A Corpus-based analysis of the Construction of Identities in the BBC
      Sitcom Citizen Khan
Creators: name: Kadiri, Bilal
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2017

description: An abundance of studies post 9-11 have critically evaluated the
      representations of Islam and Muslims in the media. In spite of this, very
      little work has focused on portrayals of Muslims in fictional television
      programming. This thesis aims to address this gap by investigating
      language usage and the construction of identities in the BBC sitcom
      Citizen Khan, which is centred around a family living in the Sparkhill
      area of Birmingham. In order to carry out this analysis a 40,000 word
      corpus was created, consisting of transcripts of the thirteen episodes
      from the first two seasons of the sitcom.
      
      
      The analysis utilised an array of different analytical tools and
      approaches to carry out an in-depth textual and visual analysis. Corpus
      software was used to carry out an initial quantitative analysis which
      identified salient aspects of identity within the sitcom. This was
      followed by a qualitative analysis which employed a modified version of
      Fairclough’s 3 stages of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework to
      assist in interpreting the data from a wider contextual standpoint.
      Incorporated into the framework were aspects of Conversational Analysis
      and Multimodal Analysis, in order to provide evaluation of some of the
      textual and visual aspects of the programme.
      
      
      The analysis indicated that the lead character Mr Khan has a hybrid of
      intersecting identities: Pakistani, British and Muslim; and his
      negotiation of these multiple identities was used by the writers to
      generate humour. Due to aspects of the Muslim and Pakistani identities
      overlapping with one another, the scriptwriters employed negative
      stereotyping around Pakistanis within the sitcom, as opposed to directly
      stereotyping Muslims as a whole. The findings also identified an
      association between Pakistani and family identity, with aspects of
      Pakistani culture dictating the dynamics within the household. Namely,
      through the importance attached to producing male offspring, coupled with
      Khan attempting to construct himself as the patriarch of the family and Mr
      and Mrs Khan’s first names never being revealed to the audience.
      
      
      The gendered identities of the characters were also found to be
      intersecting with other facets of their identity. A visual analysis
      identified a correlation between Khan’s usage of good girl and his
      religious expectations for his daughters. Additionally, analysis of
      male-related terms indicated Khan’s views were male-centred, with him
      drawing upon constructions of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchal order.
      Overall, the study identified that Citizen Khan reinforced negative
      stereotyping of Pakistanis and Muslims. However, by portraying Muslims in
      a normalised setting on a primetime slot on BBC One, despite its many
      flaws Citizen Khan could be seen as providing a positive step in the right
      direction in enabling more diverse and honest representations of Muslims
      in the media.