Portrayal Of The Iraq War (2005-2008) In The BBC’S English Online News: A Critical Discourse Analysis
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Date
2010-12
Authors
Al-Shaibani, Ghayth K. Shaker
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
This study examined the subsequent events of the Iraq war 2003 by selecting eleven stories from the BBC news website. The corpus covers a span of three years from 15th December 2005 to 1st
At the macro level, each text was analysed to assign the global meaning which stands for the Semantic Macrostructure. Whilst, at the micro level, each text was analysed to examine the local meanings in the news discourse in terms of syntactic, lexical, and rhetorical choices. As regards the ideological analysis, it focused on the image of in-group and out-group representations i.e. a positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation at both levels. February 2008 when key events took place in Iraq. The focus of the study was on the macro- and micro-semantics of the texts and ideological representations. To carry out the study, the researcher employed van Dijk’s (1980) theory of Semantic Macrostructure to examine the news discourse at the macro-level and micro-level, and van Dijk’s (1998) theory of ideology to investigate group ideology at both levels. The linguistic and ideological analyses were supported by background information where a historical and political critique was provided to ensure objectivity in the process of interpretation. This is based on Wodak’s (2001a) discourse-historical approach.
The findings at the macro level revealed an overall meaning encapsulated in the macroproposition ‘New Democratic Iraq is facing political and security challenges due to negative foreign interference and negative out-group stance’ which stands for the Semantic Macrostructure of the corpus. Micro-semantic analysis of syntactic, lexical, and rhetorical structures was in agreement with the macro-semantic analysis. For example, the use of war/violence vocabulary is prominent in the corpus because the new invaders, al-Qaeda in Iraq who allied with Saddam’s cohorts, launched their war against the New Iraq and the Iraqi people soon after the US declaration of the ‘end’ of the Iraq war in May 2003. Group ideology was manifested through positive in-group actions such as practising and protecting democracy, working for Iraq’s unity and prosperity, and fighting the out-group alliance of al-Qaeda and Saddamists who are depicted negatively through their suicide attacks and bombings against the Iraqi people. On the other hand, the BBC has mostly taken a neutral position in its news reports in this study.
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Keywords
Portrayal of the iraq war (2005-2008) , a critical discourse analysis