A Discourse-Analytic Perspective of Hate

There is a fine line between free speech and ‘hate speech.' Free speech encourages debate, whereas hate speech incites violence. (Newton Lee). Discursive components could be instrumental in determining how individuals and societies express ‘hate speech.' Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is founded on the insight that text and talk play a crucial role in maintaining and legitimating power, exploitation, discrimination, inequality, hegemony, injustice, oppression in contemporary society, racism and anti-Semitism and more recently, immigration and asylum, tracing them through various contexts. Furthermore, various examples have been used to demonstrate how all of these have resulted in ‘hate speech' and hate crime(s).