CRITICAL

DISCOURSE
- ANALYSIS
DAVID
MACHIN
ANDANDREA
MAYR
 CRITICAL
HOWDISCOURSE
TDDDANALYSIS
DAVID
MACHIN
ANDANDREA
MAYR
How To Do Critical Discourse
Analysis
A Multimodal Introduction

David Machin and Andrea Mayr

($)SAGE
Los Angeles I London I New Delhi
Singapore IWashington DC
© David Machin and Andrea Mayr 2012

First published 2012

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 Contents

Introduction: How Meaning is Created 1

1 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources 15

2 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images 30

3 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs 57

4 Representing People: Language and Identity 77

5 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes 104

6 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and

Presupposition 137

7 Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor 163

8 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging 186

Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and its Discontents 207

Glossary 219

References 225

Index 232
 Introduction: How Meaning
is Created

In Media and Cultural Studies, at whose scholars and students this book is
in the first place aimed, there has been a growing interest in the particular
set of tools for analysing texts and spoken language that is called Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA),a loose combination of approaches founded in lin-
guistics, associated for the most part with a number of key authors (Kress,
1985; Fairclough, 1989; Wodak, 1989; Van Dijk, 1991; Van Leeuwen, 1996;
Caldas Coulthard, 1997). There has been an increased sense of there being
value in carrying out more thorough and systematic analysis of language and
texts than is permitted through content analysis-type approaches or the more
literary style interpretation of Cultural Studies. Guided by linguistic exper-
tise, such detailed analysis can allow us to reveal more precisely how speak-
ers and authors use language and grammatical features to create meaning, to
persuade people to think about events in a particular way, sometimes even
to seek to manipulate them while at the same time concealing their commu-
nicative intentions. The aim of this book, on the one hand, is to present a set
of tools often used by critical discourse analysts and show how these can be
used to analyse a range of media texts.
On the other hand, this book presents a set of methods for more precisely
analysing visual communication. Among linguists and discourse analysts
there has been a corresponding increase in interest in analysing the way
that meaning is communicated not just through language, but through
visual language (Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996;
Kress, 2010). Many of the texts linguists analyse can also communicate
through their visual features, which they had formerly been overlooking
through their desire to understand language, which these authors began to
argue was problematic as much of the way meaning was communicated was
being missed.
While visual analysis has more traditionally been the domain of Media
and Cultural Studies, linguists such as Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001),
O'Halloran (2004) and Baldry and Thibault (2006) have begun to develop
some of their own models for analysis that draw on the same kinds of preci-
sion and more systematic kinds of description that characterised the approach
to language in CDA.These authors began to look at how language, image and
other modes of communication, such as toys, monuments, films, sounds, etc.,
combine to make meaning. This has broadly been referred to as 'multimo-
dal' analysis. Not all of this work has adopted the kind of critical approach
used in CDA,where the aim is to reveal buried ideology. As with linguistics in
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

general, the aim has often rather been one of description, of simply docu-
menting patterns. The aim of much of linguistics has, after all, been to explain
the nature of languages. But what this kind of visual multimodal analysis can
also offer Media and Cultural Studies is a more precise set of tools that, like
those offered for the analysis of language, encourage more systematic analy-
sis of (media) texts.

Criticallinguistics
Critical Discourse Analysis arguably has its origins in 'critical linguistics',
which appeared in the late 1970s in the work of Roger Fowler, Robert Hodge,
Gunter Kress and Tony Trew at the University of East Anglia in the UK.This
can be found in their classic publication Language and Control(Fowler et al.,
1979). Critical Linguistics sought to show how language and grammar can
be used as ideological instruments. Texts can be studied for the ways that
they categorise people, events, places and actions. Analysts can look for what
kinds of events and persons are foregrounded and which are backgrounded
or excluded altogether. Different kinds of choices can affect the meaning of
texts. Close analysis of texts, therefore, can reveal the underlying ideology of
the texts. Kress (1989), for example, was able to show how in school geog-
raphy books certain agents and actions would be suppressed in order to
background capitalist motives for 'assessing the productivity' in a particular
region. For example, if we find in a text explaining the development of a par-
ticular region in Africa:

The large size of the farms is needed because of the land's poor carrying
capacity.

This sentence is typical of the text as a whole. We are not told who here does
the 'needing'. Who it is that requires the area to be productive is never men-
tioned. The land is often described in terms of what it is bad for, in this case
having a poor carrying capacity. But the text focuses entirely on what the land
is bad for and not what it is good for. The land is not assessed in its own right,
for its beauty, for its ability to support countless wildlife and small-scale com-
munities, but only for its ability to yield produce and resources. What is never
mentioned in the text is that the assessment of the region is basically about
economic exploitation. What is the key for Critical Linguistics here is that
these things are never communicated directly in the text but can be revealed
by looking for absences.
What authors like Hodge and Kress (1988) went on to argue was that lan-
guage is a form of social practice. Language is intertwined with how we act
and how we maintain and regulate our societies. Language is part of the way
that people seek to promote particular views of the world and naturalise

2
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

them, that is, make them appear natural and commonsensical. Through lan-
guage, certain kinds of practices, ideas, values and identities are promoted
and naturalised. Institutions such as schools become one site where such
knowledge becomes disseminated and regulated. What we think of as our cul-
ture is inseparable from language.
A more contemporary example from British politics can illustrate how
we can best think about these ideas. Leading up to the general election in
Britain in 2010, Conservative Party leader David Cameron launched a criti-
cism of the opposition party in terms of the way they were failing to protect
'family values'. He targeted the way young girls are becoming too mature
sexually due to their exposure to popular culture. The speech began like
this:

Premature sexualization is like pollution. It's in the air that our children
breathe. All the time. Every day.

What we can see here is that Cameron does not speak about specifics. He
does not identify precisely what comprises the process of 'sexualization'.
He does not define what 'sexualization' is nor at what point it can be said
to be 'premature'. Rather than speaking about specifics, Cameron makes a
comparison to environmental pollution. By taking this step, he is able to
create a great sense of menace and easily attribute blame to the society cre-
ated by the existing New Labour government without stating exactly what
he is accusing them of doing. General listeners may realise that little in
concrete is being communicated here. But Critical Linguistics would want
to identify some of the specific language choices that allow combinations
of ambiguity and strong commitment. It would want to identify what kinds
of definitions of events are being promoted here and what kinds of ideas,
values and identities.
Cameron's language strategy here makes the problem appear to be one that
we would all agree upon. After all, who would want 'children' to be breathing
'pollution'? What Critical Linguists would have pointed out is that this lan-
guage is inseparable from the way that we build our societies and the way
that we act in them. When ideas like 'premature sexualization' become natu-
ralised, they can come to comprise ways that we go on to socialise and control
our children. They can become a part of the way we organise our institutions
how we teach about the body and identity. Sexuality is not something in the
first place that young people need to explore, but from which they should be
protected.
Critical Linguistics would point to the assumptions that a text makes yet
which remain implicit; in other words, things that are communicated but
which are not directly 'present' in the text - in this case, that there is indeed
an identifiable and isolatable thing called 'sexualization' that has an agreed
upon appropriate timing, that we only really worry about this as regards girls
and not boys.

3
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

As well as looking for what is absent from the text, Critical Linguists would
also look for assumptions and taken-for-granted concepts. We can see in
Cameron's statement that there is an assumption, what they would call a
'presupposition', that there was a previous time when the air was not polluted
and that we can therefore return to this former condition. It is a well-trodden
Conservative Party view that aspects of the world should and can be returned
to a former glorious era characterised by a mythical family and safe, sup-
portive and crime-free communities. None of this is specified here in what
Cameron says, but this underlying assumption is certainly present Analysis
of even this short statement can go much deeper. But for now we wish to give
a sense of the aims of Critical Linguistics that were later taken up and modi-
fied by Critical Discourse Analysis.

Criticaldiscourseanalysis(CDA)
One of the main criticisms of Critical Linguistics has been its lack of devel-
opment of the nature of the link between language, power and ideology
(Fairclough, 1992). Critical Discourse Analysts sought to develop methods and
theory that could better capture this interrelationship and especially to draw
out and describe the practices and conventions in and behind texts that reveal
political and ideological investment Critical Discourse Analysis is also openly
committed to political intervention and social change (Fairclough and Wodak,
1997: 258). For example, a number of analysts are politically active against rac-
ism, exposing racist stereotypes and ideologies in media and other institutional
discourses. However,this is often viewed negatively by other linguists who hold
on to the idea of objectivity in their own work We discuss this matter towards
the end of the book where we evaluate CDAfrom a number of perspectives.
CDAhas been mainly associated with the ideas of Norman Fairclough, Ruth
Wodak and Teun van Dijk,although as Critical Discourse Analysts themselves
point out, there is no single, homogeneous version of CDA.Rather, what we
find is a whole range of critical approaches which can be classified as CDA
(e.g. Gee, 1990; Scallon, 1998; Rogers, 2004; Jeffries, 2007; Richardson,
2007). And many of these authors emphasise the need for analysis to draw
on a range of (linguistic) methods to research things like the production and
reception of texts (Wodak and Meyer, 2001; Richardson, 2007). But impor-
tantly, what all these authors have in common is the view of language as a
means of social construction: language both shapes and is shaped by society.
CDAis not so much interested in language use itself, but in the linguistic char-
acter of social and cultural processes and structures.
CDAassumes that power relations are discursive. In other words, power is
transmitted and practised through discourse. Therefore, we can study 'how
power relations are exercised and negotiated in discourse' (Fairclough and
Wodak, 1997: 272).

4
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

The word 'critical' has been central to CDA,as it was in Critical Linguistics.
In the same way, CDApoints to a departure from the more descriptive goals of
linguistics and discourse analysis, where the focus has been more on describ-
ing and detailing linguistic features than about why and how these features
are produced and what possible ideological goals they might serve.
CDA typically analyses news texts, political speeches, advertisements,
school books, etc., exposing strategies that appear normal or neutral on the
surface but which may in fact be ideological and seek to shape the represen-
tation of events and persons for particular ends. The term 'critical' therefore
means 'de naturalising' the language to reveal the kinds of ideas, absences and
taken-for-granted assumptions in texts. This will allow us to reveal the kinds
of power interests buried in these texts.
For Critical Discourse Analysts like Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 258), the
primary focus is on how power relations are exercised and negotiated in dis-
course. So analysis can show how the kinds of power relations involved in rac-
ism are maintained through news texts and political speeches. Analysis can
show how politicians such as David Cameron seek to promote conservative
ideologies of 'family values' in order to create the kinds of enemies in society
that distract from the actual forces that create concrete inequality and poor life
experiences.
Fairclough (1989: 5) sums up the idea of 'critical' language study as the
processes of analysing linguistic elements in order to reveal connections
between language, power and ideology that are hidden from people. When
a researcher draws on CDAfor the first time, what they will realise is that it
is often in the smallest linguistic details where power relations and politi-
cal ideology can be found. In texts we may be aware of what the speaker or
author is doing, but not so much how they are doing this.
For example, in a speech by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair given
in 2010 to the World Faith Foundation, we can begin to explore how the ideol-
ogy in this text may be found, particularly at the level of linguistic and gram-
matical choice. We find this in the line:

Religious understanding is key to defeating hostilities threatening the

world.

Throughout this speech Tony Blair talks about 'understanding' and 'knowl-
edge' as things rather than as processes. In other words, he represents them
as nouns rather than verbs. This means that he never has to specify exactly
what it is that we will need to understand or know in order to defeat hos-
tilities, nor who will have to demonstrate 'understanding'. Following on from
this, he states:

What needs to be globalized is knowledge and understanding .... It is

knowledge that gives us foresight and helps people realize what they
have in common.

5
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

We can see here that rather than saying 'we need to understand' a particular
thing or 'we need to know about' a particular thing, Blair simply states that we
need 'knowledge' and 'understanding', and that these need to be 'globalized'.
It would be reasonable to suggest that the problems to which Blair refers
involve fundamental differences in world-view. Different religious and
cultural belief systems can hold clashing views as to how we should organise
our societies, whether we should allow global capitalism to rule, whether
consumerism and its associated identities should be permitted to spread
unhindered around the planet or simply who should have control over world
trade. And certainly some hostilities in the world, while they may involve
different religious groups, are also rooted in territorial matters in which the
Western superpowers have some responsibility. In both these cases, what it
is that we need to 'know' and 'understand' about each other that will prevent
such hostilities remains unclear. In the speech Blair never explains what these
things are. Nevertheless, through these linguistic and grammatical strategies
(nouns and nominalisations), he is able to use the words 'knowledge' and
'understanding' which suggest humanity, tolerance and openness. The speech
appears to be one filled with hope and certainty yet at the same time is able
to avoid actual concrete examples of how it is to work. Fairclough and Wodak
(1997: 273) argue that such language reflects and reproduces power rela-
tions in society. By revealing these linguistic strategies we can better under-
stand, expose and challenge these power relations.
In this book, providing many more examples, we explain much more about
such language processes, looking at some of the tools offered by CDA for
identifying and explaining how they work. We deal with these in turn and
individually so that those less familiar with this kind of analysis can build up
their own set of tools. But this book is not only about linguistic choices but
also about the visual mode. We now look at how this very specific approach
to analysing visual communication emerged in relation to Critical Linguistics
and Critical Discourse Analysis.

Multimodalcriticaldiscourseanalysis
In the late 1980s and 1990s a number of authors who had been working in
linguistics began to realise that meaning is generally communicated not only
through language but also through other semiotic modes. A linguist might, for
example, be able to provide a thorough and revealing analysis of the language
used in an advertisement But much of the meaning in this advertisement
might be communicated by visual features. The same would apply to a news
text that was accompanied by a photograph or a textbook where an exercise
was part linguistic and part visual.
Of course in many disciplines there are long traditions of analysing
the meaning-making processes in visual communication, such as in Media
and Cultural Studies, Film Studies and Semiotics. But as with much of the

6
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

interpretative type of analysis of texts often found in Media and Cultural Studies,
so too theorists like Hodge and Kress (1988) and Kress and van Leeuwen (1996)
felt that much visual analysis also lacked the kind of toolkit that could facilitate
more precise, systematic and careful description that would in turn allow more
accurate analysis. These authors believed that some of the principles oflinguis-
tic analysis found in the systemic functional theory of Halliday (1978), also used
as the basis of much CDA,could be equally applied to visual communication.
What was needed, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) argued, was a set of tools
that would allow us to study the choices of visual features just as CDAallowed
us to study lexical and grammatical choices in language. Kress had been one of
the pioneers of Critical Linguistics and took the same set of concerns to visual
communication - what Kress and van Leeuwen coined 'Multimodal Analysis'.
Other researchers, also drawing on a Hallidayan framework, took up the same
challenge (e.g., O'Toole, 1994; O'Halloran, 2004), although without the same
critical stance and with less of the wider knowledge of other visual theories
possessed by Kress and van Leeuwen .

Figure 1 Woman in Cosmopolitan magazine {19 July 2010)

7
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001) began to work on a number of con-
cepts and tools that would allow the analyst to describe not only the features
and elements of images, but also how these worked together. How much
images can be described as working like language is something that has been
challenged. But nevertheless, the toolkit provided by these authors does
enhance our ability to describe more systematically what it is that we see.
The image on page 7 accompanies a text on '7 easy fitness tips' from the
women's lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan (19 July 2010). The text tells the
reader about 'fitness tips for bikini body confidence'.

Easy at-work fitness tips!

Time for change

Start the week off by changing all those old habits . Neil Dimmock , master trainer at
TenPilates , gives us his expert tips on how to keep fit while you're at the office . With
these seven easy steps , you 'll be sporting that flat tummy in no time!

Don't expect too much too soon

Small and frequent activities help you attain bite size goals . Briskly walking for a
short while each day will increase your metabolism . Duration is less important at the
beginning . Think of it as teaching your body. When you learn something , it needs to
be done on a regular basis .
Check back every day for TenPilates ' daily fitness tips for bikini body confidence .

On the one hand, we could analyse the language used in the text. We could look
at strategies by which the author makes the advice appear fun, practical and
authoritative, as will be the subject of a later chapter. But this analysis alone
would miss the way that the image too contributes to this process ofmeaning-
making here. As regards the Cosmopolitanimage on page 7, this would mean
describing the intricate details of features such as colour, lighting, articula-
tion of detail, 'rhyming' in the image, where colours, shapes and forms repeat
within the composition, positioning of elements, etc. In the very brief look
above at the way analysis oflinguistic details can reveal more about the buried
meanings and ideologies in a text, we saw the value of such attention to detail.
The same kind of detailed analysis can be just as useful in the case of images.
In the case of this particular image, to give a sense of how this kind of analy-
sis works, the background appears out of focus, the textures of the model's
clothes appear flat and the colours are saturated. There is also extensive col-
our coordination in the image, between the model's clothing and the setting.

8
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

Lighting is very bright and it is difficult to isolate individual light sources. The
image appears almost over-exposed.
In later chapters this kind of analysis will be broken down and presented
more gradually. But for the moment we point out that these visual choices
indicate that this is clearly not an image intended to document a case of a real
woman at work, but one that symbolises a particular kind of lifestyle. One the
one hand, of course, this is a pretty obvious observation. But on the other, the
detail of these observations, as in a Critical Discourse Analysis of language
choices, allows us to show exactly how this happens. Again we need to empha-
sise that it is the first stage of complete and accurate description that then
permits more complete and accurate analysis.
In this image, the workplace is clean, spacious and glamorous, suffused
with an optimistic light, free of all the actual features and associations of most
work settings. We can imagine the difference had the text shown a photo-
graph of a real woman standing next to her cluttered desk with a range of
bored or busy colleagues around her at their desks, all with clothing that does
not coordinate with props in the setting. Immediately, this would have made
the fun and confident language of the text appear much less feasible. In such
magazines the aim is, after all, to sell advertising. It is important that they
create a 'can-do', glamorous, lively world where features and advice always sit
easily next to acts of consumerism. Doing exercise at work looks pretty much
like the world you might find in a fashion advert
What is important in such cases is that images can be used to say things
that we cannot say in language. The text cannot say 'you work in a glamorous
modernistic office'. But the image can be used to foreground this kind of idea,
to distract the reader from the absurdity of many of the tips provided.
In Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA)we are interested in
showing how images, photographs, diagrams and graphics also work to cre-
ate meaning, in each case describing the choices made by the author. We
want to place these meanings next to those we have found in the accom-
panying texts. Later in the book we will see how it may be the case that
an image accompanying a news story may not actually depict what is in
the story yet is able to contribute to some of the meanings communicated
by the text, helping to background others that the text also seeks to con-
ceal. Both text and image can be thought of as being composed of commu-
nicative choices by authors that seek to do certain kinds of work for them.
The job of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis is to identify and reveal
these choices through a careful process of description guided by the tools
provided. But what is central to Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis is
the sense of being critical, as described by Fairclough and Wodak (1997).
Texts will use linguistics and visual strategies that appear normal or neutral
on the surface, but which may in fact be ideological and seek to shape the
representation of events and persons for particular ends. So in Multimodal
Critical Discourse Analysis we will also seek to 'denaturalise' representa-
tions on other modes of communication. We will reveal the kinds of ideas,

9
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

absences and taken-for-granted assumptions in the images as well as the

texts which will also serve the ends of revealing the kinds of power interests
buried in them.
Also in common with CDA,MCDAviews other modes of communication as
a means of social construction. Visual communication, as well as language,
both shapes and is shaped by society. MCDAtherefore is not so much inter-
ested in the visual semiotic choices in themselves, but also in the way that
they play a part in the communication of power relations.
We would like to point out that the Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis
approach we adopt and employ in this book is only one of a number of differ-
ent possibilities. Here we draw mainly on the work of Gunter Kress, Norman
Fairclough, Ruth Wodak and Theo van Leeuwen. Other (linguistic) approaches
CDAhas built upon are discussed in the final chapter of the book.
We also want to point out that the toolkit we present in this book is suit-
able for allowing us to observe how texts, both linguistic and visual, are
composed. But we emphasise that these tools only allow us to show what
semiotic resources have been used in texts, what meaning potential these
have. We cannot say from the application of these tools how readers will
receive these texts nor make any conclusions about the intentions of
authors. In the case of the Cosmopolitan image, a reader may find it simply
trivial and silly, although this by no means excludes the possibility that its
message still gets through to them, rather than simply taking on the values
it communicates. There is a long tradition in Media and Cultural Studies of
considering the way that audiences deal with texts in may different ways,
influenced by their own personal dispositions and cultural baggage (see
three classic studies in Hall, 1973 and Morley, 1980, and Kitzinger, 2004 for
an overview), although in Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis this
has been much less attended to. In the same way, there is, in Media and
Cultural Studies, a long tradition that emphasises the need to study proc-
esses of the production of texts to avoid imposing our own assumptions of
the intentions of authors and text producers (again see two classic stud-
ies in Tuchman, 1978 and Fishman, 1980). We will discuss the subsequent
criticisms of CDAand MCDAin this context in the conclusion to the book.
But we emphasise that such criticisms should not distract from the kinds
of tools we explore in this book offer in terms of enhancing our ability to
describe the semiotic choices found in texts. They allow us to show more
clearly how they make meaning as well as what they mean. In Media and
Cultural Studies there has often been a tendency to hasten to the interpreta-
tive stage of the 'what' rather than the 'how'.

