Applying systemic functoinal linguistics and critical discourse analysis to the investigation of ideology in a radio news bulletin
In this study a version of Systemic Functional Linguistics (namely that developed by J. R. Martin and colleagues) is applied within a Critical Discourse Analysis framework to the study of ideology in a radio news bulletin. The bulletin was broadcast in August 2007 on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. The main story concerns the fatal shooting of a young boy in Liverpool. His attacker was another young boy who was a local gang member. The incident rapidly acquired a symbolic dimension in Britain, partly due to the tragic nature of the crime but mainly becauseit was seena s the culmination of a serieso f youth crime incidents involving guns or knives during the earlier part of that year that appeared to reflect what some commentatorsa t the time were describinga s 'BreakdownB ritainor even 'Anarchy in the UK'. The study takes a fine-grained approach, analysing each clause in the bulletin text according to all the principal components of the Systemic Functional model. At the level of lexicogrammar, the systems of Mood, Modality, Transitivity, Theme and Clause Complexing are analysed. At the level of discourse semantics, Cohesion, Reference, and Appraisal are examined. The contextual variables of Register and
Haig, Edward tobias whitton
Applying systemic functoinal linguistics and critical discourse analysis to the investigation of ideology in a radio news bulletin. In this study a version of Systemic Functional Linguistics (namely that developed by J. R. Martin and colleagues) is applied within a Critical Discourse Analysis framework to the study of ideology in a radio news bulletin. The bulletin was broadcast in August 2007 on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. The main story concerns the fatal shooting of a young boy in Liverpool. His attacker was another young boy who was a local gang member. The incident rapidly acquired a symbolic dimension in Britain, partly due to the tragic nature of the crime but mainly becauseit was seena s the culmination of a serieso f youth crime incidents involving guns or knives during the earlier part of that year that appeared to reflect what some commentatorsa t the time were describinga s 'BreakdownB ritainor even 'Anarchy in the UK'. The study takes a fine-grained approach, analysing each clause in the bulletin text according to all the principal components of the Systemic Functional model. At the level of lexicogrammar, the systems of Mood, Modality, Transitivity, Theme and Clause Complexing are analysed. At the level of discourse semantics, Cohesion, Reference, and Appraisal are examined. The contextual variables of Register and
applying systemic linguistics critical_discourse_analysis investigation ideology radio news study version systemic_functional_linguistics namely develop martin colleague apply within critical_discourse_analysis framework study ideology radio news broadcast today programme bbc radio main story concern young boy liverpool another young boy local gang member incident rapidly acquire symbolic dimension britain partly_due tragic nature crime mainly culmination youth crime incident involve gun knife appear reflect time even anarchy study take fine_grained analyse clause text accord principal component systemic_functional model level system mood modality transitivity theme clause analyse level discourse semantics cohesion reference appraisal examine contextual variable register