Textual Architecture of a Selected Hard News in English: A Discourse Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study deals with the analysis of a selected hard news through the adaptation of an eclectic model of analysis by the use of Van Dijk (1988), Bell (1991) and Halliday (1976) models of discourse analysis. Writing news stories is a problematic process because it is not a process of merely putting words together to form a text or report, but it involves the choice of the words and markers that conditioned by the purpose, place, and the readers. The study aims at proposing a theoretical framework for the macro- level analysis of news discourse. It covers the macro level analysis of the chosen hard news. The data of the study is an English news story taken from Washington Times newspaper published on 20th of August 2016. The results of the study display that English hard news stories show certain complexity in their structure. The writer of this hard news story aims at not only conveying information but arising the voice of protest against the government and the court of justice. Such analysis reaches to a conclusion, which emphasizes the idea that the field of discourse can be used for better understanding of the media.