Introduction

This chapter introduces linguistic sociopolitical as a genre of meta-linguistic discourse that contributes to the ideologisation of language in the Arabic-speaking world, before asking the central question that the book aims to answer: how and why does the genre of linguistics sociopolitical continuously ideologise language in the Arab(ic) setting? The chapter then defines the discourse of Arabic language academy (ALA discourse), a representative of the Arabic linguistic sociopolitical, as the objective of the research. It goes on to discuss three features of the ALA discourse - the divorce of meta-linguistic discourse from actual language practice, the association of language and the sociopolitical world through language symbolism, and discursive routinisation - that reveal the mechanism of language-ideology interface in Arab society. In inducing this mechanism from these features of discourse, the chapter sets up a research framework by critically reviewing and synthesising theories of LPLP, language symbolism, indexicality, proxification, habitus, nationalism, world-system and modernisation. Finally, it delineates the scope of data, discusses the analytic approach informed by perspectives of CDA and describes the structure of the book.