Chaptercontentsof the book

Chapter 1 introduces some of the main theoretical concepts that underpin
the approach we take in this book. The form of Multimodal Critical Discourse

10
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

Analysis we use in the present volume draws heavily on the work of M.A.K.
Halliday (1978, 1985). This provides a particular approach to language that
regards it as a set of resources and, as such, is therefore concerned with
describing what these are and identifying what meaning potentials (how
they have a range of meanings that can be 'activated' in contexts) they have
and then showing how these are used for specific purposes in social settings.
We look at the concept of 'discourse', which is a term that has been used to
describe the broader ideas shared by people in a society about how the world
works. Discourses are comprised of ideas, values, identities and sequences
of activity. In Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis we look at how semiotic
choices used by speakers, authors and in visual communication are able to
signify these broader discourses, the way that they can signify ideas, values,
identities and sequences of activity even though these are not specifically
identified. We look at a number of texts that illustrate this process. We also
look at the way that we can find these same processes not only in public texts
and speeches, but also in everyday social interactions as speakers attempt to
convey identities and ideas not overtly but indirectly through certain kinds of
language and fashion choices.
Chapter 2 considers basic lexical analysis of a range of texts. It explores the
idea of lexical fields that can be used to signify meanings not made explicit in
speech and texts, and how we can look at the way that these can be used to
foreground and background different kinds of discourses and associations.
We can look at what is missing from texts. Are any kinds of participants, set-
tings, actions or elements not present that should be? We move on to look at
how lexical choices can set up structural opposition in texts or indicate dif-
ferent genres of communication. In the latter we look at the way more formal
and informal genres can be mixed in order to carry out particular kinds of
persuasive work. We also look at the less easy task of applying CDAto texts
that we may ideologically agree with. The chapter then moves on to begin to
consider the use and analysis of individual visual semiotic choices in texts.
Here we look at the iconography of attributes or objects placed in images
and settings. We look at how individual objects and places can signify wider
discourses that include ideas, values, identities and sequences of activity.
We consider the way that visual semiotic choices are useful for communi-
cation because they carry different meaning potentials or affordances from
linguistic resources.
Chapter 3 deals with semiotic resources for representing the attitudes of
speakers. It begins by analysing quoting verbs. These are simply the words
used to describe the way people speak in texts or speech, such as 'Jack
grumbled about his coursework'. There is no objective measure of 'grum-
bling', as it is an interpretation. But in this case we see that this evaluates
both Jack's complaint as being perhaps simply an unjustified one and also
Jack himself as someone who perhaps should not be taken so seriously.
What we find in this chapter is the way that careful attention to the differ-
ent categories of quoting verbs and the way that they are used is one way

11
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

we can reveal the way that a speaker or author encourages us to evaluate

a speaker and what they say. Whole events, kinds of assertions and issues
can be shaped in texts simply by the attribution of certain kinds of quot-
ing verbs, as our case studies show. The chapter then moves on to look
at the representation of the attitude of speakers through visual semiotic
recourses. Here we look first at the meaning of gaze in photographs. How
are the participants depicted as looking? Do they look out at the viewer or
not? If not, where do they look? All of these choices carry important mean-
ing potential. We also consider the meaning potential of poses, drawing
again on iconographical analysis.
Chapter 4 looks specifically at the linguistic and visual semiotic resources
available for representing people. In language and visual communica-
tion there are a range of available semiotic choices through which we can
foreground and background different aspects of identity, through which
we can encourage and discourage either alignment with or against that
person that can place them within broader discourses that can serve to
legitimise or deligitimise them. These naming strategies should be seen
also as resources for conveying power or the lack of it, and for making cer-
tain agents subtly disappear from texts. This means that certain partici-
pants in texts or images can be evaluated not on the basis of what they do,
but through how they are named. We look at how, through language and
image, some participants are individualised or collectivised, made spe-
cific or generic, personalised or impersonalised, objectivated, anonymised,
aggregated and suppressed.
Chapter 5 deals with the linguistic and visual semiotic resources for rep-
resenting what people do. This is the study of transitivity, or verb processes.
The words and images chosen to represent what people do will signify dis-
courses that can shape the way that we will perceive participants, events and
circumstances. These choices too can align us alongside or against partici-
pants without overtly stating that this should be the case. How we perceive
people is shaped not only by the representational strategies we saw in the
previous chapter, but also by the representation of action. As we shall see,
there are several resources available for representing the same action in very
different ways and for either highlighting or concealing who is the agent, who
is responsible, and who is the person affected by this action. Analysis in this
chapter is based in the first place around Halliday's six categories of verb
processes (Halliday, 1985). We can ask if some participants are represented
as always engaged in actions that have a material outcome, whereas others
are always engaged in mental-type processes that may suggest that they are
more thoughtful and humane or, on the other hand, simply less able to act
We also look at the importance of the grammatical positioning of actions, the
use of adjuncts that modify verbs, and where actions are represented through
abstraction.
Chapter 6 deals with metaphorical tropes in discourse. There is a widely
held assumption that metaphor is about flowery language and is associated

12
 Introduction: How Meaning is Created

with things like poetry. But linguists have shown that metaphor is funda-
mental to human thought and that metaphor is not so much the opposite of
truth, but a basic part of the way we describe and think about the world. We
continually think about things through reference to other things in order to
help us to understand them. Of course metaphors, as well as allowing us to
throw light on things, also serve to highlight some aspects of that thing and
background or silence other aspects. In this chapter we look at how different
kinds of metaphors and other rhetorical tropes are used in different contexts
to attempt to shape understandings and also to avoid certain kinds of details
for the convenience of political manoeuvring.
Chapter 7 deals with nominalisation and presupposition in language. Both
of these draw our attention to certain kinds of linguistic strategies of conceal-
ment. The first of these is simply the process whereby verb processes are
replaced by nouns. This can be important for obscuring who carried out the
verb processes, exactly what was done and when this took place. The sec-
ond of these is one skilful way in which authors are able to imply meanings
without them being overtly stated, or to present things as taken for granted
and stable where they are clearly contestable. We begin by looking at eight
effects of nominalisation and therefore how these can be used strategically
by speakers and writers. We then look at how these are used in a number of
case studies. We then move on to presupposition, looking at a number of clas-
sic examples and how these can be used, particularly in political speech and
other kinds of texts.
Chapter 8 deals with modality and hedging in texts and visual communica-
tion. Modality is about commitment to levels of truth in language and images.
In language, modality can also tell us something about people's own sense of
perceived status and can be used to convey deliberate ambiguity about this.
In cases of visual communication, modality can tell us precisely in what ways
aspects of images are more or less than real and what different kinds of truth
claims this allows them to make, whether naturalistic truth, scientific or sen-
sory truth. These can be usefully combined with linguistic semiotic resources
in order to introduce different levels of signification of discourses. A text
might contain low modality whereas an image has high naturalistic modality
but regarding a domain that may be only linked to the text by certain isolated
lexical features. Hedging is the use of language features that allow a speaker
or writer to avoid coming cleanly and quickly to the point, to avoid being spe-
cific and therefore possibly providing 'padding' to the consequences of what
they do say. At the same time, this hedging can serve to give the impression of
in fact being precise and detailed.
The conclusion to this book looks at a number of criticisms of CDAand
Multimodal CDA.Here we find that there are issues in the way that texts tend
to be more arbitrarily selected so that meanings are largely attributed to the
texts by analysts rather than by asking the readers what they make of them,
and there have been calls for CDAto make more effort to connect analyses to
processes of production. Such additions to text analysis will better allow us

13
 How To Do Critical Discourse Analysis

to understand the way that discourses have lives in society. If we really want
to reveal power processes through language in order to challenge them, then
they must be understood not only at the level of text, but also in how they are
assembled often in institutional contexts and how they take on and are used
by people in everyday life.

14
 1
Making Active Choices: Language
as a Set of Resources

Introduction
In this chapter we lay out some of the basic principles and concepts that form
the basis of the Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis that we present in this
book. We begin by explaining what we mean by a Social Semiotic view of lan-
guage that we take in this book, which emphasises the way that we should
see all communication, whether through language, images, or sounds, as
accomplished through a set of semiotic resources, options and choices. It is
because of this that we are so concerned to emphasise that analysis should be
based on a first stage description of the semiotic choices found in talk, texts
and images. We ask what options communicators use, why they use them and
what the consequences of these choices are.
The chapter then moves on to look at the way that semiotic choices are
able to signify broader sets of associations that may not be overtly specified.
A choice of word or visual element might suggest kinds of identities, values
and activities due to established associations. We think about this in terms of
power relations, since CDAhas traditionally been concerned with exposing
ideologies that are hidden within language, whether these are produced by
authorities, ruling groups, institutions or in individual face-to-face situations.
The idea has been that revealing these power relations can play an important
emancipatory role.
Finally we look at the way that language choices, signification, discourses
and power feed into our everyday identities. Broader discourses and widely
shared social meanings are played out both in the official language of poli-
tics, the news media, our major institutions, such as schools, entertainments
media, but also in everyday mundane contexts.

Communication
througha systemof choices
In linguistics there have been a number of positions regarding the relation-
ship between language and thought. It is important that we consider these
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

briefly here as this provides us with a clear foundation for the theory of lan-
guage and visual communication that we use in this book, where we see com-
munication as being done through using a system of choices that are used by
humans. It is one that is interested in the means for making meanings which
is always subject to social, cultural and economic situations.

Linguisticdeterminism
One of the best known positions on language use is based on the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis, named after the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin
Lee Wharf. They argued that humans do not live in an objective world, but
rather that this world is shaped for them by the language that has become the
medium of expression in their society. Language is therefore not just a way by
which we describe the world, but rather comes to comprise what we think of
as 'the real world':

According to this view, different languages will shape the world differ-
ently. So the worlds different language speakers inhabit are not sim-
ply ones with different labels but are therefore distinct worlds. (Sapir
1929/1958:69)

Edmund Leach (1964) reflects this view in a frequently cited passage:

I postulate that the physical and social environment of a young child is

perceived as a continuum. It does not contain any intrinsically separate
'things'. The child, in due course, is taught to impose upon this environ-
ment a kind of discriminating grid which serves to distinguish the world
as being composed of a large number of separate things, each labelled
with a name. This world is a representation of our language categories,
not vice versa. Because my mother tongue is English, it seems evident
that bushes and trees are different kinds of things. I would not think this
unless I had been taught that it was the case. (Leach, 1964: 34)

In its extreme form, this is what we would call linguistic determinism, where
our thinking is determined by our language. In fact, few linguists accept this
strong view, but rather think about how the way we see the world might be
influenced by the kind of language we use rather than be determined by it
They would also see this as a two-way process so that the kind oflanguage we
use is influenced by the way we see the world. Linguists have also focused on
the importance of social context in language use, that we use certain types of
language in certain settings due to social pressures rather than through lin-
guistic determination. What is considered as appropriate language use exists
both in everyday conventions and in institutionalised or specialist ones. For
example, in news reading or in the university classroom we find there are
certain rules and expectations as regards language use.

16
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

Until the 1970s, Structuralist views of language deriving from the work of
Saussure ([1916] 1983) were prevalent and still are popular today. The idea
here is that we can study the features of language, the lexical and grammati-
cal choices, as building blocks. Communication in language is based, as in the
Sapir-Whorf model, on the idea that everyone agrees to use the same words
to mean the same thing. These words have no natural relationship to the
world out there - the word 'tree' has no natural relationship to the thing in the
world - but are arbitrary. Language is seen as a kind of code whose parts are
therefore relational rather than referential. In other words, they have mean-
ing by their difference from each other rather than their similarity to objects
and phenomena, such as in early hieroglyphics. Saussure argued that language
could be studied in terms of its use, which he called parole, and which would
allow us to establish the underlying system, which he called langue.

A Social Semiotictheoryof communication

This approach to language is slightly different as it is interested particularly
in the way it is used in social context and the way we use language to create
society. What is perhaps the key to this theory is the shift away from look-
ing at language as a system to one where we think about language as a set
of resources.Here we are less interested in attempting to describe a system
of grammatical rules of communication, but rather are more interested in
the way the communicator uses the semiotic resources available to them,
either in language or in visual communication, to realise their interests. A
Social Semiotic approach to communication is interested in describing the
available choices of signs, but in the first place, so that we can understand
what it is that people are doing with them. And Multimodal Social Semiotics
is interested not just in the means for making meanings, but in what these
means are, so whether we choose to use language, images, gestures, sounds,
etc. (Kress, 2010).
Individuals are aware of the way words and visual elements have particular
affordances or potentials to mean. They will be aware that certain words can
carry particular potentials, such as Blair's use of 'knowledge' discussed in the
Introduction to this book, as can certain visual elements and features, as in
the use of the high-key lighting in the Cosmopolitanimage also discussed pre-
viously. They will be aware that different modes of communication offer dif-
ferent kinds of affordances or different means for communicating meanings.
In other words, as in the case of the Cosmopolitanimage and text, they will
have a sense of the way that an image can communicate something about the
broader ideas about the lives of women, in a way not so conveniently accom-
plished by language.
This approach to communication and society draws on the work of M.A.K.
Halliday (1978, 1985). He thought that language creates dispositions in people
while at the same time allowing the possibility of more open interpretations
of the world. Halliday argued that speakers can see through and around the

17
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

words and concepts that they have in language. This is why we are able to
explain what we mean to people if they do not initially understand what we
say and can argue over definitions.
Halliday was first and foremost concerned with the social uses of language.
When we code events in language this involves choices among options which
are available in grammar. Kress (1985) points out that all such choices can
be viewed as ideologically significant. For example, it is important which
terms we use to describe people or the processes (actions) they carry out.
Are women described as 'wives' and 'mothers' in the press, whereas men
are not described so often as 'husbands' or 'fathers'? Why might we want to
emphasise that a British soldier is a 'father' and 'husband' but not do the same
for the enemy? What if we choose the word 'bloke' over 'man'? Or we might
choose to represent a process as a noun, as we saw in the Introduction in the
comments made by Tony Blair. For example, 'knowledge of each other is the
way to avoid conflicts'. This can change the way that a conflict is perceived and
also who has responsibility and what the remedy is, by concealing what it is
we actually need to know through simply stating that we need 'knowledge'.
All of these language choices are political in that they shape how people and
events are represented.
In the 1970s and 1980s, linguists like Fowler, Hodge, Kress and Trew
(1979) began a tradition of Critical Linguistics which, drawing on Halliday
sought to begin to explore the way that language can be used, therefore, not
just to represent the world but to constitute it. This was also influenced by
Chomskyan linguistics and work in French semiotics (Barthes, 1973). Since
language shapes and maintains a society's ideas and values, it can also serve
to create, maintain and legitimise certain kinds of social practices. It can
become more or less common practice to think that 'knowledge' and 'under-
standing' are indeed sufficient to prevent conflicts. In Britain, local govern-
ments set up opportunities for children from different ethnic groups to share
in 'knowledge' and 'understanding' sessions to help create multicultural
cohesion. Yet what the children's knowledge and know or understanding will
lead to is never specified.
A Social Semiotic view of visual communication, or of any other mode of
communication, such as sound and music, is based on the same set of prin-
ciples. Social Semiotics assumes that we must understand that all processes
of communication are to some extent rule-based, although the nature of
these rules can vary immensely (Van Leeuwen, 2005). We are more familiar
with the idea that communication through language is rule-based. And it is
readily accepted that we can only communicate, in other words create and
understand its meanings, through language once we have mastered its rules.
In a Social Semiotic theory of visual communication, we are concerned with
describing and documenting the underlying resources available to those who
want to communicate meanings visually and analysing the way that these are
used in settings to do particular things.

18
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

In a Social Semiotic approach we are concerned with the underlying

available repertoire of signs and their use in context to communicate wider
ideas, moods and attitudes and identities, and we are interested in why
specific means were used to create these. We would ask upon what set of
available resources the creator of the Cosmopolitan photograph shown
in the Introduction to this book has drawn. The creator would be aware
of the way that manipulating the realism of textures and colours to dif-
ferent degrees would tend to create specific kinds of meanings, here one
that would clearly tell the viewer that this image is not intended to docu-
ment the activities of a particular woman at a particular time and place.
The viewer is not likely to sit there wondering 'who is this woman?' or 'I
wonder where she works?'. The correct visual choices have been made to
communicate to the viewer that this is meant to be viewed as a symbolic
image. And it is clear that the same kind of meanings could not have been
accomplished through language.
In a Social Semiotic view of visual communication, then, choices of visual
elements and features do not just represent the world, but constitute it Like
language, visual communication plays its part in shaping and maintaining a
society's ideologies, and can also serve to create, maintain and legitimise cer-
tain kinds of social practices.
As in language, where we must look at the terms used to describe people,
such as women being described as 'wives' and 'mothers', or the processes
they carry out, so we need to look at the visual representation of women as
'wives', 'mothers' or 'glamorous career women'. Why, we can ask, are women
in Cosmopolitan never represented or mothers or as workers who carry out
any specific task?
One final point to emphasise regarding a Social Semiotic approach is its
difference from traditional semiotic approaches, which addressed the way
that individual signs connote or symbolise (see Barthes, 1973). In this
approach we might say a flag symbolises the nation. To those who fly the
flag this might connote pride and strength, although to others in might
equally connote closed-mindedness and stifling exclusion. A Social Semiotic
approach would be interested in the details of things like colour and shape
and their interrelationship in any visual design or image. For example, a flag
might carry a bold saturated red rather than a muted or diluted one. Clearly,
here there is a continuum of meaning potential in the saturation-dilution
spectrum. In traditional semiotics, we might describe a saturated red as con-
noting sensuality. But is this the case for the flag? Clearly, more saturated
colours have the meaning potential for bolder passionate visual statements.
A flag carrying a very pale diluted red would not signify the correct passion
of the national spirit. The point here is that in Social Semiotics, in both the
study of language and images, we must be able to describe and document the
precise semiotic choices made and view these in the context of the observed
available resources.

