Representation of the Kurds in 19th-Century Travel Narratives
A Corpus Stylistic Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14500/kujhss.v9n2y2026.pp690-706Keywords:
Corpus Stylistics, Representation, Narratives, Kurds, TravelAbstract
In the nineteenth century, European travelers spread across many parts of the world; Kurdistan was no exception in their plans. Many of the travelers focused on exploring Kurds from their perspectives. This research study aims to investigate how Kurds are depicted in the 19th- century travel discourse. For this purpose, the study adopts a corpus-stylistic method within a critical discourse analysis framework. In order to consolidate its analysis and interpretation, the study utilizes principles of the Orientalist framework by Edward Said. The study built a corpus of eight British narrative discourse accounts. By employing AntConc tools, the study constructed a body of text totaling over 1,100,934 tokens, and then analyzed keywords, collocates, clusters, and concordances. Results show that Kurds were repeatedly depicted as homogenizing people and frequently were linked to violence, lawlessness, and tribal people. The use of plural forms like “Kurds/Koords” supports the collective identity while neglecting the potential of individuals. Recurring clusters such as “Kurds are” and Collocates like “armed,” “ravages,” and “savage” indicated negative semantic prosody in line with Orientalist framework principles of Othering and binary oppositions. However, there were neutral and sympathetic representations; they were mainly shaped in comparison to other groups, thus preserving hierarchies that existed in imperial discourse. The study revealed that the corpus stylistic approach offers an experimental basis for detecting textual perspectives and ideological constructs, providing new insights into the connection of language, representation and imperial authority.
Downloads
References
Ahmad, R. S., & Fahmi, I. M. (2023). A stylistic analysis of Dylan Thomas’ “A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London”. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 10(1), 93–105.
https://doi:10.23918/ijsses.v10i1p93
Abdulla, K. A., & Kerimi, E. (2024). Genealogy of sovereignty in Southern Kurdistan from 1917 to 1947. Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 7(1), 542–556. https://doi.org/10.14500/kujhss.v7n1y2024.pp542-556
Ahmad, R. S., Barzani, S. H. H., Meena, R. S., & Ali, H. F. (2021). Common problems in translation of political texts: The case of English and Kurdish languages. Canadian Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 1(2), 11–23. https://doi.org/10.53103/cjlls.v1i2.14
Al-Saedi, H. A. (2024). Exploring lexical luxury in Scott Fitzgerald’s novels: A corpus-based stylistic analysis. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 14(9), 694–700. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1409.07
Al-Saedi, H. A., & Ali, A. F. (2022). Lexical and rhetorical features in The Time Machine: A corpus-stylistic analysis. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 5(3), 134–141. https://doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2022.5.3.19
Anthony, L. (2024). AntConc (Version 4.0.0) [Computer software]. AntLab
Bedggood, D. (2021). A corpus stylistic analysis of development in Hemingway’s literary production. The Hemingway Review, 40(2), 71–93. https://doi.org/10.1353/hem.2021.0005
Behdad, A. (2019). Orientalism and Middle East travel writing. In M. Malek & O. Moore-Gilbert (Eds.), Orientalism and literature (pp. 181–199). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108614672.011
Biber, M. (2017). Corpus stylistic analysis of Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 20(1), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.5782/2223-2621.2017.20.1.25
Bird, C. (2004). A thousand sighs, a thousand revolts: Journeys in Kurdistan (1st ed.). Ballantine Books.
Bird, I. L. (1891). Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (Vol. I). J. Murray.
Bird, I. L. (1891). Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (Vol. II). J. Murray.
Burke, E., & Prochaska, D. (Eds.). (2008). Genealogies of Orientalism: History, theory, politics. University of Nebraska Press.
Chamlou, L. (2024). Dans les marges de l’orientalisme britannique : le cas d’Isabella Bird et de Journeys to Persia and Kurdestan (1891). Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, 99. https://doi.org/10.4000/11na2
Chatty, D. (2022). The Arabian desert in English travel writing since 1950. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003197201
Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9(3), 302–338. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1994.9.3.02a00040
Fischer-Starcke, B. (2009). Keywords and frequent phrases of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: A corpus-stylistic analysis. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 14(4), 492–523. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.14.4.03fis
Fraser, J. B. (1840). Travels in Koordistan, Mesopotamia, &c.: Including an account of parts of those countries hitherto unvisited by Europeans, with sketches of the character and manners of the Koordish and Arab tribes (Vol. 2). London: Richard Bentley.
