Abstract
This paper attempts to use Transitivity and Critical Linguistics to demonstrate that news is (or can be) socially constructed and that reality in the press is more about opinions and propositions than facts. The language that is used to represent people and events is chosen from options and choices within the linguistic system that may not be value-free or coincidental. These choices can seek to represent the world in a particular ideologically-enforced manner. The analysis done in this paper using transitivity framework indicates how grammatical resources like agency deletion, negative/positive representation of actors, foregrounding/backgrounding, nominalization and so on are used by both the New York Times and Arab News to foster ideological interests and to underscore their favored worldviews. In the Operation Cast Lead war between Israel and Hamas, the Arab News reports are shown to be very critical of Israel while defending Hamas. The New York Times, on the other hand, is shown as mitigating Israeli assaults and indicting Hamas mostly for the overall negative consequences of the war.
Highlights
This paper adopts a critical linguistic approach to issues of news reports
The Times is one of the leading newspapers in the US that exerts influence on a large segment of the population. This alone calls for heightened scrutiny of its contents" Regarding the coverage of the Middle East Crisis, the New York Times has been noted for its pro- Israeli stand which challenges its reputation as a newspaper of record
Some only read the headlines and go away since they have gotten the basic 'gist' of the news According to White (1997), the nucleus of the English-language print media hard news report is most typically constituted by the combination of its headline and its opening sentence known to journalists as either the "lead" or the "intro"
Summary
This paper adopts a critical linguistic approach to issues of news reports. News reports help today in shaping and sustaining the opinions of the powerful elements, groups and countries in the international community. The ability of the Western political leaders, media and humanitarian intellectuals to get enraged at approved villains like Arafat, Chavez, and Milosevic, while treating Begin, Netanyahu and Sharon kindly as statesmen deserving of economic and military aid and diplomatic support, is a small miracle of self-deception, advanced double standards, and moral turpitude This abortion of the moral instinct requires the construction, sustenance and naturalization of a particular ideology or point of view which gradually becomes the norm. This paper would look at an aspect of the Palestinian crisis using transitivity analysis with its concern about the social contexts and roles of textual participants and actions This may help in possibly demonstrating how ideologies are framed and sustained discursively. Are short histories and orientations of the two newspapers involved in this paper
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