CDA: Kitis&Milapides (1997)

[John E Richardson]

hi all,

I've been meaning to post on this article for a while - so thanks to
Noriko for the prompt!
I was disappointed with this article - perhaps because I was looking
forward to reading it, as I was writing something on metaphor in news
discourse at the time. My principal problem with the piece is that the
authors seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the discourse
genre that they examined. The text is *not* a news story and should not
be treated as such. It is a column and hence is 'allowed' to be
opinionated. Of course they may object to the opinions being advanced
(and they certainly do, see below) but the text ought to be analysed in
relation to the discursive practices of its production, not those
projected by the analysts. Therefore much of the section on avoiding
bias, while interesting because this is discussed in relation to
modality, it simply wrong-headed.

Second, I thought it was ironic that a piece analysing textual ideology
was so overtly ideological! The meta-function of this article seemed to
be an argument for Macedonia being subsumed into a greater Greece; it
was, in effect, arguing against a country's existence. Of course, it is
interesting, politically, that Time was recognising the existence of the
country in the text's referential strategies, but in some ways I find it
more interesting that the authors were attempting the opposite.

Third, I think that this ideological agenda had an unfortunate effect on
the validity of their analysis. They seemed to project negative
connotations onto the text where they didn't exist. For instance,
'Greece's defense seems just silly', simply does not equate with 'Greece
[is] silly' (p.565; p.577). The verb 'seems' is always subjective - it
always seems to someone, in keeping with the subjective basis of the
genre. Kress shows this in his examination of a news text that used the
verb-adjective pairing 'is likely' over alternatives such as 'seems
certain' - the former appears more solid, more categorical and hence
more authoritative than the latter. This willingness to project negative
implications is also in evidence elsewhere. For instance in the table on
p.573: how does 'Greece is reminding the world that it too is a Balkan
country' have a negative impact on Greece's image? It appears that the
authors project negativity because of how *they* perceive the Balkans.
Similarly, how does 'Papaconstantinou denies this charge' have a
negative impact on Greece's image? Perhaps I'm missing something subtle,
but the authors could have explained this a little better.
It is also interesting that they think 'Because Macedonia has large
Muslim minorities' is a neutral clause. My own work on the
representation of Islam from this period in time suggests that this is
not necessarily true; things have certainly moved on quite a bit now.

all the best
John


John E Richardson
Dept of Journalism Studies
Sheffield University

> Hi everyone,
>
> In my next posting, I will write my response to Anne
> Mareck
> $B!G(Bs response to Greenberg (2002). Today, I will write
> about what I thought about Kitis and Milapides
> $B!G(B article entitled $B!H(BRead it and believe it: How metaphor
> constructs ideology in news discourse. A case study
> $B!I(B (Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 557-590)
>
> Kitis and Milapides (1997) analyzed the Time magazine
> article entitled
> $B!H(BGreece$B!G(Bs defense seems just silly,$B!I(B 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
> $B!F(BMacedonia$B!G(B),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:
> $B!H(BGreece is ultimately envisaged as committing hubris
> against some gods that are unidentified but identifiable
> through a critical discourse analysis
> $B!I(B (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
> $B!G(B footnote $B!H(BWe owe this observation to Jina
Politi.$B!I(B 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
> $B?y?9E5;R(B
> $B")(B939-8051 $BIY;3;TBg at tCfIt#1#2#3!!=)K\J}(B
> tel & fax 076-421-1337
>
>