J Hakam MA Dissertation-Abstract 1
- 1. A CDA Analysis of English-language Arab Newspaper Discourse Hakam 2007 1 The 'Cartoons Controversy' A CDA Analysis of English-language Arab Newspaper Discourse Submitted for the degree of MA in English Linguistics University of Central England June 2007 Supervising tutor: Dr. Ruth Page Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate how English-language Arab newspapers articulate the ideological alignment they represent, and how they reproduce, resist and/or challenge the discourse that stems from a dominant Western/European culture. The study focuses on 'hard' news texts in the form of news reports, analyses and opinion pieces that address the events and issues that came to be known as the 'Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy'. The data sample is a corpus of 422 such texts gathered from nineteen 'serious' English-language Arab newspapers. The analysis of the data is approached via the contextual linguistic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Models of discourse are selected that seem suitable for the purposes of the investigation. The main theme of the theoretical framework is Fairclough's (2001) view of conflicting ideologies in discourse as symptomatic of social conflict. An important model in this study is based on a concept called 'signals of affiliation' (Mills 1995), which is adapted specifically to the context and process of Arab newspaper discourse production. The first part of the investigation is a computer-assisted quantitative frequency and concordance analysis of the entire corpus, supplemented by qualitative comparisons of a large representative subset of headlines and lead sentences. Part Two of the analysis consists of detailed CDA microanalysis of two full texts: the first is attributed to a Western source; the second is an Arab-generated text. The study concludes with a critique of the CDA models and theories implemented herein, a discussion of the most salient findings, and some considerations for further study and the possible future role of CDA in the educational system.