The hijra in Arabic Media Context: A Corpus-assisted Discourse Collocation Analysis

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  • Azzouz Belkharraf ORCIDLaboratory of Discourse, Creativity, Society and Religions
  • Zakariae Azennoud ORCIDThe Polydisciplinary Faculty of Khouribga, Sultan Moulay Slimane University
PDF (backup copy)Official version on IMISTDOI
Journal
Confluence Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (e-ISSN 3085-5411)
Issue
Vol. 2 No. 3 (2026)
Section
Articles
Pages
117-132
Published
22 July 2026
DOI
https://doi.org/10.34874/PRSM.cjms-vol2iss3.9442
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Copyright (c) 2026 Azzouz Belkharraf, Zakariae Azennoud

Abstract

The Arabic word hijra, as equivalent to (im)migration, has played a significant part in the modern media discourse. Its occurrence is determined by a variety of systematic collocational patterns that convey a range of socio-cultural implications. While the debate has been developing over the last years about the reasons and objectives of hijra, as a social problem, youth-centric hope, or geo-political crisis, fresh empirical research is correspondingly very limited. The present study adopts a corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADA) approach to explore the word in context, by operationalizing the collocational networks of relationships among lexical items co-occurring with hijra. By running mainly three statistical association measures (AMs), namely Log Dice, MI, and Delta P in GraphColl, the study analyzes four dimensions of collocability related to the node hijra, frequency, exclusivity, connectivity, and dispersion, in a specialized designed corpus of written media, drawn from various Arabic newspapers. The analysis arrives at important insights into the strong associations of word combinations that allow reasoned judgments of some underlying socio-cultural factors influencing the hijra, both as an intricately prominent discursive unit and as contingent, prospective act. Founded on corpus-based evidence, this exploratory work seeks to expand research interest in the increasingly influential English-dominant CADA approaches and encourages broader application in Arabic.

Keywords

HijraMigrationCorpus-assistedDiscourse AnalysisCollocational NetworksAssociation Measures

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