Newspaper discourse in wartime and peacetime Japan : a contrastive linguistic and stylistic analysis
This thesis explores the relationship between situational contexts and the linguistic and stylistic features of politicized language within the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics proposed by M.A.K. Halliday and others. The main area of research chosen is the wartime discourse of Japanese journalism during the Second World War. The research demonstrates the existence of a wartime register (as representation of real war) and characterizes its major stylistic and linguistic features. The secondary area chosen for the purpose of contrastive analysis is peacetime discourse concerning international conflict, (1) the Olympic Games and (2) whaling. In wartime discourse, journalism not only plays a significant role in maintaining public morale but is an active participant in the construction of the war effort. In the presentation of news, journalistic reports implicitly reconstruct reality by foregrounding death as sacrifice, glorious, and noble, the enemy as weak, and by obscuring a threatening situation by backgrounding defeats and losses. This reconstruction has the intention to regulate and control the ideas and behaviour of people, and to form a strong sense of solidarity in the nation. For
Iwamoto, Noriko
Newspaper discourse in wartime and peacetime Japan : a contrastive linguistic and stylistic analysis. This thesis explores the relationship between situational contexts and the linguistic and stylistic features of politicized language within the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics proposed by M.A.K. Halliday and others. The main area of research chosen is the wartime discourse of Japanese journalism during the Second World War. The research demonstrates the existence of a wartime register (as representation of real war) and characterizes its major stylistic and linguistic features. The secondary area chosen for the purpose of contrastive analysis is peacetime discourse concerning international conflict, (1) the Olympic Games and (2) whaling. In wartime discourse, journalism not only plays a significant role in maintaining public morale but is an active participant in the construction of the war effort. In the presentation of news, journalistic reports implicitly reconstruct reality by foregrounding death as sacrifice, glorious, and noble, the enemy as weak, and by obscuring a threatening situation by backgrounding defeats and losses. This reconstruction has the intention to regulate and control the ideas and behaviour of people, and to form a strong sense of solidarity in the nation. For
newspaper discourse wartime peacetime japan contrastive linguistic stylistic_analysis explores_relationship situational context linguistic stylistic feature language within_theoretical_framework systemic_functional_linguistics propose halliday others main_area choose wartime discourse japanese journalism second_world_war demonstrate existence wartime register representation real war characterize major stylistic linguistic_feature secondary area_choose purpose contrastive_analysis peacetime discourse concern international conflict games wartime discourse journalism play_significant_role maintain public morale active_participant construction war_effort presentation news journalistic report implicitly reconstruct reality foreground death sacrifice glorious noble enemy weak obscure threaten situation background loss reconstruction intention regulate control idea behaviour people form strong_sense solidarity nation