19
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourse,semioticchoicesand signification
Through the individual semiotic choices that they make, authors and design-
ers are able to encourage us to place events and ideas into broader frame-
works of interpretation that are referred to as 'discourses'. Once one of
these frameworks is activated, they bring with them different kinds of asso-
ciations and, as in the use of metaphor by David Cameron and the image in
Cosmopolitanconsidered in the Introduction, shape how we are encouraged
to think about events.
The term 'discourse' is central to CDA.Basically, 'discourse' is language in
real contexts of use. In other words, discourse operates above the level of
grammar and semantics to 'capture what happens when these language forms
are played out in different social, political and cultural arenas (Simpson and
Mayr,2010: 5). In CDA,the broader ideas communicated by a text are referred
to as 'discourses' (Van Dijk, 1993; Fairclough, 2000; Wodak, 2001). These
discourses can be thought of as models of the world, in the sense described
by Foucault (1980). The process of doing CDAinvolves looking at choices of
words and grammar in texts in order to discover the underlying discourse( s)
and ideologies. A text's linguistic structure functions, as discourse, to highlight
certain ideologies, while downplaying or concealing others. One example of
such a discourse is that 'immigrants are a threat to a national culture'. This is
a model of events associated with the notion that there is a unified nation and
an identifiable national identity and culture. Normally this discourse encom-
passes a mythical proud history and authentic traditions. We can see this
discourse in the following editorial from the Daily Mail (25 October 2007)
titled 'Britain will be scarcely recognisable in 50 years if the immigration
deluge continues'. The item goes on to discuss how 'we' need to 'defend' our
'indigenous culture'. Who 'we' are remains unspecified, as does the nature of
our 'indigenous culture'. In Britain's evolving multicultural make-up and the
diversity of ways of life and cultural values that have long been present based
around social class, regional and other groupings, so how can we pin such
factors down?
In the headline of this news item, immigration is described using the term
'deluge', a metaphor that draws on the idea of masses of rainfall that overspill,
creating floods and damage. While the author of this text is at pains to point
out that they are not racist, everything else they say suggests that they are. Of
course, in this case it is clear even after a superficial reading that this Daily
Mail text is anti-immigration and most likely racist. But by looking at the word
choices in the text we can pinpoint exactly why this is so, which is even more
important in texts where the discourse is less obvious.
There are other discourses for thinking about nation and national iden-
tity. A sociologist or historian would tell us that what we think of as nation
and national identity is for the most part invented, with only a relatively
short history (Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1983). Here the proud history and
indigenous culture under threat by immigrants is itself not factual at all. And

20
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

Marxist thinkers would point to such an emphasis of difference on the basis

on national identity as concealing actual divisions in society between the rich
and the exploited and poor, and therefore that nationalism is a concept serv-
ing the interests of the powerful.
Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) suggest that we should think about dis-
courses as including or being comprised of kinds of participants, behaviours,
goals, values and locations. We see this in our example from the Daily Mail.
This discourse involves participants: real British people and immigrants. It
involves values or an 'indigenous culture'. It specifies that 'we' must 'defend'
this culture. This discourse represents a 'we' who should not see incomers
as an opportunity for change and growth, nor as fundamentally the same as
ourselves on many levels, but as a threat to be repelled and something that
will change 'us'.
What we can see from the Daily Mail example of the national 'we' versus
the deluge of immigrants is that discourses do not simply mirror reality but,
as Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 258) point out, bring into being 'situations,
objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relations between peo-
ple and groups of people'.
Fairclough (2000) explains that these discourses, such as of national unity
or racial or cultural superiority, project certain social values and ideas and
in turn contribute to the (re)production of social life. In other words, it is
through language that we constitute the social world, or put simply, how we
talk about the world influences the society we create, the knowledge we cel-
ebrate and despise, and the institutions we build. For example, if in a society
the discourse that dominates our understanding of crime is that it is sim-
ply wrongdoing which requires retribution, then we build prisons and lock
people away. Yet it is the case that most people who end up in prisons are
from poor or more vulnerable sections of the population. Sociologists and
criminologists will tell us that ifwe are born black in countries like Britain or
America, then our life position will mean that we are much more likely to end
up in prison. This is because of the complex relationship of poverty, race and
inequality. Yet we do not organise our societies on the assumption that crime
is associated with such factors. Nor do we tend to associate crime with the
actions of global corporations or banks in Third World countries or the acts
of our governments when they go to war, or reorganise society in the interests
of the wealthy. It is our dominant discourse of crime that we end up targeting
only the poor and least powerful members of our societies, where we build
prisons, use the police in the way that we do, take particular crime preven-
tion measures and vote for political parties that will be tough on crime, rather
than creating societies where it is less likely to take place. Of course in this
sense we can see that certain discourses represent the interests of specific
groups. In the case of crime it will be in the interests of those who have wealth
and power to conceal its relationship to factors such as race and poverty.
The following newspaper item is about drug dealing in provincial British
rural areas. What we can see here is that crime issues related to things like

21
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

social decline, unemployment and poverty are placed in a particular dis-

course about the threat to a rural idyll.
In such a report we might expect to become informed about these events
through information about statistics and interviews with experts and victims.
Yet this is not by any means what we find in this text The journalist places
the event within a particular set of associations that serve to transform or
'recontextualise' them.
It begins as follows:

THE time is 7.30pm on a quiet autumnal evening in Totnes, once a forti-

fied Saxon settlement and now one of Devon's most elegant towns.
A place which, outwardly at least, seems far removed from the sordid
world of drugs and dealers.
But within just a few minutes of arriving in the town, a female reporter
has been offered Ecstasy for one of cheapest prices ever recorded in
Britain -1.25 a tablet.
What makes the transaction so shocking is that it proves Ecstasy is no
longer confined to the places you would think are its natural home -
music festivals, Ibiza raves and city centre nightclubs.
It can be bought in the most rural and picturesque of areas across
the country for the same price as a portion of chips. (Daily Mail
October 16, 2003)

We often think ofnews as informing us about events in the world.Journalists

are often described as the 'eyes and the ears of the public'. They tell us
about important things that are going on so that we can remain informed,
so that we can call upon our politicians to make the decisions necessary
to make our societies operate in the best possible way. So the news might
report on a particular instance of drugs problems in our society, as in the
case of this news item. The public, once informed about this problem, can
then vote for those politicians who offer the best solutions for correcting
these problems.
In fact, sociologists of news have long established that this is rarely what
news actually does, due to a complex range of factors, related to sourcing,
the pressures of filling news space, the need to make events 'newsworthy'
(Bennett, 2005). Rather, news is a very peculiar social construction ofreality.
The news item above can be seen as one case where an event has been placed
in a discourse of 'enemies of society' to give it shape and meaning. This has
been accomplished through the use of certain kinds of language. The opening
line tells us it is a 'quiet autumnal evening' in what was 'once a fortified Saxon
settlement' and now 'one of Devon's most elegant towns'. On the one hand, we
could ask how this is relevant in reporting the story. Journalists do not nor-
mally preface stories with a mention of the season, or by giving a brief history

22
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

of the setting. We would not expect to see 'On a lazy late spring evening in the
once Roman outpost, Manchester, a man was attacked last night'.
In this text, the journalist is developing on a press release that referred to
drugs problems in rural British areas, where there is often much unemploy-
ment and other related social issues. This is a phenomenon well known to
local police. One of the authors lived for a while in such a village where there
was a substantial unemployed, very poor section of the population, which had
a strong drug culture among its youth, living in what otherwise was a pretty
tourist attraction complete with beautiful sixteenth-century streets. But in
this text the journalist has chosen to locate the events as if they have intruded
into an otherwise perfect rural idyll. The text is filled with contrasts between
the corrupt city and the innocent and pure countryside inhabited by 'commu-
nities' and 'innocent families'. What has happened here is that the journalist is
encouraging the reader to understand these events not simply as a part of the
social phenomenon that they comprise, but through a discourse of corruption
to the rural heartlands of Britain. Drug dealing, their use and effects are one
area where the British press has been extremely unhelpful in providing well-
informed reporting to the public. In later chapters we will be looking at this
in greater depth.
Discourse can also be signified through visual semiotic choices. In the image
from Cosmopolitanconsidered in the Introduction, we can think about the
broader ideas, values, identities and sequences of activity that are signified.
Developing on the ideas put forward by feminists since the 1960s,
Cosmopolitanmagazine originally emerged challenging existing representa-
tions of women as homemakers, mothers and wives. The magazine began to
discuss women's sexuality and their more independent lives in the workplace.
Still today the main topics are relationships, sex and work, although these sit
seamlessly alongside promotions of fashion, accessories and consumer life-
style products - although in Cosmopolitanit is never clear exactly what work
women do, only that that work is in minimalist, modernist, designed office
settings, where they can also look glamorous and sensual. In this sense, some
argue that, while it is clearly not negative that women should be able to cel-
ebrate their sexuality and lives aside from motherhood, women's agency is
still generally reduced to how they look and their need for a relationship with
a man rather than how they act in society. Machin and van Leeuwen (2007)
show that in women's magazines in Vietnam, women are depicted not in fash-
ionable settings but carrying out actual work, for example, on projects helping
homeless single women. Based on this observation, we can think about the
way that the semiotic choices in the Cosmopolitanimage signify a discourse
of women as independent and having exciting lives. This suggests a life which
is glamorous and interesting. But unlike the Vietnamese magazine, this is a
world where the woman acts alone and in her own interest, often learning hot
tips to look good, to keep her man, to have hot sex and to get on in the world.
She has no broader contribution to make either to society or other women.
So what is important here is to be aware of the way that semiotic choices

23
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

can be used to signify identities and values associated with women's agency
without fully articulating them. This means that these discourses can be manip-
ulated precisely for the purposes of aligning such identities and values with
consumer behaviour. Independence can be signified through how you look,
the clothes you wear and the poses you strike, and not through the way you
think or act in broader political terms.

Ideologyand power
The question of power has been at the core of the CDAproject. Basically,
power comes from privileged access to social resources such as education,
knowledge and wealth, which provides authority, status and influence to
those who gain this access and enables them to dominate, coerce and control
subordinate groups. The aim in CDAhas been to reveal what kinds of social
relations of power are present in texts both explicitly and implicitly (Van Dijk,
1993: 249). Since language can (re)produce social life, what kind of world
is being created by texts and what kinds of inequalities and interests might
this seek to perpetuate, generate or legitimate? Here language is not simply a
vehicle of communication, or for persuasion, but a means of social construc-
tion and domination. Therefore, discourse does not merely reflect social proc-
esses and structures but is itself seen to contribute to the production and
reproduction of these processes and structures. As Fairclough and Wodak
(1997: 258) state, 'the discursive event is shaped by situations, institutions
and social structures, but it also shapes them'. It is also important to note that
power can be more than simple domination from above; it can also be jointly
produced when people believe or are led to believe that dominance is legiti-
mate in some way or other. For example, in our Western democracies, people
elect politicians because they believe that they have the authority to govern a
country. We also believe that doctors have the 'power' to provide us with the
care we need. The point is that power, at least in democratic societies, needs
to be seen as legitimate by people in order to be accepted, and this process of
legitimation is generally expressed through language and other communica-
tive systems.
Research in CDA has been mainly concerned with the persuasive influ-
ence of power, a conception of power associated with Gramsci (1971), whose
concept of hegemony describes the ways through which dominant groups in
society succeed in persuading subordinate groups to accept the farmer's own
moral, political and cultural values and institutions. Within this framework,
discourse constructs hegemonic attitudes, opinions and beliefs and, as we
shall see throughout this book, in such a way as to make them appear 'natural'
and 'common sense', while in fact they may be ideological.
The term 'ideology' is yet another central concept in CDA.Coined in the
early 1800s by the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy, the concept is mainly
associated with Karl Marx (1933). In its original Marxist conception, ideology is

24
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

an important means by which dominant forces in society can exercise power

over subordinate and subjugated groups. Over the years, the concept has
developed a broader meaning to refer to belief systems held by individuals
and collectives. Like discourse, it is used to capture the way that we share
broader ideas about the way the world works. In CDA,ideology has been used
(and without necessary adherence to Marx) to describe the way that the ideas
and values that comprise these ideas reflect particular interests on the part
of the powerful. So in discourses that promote being tougher on crime, where
crime is identified as the relatively minor actions of the least powerful mem-
bers of society, rather than those of banks and corporations who seek to reor-
ganise society in their own interest for reasons of profit, we can ask whose
interests these definitions serve.
The aim of CDAis to draw out ideologies, showing where they might be
buried in texts. Drawing on Gramsci (1971), Fairclough argued that, while
many institutions and forms of social organisation clearly reflect ideological
interests, one place where we can observe exactly how these interests operate
is in language. This is simply because language is a common social behaviour
where we share our views of how the world works, what is natural and com-
mon sense. It is through language that we share the idea of things like 'British
culture', 'nationalism' and what immigrants are like. People and institutions
then draw on this language as it appears to be neutral and 'common sense'.
Of course ideologies and power can be found communicated through other
semiotic modes and not only through language. We can ask what kinds of
interests are served by the stream of visual images we find in the news media
that most often represent crime not as the actions of wealthy corporate peo-
ple but of the thuggish working classes, or other marginalised people, such as
immigrants, often depicted as grinning at the viewer with their large families,
accused of fraudulently claiming state benefits.
Ideology characterises the way that certain discourses become accepted
in this way and therefore obscure the way they help to sustain power rela-
tions. According to one view of ideology, ideology obscures the nature of
our unequal societies and prevents us from seeing alternatives. It limits
what can be seen and what we think we can do. In present Western socie-
ties, we take it for granted or as common sense that 'business' should be at
the heart of everything, that it is the lifeblood of our societies and of human
existence. Such is the power of this view that alternatives are viewed with
ridicule. We only have to think in this respect of how British educational
institutions are run.
Ideologies can be found across whole areas of social life, in ideas, knowl-
edge, and institutional practices. In the case of 'business', this ideology comes
to dominate everything in society - even how we run schools and hospitals.
Social welfare, economic equality and quality of civil life become subordi-
nate to the logic of business 'efficiency', which in practice means profit In
Britain at the time of writing, it was becoming common to see schools being
re-launched as academies, semi-privatised and apparently more attuned to

25
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

work demands, often with new buildings designed in the style of the corpo-
rate head office to communicate business-style buzzwords such as 'innova-
tion' and 'vision'.
Halliday (1978) argued that language can create dispositions within us.
CDAanalysts, such as Fairclough, following Foucault, believe that one way
to put this is that language constitutes us as subjects (1994: 318). This is
because the person who comes to think through the discourses of business is
thinking of themselves, their identity and their possibilities, through this dis-
course. What would be important in terms of MCDAwould be to identify the
kinds of semiotic choices that were being used to communicate about these
things. We would ask what kinds of ideas, values, identities and sequences
of activity are being represented or implied. Often, as we will show, some of
these aspects may be completely suppressed or concealed for the purposes of
legitimising a particular ideology.

SocialSemioticsand everydayidentity
It is important to realise that discourses and ideologies are not simply to be
found in official and media texts. Social Semiotics views the individual as
embedded in networks of social relations where all of us are communicat-
ing, making signs through semiotic choices. This network will be at the same
time cooperative, contested and fragmentary as we come together with dif-
ferent kinds of people (Kress, 2010). It is these interactions and the needs
generated in and through them, which drive communication and shape the
semiotic resources available. The reader of the text about the drug problems
in Totnes or the viewer of the image in Cosmopolitanis located in a network of
social relations. These individuals too are sign makers within their own social
environments. They are part of the process through which signs are made,
used, and remade. Of course they may not have the power of dissemination
afforded to the Daily Mail newspaper or to Cosmopolitanmagazine, but nev-
ertheless they are sign users and sign makers. They too will use language and
other semiotic modes in their own interests. This is an important observa-
tion as this means that we can plot the way that the ideas, identities and val-
ues that comprise discourses have a life across networks of social relations.
What follows is one such example regarding the comments and behaviour of
a young woman encountered by one of the authors of this book.
One of the authors was recently in a town centre bar having a beer after
work with several colleagues. Three of them, all male, were leaning at the
bar. Two were listening to the other who was recounting a paper heard at
a recent conference. The author noticed that a group of women came into
the bar dressed as school girls, with short skirts, long socks and wigs giv-
ing them all pigtails. Most of them carried hockey sticks. Those familiar with
certain British cultural practices would immediately recognise this as a 'hen
night', where a bride-to-be will go out partying with her female friends on the

26
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

evening before her wedding. A typical theme is for them to dress in this man-
ner, a cross between school uniforms and stripper clothes.
It was about 7.30pm and the women appeared already fairly drunk. One of
them approached the author and engaged him in conversation. The author's
aim, unsociably, and feeling slightly awkward with a drunk person, was to
get rid of the woman. What we draw attention to in this case is the language
used by the woman. This example reveals three things. One, it shows how as
language producers what we want to say is not always made explicit. Two,
it is a useful way to show how as analysts of language we can draw out what
is and what is not made explicit, what remains slightly concealed beneath
the surface of dialogue. Three, it points to the way that in social networks
we share available semiotic resources which favour the realisation of cer-
tain discourses. And additionally, this is an opportunity to think about the
other modes of communication the woman relied upon. The dialogue went
like this:

Woman: Hey,do you like my hockey stick?

Author: Looks fine to me but I'm no expert.
Woman: (drunk mock seductive expression) Do you like to play?
Author: (shyly) More into football myself. You off to a game then?
Woman: Am I making you nervous?
Author: Well, I don't get out much.
Woman's friend (coming over): Youscaring this nice gentleman?
Woman: No, he just thinks we are wild, crazy women.
Woman: Am I scaring you? Do you think we are scary?
Author: I am afraid I do.
Woman: Where are the real men? Everywhere we go we scare them
to death.

Her friends then took her off to speak with some other people. The author
shortly afterwards heard the women having a similar conversation with
another group of men, and seemed to be keen to maintain the engagement
about how 'scary' they were. Ten minutes later two of these men came to the
bar to buy drinks for themselves and the women. One was remarking on their
chances of developing something with the women and on the quality of the
breasts of the particular woman who had approached the author. A few weeks
later the author came across the woman again in her role as a shop-worker,
selling him a sandwich. Here she was not speaking of being 'scary'.
In this short conversation a number of interesting features can be found.
Of course, on the one hand, this is simply a group of women out having some

27
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

fun, being playful and flirtatious. And a group of academics, engaged in

some self-important, pompous conversation, may have seemed like a
good, or safe, target for such fun. But, on the other hand, this example
can tell us a lot about the way that, even in the most mundane of social
contexts, we will use language in creative ways to persuade, influence
and manipulate people, and most importantly to lead them to kinds of
understandings that we may not make explicit but that once drawn out
can give us access to the available semiotic resources for communication
in a social network.
The conversation began with an innuendo about the hockey stick, which
the woman later used again in subsequent conversations with the other men.
But what is interesting is the fact that her being 'scary' was a theme that she
repeated in her talk. The author did not find her scary, although he did feel
awkward. And certainly the two men who were assessing their chances with
her did not find her scary, but rather a potentially easy opportunity. Had the
author been able to record the women's talk throughout the time they were
in the bar, we could see that the words 'scary' and 'wild' were used strikingly
often. In the kind of linguistic analysis we explore in this book, where a word
or kind of word is used more than might be normally expected, this would
be considered as an indication of some kind of underlying but not overtly
expressed contentious social issues.
So what is going on here is that the women are interacting exclusively with
men in bars as they move through the town centre, flirting with them through
sexual innuendo, dressed in a playful manner that appeals to traditional ideas
of male sexual fantasy, telling men that they are, as a collective, being 'scary'.
So what exactly is the contentious issue that is being indicated by the use of
the word 'scary'?
Some researchers have explained that women represented in women's life-
style magazines are often depicted as being 'naughty' through breaking the
taboos of traditional domestic sexual behaviour (Caldas Coulthard, 1994). As
noted above, since the late 1960s, British society, although to some extent in
the mass media only, has seen a change in representations of women, chal-
lenging the traditional idea of the woman as homemaker, whose sexuality
belongs in the domestic environment and is associated with marriage and
motherhood. Later forms of feminism, taken up by Cosmopolitan and seen
also in the television series Sex and the City, represented women's blatant
use of their powers of seduction over men as a form of agency. Here we can
see the meaning potential of, and discourses signified by, the word 'scary'.
The behaviour and language of woman in the bar might therefore be inter-
preted as telling the author and the other men that she is powerful. Dressing
in an overtly sexual fashion could be viewed as 'transgressive' and 'naughty'
in the manner described by Caldas Coulthard (1994), although the woman
to some extent fulfils a male fantasy. And importantly, the use of language
overtly reminds men that they should be intimidated by this transgression
and this taking of control.

