First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Term of Graduation

Summer 2006

Date of Publication

Summer 6-16-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Department

Applied Linguistics

Language

English

Subjects

Battle of Fallūjah -- Fallūjah -- Iraq (2004), Iraq War (2003-2011), Critical discourse analysis, Violence -- Press coverage, Iraq, Iraq -- Fallūjah

Physical Description

1 online resource (97 pages)

Abstract

Since most of our knowledge about current events such as wars in foreign countries comes via news reports, the ability to recognize bias in news media is an important skill. Linguistic discourse analysis is one way in which one can identify the unconscious biases evident in otherwise objective news. Patterns in positive and negative word choices can show which news actors a news organization identifies with and which an organization assumes to be suspect or ill-motivated.

The purpose of this study was to find such patterns in word choices from the war in Iraq. To this end, headlines were gathered over a one-month period from an American and a Canadian newspaper, and the violent-connotation in words were evaluated in choices of participant labels and verbs. The frequency of violently­connotated words for both sides in the war were compared to body count numbers to determine whose violence the news organizations de-emphasized.

The occurrence of explicitly-violent participant labels and verbs showed that both the American and the Canadian newspaper found anti-American violence in Iraq more newsworthy. The violence of the American military and its allies was de­emphasized in a manner inconsistent with accepted body count numbers, showing that both news organizations favored the American side of the war.

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Comments

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