Ghaderi, F., & Habibzadeh, S. (2019). Mapping Persia and the Persians in Freya Stark’s The Valley of Assassins and Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 14, 115–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2019.1615073
Heidari, H. (2022). Performing the self through Orientalizing the Kurds in Isabella Bird’s Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan. Journal of Victorian Culture, 27(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac036
Jamil, A. (2021). Wêney Kurd û Kurdistan lelay Rojhelatnasân le belawkrawakanî Elmanîyadâ le sâday Nûzdehem: Lêkolîneweky Shikârî Rakhneyî [The image of Kurds and Kurdistan in German publications in the nineteenth century: A critical-analytical study]. Journal of Duhok University, 24(1), 113–130. http://dx.doi.org/10.26682/chjuod.2021.24.1.7
Karakulak, F. (2021). The ambivalent representation of the Orient in T. E. Lawrence’s Seven pillars of wisdom: A triumph (1935). Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, (94). https://doi.org/10.4000/cve.8823
Karim, H., & Mohammad, M. H. (2024). Classical sociologists’ view of the nation and basic paradigms about the origin of the Kurds. Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 7(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.14500/kujhss.v7n2y2024.pp1-14
Kennedy, D. (1994). Belated travelers: Orientalism in the age of colonial dissolution. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.32-6395
Kennedy, V. (2016). Edward Said: A critical introduction. Polity Press.
Khair, N. (2021). Book review: McIntyre, D., & Walker, B. (2019) Corpus stylistics: Theory and practice. Edinburgh University Press. Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies, 4(1), 99–102. https://doi.org/10.18573/jcads.69
Kontou, T. (2018). Representations of the East: Orientalism in Emily Eden’s travel writing. Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, 2, 60–70. https://doi.org/10.7146/lev.v0i2.104691
Layard, A. H. (1853). Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert (Vol. I: Volume I). Murray.
Layard, A. H. (1853). Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert (Vol. II: Volume II). Murray
Leask, N. (1991). Representations of the East in English and French travel writing, 1798–1882: With particular reference to Egypt (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge).
Macfie, A. L. (Ed.). (2000). Orientalism: A reader. Edinburgh University Press.
Macfie, A. L. (2002). Orientalism. Pearson Education.
Maclean, G. M. (2019). British travellers, the Kurds, and Kurdistan: A brief literary history, c. 1520–1673. Kurdish Studies, 7(2), 113–134. https://doi.org/10.33182/ks.v7i2.461
Mahlberg, M. (2012). Corpus stylistics and Dickens’s fiction. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203076088
Mahlberg, M. (2020). Corpus stylistics: Style and corpora applications. Bloomsbury Academic.
Muhammad, Q. M. (2017). Kurds and Kurdistan in the view of British travellers in the nineteenth century (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Leicester.
Rich, C. J. (1836). Narrative of a residence in Koordistan, and on the site of ancient Nineveh: With journal of a voyage down the Tigris to Baghdad and an account of a visit to Shirauz and Persepolis. London: James Duncan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/narrativeofaresi01rich
Rubiés, J.-P. (2016). “Orientalism is a partisan book”: Applying Edward Said’s insights to early modern travel writing. History Compass, 14(4), 168–188. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12307
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
Said, E. W. (1995). Orientalism: Western conceptions of the Orient. Penguin.
Sajjadi, B. (2019). Postcolonial reading of representing Kurds in Orientalism discourse: A case study of Claudius James Rich’s travelogue. Cultural History Studies, 10(39), 55–74.
Soane, E. B. (1980). To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise: With historical notices of the Kurdish tribes and the Chaldeans. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company. Ontario Legislative Library.
Toolan, M. (2011). Narrative progression in the short story: A corpus stylistic approach. Style, 45(4), 686–708.
Vejdani, F. (2022). E. G. Browne, the Persophile: Orientalism in A year amongst the Persians. Victorians Institute Journal, 49, 113–135. https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.49.2022.0113
Wang, L. (2023). A corpus-based stylistic study of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature, 6(14), 47–53. https://doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.061408
Youssef, F. H., & Khalandi, A. (2024). The cultural life of Kurds according to the writers of foreign travelers in the Qajar era (1796–1925). Humanities Journal of University of Zakho, 12(2), 360–377. https://doi.org/10.26436/hjuoz.2024.12.2.1398
Young, R. J. C. (2001). Postcolonialism: An historical introduction. Blackwell.
Zacharia, R. (2021). Postcolonial travel writing: Critical explorations. Routledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Rawand S. Ahmad, Salah J. Jabrael
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