28
 Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources

The extensive use of the word 'scary' is evidence that this is an issue that is still
considered to be contentious and far from settled. Those in society who really
have power do not need to ask others if they find them scary. Had the author
walked up to a woman in a bar and said '.Areyou scared of me?',or 'I think you find
me scary', this would have appeared odd, and indeed as scary. And a man who
was overheard to spend the evening telling everyone how scary he was or how
scary 'we' were, referring to him and his friends, would be viewed as rather silly.
This example shows that a closer look at the language used in everyday
conversation reveals how people tell us things about themselves that are not
made explicit. We could say that people, through such talk, are encouraging
us to see them as having particular kinds of identities and are engaged in
particular kinds of activity without actually stating this. The woman in the bar
was saying something like: 'since you expect women to act in ways appropri-
ate to a domestic model of gender roles and behaviour, our actions shock and
intimidate you'. This is not said explicitly, but is signified. Put another way,
in her network of social relations this woman shares semiotic resources for
communication from which she chooses, aware of their meaning potential.
Of course in this case the academic she encountered was not from her more
usual network of social environments and the meaning potential was taken
differently. But it is important to remember that all social interaction is to
some extent like this, and as Kress (2010) points out, is that which provides
the dynamic force that drives communication and the need to work with sem-
iotic resources. If everything was simply fixed in meaning, there would be no
sense in semiotic production. As we considered when we looked at Halliday's
Social Semiotic theory of language, it is important that we view all uses of
semiotic resources as evidence of people having, to some extent, an aware-
ness of the work that they can accomplish through their choices and being
aware of how to best make such choices in the context of the prompts that are
provided in every social interaction.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have seen that we should think of all communication,
whether through language, images or sounds, as being accomplished through
a set of semiotic resources, options and choices. Such semiotic choices are
able to signify broader sets of associations that may not be overtly specified.
A choice of word or visual element might suggest kinds of identities, values
and activities. It is because of this that we are so concerned to emphasise
that analysis should be based on careful detailed description of the semiotic
choices found in talk, texts and images. We ask what options communica-
tors use, why and what are the consequences of these choices? And crucially,
we must think about these choices in terms of power relations. How do the
choices we find serve the interests of authorities, ruling groups, institutions
or even individuals in face-to-face situations?

29
 2
Analysing Semiotic Choices:
Words and Images

Introduction
In this chapter we begin to introduce the toolkit for analysing the way that
people make semiotic choices in language and visual communication in order
to achieve their communicative aims. Here we look at the simplest form of
analysis by considering how authors make choices in individual semiotic
resources, in terms of individual words and individual visual elements and
features. Each of these kinds of resources can allow the author to set up a
basic shape of a social and natural world through their speech, text or image.
It allows them to highlight some kinds of meanings and to background oth-
ers. These authors will use combinations of visual and linguistic elements,
depending upon their affordances, to best accomplish what they wish to com-
municate. Through this process, those meanings they wish to convey may
not be communicated so much overtly but in a more subtle way that requires
analysis to be careful in order to reveal its precise nature.
One of the most basic kinds oflinguistic analysis carried out in CDAis a lexi-
cal analysis. This means simply looking at what kinds of words there are in a
text. In other words, we ask what vocabulary an author uses. Do they tend to
use certain kinds of words and avoid others?
A number of writers have described the significance of this kind of analysis
showing that different lexical, or word, choices can signify different dis-
courses or set up different 'lexical fields'. These discourses or fields will sig-
nify certain kinds of identities, values and sequences of activity which are not
necessarily made explicit.
Van Dijk (2001) describes CDAprecisely as the study of 'implicit or 'indi-
rect meanings' in texts. These are the kinds of meanings that are alluded to
without being explicitly expressed. He explains this implicit information 'is
part of the mental model of ... a text, but not of the text itself. Thus, implicit
meanings are related to underlying beliefs, but are not openly, directly, com-
pletely or precisely asserted' (Van Dijk, 2001: 104). The study of simple word
content, the highlighting of a lexical field, is, as we shall see one way we can
begin to reveal these underlying beliefs.
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

A lexical field, Fowler (1991) points out, is like the map an author is creat-
ing for us. A map is a 'symbolic' representation of a territory. The signs it uses
indicate areas of interest, areas of salience where on the actual terrain there
may be none. Maps made for different purposes will carry different features,
so a map for geological features will differ from those made for motorists. A
map maker may include political boundaries that may be largely ignored or
resented by the people who live there. So the map maker in each case is fore-
grounding some features and suppressing others. What exactly is included and
excluded, how areas are defined, what is shaded and not, where boundaries
are placed is a matter of the interests of the map maker. The point is that '[t] he
meaning and structure of the map are not governed by the physical character-
istics of the landscape, but by the structural conventions appropriate to figur-
ing the territory for a specific social purpose' (Fowler, 1991: 82). We can think
of the lexical choices used by an author or speaker in the same way, governed
by certain types of preoccupation or specific social purposes.
This observation can apply equally both to texts and images. One of the sim-
plest kinds of analysis carried out in Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis is
iconographical or iconological analysis. This means we explore the way that
individual elements in images, such as objects and settings, are able to signify
discourses in ways that might not be obvious at an initial viewing. We ask
which visual features and elements are foregrounded and which are back-
grounded or excluded.
However, it is important to note that in visual communication semiotic
resources are used to communicate things that may be more difficult to
express through language, since images do not tend to have such fixed mean-
ing or at least the producer can always claim that it is more suggestive and
open to various interpretations. In news reports, for example, it is possible
to show a photograph of a Muslim woman in traditional clothing, wearing a
veil next to an article on Muslim-related issues. But it is not possible to say ½II
Muslims look like this'. Visual communication, by its nature, tends to be more
open to interpretation, which gives the author some degree of manoeuvre
not permitted though language use. They can use the image of the Muslim
woman in traditional clothing to place the story in a broader discourse about
clashes of culture and values. But this is done implicitly through visual semi-
otic resources.
Visual and linguistic semiotic resources have different affordances. In other
words, they are more suitable for different kinds of purposes. For example, in
the previous chapters we considered the photograph that was part of an arti-
cle in Cosmopolitanmagazine. In this case, we can ask how it was that the set-
ting and colours helped to encourage the viewer to think about certain kinds
of identities and values in a way that language could not have done. How did
these choices contribute to the mapping out of women's lives and identities
that were being created for the reader which were different from that of lan-
guage? As with the image of the Muslim woman, discourses are communi-
cated implicitly. We are not told 'this is what you will look like at work', but
the image serves to bring particular associations of glamour and modernity

31
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

to bear on the story. Being able to analyse the work done by semiotic choices,
such as props, setting and lighting, allows us to be more specific about exactly
what is communicated and how.
Van Leeuwen (2000), drawing on the work of Barthes (1977) and Panofsky
(1972), has also shown the value of looking at images for the way that indi-
vidual elements and features can communicate implicit or indirect meanings
and that they too can be thought of as mapping out a terrain driven by certain
preoccupations. Later in the chapter we will be looking at a set of tools for
analysing the way that those who produce visual discourses are able to draw
our attention to certain aspects of images.
In this chapter, we first look at studying lexical choices in language. In the
second part we look at visual choices, returning to some of the same texts to
consider how these two modes communicate together.

Wordconnotations
To begin with we can analyse the basic choice of words used by a text pro-
ducer. Simply,we ask what kinds of words are used. ls there a predominance of
particular kinds of words, for example? In this process we assume that, since
language is an available set of options, certain choices have been made by the
author for their own motivated reasons. For example, if I choose to call where
I live a 'building', 'an address' or a 'family home', it immediately brings certain
sets of associations. What if a news item headline was one of the following?

'Youths attack local buildings'

'Youths attack local addresses'
'Youths attack local family homes'

In the last of these sentences, the lexical choice suggests something much
more sacred than the first two, something much more personal. The words
'family' and 'home' suggest something safe and stable that is cherished
in society. Of course families are not necessarily something so wonderful.
Families can also be demanding, overwhelming, oppressive and destructive.
But combined here with 'home' it signifies a discourse of the family as some-
thing safe, stable and common to all of us. It communicates something that
should be protected and therefore produces greater moral outrage than the
first headline. Without making the case overtly, the discourse created signi-
fies associated identities, values and likely sequences of action. The writer has
not commented overtly on the morally outrageous behaviour of the youths,
but this is signified through the associations of home and family since these
words tend to carry particular connotations in a particular culture. So these
connotations help to place these events into particular frameworks of refer-
ence or discourses.

32
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

We can see the way that lexical choices place events in discourses in the
following extract taken from an East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)
document EMDAis one of a number ofregional organisations set up in Britain
by the former New Labour government to 'regenerate' parts of the country
that were suffering from a number of issues, such as poverty, unemployment,
urban decay and interracial tensions. We can ask what kind of discourse the
words we find in the text realise, what kind of world they constitute and what
kinds of interests they serve.

EMDA'mission statement'
The vision is for the East Midlands to become a fast growing, dynamic
economy based on innovative, knowledge based companies competing
successfully in the global economy.
East Midlands Innovation launched its Regional Innovation Strategy and
action plan in November 2006. This sets out how we will use the knowl-
edge, skills and creativity of organisations and individuals to build an
innovation led economy.
Our primary role to deliver our mission is to be the strategic driver of
economic development in the East Midlands, working with partners to
deliver the goals of the Regional Economic Strategy, which EMDApro-
duces on behalf of the region.
I am committed to ensuring that these strategic priorities act as guiding
principles for EMDAas we work with our partners in the region and
beyond to achieve the region's ambition to be a Top 20 Region by 2010
and a flourishing region by 2020.

When we read reports by these developmental agencies it is rather difficult

to get any concrete sense of what they actually do. But maybe this is not the
point of these texts.
A lexical analysis of the text reveals a predominance of words such as
'dynamic', 'innovation', 'competing', 'creativity', 'strategic', 'ambition', 'chal-
lenges', 'goals' and 'strengths'. When discussing what might seem like straight-
forward matters of unemployment or poverty, there is no mention of these
things nor is there a mention of how they are to be addressed. And the actual
social actors involved are also absent, i.e. the unemployed, the poor, those
appointed to develop solutions and those who will bring these into fruition.
Rather, we find 'partners' and 'stakeholders'. Reading more of the texts on the
EMDAwebsite, we find that these in fact seem to refer to the poor, council work-
ers and businesses as a collective, although the poor are never overtly named.
These kinds of terms, Chiapello and Fairclough (2002) point out, come
from the language of business rhetoric, which they describe as the empty
rhetoric of corporate-speak. The result of referring to issues such as poverty
as a 'challenge', the poor as 'stakeholders' and solutions in terms of'creativity'

33
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

and 'innovation' can conceal what the actual problem is and therefore what
the solution could be. What these terms do instead is connote a sense of busi-
ness-like activity and 'drive'. Words like 'stakeholders' connote that those tak-
ing action are those who have a vested interest in the outcome or those that
control it, although exactly who will do something, who actually has respon-
sibility, is concealed. For Fairclough (2000) this language serves to conceal
where the actual responsibility lies, which is with the government and the
fundamental nature of social organisation.
In fact, poverty and unemployment in the East Midlands is partly due to
changes in economic policies pushing Britain into the global economy and
allowing industries that formerly created employment to shift to other parts
of the world where labour is cheaper (Levitas, 2005). In certain areas, whole
sections of the population live in families where there have been no work-
ers often for three generations. While terms like 'creativity', 'innovation' and
'knowledge economy' sound exciting and active, they will not help us to deal
with fundamental structural issues. And calling them, along with the local
councillors and businesses who are to provide solutions, 'stakeholders' fur-
ther obscures power relations. By constantly using terms like 'stakeholders',
it becomes unclear as to who will act, and at the same time gives a sense that
it is the poor who must take shared responsibility and action. This mixture of
rights and responsibilities was a key part of New Labour discourse (Levitas,
2005). Of course, as Fairclough (2000) explains, this is precisely the point,
as we are distracted from real causes and necessary solutions. It is simply
by looking at the kinds of words found in a text that we can draw out the
discourse that is being communicated. In this case, regional authorities are
represented through a discourse of corporate businesses, although this is not
openly stated.
These kinds oflexical choices are now typical of the way that any private or
public organisation will position itself. Most universities, health authorities,
hospitals and schools now have a 'vision' or 'mission statement'. The very fact
that such organisations feel required to declare they have a 'vision' rather
than simply an 'identity' or a 'role' indicates the pervasiveness of corporate-
business language. The term 'vision' connotes 'ambition', 'looking ahead' and
'lofty ideas'. In former times it would have been sufficient for a university
simply to state that it was concerned with ideas, to celebrate, disseminate
and push the boundaries of knowledge and science, and simply to educate,
thereby playing a part in a better and more sophisticated society. Even in the
1980s there was a sense in Britain that universities were simply essential to
the functioning of a healthy democracy. We can see something of the way this
has disappeared in the opening paragraph of Loughborough University's mis-
sion statement:

Loughborough University is a dynamic, forward looking institu-

tion, committed to being a centre of excellence in teaching, learning
and enterprise. We have much to be proud of - surveys in the media

34
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

constantly rate Loughborough as a top university. In June 2006 the

Times Good University Guide ranked Loughborough University the
sixth highest university in the UK.(Loughborough University website)

We can see in this case that the university is marketing itself in terms of
being 'dynamic' and 'forward looking'. What is interesting in terms of CDA
is to ask why these terms have become so universally accepted. In the pre-
vious chapter we asked why a young woman in a bar used the word 'scary'
to speak about herself. We thought about the way this reflected changes
in the role of women yet also a lingering need for her to express her
sexual agency. In CDAit is assumed that language and society are deeply
intertwined. They are not to be thought of as separate entities. Linguistic
activity is social practice. Language use should be treated as part of social
processes. Why did this young woman not want to go around boasting
about being 'responsible' or 'compassionate'? These two terms both sound
like very good qualities to have. But these are not, as far as the woman
is concerned, part of the discourses that have become widely shared for
indicating that women have desirable and credible levels of agency and
personality.
We can ask what the consequences would be in a society where cer-
tain concepts of identity become valued over others, where identity cat-
egories of compassion and responsibility gain negative connotations
as opposed to 'independence' and 'scariness'. Machin and van Leeuwen
(2007), in an analysis of women's lifestyle magazines, show how women
always act alone and strategically, whether it is in relationships or at work.
They appear to have no ties of interest to any kind of wider community,
apart from their shared strategic solutions to getting a man or winning
prestige socially or at work. They certainly appear to have no responsibil-
ity for anyone apart from their own pleasure and status. Machin and van
Leeuwen suggest that these are ideal identities for aligning women to the
interests of consumerism.
We can say the same about the way Loughborough University is described.
Why should 'dynamic' and 'forward looking' be desirable qualities? Both con-
note movement and lack of stasis. So 'change' is clearly regarded as positive,
whereas 'stability' appears to be less so. Likewise, in our contemporary soci-
ety, 'speed' is also highly prized. Things that are done quickly and technol-
ogy that allows more urgency are presented as good in themselves. But why
should this be the case? If we are always 'forward looking', does this mean
that we are not attending to the present? If we do things quickly, again does
this mean we are not attending to the actual process of doing it or doing it
haphazardly? If 'innovation' is good, does this mean that what we already
know should always be quickly discarded? This trend appears to be reflected
in the way that Human Resources run training programmes in businesses and
in public sector organisations. In our experience, employees at their annual
appraisals are encouraged to think about their training requirements, often

35
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

by those who have no idea about the jobs that these people do, whereas before
it was those who had considerable experience in a profession who were seen
to have the expertise.
We can see a similar set of lexical choices on the homepage of a British
National Health Service website:

Vision and Values: Heart of England NHS Trust

As a large Trust, with four hospitals and a number of satellite units, we
have the power to make a real difference to the lives of patients and our
fellow workers. As part of the Organisational Development programme,
staff from across Heart of England met and discussed values for the
Trust going forward. These are the values by which we already live and
work in the Trust; the values that help us achieve our mission:
To improve the health of people by pursuing excellence in healthcare
and education
To achieve this mission, the Trust lives by five values:
Cherishing
Excellence
Finding a Way
Innovation for Advancement
Working Together

We see terms such as 'innovation', 'excellence', 'vision', 'power' and 'values',

but none of these terms is explained. One of their values is 'excellence', but
what does this mean? What is the Trust excellent in? The main question we
can ask here is why should a health Trust need this language? Does a hospital
not simply have to make people better? And why should we want to worry
about staff 'working together'. If we are ill, we just want to be offered the best
possible healthcare.
The linguistic and visual semiotic choices, which we analyse later, used on
the Trust website need to be understood in terms of the broader changes in
the British health system, which was established as a state-run, free-to-use
healthcare system. Pollock (2006) has documented the way that the emer-
gence of 'Health Trusts' was part of a trend to cut state funding and the corre-
sponding influx of private finance and the need to generate profits. The health
service is being effectively privatised and broken up into hundreds of com-
peting companies where a vast range of companies provide finance, build-
ings, maintenance, repairs, laundry, catering, portering, nursing, etc. Hidden
behind all the lexis of vision concepts, the health service is being dismantled
and privatised with corporations cherry-picking the most lucrative areas and
pushing the balance of care in the direction that is most profitable. Pollock

36
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

(2006) describes the increasing loss of equal access and common universal
standards and shrinking services.
As the health services become run increasingly on business models, so the
language through which they communicate becomes characterised by empty
business rhetoric. Changes are concealed behind the language of 'vitality',
'excellence', 'vision' and 'cooperation'. Later in the chapter we will be looking
at the way that these kinds of organisations also use visual resources to com-
municate the same set of ideas.

Overlexicalisation
Another way of describing what is going on in the EMDAtext, with its seeming
overemphasis on terms that connote movement and change, is 'overlexicali-
sation'. Teo (2000: 20) explains thatoverlexicalisation 'results when a surfeit
of repetitious, quasi-synonymous terms is woven into the fabric of news dis-
course, giving rise to a sense of overcompleteness'.
Overlexicalisation gives a sense of over-persuasion and is normally evi-
dence that something is problematic or of ideological contention. So in our
analysis of a text, we would find overlexicalisation where there was an abun-
dance of particular words and their synonyms. This would point to where
the persuasion was taking place and the area of ideological contention. Two
simple examples are:

Male nurse
Female doctor

We can ask why these job titles require elaboration in terms of gender. In this
case, of course, it signals a deviation from social convention or expectation.
But these are always cues to the dominant ideology. In other words, it is still
expected that men are doctors and women are nurses.
Achugar (2007) gives a typical example of the way that enemies can be
overlexicalised:

Certainly our Armed Forces victorious in the battle against the unpatri-
otic forces of Marxist subversion were accused of supposed violations
to human rights. (El So/dado, April 1989)

Here the Armed Forces are battling against 'the unpatriotic forces of Marxist
subversion'. Such overlexicalisation, or excessive description, indicates some
anxiety on the part of the author. Here it appears necessary to justify the 'sup-
posed violations of human rights' by the Armed Forces.
In the case of the EMDAtext above, we can see that there is an overlexi-
calisation of words that communicate deliberate and energetic action, such

37
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

as 'dynamic', 'innovation', 'competing', 'creativity', 'strategic', 'ambition', 'goals'

and 'strengths'. This overuse suggests that something is problematic here. In
this case, the aim is to connote a sense of vibrant activity where in fact lit-
tle is being done at all to combat the structural problems, with EMDAgiven
the impossible task to solve these. Unemployment, inequality and poor social
inclusion can only be dealt with by major policy changes at a central govern-
ment level that would involve changing the way our society is organised in
relation to the economic context of global capitalism.

