DefinePK

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the social construction of ideology through the use of words choices in the selected text. It is important to view how socio- political and socio-religious ideologies help in shaping and building identity, and how the author has presented her ideological stance through complementary strategy of ‘us vs. them’, by attributing positive qualities to the author’s in-group, and describing ‘others’ highlighting negative attributes in them. By employing van Dijk’s ‘socio-cognitive’ (1998) model the study also looks at how social actors and discourse participants are represented, and what are their roles in her identity building process. The findings suggest that the discursive strategies are used by the author to portray herself positively and others negatively