The First Elections in the New Iraq in 2005: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The First Elections in the New Iraq in 2005: A Critical Discourse Analysis Ghayth K. S. Al-Shaibani Abstract This paper analyses a news story published on the BBC news website, reporting the first elections for a full-term government to replace the interim one which took over after Saddam’s fall in 2003. The focus of this study is on the macro- and microsemantics of the news story and ideological representations. To carry out this study, the researcher employs 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. Utilising Wodak’s (2001) discourse-historical approach, the linguistic and ideological analyses are supported by background information where a historical and political critique is provided to ensure objectivity in the process of interpretation. The findings of the macro- and micro-semantics are identical and they reflect the dichotomy between the in-group and out-group stance towards New Iraq whereby positive selfrepresentation and negative other-representation are explicitly and implicitly manifested respectively in the text of the news story. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijlc.v2n3a3