CDA: Kitis&Milapides (1997)

[Linnea Micciulla]

Hi everyone,

I agree with what John wrote in his posting; the authors' overriding
ideology seems to be "Greece is legitimate, 'Macedonia' is not." (Would
they call that a metaphor??)  I also found their heavy-handed use of the
same strategies they were criticizing to be ironic.

In particular, I thought the use of the term 'metaphor' was very
strange.   Some examples of things they (dismissed?) as 'metaphor':

a) "a dominant metaphor calling forth the 'script' (or the myth) of the
'weak and the powerful' " p. 562
b) "metaphors describing factories as having to 'shut down' and
ambulances as 'sitting useless' or expressions like 'crops...rotting in
the fields' p. 569
c) "Concluding, the author puts the finishing touch on the picture by
likening the whole situation to 'tragedy', another metaphor" p. 570

I don't see how any of this is 'metaphor' is any normal usage of the
term.  Even adopting the position that metaphors are the building blocks
of cognition (Lakoff), it is difficult to see these (especially b) as
metaphors.  Are the authors suggesting that there are no power relations
between countries?  Are the statements that "factories... have had to
shut down" and "crops are rotting in the fields" untrue?  If so, why not
just say so?  Why not say, "It is not true that crops are rotting
because Greece is blockading fuel shipments to Macedonia."  or, "The
author is supporting his ideology through the strategy of making untrue
assertions."  Calling these statements 'metaphors' is very odd.  Same
thing with the word 'tragedy' which is commonly used to mean 'extremely
sad; horrible."  How is calling this situation a 'tragedy'
metaphorical?  I suppose under a certain analysis it could be considered
a metaphor which compares a live situation to a sad drama (in the Greek
tradition of tragedy).  But if the authors don't agree with these
(factual?) assertions, it would be more productive to call them lies, or
point out that there is a selective representation of the truth
happening, in which another side of the story is not presented.

Not only did the authors project negative connotations where there
apparently were none (see John's post), but they actually seemed to
misread the article in several places.  They say that "Greece is
portrayed as a sick person suffering from an 'identity crisis' based on
the original, "As a member of NATO, which is undergoing a post-cold war
identity crisis..." Evidently they resolved the coreference between
'which' and 'NATO' incorrectly, substituting 'Greece' for 'NATO'.  There
is so much misrepresentation, those analyses that I would consider valid
and of interest get lost.

Finally, the selectivity of the analysis detracted from its usefulness.
The authors listed 9 transitive sentences with Greece as subject and 4
with Macedonia as subject, but they excluded several Macedonia sentences
from the count, presumably because of the author's "performative
nominations" (footnote 19).  (They excluded some for Greece, too, by my
count.)  They have nothing to say about what I would consider the
harshest sentence in the article, "It's murder without bullets."  This
actually COULD be a metaphor! Is it 'economic death' caused by the
closing factories?  Or have people actually died because of the
blockade?  Or is it hyperbole?

I would actually like to read another article about how metaphor
constructs ideology in news discourse, with a more clearly defined
analytical framework, if anyone has any suggestions.  I don't mind an
ideological perspective, even (especially?) if I disagree with it - and
I think this can be tempered by setting up the framework of the analysis
clearly and in a way that promotes balance.

Linnea


John E Richardson wrote:

>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
>>
>>
>>
>>
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