Sophia Butt

Photograph of Sophia Butt

Department of English Language and Linguistics
Doctoral researcher

Contact details

PhD title: Incitement to Islamophobia? An interdisciplinary study of counter-radicalisation discourse in the UK
Supervisor: Professor Michael Toolan (ELAL); Dr Chris Allen and Dr Simon Pemberton (Social Policy)
PhD English Language and Applied Linguistics

Research

This PhD employs a combination of interdisciplinary research methods to examine the marketing of national policies (Bernays, 1942) and how these scaffold the engineering of public opinion (Lippmann, 1922) and the manufacturing of consent (Herman & Chomsky, 1988) in support of domestic politics. Specifically, it focuses on counter-radicalisation discourse in the UK education sector by examining a) the language and intersemiotic resources of the Prevent Strategy which is part of CONTEST, the UK’s counter-terrorism policy; and b) the multi-agency BRIT Project and Channel Programme. The principle aim of the research is to determine whether these policies might be responsible for scaremongering and/or incitement to Islamophobia in the UK education system amidst growing fears of extremism and radicalisation.