Resistance through the Language of Palestinian Poets

This study analyzed the language of resistance in the poems of three Palestinian poets, namely, Samih Al-Qasim, Mahmoud Darwish, and Tawfiq Zayyad. The analysis incorporated Van Dijk's (1997) approach to Political Discourse Analysis (PDA). The elicited linguistic features from PDA were analyzed against Van Dijk's (1993, 2005) Ideological Square Model and Johnson's (1987) Containment Schema. From the perspective of Van Dijk's (1993, 2005) ideological square model, the study found that the poets' expressions of resistance can be presented under the positive self-representation and negative other-representation with varying referents (i.e. Palestine, Palestinians, or Israelis). The analysis from Johnson's (1987) containment schema showed that the poets' political position has an influential role in their expressions of resistance and their views of themselves in relation to Palestine, Palestinians, and Israelis.