aggression" where articles, photos
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against Armenians, proving their ties with fascists and terrorists are located, articles proving that Armenians are aggressors and have organized massacres of Azerbaijanis, proving facts that deny the 1915 Armenian genocide and so on. This article is an answer to another article written by a Pakistani writer, blogger Sarmad Iqbal, which was published in the Daily Times earlier (Sarmad Iqbal, Can Harissa Act as an Ice-breaker between Armenia and Pakistan?, Daily Times, December 25, 2017). In that article Sarmad Iqbal expressed his opinion that Pakistan is harsh towards Armenia because of the government policy siding with Azerbaijan and Turkey. He tried to point out some common cultural items between Armenia and Pakistan, as well as between Pakistan and India. Anyhow, this attempt of focusing on commonalities between Pakistan and Armenia makes Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan angry, and he considers it as a "falsified and fantasied icebreaker between Pakistan and Armenia" (Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan, Armenia is Aggressor and Destroyer of Holy Mosques, it cannot be a Friend of any Muslim Country, 2019).
2. The author of the article, Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan, a Pakistani expert on conflict resolution and defence issues, is said to have great experience in socio-economic, geo-political and geo-strategic issues of Central Asia, Caucasus and Middle East. Being a prominent expert on CIS and the Caucasus, he is author of a great number of research and comprehensive articles.
3. Having become neighbouring republics in a greater country (the former USSR) after the socialist revolution in 1917-1919, Armenians and Azerbaijanis live side by side with a number of unsettled problems like national borders, economic, educational and cultural issues, Nagorno Karabakh status, Nakhichevan, etc.
4. Meanwhile Azerbaijan is notoriously known to have destroyed a great number of Armenian cultural relics - khachkars, churches, monuments in Artsakh and Nakhijevan - native Armenian territories.
5. As we have already mentioned, we examine the text of this article from the linguistic perspective, as a sample of political discourse. Therefore we do
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not allude to the truth or falsity of these claims from the legal perspective, and interpret them as they are.
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Received by the Editorial Board 25.12.2019 Recommended for publication by the reviewers 14.01.2020 Accepted for print 23.02.2020
