An actor or an undefined threat?

Abstract

The paper studies the use of the wordterroristin the dispatches of two major international news agencies, AP and Reuters. It can be assumed that the attacks on September 11, 2001, have changed the role ofterroristand affected the meaning of the word. Whileterroristshave been traditionally construed as violent actors, they are now, more and more, seen as a static threat. The paper examines three collocations —terrorist attack, terrorist threatandterrorist suspect— as grammatical metaphors (cf. Halliday 1994); the collocationterrorist networkis analysed as a conceptual metaphor (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Linguistic strategies manifested in the data form a pattern that I call “anti-terrorism discourse”. Modality and general vagueness of the language are conspicuous features in the news agency dispatches on terrorism; the reports focus on whatmay happenormay have happened.This can be argued to undermine the factuality of news agency discourse.