Suppressionor lexicalabsence
As we can find overlexicalisation in texts, we can also find suppression, where
certain terms that we might expect are absent. Below there are two short
texts. The first is an international news agency feed received by a news organ-
isation, Independent Radio News (IRN). The second is the text after IRN had
reworked it for broadcast for one of their clients, based on knowledge of their
client's listeners through the need to prove that they are able to target specific
consumer groups for advertisers. Since we have the original text we can more
easily show what the journalist has decided to remove or suppress from the
text. We can ask, therefore, what are the main changes of discourse in the
rewrite?

APTN feed as received by IRN,18 September 2003:

One of the few suspects to express remorse over his alleged involve-
ment in last year's bombings on Indonesia's Bali island arrived at court
on Thursday to hear his sentence. Ali lmron is facing a possible death
penalty, but prosecutors have asked that he receive 20 years in prison
because he has shown regret and cooperated with investigators. Imran's
older brother Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, and another key defendant, Imam
Samudra, already have been sentenced to face firing squads for their
roles in the attack, which killed 202 people - mostly foreign tourists.
IRN rewrite:
A man's been jailed for life for helping to plan and carry out the Bali
bombings. Twenty-six Britons were among more than two hundred
people killed in the attack in October last year. Ali lmron was spared the
death sentence handed down to other suspects because he expressed
remorse and co-operated with the Indonesian authorities.

IRN has, of course, simplified the story in order to reduce ambiguity. Such
stories in radio news have to be delivered in very short bursts. But it is reveal-
ing to look at how the one above has been changed. This has been done in a
number of ways, but for the present we can attend specifically to a number of
important lexical changes or omissions. In the original text we find many legal

38
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

terms, such as 'alleged', 'prosecutors', 'defendant'. These have been removed

from the rewrite. In fact the original text has been generated from a court
report, as is standard in news gathering of crime. But the rewrite has omitted
all legal reference. The journalist may have believed that listeners to this par-
ticular radio programme would not be interested in legal information. But the
effect is that we are no longer required to think about whose court or under
whose jurisdiction this event is taking place. This becomes one more story in
the war on terror, where the journalist has inserted information about the
number of Britons killed - a story about evil-doers being caught Clearly, on
the one hand this could be explained through the needs for simplicity and
for ease of understanding. But on the other it is nevertheless important and
revealing to ask what has been left out or added and what ideological work
this does.
In the IRN example we conveniently had the original text so that we could
show clearly what had been deleted. But in the case of any text we can ask
what lexical items are missing that we might expect to be included. In the
example of the Heart of England NHS Trust text, there is no mention of ill-
ness, of caring or of medicines. Instead of caring for people we have terms
such as 'make a real difference to the lives of patients' and 'cherishing'. If we
are ill, will our first concern be to be 'cherished' or for someone to 'make a
difference' to our lives? Would we not rather want to be reassured that there
are enough facilities and staff to make us better quickly? If there are absences
in terms of activities, elements or participants, then we can think about why
it was the case that the text producer did not want us to think of these. Of
course where services are being privatised and expensive ones being closed
down, where there are money-saving job freezes and ward closures, more
ambiguous claims couched in a more positive-sounding language need to be
made.

Structuraloppositions
Halliday's (1978, 1985) theory of Social Semiotics explains that words mean
not only on their own but as part of a network of meanings. Vocabulary also
makes distinctions between classes of concepts. So we find structural opposi-
tions in texts. This is an important part of understanding this kind of language
analysis and it also underpins much of the visual toolkit we present later in
the book.
In language, these oppositions are opposing concepts such as young-old,
good-bad, or democracy-communism. Often only one of these may be men-
tioned, which can imply differences from qualities of its opposites without
these being overtly stated. Or this particular word can bring with it associa-
tions from its related clusters of concepts. So if a particular participant in a
news text is described as a 'militant' or an 'extremist', we can fathom that such
a person acts in the opposite manner expected of a 'citizen' or a 'member of a

39
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

community'. As in the case of 'youths attack local family homes', a set of ideas
around what 'youths' are and are not can be activated.
When such oppositions are more overtly included in a text, we can talk of
'ideological squaring' (Van Dijk, 1998), which means that opposing classes
of concepts are built up around participants. This may not necessarily mean
that the participants are overtly labelled as 'good' or 'bad', but rather that this
is implied through structuring concepts. We can see how this use of opposi-
tions, both overt and implicit, works in the following item from the British
newspaper The Sun. In this text we are never told why the events take place,
nor are the participants overtly evaluated as 'good' or 'bad'. Evaluation takes
place through the oppositions. The image here is also very important and
plays a crucial role in setting up oppositions. This will be analysed below and
in more detail in the remaining chapters.

Figure 2 On patrol ... British soldier in Helmand province

Our boys blitz Taliban bash (The Sun, 31 December 2007)

BRITISHcommandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban - as
the evil terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto's murder.
The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the
sick knees-up in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away
just hours after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan.
The bash was being held in ruined compounds a few hundred yards
from Our Boys' remote base in Kajaki.

40
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

Ragtag Taliban sentries tried to hit back with machine gun fire - but
stood no chance against the heroes of 40 Commando's Charlie Company.
Bloodthirsty
The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns.
Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench
were spotted by thermal-imaging equipment - and targeted with a
Javelin heat-seeking missile.
The £65,000 rocket - designed to stop Soviet tanks - locked on to their
body heat and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds.
Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 - who directed mortar rounds -
grinned: "It must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale."
Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay,Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used
to be their backyard and now we've made it ours."

In this text we find very different sets of word choices used to represent the two
sides, the British commandoes and the Taliban. At no point does the text overtly
state who is good and bad or why this is. But the structural oppositions or 'ideo-
logical squaring' clearly indicate how the participants should be evaluated.
The British soldiers are described as 'our' side: 'British commandos', 'Royal
Marines', 'Troop Sergeant', 'heroes of 40 Commando's Charlie Company' and on
three occasions 'Our Boys'. These are described in terms of professional rank
and organisation in ways that connote pride: 'our boys' and 'heroes'. In contrast,
the Taliban are referred to as 'their' side: 'the Taliban', 'evil terrorists', 'fanatics',
'Ragtag Taliban sentries' and 'bloodthirsty revellers', 'animals' who are based in
a 'lair'. These connotations are of disorganisation, through terms like 'Ragtag'
and 'revellers', and of irrationality, through terms like 'fanatics'. What often lies
behind such stories are local people who oppose the occupation of what they
perceive as their territory. Western armies are often present in part to protect
economic and strategic interests of Western governments. Yet here we are pro-
vided with no political or social context, only good and bad participants.
The lexis which is used to describe the actions of the two sides is also of
the same order. The British soldiers 'carry out a dawn raid', 'staged an attack',
'crept into position', 'spotted', 'targeted', 'designed', 'locked on to' and 'directed'.
All these terms suggest precision, careful focus and organisation. In contrast,
the Taliban are described thus: 'held a party', 'sick knees-up', 'partied the night
away' and 'bash'. This is to emphasise their inappropriate and unprofessional
attitude to killing, although at the end of the text we find that Troop Sergeant
Dominic Conway, 32, himself takes a somewhat callous attitude to the deaths
where he is described as grinning and gloating "It must have had quite a det-
rimental effect on their morale." There is also a clear sense that the British
are described as being decisive as they 'launched a devastating blitz', 'spotted
by thermal-imaging equipment'. In contrast, the Taliban are twice described

41
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

as only 'trying': 'tried to hit back with machine gun fire' and 'trying to creep
towards Our Boys'.They are clearly represented as incompetent
At no point in this text are we told overtly how we should interpret this
conflict, yet this is clearly indicated through lexical choices which create an
opposition between the professional British soldiers on the one hand and the
inhumane, savage, irrational Taliban on the other. We are certainly never told
why the soldiers are fighting. Why exactly is the British army killing these
people and who exactly are they? What is the overall aim? In the case of this
story we can say, therefore, that there is a suppression of information at the
level of motives, of broader values and sequences of activity. There is also a
suppression of the brutality of war, of the mutilating effects of the weapons
used by these soldiers on the bodies of their enemies. Instead, there is an
overlexicalisation of terms for precision combat

Lexicalchoicesand genreof communication

Often texts can use lexical choices to indicate levels of authority and co-
membership with the audience (Fairclough, 1995a). Authors will often seek to
influence us through claims to having power over us. This may be through legal
or hierarchical means or through claiming specialist knowledge. In the first
case, a text might simply tell us we cannot act in a particular way because of the
law. In the second, a scientist might tell us that we should understand the world
in a particular way due to their knowledge of facts. They will use specific, offi-
cial-sounding terms that help to convey authority. We often see this in advertis-
ing for cosmetics, where technical-sounding terms are used to connote 'science'
and 'specialist knowledge' where in fact there might be none. Drugs marketing
companies are aware that products often have to carry brand names that con-
note science, for example that carry lots of 'x's and 'y's. So a cough medicine
might be named 'txylxyn'. It seems that consumers are much less likely to buy
the same product if it is called something more literal like 'smooth cough'.Other
texts might try to influence us through claiming to speak through a language
common to the readership or listener, by using more colloquial and everyday
language, hence giving the impression of being like us (Leitner, 1980).
In the following text extract we find two sets of lexical choices used to
convey different kinds of authority at the same time. This text is supposedly
about drug problems and young people, but it is vague about facts and is little
more than a sensational piece. It reveals nothing about the actual numbers
of young people taking drugs. Drug-use researchers often comment on how
the press continually serves to distract the public from the reality of drug
problems through its moral outrage stance (Manning, 2007b). Instead of
rational debates that would inform the public about the potential long-term
damage of prolonged ecstasy use, 'news construction reinforces moral eval-
uation' (Manning, 2007b: 163). In this sense, the drug debate is more of a
self-perpetuating witch hunt; a 'call for the "evil" individual seeking to lead
innocents astray' (Manning, 2007b: 162). Much research on drugs use now

42
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

emphasises that millions of people take recreational drugs in a 'normalised'

way, which is not characterised by addiction, but rather periodic use (Parker
et al., 1998, 2002). Only a small percentage of drug users fall into the hard
use/hard drugs category - groups associated with poverty and marginalisa-
tion and prior connections with crime and the 'irregular' economy (Seddon,
2008). Yet media reporting tends to focus on drugs as something sordid and
deviant, and merges all drug use into the same discourse, where innocent
victims are in grave danger from a shadowy world.

The really innocent victims of our drugs explosion (The Sun, 10

October 200V)
Emma Jones
WHEN I was a kid, one of my mum's worst fears was me accidentally
swallowing bleach. It was the health scare of the moment. There were
public information adverts on telly and campaigns for child-proof tops.
For modern mums there is a more hidden and sinister danger - ecstasy
tablets and illegal drugs.
This week Sadie Frost and Jude Law's two-year-old daughter, Iris, swal-
lowed part of a discarded E tablet she found on the floor at a children's
birthday party.
She was robbed of her innocence (after most likely suffering hallucino-
genic effects) and nearly her life.
Iris survived - but others haven't.
In July this year ten-year-old Jade Slack became the youngest person to
die from ecstasy after taking five tablets she found.
Dangers
A week later, three-year-old Brandon White, from London, was rushed
to hospital after swallowing ecstasy he mistook for a sweet.
In June, a 20-month-old Swansea girl suffered the same fate.
In another incident a 19-month-old nearly died after mistaking the
killer drug for mints.
And it's not just ecstasy.
In 1999 a three-year-old girl from Newcastle swallowed cocaine pow-
der she thought was sherbet after finding it in her garden.
The charity DrugScope warn one of the biggest dangers is the heroin
substitute methadone because of its green colour and sweet taste.
Dozens have accidentally drunk methadone thinking it was pop and
some have died.

Thanks to Will Hall for this text.

1

43
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

These tragedies may seem like a series of unrelated, freak accidents.

Sadly,they are not
The phenomenon is a sign of the times, givingus a shocking insight into how
drugs have swamped our country and spilled over the hands of our children.
Drugs have become so cheap and freely available that they can be found
nearly EVERYWHERE. Iris Law found the E tablet at Soho House, one of
Britain's poshest private members' clubs.
No longer are ecstasy tablets confined to the sleazy dance clubs and
cocaine to showbiz parties.
Drugs are so cheap and plentiful that people routinely buy them in bulk
and have them lying around the house in cupboards, handbags and coat
pockets - places where curious kids will root them out.
What we do not find in this text is an account of the facts of ecstasy use and
users. In the following table we have placed the formal and informal lexi-
cal items in different columns. In the right-hand column we find terms that
connote what Fairclough (1995a) call a 'discourse of information', a sense of
imparting facts.
In the left-hand column we find a much more informal lexis. This too
serves to provide authority, in that the newspaper speaks 'our language'.
Commentators on language use and communication have long observed the
technique of using conversational style to bring a sense of informality to the
conversational mix (Scannell and Cardiff, 1991; Bell and van Leeuwen, 1994 ).
Conversational style is both private and suggests dialogue between equals.
For this reason it is a useful strategy for politicians, advertisers and, here,
journalists. Technical language can be used to connote 'facts and information'.
But this can be delivered in a way that suggests equality. So in this text we find
the opening sentence sets this theme with:
When I was a kid, one of my mum's worst fears was me accidentally
swallowing bleach.
In terms of the connotations of this lexis, we also find nostalgic references to
an idealised family life through 'my mum', 'kid', and the mundane everyday

Table 1 Genre indications in drug explosion text

Informal lexical choices Formal lexical choices
Kid(s) Public information adverts
Mum(s) Ecstasy tablets
Telly Hallucinogenic effects
Modern mums Heroin substitute methadone
E tablet Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit
Green colour/sweet taste Cocaine, heroin, amphetamines
Poshest private clubs Decriminalisation
Sleazy dance clubs Criminal enterprises
Mates Reformists
Sweets in a playground Traditionalists

44
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

Figure 3 Career woman from Marie Claire (Jupiter images)

(www .marieclaire .com/career-money/advice/tips/promotion-recession-work)

fear of the dangers of bleach. This is used to contrast with the connotations
then used for the information discourse: 'there is a more hidden and sinister
danger - ecstasy tablets and illegal drugs'.
Fairclough (199 Sa) explains that mixing these two lexicons in this way
helps to infuse official discourse with a populist voice. The newspaper does
nothing to explain problems with drugs in society, whether or not they are
related to unemployment and other social problems. Rather, we might say it
serves to distract the reader from these. Again, we find suppression of facts
and participants and foregrounding of moral outrage.
The writer uses this juxtaposition throughout, as in the sentences:

Dozens of children have accidentally drunk methadone thinking it was

pop and some have died. These tragedies may seem like a series of unre-
lated, freak accidents. Sadly, they are not

The formal descriptive term, 'methadone' is here contrasted to the informal

'pop'. Fairclough(1989: 184) describes this process as 'simulated equalization' -
whereby the text producer appears on an 'equal footing with the reader
through choices of expressions readers may make themselves'.

45
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

The following extract is from a careers advice section of the women's lifestyle
magazine Marie Claire (2010). Here we find a different set of genre indicators:

Yes, it is still possible to scale the corporate ladder in spite of layoffs. Here, Bob
Calandra, co-author of How to Keep Your Job in a Tough Competitive Market, offers
advice for gingerly negotiating a title bump:

• Act like the boss. If your manager gets canned, set up a meeting with her super-
visor right away. Calandra's no-fail script: "I'm not looking to be promoted, but I
also recognize no one wants chaos. I know the ins and outs of my boss's job, so
feel free to tap me for any of her work while we're in this transitional phase." To
come off a hero, you can't appear as if you're expecting anything in return.
• Pollyanna gets the corner office. Be a relentless cheerleader for the company,
even if it means irking co-workers. Your manager is bound to pick up on your posi-
tive outlook and use you as a model.
• Mind your alliances. If watercooler gossip reveals your cubemate is on manage-
ment's hit list, publicly align yourself with the office hotshot, even if it makes you
feel like Tracy Flick. Appearances matter - and you can always commiserate with
your axed colleague over cocktails later (your treat).

In this text too we find the conversational genre which can be seen from the
extensive use of personal pronouns: 'your', 'you' and 'I'. This is one device
which creates a sense of dialogue between equals. We also find this in terms
of lexical choices as in 'If your manager gets canned', and 'negotiate a title
bump' and 'tap me for any of her work'. Machin and van Leeuwen (2005)
point out the way that lifestyle magazines often use a lexis of 'street' vocabu-
lary by using a sprinkling of the latest slang expressions used by the young
and trendy. This is an important aspect of lifestyle as both the goods the
magazines sell and the identities and values that are aligned with them must
always appear to be up to date. Much of this is accomplished through market-
ing and focus groups.
In this text we also find the inclusion of fictional genres. 'Tracy Flick' and
'Pollyanna' are from a movie and a children's story. Both are assertive and
ambitious, although they feel the weight of this from others. But importantly
both are slightly comical and the tales are lightweight. The text is able to draw
on these references for their connotations of playfulness. And particularly
'Tracy Flick' is played by Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon.
Alongside the conversational and street styles we also find the style of the
expert. The key characteristics of this are the use of a more formal vocabulary
often with more technical terms, such as 'competitive market', 'corporate lad-
der', 'this transitional phase', 'positive outlook' and 'publicly align yourself'.
In our 'lifestyle society', authority depends not so much on tradition and
established professionals but on role models and the 'expert'. Here we see

46
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

the expert using lots of directives: 'set up a meeting with her supervisor',
'Be a relentless cheerleader for the company', 'publicly align yourself with
the office hotshot'. Directives are where sentences start with a verb to give
a command. These are from what we would call the imperative mood in
language.
The indicative mood simply states something. An example would be 'The
book is on the table'. The interrogative mood, which is used for seeking infor-
mation, would be Where is the book?' So the advice about publicaly aligning
with the office hotshot could have been conveyed through the indicative mood
also: 'It is a good idea to align yourself with the office hotshot'. Or it could be
done through the interrogative: Why not try aligning yourself with the office
hotshot?' The point is that the magazine positions itself as a voice of expertise
through the use of imperatives. In fact, as Machin and van Leeuwen (2005)
point out, across different kinds of content in these magazines, whether fea-
tures, advice or advertising, we find an overlexicalisation of imperative verb
forms. In part, this brings a sense of energy and forthrightness and above all
confidence and authority.
What is also notable about the Marie Claire text is what is suppressed. 'Be a
relentless cheerleader for the company' is an abstraction. What it specifically
means is not explained; nor is it clear from the text. Likewise we are not told
what actual role the woman has in this text, nor the nature of her company,
apart from the fact that it is an 'office'. This means that the text addresses all
kinds of workers as being able to play this strategic game.
Notably, women in these lifestyle magazines do not work in factories,
shops or kitchens, nor are they on casual contracts. Nor does the text
explain any of the characteristics of the woman herself. Getting on at work
has nothing to do with personal characteristics, educational qualifications
or connections. What these kinds of texts clearly do not deal with are real
social and personal issues. Their role is simply to signify a discourse where
women can be in control of themselves and be fashionable through the way
they dress and speak.

Criticallyanalysingtexts that reflectour

own ideology
What can be most difficult in carrying out Critical Discourse Analysis is the
critical analysis of texts that we agree with, which are in accord with our own
ideological viewpoint. The following text from the British newspaper The
Guardian is critical of government funding cuts in the university sector. The
authors' views align with that of the text. In such a case the lexical choices
can tend to appear as neutral to the analyst. But a closer look at these choices
nevertheless helps us to reveal the way the author selects from a range of pos-
sible language choices to represent the situation.

