A critical discourse analysis of a news report on two mosques shooting in Christchurch-New Zealand

Abstract

News reports are regarded as a reflection of world reality. People around the world are watching the news reports to get the first aid information about incidents or events they need. Hence, languages in the news reports are, of course, considered neutral, impartial, and unbiased. Thus, this paper attempts to provide a critical discourse analysis CDA of a news report in its online version taken from the Guardian newspaper regarding the mass shooting of the Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. In this respect, Halliday’s systematic functional grammar is employed to explore the linguistic features along with two CDA’s tools (nominalization and passivization). Moreover, the researcher used these different tools of discourse analysis to unfold the use of biased language in this news report. For achieving this goal, the paper attempts to define some theoretical background of the CDA approach with its tools initially. Afterward, there is an interpretation and discussion of the analysis which is adopted based on CDA tools. However, the result of the analysis unfolded that Guardian news reports concerning the two Mosques shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand were not remained unbiased in reporting such sensitive issues. The implication for the journalists is to keep always their impartiality in advance while reporting any incidents or events.

Keywords

• Mass shooting
• Guardian newspaper
• CDA’s tools
• Halliday’s SFG
• Linguistic features

Kaynakça

1. Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Donkin, A. (2012). Australian national school chaplaincy program: A critical discourse analysis of online newspaper portrayals. Unpublished BA thesis, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.
3. Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.
4. Ghannam, N. (2012). Newspaper ideology: A critical discourse analysis of an event published in six Lebanese newspapers. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Retrieved from http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/11267/NADA%20FINAL%20ch ecked%2 0by%20JInggs.pdfsequence=1
5. Mahfouz, A. R. (2013). A critical discourse analysis of the police news story framing in two Egyptian newspapers before the January 25 revolution. European Scientific Journal, 9(8), 309-332.
6. Mayr, A. (2008). Introduction: Power, discourse, and institutions. In A. Mayr, Language and Power: An Introduction to Institutional Discourse (pp. 1-25). London: Continuum International.
7. Ndambuki, J., & Janks, H. (2010). Political Discourses, Women’s Voices: Mismatches in Representation. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines.
8. Slembrouck, S. (2010). Discourse Analysis. In K. Malmkjær, the Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia (3rd ed., pp. 133-137). New York: Routledge.

9. Teo, P. (2000). Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in two Australian newspapers.Discourse Society, 11(7), 7- 49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926500011001002
10. Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). The study of discourse. In T. A. Van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as structure and process (Vol.1, pp. 1-35). London: Sage.
11. Van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary study. London. Sage Publications.
12. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts, and its developments? In R.
13. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1-13). London: Sage