The Discourse of Terror Threats: Assessing Online WrittenudThreats by Nigerian Terrorist Groups

摘要

Online threats by terrorist groups are viewed as a special type ofuddiscourse that sends menacing explicit messages, expressing not onlyudan intention to cause a direct physical harm to the threatened, but alsoudto show a commitment to destroy public property or cause a changeudof system or government. This study applies critical discourse analysisudwith some insights from pragmatics to analyze the discoursepragmaticudcontents of terror threats by two terrorist groups inudNigeria—Boko Haram and Ansaru. Explicit and implied threats areudexamined from seven online publications by these groups writtenudbetween 2009 and 2012. This study shows that terror threats byudNigerian terrorist groups are intertextually and ideologically related toudthreats associated with Al Qaeda and global jihad, which also goesudfurther to establish their strong link and influence with other terrorudgroups around the world. The findings also show that the structure ofudterror threats is significantly different from the conventional formulaudfor verbal threats