47
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare to cope with cuts

(The Guardian,7 February 2010)
Universities across the country are preparing to axe thousands of teach-
ing jobs, close campuses and ditch courses to cope with government
funding cuts, the Guardian has learned.
Other plans include using post-graduates rather than professors for
teaching and the delay of major building projects. The proposals have
already provoked ballots for industrial action at a number of universi-
ties in the past week raising fears of strike action which could severely
disrupt lectures and examinations.
The Guardian spoke to vice-chancellors and other senior staff at 25 uni-
versities, some of whom condemned the funding squeeze as "painful"
and "insidious". They warned that UK universities were being pushed
towards becoming US-style, quasi-privatized institutions.
The cuts are being put in place to cope with the announcement last
week by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) that
£449m - equivalent to more than a 5% reduction nationally - would be
stripped out of university budgets.
The University and College Union (UCU)believes that more than 15,000
posts - the majority academic - could disappear in the next few years.
Precise funding figures for each university will be released on 18 March.
The chairman of the Russell Group of elite institutions, Professor
Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of Leeds University, warned that budg-
ets would be further slashed by 6% in each of the next three years. Last
month he described the cuts as "devastating''.

To begin with, the author of this text has chosen words that connote ruthless-
ness to describe the instigation of the cuts, using 'axe' and 'ditch'. This could
have been written in a more neutral language such as: 'Universities will have
to reduce teaching posts' or as 'Universities will need to operate more effi-
ciently and balance staff-student ratios'.
The lexicalchoices used to describe the financial changes describe universities
being 'stripped' and budgets being 'slashed'. Such terms do not sound like they
are the result of measured activity,but suggest violence and lack of reasonable
measure. Again,more moderate terms such as 'reduced'could have been used.
We are told there are plans for the 'delay of major building projects'. Yet
what constitutes 'major' projects is not explained and nor is the extent of the
delay. These might appear as minor details but as van Leeuwen and Wodak
(1999) explain, where actual facts and processes are replaced by abstractions
and generalisations, this is a sign that there is ideological work being done.
The proposals themselves are described as 'provoking' and 'raising fears'
and 'severely disrupt'. Again this could have been written: 'The proposals have
been followed by ballots which may result in strike action'. The word 'provoke',

48
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

of course, suggests conflict. Clearly, opposition to the action is favoured by the

author. The text states that the proposals are 'raising fears of strike action'.
However, who has these fears is not stated. Fairlough (2003: 136) argues that
where participants are excluded from a text we need to ask why.
We can also see here that the author of the text has chosen to include quotes
from whatlooks like more than 2 5 sources in the form of two single words 'pain-
ful' and 'insidious'. How are we to take such quotes? Such disembodied words
tell us little of the context in which they were used. The author also states 'some
of whom condemned the funding squeeze'. Yet the term 'funding squeeze' does
not appear in quotation marks so it is again a lexical choice made by the author.
Finally, we find the word 'warned' appears twice in the text to account for
the opinions of the interviewees. The author could have used more neutral
terms, such as 'said' or 'commented'.We look in more detail at these 'verbs of
saying' in the next chapter. But here it is clear that such lexical choices indi-
cate the ideological work done in the text and the clear stance of the author.

Visualsemioticchoices
The texts we come across often communicate not only through word choices but
also through non-linguistic features and elements. Even this very text you are
now reading, which contains no image as such, communicates partly through
choice of font type, colour of font, line spacing and alignment of text. Would it be
read differently were it written in a comic font using a broad palette of colours,
or were it printed on parchment paper? Here we want to think specifically about
the images that accompany some of the texts we have been analysing so far.
In the last chapter we looked at the image from Cosmopolitanmagazine of
the woman leading against a desk. We thought more broadly about the way
it communicated. Here we show how we can analyse this and images like it
much more systematically by asking a sequence of specific questions. We
then return to a number of the texts analysed in this chapter looking at the
way the images contribute to meaning making.

Iconography
We begin with the widely known semiotic theory of Roland Barthes (1973,
1977) and his account of how images can denote and connote. But here the
emphasis normally given to the two levels of analysis is switched.
On one level, images can be said to document. In other words, they show partic-
ular events, particularpeople, places and things. Or in semiotic terminology, they
denote.So asking what an image denotes is asking: Who and/ or what is depicted
here? So a picture of a house denotes a house. In the case of the photograph from
Cosmopolitanwe could say that it denotes a woman, a desk and a computer.
Other images will still depict particular people, places, things and events,
but 'denotation' is not their primary or only purpose. They depict concrete

49
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

people, places, things and events to get general or abstract ideas across. They
use them to connote ideas and concepts. So asking what an image connotes is
asking: What ideas and values are communicated through what is represented,
and through the way in which it is represented? Or, from the point of view of
the image maker: How do I get general or abstract ideas across? How do I get
across what events, places and things mean?What concrete signifier can I use
to get a particular abstract idea across? We can see how this is relevant in the
case of the Cosmopolitanphotograph. The image has been chosen as it con-
notes certain kinds of identities and practices. While it denotes a women and a
desk, these are not an ordinary, everyday women and desk Rather, the image
communicates a particular set of values about glamour, excitement and wom-
en's identities. So for any image we can ask what discourse is communicated
that includes kinds of persons, attitudes, values and actions.
Of course we could argue that there is no neutral denotation, and that all
images connote something for us. For example, an image of a large house can
connote wealth and excess. But considering what is denoted, arguably, is what
is often undervalued in semiotic analysis. Students often look at an advertise-
ment for a car, for example, and immediately speak of what is connoted in
terms of 'energy', 'style' and 'modernity'. But here they are jumping a step.
They are saying what is connoted but not exactly how it is connoted. When we
listen to a political speech we might be aware that the speaker has managed
to give a particular spin on a set of events, but it may take the kind of language
analysis done throughout this book, which emphasises careful attention to
the detail of the way that language is used, to show exactly how they have
done this. This is why we need to be attentive to denotation.
So in the case of the Cosmopolitan image we need to describe the desk
carefully, that it is very clean and shiny with polished surfaces. We need to
describe what clothes the woman is wearing, what is placed on her desk and
what kind of wider setting we find. In this case, there is very little in the image
in terms of objects. What we would need to ask here is: What is the meaning
of all this space in a setting that would in normal life be characterised by lots
of items related to work activities, such as files, papers, pens and pencils, per-
sonal photographs, drinking mugs, etc.? We will think more about this shortly.
There are a few other points of relation between denotation and connota-
tion that we also need to make. Again, the importance of these will become
clearer shortly. First, the more abstract the image, the more overt and fore-
grounded its connotative communicative purpose. In the Cosmopolitanimage
we can see that the high key lighting has the effect of making the scene appear
slightly fuzzy or softened. This means that there is reduced likelihood that
this image was intended to show us something about a particular place at
a particular time, but rather that it has a symbolic value. We will be dealing
more with how we assess levels of abstraction in images in Chapter 8.
Secondly, whether the communicative purpose of an image is primarily
denotative or connotative depends to some extent on the context in which the
image is used. An image of a mother and child in a war-torn street could be
used to denote the experiences of these particular people in a news report

50
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

In another news report, the same image could be used to symbolise suffering
through war in general, where motherhood and childhood signify innocence.
Thirdly, what an image connotes may, in some contexts, be a matter of free
association. But where image makers need to get a specific idea across, they will
rely on established connotators,carriers of connotations, which they feel con-
fident their target audiences will understand (whether consciously or not). In
Cosmopolitan,where it is advertising revenue that is at stake, a range of estab-
lished connotators will be used to signify women as having a life that is fun and
glamorous and certainly not bound by the tedium of domestic life. But these
connotators must allow a fit with consumer activities. So we would not find con-
notators of discourses where women found agency outside consumer society.
While the concept of connotation is one we use in our analysis, we also use
the term 'meaning potential'. In language we have a range of communicative
resources that we can use in contexts to communicate. For example, we might
choose one word over another. We therefore have a range of choices that we can
use to create particular meanings. However,these meanings can change depend-
ing on the context in which they are used. For example, if we put the words 'You
must' at the start of sentence in place of 'Can you', it changes the meaning of the
sentence from imperative to interrogative - in other words, a demand rather
than a question. The words that follow therefore are part of a different meaning.
So words have meaning potential that can be realised in different contexts and
which is sensitive to that context Visual semiotic resources also have the poten-
tial to mean that is realised in specific contexts. The term 'meaning potential' has
the advantage over 'connote' as it suggests not something fixed, but a possibility,
and it encourages us to consider specifically how any visual element or feature
is connected to and used with other visual elements, which may serve to modify
its meaning. Why this is important will become increasingly clear.
Barthes listed a number of important connotators of meaning: poses, objects
and settings. We will look at objects and settings here, leaving the meaning of
poses for the next chapter. We will be discussing in much more detail how to
analyse the representation of people themselves in Chapter 4.

Attributes
Here we are concerned with the ideas and values communicated by objects
and how they are represented. What discourses do they communicate? When
carrying out analysis of objects, the meaning of every object should be consid-
ered. In the Cosmopolitanimage, for example, there are a number of objects,
such as the computer, the clean empty desk, the handbag under the table. We
can also turn our attention to the woman's clothing, such as the high-heeled
shoes, the scarf around her neck, her hair and other clothing.
Images like the one just described are typical of Cosmopolitan,with an
emphasis on clingy fabrics, loose lavish hair, high heels and heavy lipstick. At the
heart of Cosmopolitan'sbrand, of its representation of women in non-domestic

51
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

settings, is glamour and seductiveness through traditional female attributes.

The scarf flying loose around the woman's neck would in many ways be
impractical, unless looking glamorous was high on the agenda. The placing of
the handbag in a prominent place in the image draws our attention to accesso-
ries and high fashion. As a rule, the women in Cosmopolitanimages are model-
beautiful. Their sexy clothes draw on traditional notions of female sexuality and
male desire: short skirts, revealing tops, high heels, shiny red, sensuous lipstick.
Women's sexuality is the source of their power over men and appears to be
linked to their success in the workplace. Much of this is never explicitly men-
tioned in the magazine texts, but it is signalled clearly enough in the images,
through the things the women are doing and the interactions they engage in.
The computer is also important in that it is a PC computer. Often women
are shown with laptop computers which suggest mobility and independence.
This computer suggests work where the woman is tied to the desk. But most
remarkable in the image is the lack of everyday objects that can be found in
work environments. We discuss this under the next heading.
In the Marie Claire photograph, accompanying the text regarding work
previously discussed in the chapter, we find a woman holding a notebook or
agenda and a pen, whose clothing is less glamorous and informal and per-
haps 'creative', complete with hippy beads. This suggests a kind of work
which requires an agenda or somewhere to write down ideas, therefore
suggesting a kind of job that does not have a daily,repeating routine. The clothes
too suggest no formal regimentation, as might be characteristic of a faceless
bureaucratic job, but someone who can choose their own clothing, importantly,
someone who has the power to do so. While the text communicates a cynical
self-interest by using trendy language and confident directives along with tech-
nical business terms, the image appears much softer, creative and pleasant

Settings
We can also look at the way that settings are used to communicate general
ideas, to connote discourses and their values, identities and actions. In the
Cosmopolitan photograph, as in the Marie Claire photograph, the settings
only hint at office work, where only a few attributes stand for work in an
abstracted way. In the Cosmopolitanimage the woman is not really using the
computer. There is no evidence of any activity at all in fact. The emptiness
of the setting suggests the luxury of space, as is often found in corporate
entrance halls. We could imagine the opposite effect, were it made to look
like she was in a very small cluttered space. In the Marie Claire image too
there is clearly a luxury of space with very large windows and a high ceiling.
Important in both of these photographs is the use of high key lighting, which
suggests optimism. In both of these photographs the setting serves to sym-
bolise work rather than documenting it. What is signified is glamour, modern-
ism, optimism, creativity and excitement. In the Cosmopolitantext, the topic
was doing exercise in the workplace. In Marie Claire,it was the cynical getting

52
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

ahead while your colleagues are losing their jobs. In both cases, photographs
of real women in real work settings would have made the texts appear very
odd and may have revealed their silliness. But these symbolic images load the
texts with the above values and therefore allow them to signify discourses of
women's agency. These abstracted settings are one way that these women's
lifestyle magazines create a fantasy world through the use of symbolic images,
which allow a particular kind of agency that is suffused with women's ability
to seduce and the glamour of fashion, and to signify power. For the producers
of Cosmopolitan,a 'brand' is a set of representations and values that are not
indissolubly tied to a specific product.
What Cosmopolitansells to its readers are not magazines, but connotators
of independence, power and fun. In sum, these representations of women
are not realistic, an aspect which some critics of women's magazines have
pointed out. Women's lives are presented as playful fantasies. Thus, the herit-
age of 1960s' feminism, with the idea of the woman as independent from the
domestic situation, as fully able to enjoy her own sexuality, has become to
some extent intertwined with consumerism (Irigaray, 1985).
Below we see the homepage from where the text analysed earlier in the
chapter for the vision the Heart of England Health Trust was taken. We com-
pare this with the homepage from the North Glamorgan Trust to draw out the
particular choices used. What is important here is to think about what is being
foregrounded and what backgrounded, as this terrain is mapped out for us
visually.
Earlier we described the way that in terms of language choices the Trust
represented itself and its aims through abstractions: 'Cherishing', 'Excellence'
'Finding a Way, 'Innovation for Advancement', Working Together'. We consid-
ered the way that this was part of the empty corporate business language that
has come to dominate public institutions and backgrounds actual concrete mat-
ters about facilities, staffing and treatment. Looking below and comparing the
two Trust homepages in terms of the visual semiotic choices, we can see that
the Glamorgan page contains real settings with its photographs of actual hos-
pitals, whereas North Glamorgan itself appears to be represented in the banner
bar through a cartoon of countryside which links with a graphic of a heart-rate
monitor.
Somewhat like the Cosmopolitanimage described above, this serves to ide-
alise North Glamorgan. In contrast, the Heart of England homepage displays
settings only in terms of abstracted spaces like those found in Cosmopolitan.
The iconography that connotes medicine is the stethoscope around the neck
of the man at the front of the image in the banner. Also important in the image
is the headset worn by the woman to the right of the image. This is to signify
'communication', presumably part of the mission value of 'Cherishing' and
Working Together'.
What is important in this image is the gaze of the participants. Three of
them engage with the viewer, smiling warmly and striking relaxed poses. The
woman with the headset looks off into the distance thoughtfully, presumably
engaged in friendly chatter with a person requiring treatment.

53
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

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Figure 4 Heart of England Health Trust homepage

Just as the language serves to conceal the changes through a vibrant lexis, so
visually we find semiotic choices not to document practices but to symbolise
'communication' and 'caring'. More will be said about these two homepages
across the following chapters.

Salience
Salience is where certain features in compositions are made to stand out, to
draw our attention to foreground certain meanings. Such features will have
the central symbolic value in the composition. There are a number of ways
that salience can be achieved in images. We list these below. But we must be
aware that different principles of salience may be more or less important in
each composition and that they will work together in different ways often to
create hierarchies of salience.

• Potent cultural symbols: Certain elements carry much cultural symbolism.

It is a good idea to scan the composition for such elements. In the
Health Trust image above it is important that we see the stethoscope
to signify medical practice, but also the clear importance of the woman
communicating and the fact that everyone is smiling. If we had a broken
leg, would we care if everyone was smiling or would we want them to
simply treat us? And quite simply, the Heart of England page includes only
people and not settings, as does the Glamorgan page.
• Size: This can be used to indicate ranking of importance, ranging from the
largest to the smallest. On the Heart of England page we can see that the
doctor is slightly larger than the other employees, although only slightly

54
 Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images

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Figure 5 North Glamorgan Health Trust homepage

so. He is therefore the most important but in other ways only part of the
'team', of the 'we' who speak through the language as 'having values' and as
'cherishing you'. In contrast on the North Glamorgan page, it is the hospitals
themselves that are given salience in terms of size. We might view this as
being more indicative of a discourse from a former era where there is some
remaining attempt to document actual services rather than signify 'values'.
• Colour: This can simply be the use of striking colours, rich saturated
colours or contrasts. Less salient elements may have more muted or less
saturated colours. We can see the use of richer colours for salience on the
North Essex Health Trust webpage on page 99 in Chapter 4. The warmth
of the faces of the two people stands out against the colder blue and white.
Without these, this page would look very barren. Here salience is given to
the pleasure brought to the service users. Again the emphasis is on her
being pleased not with treatment, but with the broader way was she dealt
with in terms of communication.
• Tone: This can simply be the use of brightness to attract the eye.
Advertisers often use brighter tones on products themselves to make
them shine. On the North Essex web page we can see that the faces of the
two people are glowing with highlights. This helps them to literally shine
off the page.
• Focus: In compositions different levels of focus can be used to give salience
to an element It can be heightened to exaggerate details, or focus can be
reduced. In the Helmand province story earlier in this chapter, we find the
soldier in the foreground is in focus, whereas the civilian fades into the
setting. He serves only to foreground the experience of the soldier. At this
point in this conflict there was considerable effort to gain public support
for the presence of the troops, not by explaining the reasons for the war,
but by stressing how brave and dedicated they were.

55
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

• Foregrounding: Simply, foregrounding creates importance. Elements

that are further back may become subordinate. In the photograph
accompanying the Helmand province story, the British soldier is given
greater salience due to foregrounding. We could imagine the difference if
the civilian in the background were brought to the front. This would have
made the story more about the civilian experience when, as it stands, it is
about 'our boys' as heroes. In the Marie Claireimage, we find the woman
herself considerably foregrounded in close shot. This serves to foreground
her individual experiences and diminish the context and setting. We can
imagine the difference here had her colleagues, who were to lose their
jobs, also been present in the image, or even if we were simply to have
a fuller view of the workplace itself. In this case, the consequences of
the actions recommended in the text would have been brought to the
foreground rather than being suppressed.
• Overlapping:This is like foregrounding since it has the effect of placing
elements in front of others. This gives the impression that the element is
in front of others. On the Heart of England webpage, we find the doctor
overlaps the other social actors. But at the next level we find the nurse
and the telephone operator at the same level. Care and customer service
through 'communication' here appear to be ranked at the same level.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have begun to look at the way we can more systematically
analyse some of the basic semiotic choices found in texts both linguistically
and visually in ways that allow us to draw out the broader discourses being
communicated and hence to reveal the ideology communicated. Basic choices
in words and iconography can be used to create a field of meaning. This can
serve to both foreground and background, or even suppress, some mean-
ings or to connote and symbolise others. This mapping proves an ideologi-
cal interpretation of events and social practices, which imply identities and
actions even if not overtly stated.
What we have shown is that much of this meaning lies at the implicit level.
It is only through attention to linguistic and visual detail that we can reveal
just what these implicit meanings are. We saw that we can look for the kinds
of oppositions that texts set up and the importance of looking for words that
are overused. We also found that there can be important differences between
what is communicated through words and through visual elements. What fol-
lows in the remaining chapters are ways to breakdown the analysis of word
and visual semiotic choices into more specific categories.

56
 3
Presenting Speech and
Speakers: Quoting Verbs

Introduction
Whereas in the previous chapter we dealt with a broader lexical content anal-
ysis, in this chapter and those that follow we begin to provide tools for the
analysis of more specific language and grammatical and visual features. Our
first step is to look into the importance of carefully describing and analysing
the way people are represented as speaking both in language and images.
Here we find some important language and visual resources for evaluating
social actors, for signifying broader discourses, ideas and values that are not
overtly articulated. We begin with the representation in language and then in
the second half of the chapter move on to visual representations, looking at
gaze and interaction, and poses.

