?They Are Khaw?rij of Our Time:? Relying on Background Knowledge and Long-Term Memory to Justify Fighting ISIS in Jordanian Political Discourse
This study focuses on a discourse practice that metaphorically associates ISIS
with an early Islamic sect known as the Kharijites. This practice constructs a
discourse that calls back the background knowledge and memory of historical
narratives and experiences that create conceptual frames that communicate
meanings of war and atrocities. These meanings were used by King Abdullah
II of Jordan to justify Jordan?s military participation against ISIS (circa
2014?2018). On the basis of the ?blending theory? of conceptual metaphor,
this study shows how the discourse practice of depicting ISIS as the Kharijites
has undergone selective associations with the ideological aim of constructing
persuasive and coercive discourses to justify military intervention against
ISIS, primarily by foregrounding scripts of threat and victimization. That, in
turn, leads to the instigation of illusive and incomplete associations.