CDA: Kitis&Milapides (1997)

[杉森 典子]

Hi everyone,

In my next posting, I will write my response to Anne
Mareck
’s response to Greenberg (2002). Today, I will write
about what I thought about Kitis and Milapides
’ article entitled “Read it and believe it: How metaphor
constructs ideology in news discourse. A case study
” (Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 557-590)

Kitis and Milapides (1997) analyzed the Time magazine
article entitled
“Greece’s defense seems just silly,” which appeared in
its America Abroad section. The authors uncovered hidden
politics in the article by analyzing in what ways two
countries, Greece and Macedonia (by the time the article
appeared in 1992, this name had not been legalized, but
Time used
‘Macedonia’),were portrayed at various levels, including
in participant roles. In the Time article, Greece, or
words designating Greece,appeared in a prominent
grammatical subject position significantly more frequently
than Macedonia. Macedonia was portrayed as the affected
powerless nation, but Greece was presented as dominant,
etc.

The finding that powerful participants tend to appear in
the subject position rather than in the object position,
or that powerful participants tend to be portrayed as
agents rather than patients, is not new.  What I think is
fascinating about this article is that the authors
uncovered a broader world politics beyond Greece vs.
Macedonia. The authors implys at the end of the article:
“Greece is ultimately envisaged as committing hubris
against some gods that are unidentified but identifiable
through a critical discourse analysis
” (p.586). I think the authors are implying the US
dominance in world politics. Is my understanding on the
right track?

I have one technical question. For me, the most intriguing
part in this paper was its epilogue (pages585-586). But in
the most interesting part in this epilogue, I found the
authors
’ footnote “We owe this observation to Jina Politi.” I
have never encountered a situation like this. If I need to
cite this part of the paper, do you think I should refer
both the authors and Jina Politi?

Have a nice week.

Best wishes,




Noriko Sugimori
20 Chestnut Street #204, Cambridge, MA 02139
tel & fax 617-494-6497
杉森典子
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tel & fax 076-421-1337