Quotingverbs
In both texts and in speech it is extremely revealing if we look closely at the
words chosen to represent how someone has spoken. For example, you are
having a conversation with Jane, who says:

My house mates simply don't do enough cleaning.

You then report this conversation to someone else. You might quote Jane
exactly. But you will also have to choose a word to express that it is something
she said. So you might say simply:

Jane said. 'My house mates simply don't do enough cleaning.'

Or you could say

Jane whinged. 'My house mates simply don't do enough cleaning.'

 A Critical Discourse Analysis

The first case, using 'said', sounds much more neutral. But in the second case,
the word 'whinged' creates much more of an impression on the person you
are telling this to as to the mood, attitude or even character ofJane, and there-
fore to the credibility of her comments. Such choices of quoting verbs can, in
this way, lead you to make evaluations of the situation she explains, on the
likelihood of it being true or whether we may more easily dismiss the com-
plaint as just more of Jane's whinging nature.
This section deals with the way that these simple word choices, describing
how someone has spoken, can have a considerable impact on the way that
authors can shape perceptions of events. In the above case, both sentences
simply state what Jane has said. Neither passes any judgement on what Jane
said explicitly,whether it is true, exaggerated or otherwise. But quoting verbs
can be used to provide such information implicitly (Austin, 1975; Caldas
Coulthard, 1994; Fairclough, 1995a).
Consider the difference between the following two sentences:

The management announced that striking workers would be punished.

The workers grumbled about problems with conditions.

In the first sentence the management 'announced', while in the second the
workers 'grumbled'. In this case, there may well have been nothing inherent
in how each group spoke that warranted these word choices. The word 'said'
could have served in both cases. So

The management said that striking workers would be punished.

The workers said there were problems with conditions.

In this case, what is said is not evaluated. But in the case where 'announced'
and 'grumbled' are used we are encouraged to make particular interpreta-
tions of the events. Those who 'announce' things appear to have power and
legitimacy. Those who 'grumble' appear to have much less of both. This can be
brought out ifwe reverse the two.

The management grumbled that striking workers would be punished.

The workers announced there were problems with conditions.

Here it now appears that it is the management who are unreasonable and
that the workers have a legitimate complaint that is not so much about their
character but about the actual conditions in which they work. This is not
stated overtly but is communicated through the connotative value of the
quoting verb choices. In each case we can see how these choices communi-
cate entire discourses. In the first place, where the management 'announce'
and the workers 'grumble', we find a whole set of identities, 'scripts' and val-
ues are signified. We have a rational, organised management concerned
with productivity and the well-being of the factory. In contrast, we have the

58
 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

selfish, much less well-organised rabble of the grumbling workers who may
harm productivity.
Caldas Coulthard (1994: 305-6) offers a systematic breakdown of verbs
of saying that allows us to direct our attention more precisely to the implicit
evaluation and connotation that is taking place through their use. These are
shown in Table 2.
What is important is that through analysis we are able to draw out more
precisely just what is connoted through the use of each kind of quoting verb.
Below we expand on what we view as the more salient parts of the table:

• Neutral structuring verbs introduce a saying without evaluating it

explicitly (e.g. say, tell, ask). So if I report that Jane said 'My house mates
simply don't do enough cleaning', this does not carry any particular
guidance as to how we should think about this statement and about Jane
herself. But often in language speakers who are represented as only using
these kinds of speaking verbs can appear as disengaged or even less
personalised. And as we consider in later chapters on representational
strategies and transitivity, it may be important for authors to bring
readers/listeners closer or further away from the thoughts and feelings of
certain social actors. One way to do this is to elaborate on their thoughts
and feelings or their internal mental state. So if we say that someone 'cried'
and 'whispered', the reader is drawn to empathise with them much more
so than with a person who only 'said'.

Table 2 The meaning potentials of quoting verbs (from Caldas Coulthard, 1994)
Speech-reporting verbs
Neutral structuring verbs say, tell, ask, enquire, reply, answer

Metapropositional verbs Assertives remark, explain, agree, assent, accept,

correct, counter, announce
Directives urge, instruct, order
Expressives accuse, grumble, lament, confess,
complain, swear, claim
Metalinguistic verbs narrate, quote, recount
Descriptive verbs
Prosodic (loudness, cry, intone, shout, yell, scream
pitch emotion)
Voice qualifier (manner) whisper, murmur, mutter

Paralinguistic Voice qualification laugh, giggle, sigh, gasp, groan

(attitude)

Transcript verbs Relation to other parts repeat, echo, add, amend

of discourse

Discourse signalling Discourse progress pause, go on, hesitate, continue

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

• Metapropositional verbs mark the author's interpretation of a speaker.

For example: 'declare', 'urge' and 'grumble' are assertive, directive and
expressive respectively. We saw this where the management were
described as having 'announced', which is assertive. We can see the
difference here ifwe said Jane declared, 'My house mates simply don't do
enough cleaning'. This immediately appears much more likely to be a true
report on events than were Jane to be depicted as 'complaining'. It also
makes her appear as more assertive than a person who whinged.
• Metalinguistic verbs are where the kind of language used by a speaker is
specified. For example, if a speaker said: 'it was really hard living with all
those messy people' Jane narrated. Here this may be used for ironic effect
On the other hand, were this switched to 'Jane recounted' there is a greater
sense of her simply reporting on what happened.
• Descriptive verbs categorise the interaction. For example: 'whisper' and
'laugh' mark the manner and attitude of a speaker in relation to what is
being said. So if Jane whispered, 'My house mates simply don't do enough
cleaning', the audience is directed more to how she said this. Of course, this
too signifies attitudes, power relations and likelihood of truth. In this case,
whispering would suggest lack of power in that she did not feel able to
speak out. If workers 'whispered' that there were problems with working
conditions, this would indicate something of the predicament in which
they found themselves in relation to the management, for example, that
anyone heard publically might not have their contract renewed.
• Transcript verbs mark the development of the discourse (e.g. repeat)
or relate the quotation to other parts of the discourse (e.g. pause). So we
might find 'Jane added, they are all quite lazy to say the least'. Press releases
might present the person or persons they are promoting as 'he added' or
'continued' to give an impression of them offering more information when
in fact it may be the same point

All of these different verbs of saying can be used to make certain participants
appear more authoritative or subservient, legitimate or non-legitimate. They
can help define the roles of sets of participants or events even though these
might not be explicitly stated. In the example above, 'announcing' sounds
more official, formal, and is the stuff of official groups. 'Grumblings' are not
necessarily well formulated, they are not coherent and therefore indicate not
being official and suggest a lack of power.
Quoting verbs can also direct us to consider some participants as having
a negative attitude and others as being friendly, or they can suggest levels of
moderation, such as where a person is represented as 'remarking' as opposed
to prosodic descriptive verb such as 'yelling'. We can see this effect in the fol-
lowing two sentences

Minority community leaders shouted that they have suffered increased

levels of abuse.

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

Minority community leaders remarked thatthey have suffered increased

levels of abuse.

In the second case, the leaders appear moderate, in control and official
through the use of a neutral structuring verb of 'saying'. In the first sentence,
however, the use of the prosodic descriptive verb 'shouted' makes them
appear emotional and perhaps threatening.
In the following example we see a different kind of representation cre-
ated through a different verb of saying related to levels of implicitly ascribed
reliability:

Minority community leaders claimed that they have suffered increased

levels of abuse.

Here we can see the effect of' claim',what Caldas Coulthard would describe as
a 'metapropositional expressive'. Claims are not factual but can be contested
and the use of this word invites doubt The word 'felt' would have a similar
meaning. In the following case we can see how the use of the word 'explain'
changes the meaning to decrease uncertainty:

Minority community leaders explained thatthey have suffered increased

levels of abuse.

In this case, the minority leaders appear to be telling us facts rather that sim-
ply their opinions, although this is not overtly stated.
By turning our attention to some concrete examples of how verbs of say-
ing are used in actual texts, we can develop our sense of how they have been
used in different ways to influence the way a reader will interpret events and
persons.

Casestudy1: Quotingverbsand implicitly

impliedguilt
The first example is a report in the British newspaper The Daily Mail (29 January
2010) on the enquiry into the British government's decision to participate in the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, where former British Prime Minister, and New Labour leader,
Tony Blair is questioned. The Daily Mail is traditionally hostile to New Labour, so the
attitude taken in the text is not surprising. However, what CDA helps us to show is
exactly how texts communicate their ideologies in ways that are not necessarily overt.
And in this case, as we shall see, quoting verbs play a big role in the evaluation of
social actors and the reliability of what they say. The quoting verbs are underlined.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

'You're a liar and murderer' : Blair booed after telling Iraq inquiry he has no regrets

Figure 6 Tony Blair defends himself (The Daily Mail, 29 January 2010)

No regrets: Tony Blalr said Britain would ultimately be able to look back on
the Iraq War with 'Immense pride'
Tony Blair was heckled today as he refused to express any regret for the Iraq
war and insisted Britain would ultimately be able to look back on the conflict with
'immense pride '. There were cries of consternation from witnesses watching the
official inquiry into the conflict as the former prime minister rejected the chance
to note his sorrow at the loss of British lives. Chairman Sir John Chilcot had to
tell audience members to be quiet during Mr Blair's closing comments , in which
he insisted he stood by his actions in the run-up to the 2003 war, despite the 179
British troops killed in the conflict. 'It was divisive and I'm sorry about that ,' he
conceded but continued : 'If I'm asked whether I believe we're safer, more secure
with Saddam and his sons out of power, I believe that we are .'Asked if he had any

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

regrets at all, he replied: 'Responsibility but not a regret,' prompting the audience
to erupt and cry: 'What, no regrets? Come on'. When the cameras cut off and Mr
Blair readied to leave, he was booed and one audience member shouted 'you're
a liar' before another chimed in 'and a murderer'.

In this article, we find 13 cases of quoting verbs in this short text. These are: 'heckled',
'refused to express', 'insisted' (twice), 'cries', 'rejected', 'tell', 'commented', 'replied',
'erupt and cry', 'booed,' 'shouted' and 'chimed'. Only one of these, 'replied', is a neutral
structuring verb. It is clear, therefore, that the writers of this piece are seeking to shape
how we are to interpret this particular set of events and its participants, especially
Tony Blair. In the text there are three participants: Tony Blair, the audience, and the
Chair. We can create a table to show which verbs of saying are used to describe the
comments of each:

Table 3 Quoting verbs for 'No regrets' article

Blair Crowd Chair
Refused to express Heckled Tell
Rejected Cries
Insisted Erupt
Conceded Cry
Continued Booed
Replied Shouted
Chimed

What we find is that Blair's comments are represented for the most part through
metapropositional verbs such as 'refused to express', 'rejected', 'insisted' and
'conceded'. All these clearly mark the author's interpretation of the speaker, i.e. Tony
Blair. In all these cases he is represented as a man who is being defensive. We can
see this in the following sentence:

He refused to express any regret for the Iraq war and insisted Britain would ulti-
mately be able to look back on the conflict with 'immense pride'.

We can draw out the way that these choices of quoting verb create meaning by
showing the way different choices could have been made, as in:

He explained that he did not feel any regret for the Iraq war and suggested that
Britain would ultimately be able to look back on the conflict with 'immense pride'.

In the text, the fact that he 'refused to express' suggests that he should, in the opinion
of the writers, express regret. Where we have substituted the quoting verb 'explain'
above, he sounds much more comfortable with what he is saying. It is common in
news reporting to use 'refused to comment', or 'refused to express' as an indication of

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

avoidance and therefore something to hide or of plain guilt. Journalists can use this
strategy to avoid having to overtly claim that there is guilt, which could place them in
a difficult legal situation.
Where the text uses 'insisted', in the following sentence we are given an impression
of lack of confidence, of a man who lacks credibility:

Mr Blair's closing comments, in which he insisted he stood by his actions in the

run-up to the 2003 war, despite the 179 British troops killed in the conflict.

We can draw out the way that this quoting verb works in the following sentences:

The pool attendant instructed that we leave immediately.

The pool attendant insisted that we leave immediately.

In the first sentence, the attendant is represented as simply delivering instructions.

In the second, the insistence suggests that they might be ignored. It suggests a level
of persistence that would not be required of someone who was confident of having
authority and respect.
We can draw out this meaning a little more through a further example:

The librarian explained that the student must return the book immediately.

The librarian insisted that the student must return the book immediately.

In the first case, we can see that the librarian appears calm and authoritative. They
are simply explaining the rules to the student. Therefore the authority of the librarian
to make this demand is clear. In the second sentence, we can see that what the
librarian is doing appears much less authoritative and less confident. Throughout this
book we will be looking at many such subtle ways in which the power and authority of
social actors, or the lack thereof, can be communicated implicitly through language
and where power can be attributed where there in fact is none.
The use of the quoting verb 'conceded' is also important here, as we can see in the
following sentence:

'It was divisive and I'm sorry about that', he conceded.

Again, the verb 'explained' could have also have been used. But we can see the
importance of this choice in the following sentences:

The student conceded he had lost the library books.

The student explained he had lost the library books.

In the first sentence, it appears that the student was attempting at some point, or at
least had the intention of so doing, to deny losing the books. In the second sentence,

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

the student appears much more honest. From these examples we can see how
participants can be represented as untrustworthy simply through an accumulation of
quoting verbs that after all are purely the interpretation of the author. All utterances
can be accurately reported, as can sequences of events, but nevertheless the
ideological mark of the author can be simply worked into the story.
In contrast to the quoting verbs used for the utterances of Blair, we can see that
the Chair's utterance is represented with a neutral structuring verb 'tell'. Of course
such a term is not neutral in itself, as all choices used by an author are motivated,
but its use implies an utterance without emotion, which here serves to present the
Chair as neutral. It is often the case in such reports that the officials are represented
through neutral structuring verbs. Police representatives simply 'tell' or 'say' or use
metapropositional assertives such as 'explain' and 'announce'. In a text it is always
important to identify who is represented as neutral.
A range of prosodic descriptive verbs are used to describe the audience's negative
reaction towards Blair. 'Heckled', 'cries', 'chimed', 'shouted', 'erupt and cry' and 'booed'
are used to emphasise the considerable size and collective anger of the audience. Their
loudness is further emphasised by noting the chairman 'had to tell' them to be quiet.
Overall, this text is clearly intended to suggest that Blair's actions were not going
to be accepted or forgiven by the British public. Interestingly, in the news media at
the same time, there was little concrete information about what the war meant, why it
was fought and what the consequences were. All of these issues, as they did at the
time of the invasion, remained largely absent from public debate. This story clearly is
an attempt to use these events as one way to attack the former Prime Minister, rather
than to explain in concrete terms what went wrong.

Casestudy2: Quotingverbsand lackof agency

In this example we find the British Prime Minister at the time, New Labour leader Gordon
Brown, represented as having little power, where quoting verbs are one strategy by
which this is accomplished. Again, this text is from the newspaper The Daily Mail
(11 November 2009). This is an item dealing with an event where Gordon Brown (or
one of his advisers) had written to the mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan,
but misspelled his name. At the time this text appeared, many people were becoming
concerned about the very purpose of the conflict. No clear aims and objectives had ever
been offered by the government. In the news media a theme of supporting our brave
troops had emerged, which displaced any actual debate about the reasons for the war.
This text therefore shows that news media are often so focused on political figures and
political administration that they lose sight of actual events and contexts (Bennett, 2005).
(Continued)

65
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Gordon Brown: Under siege over letter to soldier's family, he speaks of his
own grief

Figure 7 Gordon Brown vulnerable ( The Daily Mail, 11 November 2009)

Gordon Brown spoke of his personal grief at losing a child as he responded to

criticism of his handwritten letter of condolence to a dead soldier's mother.

The Prime Minister suggested the awful experience of his daughter Jennifer Jane
dying at just ten days old meant he understood the pain of bereavement.

He had already apologized to the distraught mother of Grenadier Guard Jamie

Janes , 20, after she berated him for apparently misspelling her son's name and
other words in his note of sympathy

Yesterday he reiterated his sorrow for her loss and said: The last thing on my
mind was to cause any offence.'

A shaken-looking Mr Brown was forced to defend his treatment of the war dead -
and again try to explain the purpose of the Afghan mission - during his monthly
press conference .

He revealed he had asked for a full investigation into the circumstances of

Guardsman Janes's death . An inquest has not yet been held.

At the beginning of the article Brown is represented as simply having 'spoken' of his
own experience of losing a child, which through a neutral structuring verb represents
this as simply a transparent account. Following this we find that:

The Prime Minister suggested the awful experience of his daughter Jennifer Jane
dying at just ten days old meant he understood the pain of bereavement.

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

Here we find 'suggested', a metapropositional expressive, which appears here either

as a lack of conviction, confidence or a lack of forcefulness. He does not simply 'say',
or 'explain' that this allows him to understand, but 'suggests' this might be so. Here we
can ask if the author of the text wished to represent Brown as weak and powerless, a
man who was on the defensive rather than in control and decisive, or as a man who
was tentatively 'suggesting', rather than 'knowing' in order to sound respectful. In the
next line we are told:

Yesterday he reiterated his sorrow for her loss and said: 'The last thing on my
mind was to cause any offence.'

Here we find a discourse signalling quoting verb suggesting that he is repeating what
he has said before. Subtly this gives a sense of a man who is trapped in an ongoing
situation where people are not convinced. We can tease this meaning potential out
with the following examples:

He reiterated to his girlfriend that he had not in fact kissed her best friend at the party.

He explained to his girlfriend that he had not in fact kissed her best friend at the party.

In the first case, the boyfriend seems to be stuck in a situation where he is not
believed and where he is constantly justifying his behaviour. In the second, we get
a sense that this is more of a one-off situation and that he may be more in control.
As regards the representation of Brown as stuck in a situation, this would be one
important part of the way the opposition might want to represent him as bedevilled
with scandals and having generally lost his authority to govern the country.
In the next sentence we find:

Mr Brown was forced to defend his treatment of the war dead - and again try to
explain the purpose of the Afghan mission.

Here he does not simply 'explain' his treatment of the war dead but has to 'defend'
himself. Then he is represented as 'trying to explain' rather than simply 'explaining.
Here the neutral structuring verb is changed to a metapropositional expressive
through the use of 'try'. So it is implied either that he is not capable of explaining or
that it is unlikely that he has an explanation.
Finally, Brown 'reveals' that there will be an investigation. The verb 'reveal' here
could have been replaced, arguably, with the verb 'announce'. Officials who are
represented as having agency often 'announce', as we saw above in the examples
regarding workers and managers. But here the fact that he 'reveals' this information
suggests less agency. Those who reveal may have something to hide in the first place.
We can see this clearly in the following two sentences:

William revealed that he had a new girlfriend.

William announced that he had a new girlfriend.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

In the second case, we can see some of the meaning potential of 'revealed', that
it suggests that there had been some time when the fact was not announced, that it
may have been a secret.
An important feature overall of the quoting verbs found in this text is that Brown
is not actually initiating any of his speech himself. Rather he is having to 'respond',
'reiterate' and 'defend' himself from criticism he is facing. This is a politician on the
back foot, no longer leading confidently.
In summary, we can see that the Daily Mail newspaper uses this story not to inform
readers about the war, but simply as an opportunity to shape the reader's perception
of Brown the politician.

Casestudy3: Quotingverbsandemotionalintensity
In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a number of cartoons that
were critical of Islamic extremism and the challenge to free speech. Some of these
satirised the prophet Mohammed. After Muslim clerics from Denmark travelled abroad
and communicated about these, there was much anger among certain Muslims who
felt that it was blasphemous to represent Mohammed in this way. The Western news
media reported on the angry protests by these people, many burning Danish flags
and demanding the newspaper should be closed down. At this time in the Western
news media the representation of Muslims had become largely dominated by negative
coverage with links to various kinds of extremism (Poole and Richardson, 2006).
The following text is one such report from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph
(7 February 2006). We can clearly see that quoting verbs are used as one important
tool in the way the events are represented.

How clerlcs spread hatred over cartoons

David Rennie

As world leaders pleaded for calm in the Mohammed cartoon row yesterday, the
Danish Muslim leaders who set the crisis in motion insisted that they had been
trying to promote a "dialogue of civilizations".

They also angrily denied allegations from moderate Muslims and European intel-
ligence services that hidden "masterminds" triggered the sudden explosion of
protests, a full four months after 12 cartoons of the Prophet were first published
in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Ahmed Abu Laban is the most prominent of a group of Danish imams and activ-
ists who toured the Middle East late last year, seeking to "internationalize" their
campaign of protest at the cartoons, after deciding their complaints were falling
on deaf ears back home.

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

Speaking from his office at the Waqfs mosque in Copenhagen, Mr Abu Laban
said that the sudden explosion of anger at the end of last month was due to the
rapid success of a "grass-roots" consumer boycott against Danish dairy goods
and other exports.

Mr Abu Laban, a 60-year-old imam of Palestinian origin, also credited the hard-
line "Salafist'' television stations based in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, such as al-Majd and lqra, with a "big influence" in fomenting the trade
boycott. [ ... ]

He denied claims from European intelligence and security sources that the
Muslim Brotherhood, an lslamist opposition group banned in Egypt and other
Arab nations, had worked hard to whip up Muslim anger over the Danish
cartoons.

At the start of the item we find that world leaders 'pleaded' for calm. They do not
simply 'ask' for calm, which would have suggested something much more moderate
than 'plead'. This provides a sense that the situation must be out of control. It also
suggests that the leaders are not themselves in control. If we plead with people, then
they have become almost unable to be reasoned with.
In the next line we find that they, the Muslim leaders, 'insisted that they had been
trying to promote a "dialogue of civilizations"'. Here we find the use of 'insist', which
appears to throw some doubt on what they say. We can see the difference if we
replaced this with the quoting verb 'said'. 'Insist' also gives a sense of emotional
involvement. This appears to be important in the way that the events are being
framed.
This emotional temperature is continued in the next sentence, where we find that
the Muslim leaders 'angrily denied allegations from moderate Muslims and European
intelligence services'. This could have been written 'they have "rejected" allegations'.
'Denial' here, as we have seen in previous examples, again can hint at the possibility
of guilt, and the use of 'angry' adds to the lack of measure in tone.
We then find the neutral structuring verb 'said' for the next section, which
communicates a sense of a more official and neutral role as regards Ahmed Abu
Laban. We are told at the same time that he speaks from his office. It is important for
news media reporting that sources appear to be official and legitimate, even if at the
same time they are being represented as corrupt or extreme.
In the next line we find the use of the verb 'credited' to characterise the way he
spoke of the influence of the television stations. This suggests that he feels that this
is something positive. The wording might have been that 'Mr Abu Laban, a 60-year-
old imam of Palestinian origin, also blamed the hardline "Salafist" television stations
based in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates'.
In sum, we can see how quoting verbs are used to communicate not simply how
a person relates to events, but their very character and the nature of events. Here
leaders have to 'plead' for calm where the Muslim cleric 'insists', 'angrily denies' and
'credits' other sources with fomenting anger.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Representingspeakers'attitudethrough
visualsemioticresources
In texts where we find participants being cited, as in the examples above, we
often find images of these persons. Sometimes we see them as if they have
been captured in a moment of speaking, as in the case of the text about Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown. These images too are managed to present a par-
ticular interpretation of the attitude, character and identity of the person and
consequently is another semiotic resource by which events and comments
can be evaluated implicitly. We might find, for example, that a particular text
speaks of charges made against a politician. As well as using quoting verbs
that connote lack of agency we might find a photograph of them which shows
them speaking in a way that suggests lack of composure, as we find in the case
of Gordon Brown.
It is usual for newspapers to have access to a collection of stock images for
prominent social actors, which they can use depending on whether they wish
to present them as confident, defeated, sensitive, etc. The photograph that we
find accompanying a story may therefore not have been captured in a moment
related to that story. However, even if it is the case that it has been, there is still
the matter of the choice of this particular photograph. In this section, we look
at some of the ways we can assess these representations and how they also
encourage us to implicitly evaluate participants, to attribute particular kinds
of meanings to their utterances. We look at the meaning of gaze and of poses in
the image. We show that gaze in a photograph, where a person looks, and how
they look, can be one important way of encouraging particular kinds of inter-
pretations and of relationships between viewer and participant. We show that
we appear to have a kind of dictionary of poses in our head that can be drawn
upon as reliable signifiers of kinds of attitudes, moods and identity.

Gaze
An important part of poses is the gaze of the person( s) depicted, whether or
not they look out at the viewer, or whether they look downwards or upwards.
All these can be resources for guiding the viewer as to how they should eval-
uate the participant, even if this is not explicitly stated. In this section, we
present a set of observations that provide tools for analysing gaze and the
way it can signify meanings more systematically.
Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) were interested in the way that images
can be thought of as fulfilling the speech acts as described for language by
Halliday (1985). When we speak, Halliday argued, we can do one of four
basic things: offer information; offer services or goods; demand information;
demand goods and services. In each case there is an expected or alternative
response possible. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) thought images could fulfil
two of these: 'offer' and 'demand'. So images can be seen by viewers as refer-
encing actual acts of interaction in talk

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

Both speech acts and image acts can be realised by 'mood systems'. For
example, in speech, commands can realise the imperative mood, as in 'Don't
do it!' We can state facts and make offers through the indicative mood, as in
'Youwill like this cake?' And we can indicate our attitude through other cues,
such as tone of voice and posture. In images we can find both demands and
offers realised visually along with the form of address.
In the case of the Cosmopolitanimage found in the Introduction to this
book, we can see that the woman looks at us. This has two functions. On the
one hand, this creates a form of visual address - the viewer is acknowledged.
On the other hand, it is used to do something to the viewer. This is what
Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 124) describe as a 'demand image'. It asks
something of the viewer in an imaginary relationship, so they feel that their
presence is acknowledged and, just as when someone addresses us in social
interaction, some kind of response is required. The kind of demand, the mood
of the address, is then influenced by other factors. There might be a slight
frown that is unwelcoming and maintains a social distance. There might be a
pout, as in the case of the Cosmopolitanwoman. We might find gaze accom-
panied with postures that are welcoming, such as open arms or some kind
of activity being undertaken in which we appear welcome. In this particular
example, we find the woman looking at the viewer, thus acknowledging their
presence and demanding some kind of reaction. She shows no clear emotion,
but through this acknowledgement there is a sense that this world of glamour
is more accessible to the viewer.
In real life we know how we should respond when someone smiles at us.
We should smile back or else risk offending the other person. In the case of
images, while we know that there will not be the same kind of consequences
if we don't respond appropriately, we still recognise the demand.
In the previous chapter we looked at the example of the Heart of England
Health Trust website. Its homepage shows members of the Trust apparently
in places of work. What they are depicted as doing and which roles are repre-
sented are crucial here, and will be explored in later chapters. What we want
to note here is that three of the participants look out at the viewer. We are not
simply asked to watch hospital activities, but are being invited into a relation-
ship. In the last chapter we showed how, through language choices, the Trust
represented itself and its aims through abstractions: 'Cherishing', 'Excellence'
'Finding a Way, 'Innovation for Advancement', Working Together'. We con-
sidered the way that this was part of the empty corporate business language
that has come to dominate public institutions, thereby backgrounding actual
concrete matters of facilities, staffing and treatment. We can see that gaze is
one semiotic resource that can be used to communicate interest and engage-
ment with public needs, even though at the same time these may be farthest
from the concerns of the Trust.
Where a person does not look out at the viewer there is a different kind
of effect. There is no demand made on the viewer. No response is expected.
This is what Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 124) call an 'offer image'. The
viewer is offered the image as information available for scrutiny and consid-
eration. Had the Cosmopolitanwomen not looked out at us, we would have

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

been invited to simply observe what she does without any required response.
This can be seen in the photograph accompanying the Marie Claire text on
page 45. In the case of the Cosmopolitan image on page 8 it appears that this is
a demand image that invites us to be like her, after all she is making the effort
to acknowledge our existence.
Looking off frame also has meaning potential. When we see a person in an
image looking off frame rather than at an object in the image, we are invited
to imagine what they are thinking.

Figure 8 David Cameron (The Daily Mirror, 16 April 2010)

The metaphorical association of 'up' and 'down' is also important in the

meaning potential of gaze. Metaphorical association has been shown to be
central to visual communication (Arnheim, 1969). For example, we might
make a small distance between our thumb and forefinger to represent how
close we were to verbally berating someone. In fact no physical proximity
was involved in how close we felt at all, as it was simply a feeling of emo-
tion. But the representation, the comparison, allows us to visualise this
interaction. In Western culture 'up' and 'down' have strong metaphorical
associations. We say 'I am feeling down' or that 'things are looking up'. We
can say that a person 'has their head in the clouds', or is 'down to earth'.
We have upper and lower classes and people with higher status are often
seated higher than those with lower status. In images we often find politi-
cians, when represented positively, looking off frame and slightly upwards.
In images in women's magazines, in contrast, we often find women looking
slightly downwards, alongside captions like 'Can you trust your boyfriend?'
In the Marie Claire image earlier in the chapter, we can see that the woman

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

looks slightly upwards too as she feels 'up' about the possibility of using the
'hot tips' in the article.
Politicians might be represented looking upwards to lofty ideals and to
high status or downwards when they are worried, as in the photograph of
David Cameron. Where people in images look directly outwards, this can
communicate a sense of dealing with issues straight on, as can be seen in the
photograph of Nick Clegg on page 76. These photographs all appeared in the
British Press on the same day after a televised leadership debate. The press,
eager for a more lively election, presented Clegg as new, direct and unfussy
and Cameron as troubled and unnerved by the popularity of this new threat.
In the analysis of quoting verbs earlier in the chapter we looked at three texts
that carried images.We can apply our toolkit for analysing gaze to these images in
order to look at the way that gaze encourages viewers to evaluate events implicitly.
In the first case study, we found that Tony Blair is represented as being defen-
sive through metapropositional quoting verbs such as 'refused to express',
'rejected', 'insisted' and 'conceded'. 'Heckled', 'cries', 'chimed', 'shouted', 'erupt
and cry' and 'booed' were the quoting verbs used to emphasise the consider-
able collective anger of the audience. We found that these verbs are one of the
main devices through which his speech is implicitly evaluated. We are not told
explicitly that Blair was on the back foot, or that the crowd was impatient and
angry. This work was done by the quoting verbs. The photograph of Blair also
plays an important part in this more implicit evaluation.
The photograph shows Blair in an offer image. The viewer is invited to watch
not in a way that encourages a personal relationship, as in the Cosmopolitan
image, or that of Nick Clegg, but as an observer. We see Blair in a moment
of what appears to be irritation as he regards someone side-on, waving his
finger. Had he been represented with the same posture looking at the viewer
this would have meant the viewer would have been required to produce a
response. But this is not the point of this text, which appears to be to encour-
age the reader to see Blair as remote, struggling and as a failure. Again it is
notable that news readers here are not informed about the details of the war.
They are not provided with facts upon which conclusions about Blair's activi-
ties and decisions can be put in context. Both in terms of language and visual,
the reader is only encouraged to evaluate the personality of the politician. We
could imagine the different effect of the text were we shown an image of bod-
ies of civilians mutilated in the streets of villages of Iraq.
We find an even more extreme use of a close-shot in the photograph accom-
panying the text about Gordon Brown's misspelling of a soldier's name. Here
we are encouraged to focus closely on his suffering. We find him looking off
frame, slightly downwards. Again the viewer is invited to look at the par-
ticipant as an observer rather than being invited into an interaction. We see
Brown in a slumped position touching his own face, thoughtful, where the
downwards gaze here appears to suggest negative thoughts. This image objec-
tifies Brown as a man who is not fit to be appointed as Prime Minister again at
the upcoming general elections. What we can see from both of these stories is
that powerful evaluation of participants can be accomplished not only overtly

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

or through sensationalist headlines, but much more subtly through their rep-
resentation in images.

Poses
A photographer, who specialised in taking publicity shots of musicians for
record companies, interviewed by one of the authors said that postures of the
artists must suggest something about them, whether they are approachable,
independent or moody, whether they are to be thought of as a unit or as indi-
viduals. She said she would photograph a boy band being playful and cheeky.
This would mean they would be moving, perhaps jumping around in order to
convey energy and fun, be touching each other in order for them to appear
sensual and affectionate and have open postures to appear approachable, and
would smile to suggest friendliness, look romantic or even 'snarl' a little to
show a very mild sense of unconformity. In contrast, she would show an indie
band as not giving out energy, so they would not jump around but have more
closed or self-contained body shapes. They would be disengaged from the
viewer, certainly not touching and she said she would find a way to distinguish
the members to emphasise that they were individuals, often through making
them strike slightly different and 'odd' postures. We can see that these simple
decisions about poses can be connotators of identities and broader ideas. The
boy band is available for the romantic fantasies of the younger fans. The indie
band must appear darker, troubled and non-mainstream, even if they rely on
a rather familiar set of connotations to communicate this.
According to Barthes (1973), poses are one important realm of connota-
tion in images that are able to signify broader values, ideas and identities.
Image makers therefore can rely on these established meanings to shape how
we will perceive the ideas, values and behaviours of those persons depicted.
In the case of the Cosmopolitanimage in the Introduction of this book, what
kinds of discourse does her posture connote? What broader ideas and values
are communicated by the way the woman is standing? She is leaning towards
the computer keyboard as if about to press a key yet is clearly doing nothing
of the kind. Of course this leaning posture will be one reason the page editor
has chosen this image to illustrate an item on exercising. She also has one
hand on her hip and her torso appears curved rather than rigid and straight
We can bring out the meaning potential of these if we consider a man striking
the same pose. Placing hands on hips is one way we can communicate that we
are squaring up to a person. If we place our legs slightly apart and our hands
on our hips we take up physical space. We can imagine a much less confident
and shy posture where we might take up little space. Yet when this posture
is combined with curvature, something feminine is suggested. The model in
this image is taking up space and appears confident, yet at the same time
feminine. Of course pose should in all cases be considered in relation to other
iconographical features, such as objects, setting and clothing.
So we can ask whether a pose involves taking up space or not and whether
the pose is an open or closed one. We can also ask whether a pose suggests

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 Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs

either activity or stillness. In this case, the pose of the Cosmopolitanwoman

suggests activity. Often in women's lifestyle magazines we find photographs of
women who are jumping in the air or waving their arms about. While it appears
that they are doing nothing in concrete, this helps to bring a sense of fun and
energy to the magazine. Again, this is important in connoting discourses of
female identity that take women outside the mother /housewife role.
We can also ask if a pose suggests relative bodily control and discipline
or the opposite. We find soldiers standing in controlled postures whereas
we might find a group of teenagers standing in slumped or loose poses. This
physical control and discipline metaphorically represents conformity and
obedience whereas the physical lack of deliberate control and regimentation
of the body in the case of the teenagers represents the opposite.
Recently, one of the authors was driving down a road in a very poor neigh-
bourhood. Four youths of around 14 years of age walked out into the road so
that he had to slow right down. They walked lazily and slouched with arms
hanging, connoting lack of interest and lack of discipline, when in fact this
manoeuvre of hassling drivers had been experienced on several occasions by
the author and clearly required some dedication and organisation. We can
imagine the difference had the youths walked out into the road, but stiffly and
upright. This would not have communicated the same meanings.
In the text above we find Tony Blair appearing to be quite rigid. In this case,
the control suggests tension and seriousness. Of course the firm gaze is also
an important part of pose in this case. Below, in contrast, we find Nick Clegg
in relaxed pose. This image was carried in the press prior to the general elec-
tion in 2010, when he was being depicted as posing a real threat to the other
party leaders, which in fact, as it turned out, he was not. Photographs tended
to show him in relaxed, loose poses.
In the text above we showed how quoting verbs represented Blair as defen-
sive, threatened and disapproved of by the audience. The image shows him
not being composed and commanding, but being aggressive and cross, wav-
ing his finger. We could imagine the same text, but with an image of Blair in
the fashion of the Clegg image. Because of the pose and gaze we would have
been encouraged to feel much more sympathy and warmth towards him.
In the image accompanying the Marie Clairework item in the last chap-
ter, pose is also an important connotator of broader meanings. While the
text communicates a cynical self-interest, using trendy language and confi-
dent directives along with technical business terms, the image appears much
softer, creative and pleasant. Importantly, her pose shows her sitting look-
ing very relaxed, gazing out of the window, not blankly, which would suggest
boredom. She also has a positive, contemplative smile.
When we analyse what is connoted by pose, we can ask a number of basic
questions:

• To what extent does the person take up space or not?

• Do they perform for the viewer or are they self-contained?
• Is there an emphasis on relaxation or intensity?
• Does the pose suggest openness or closedness?

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Figure 9 Nick Clegg relaxed (The Guardian , 16 April 2010}

• If there is more than one person, to what extent do they mirror each other
or strike different postures?
• To what extent are they depicted as being intimate, in close proximity, or
is there some indication of distance?

Conclusion
In Chapter 2 we dealt with more general lexical and visual content analysis. In
this chapter we began to ask more specific questions of texts. We saw how very
specific semiotic choices, through quoting verbs, gaze and poses, can be used
to implicitly communicate kinds of identities and in turn evaluate the actions
of participants. As we will continue to do throughout this book, we saw the
value of systematically showing what kinds of semiotic choices character-
ise representation of different participants. What is important is that these
choices, which may not necessarily be attended to consciously by casual view-
ers, are able to communicate broader discourses, values, ideas and sequences
of activity that are not openly stated. It is these, the meanings that remain
either implicit or only connoted in a text, that we must always observe to
detect and make explicit. We must explain why a particular politician or other
social actor is represented with particular quoting verbs, gaze and pose.

76
 4
Representing People: Language
and Identity

This chapter deals with the naming and visual representation of persons. As
with any other kinds of use of linguistic or visual semiotic resources, the com-
municator has a range of choices available to them for deciding how they wish
to represent individuals and groups of people who in CDAare often termed as
'social actors' or 'participants'. In CDAthis realm of semiotic choices are referred
to as 'representational strategies' (Fowler, 1991; Van Dijk, 1993; Fairclough,
2003: 145). These choices allow us to place people in the social world and to
highlight certain aspects of identity we wish to draw attention to or omit. Like
lexical and iconographical choices in general, they can have the effect of con-
noting sets of ideas, values and sequences of activity that are not necessarily
overtly articulated. In this chapter we begin with linguistic resources for rep-
resenting persons and then move on to visual communication.

Representational
strategiesin language
In any language there exists no neutral way to represent a person. And all
choices will serve to draw attention to certain aspects of identity that will be
associated with certain kinds of discourses. For example, consider the follow-
ing sentence:

Muslim man arrested for fraudulently claiming benefits.

In fact there are many other possibilities that could have been used to char-
acterise the man: an Asian man, a British man, a Midlands man, a local office
worker, a Manchester United supporter, a father of two young daughters, a
man named Mazar Hussein. Each of these can serve psychological, social and
political purposes for the writer and reader (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001: 47).
This is shown in the following sentence:

Father of two daughters arrested for fraudulently claiming benefits.

 A Critical Discourse Analysis

In this second case the meaning is different. In the first example the headline
locates the story in a news frame emphasising his 'otherness', hence the man
is partofsomethingthatis problematic. From 2005 in Britain, after bombings
on the London transport system, Muslims often became represented through
news frames that emphasised their threat to British society and resistance
to cultural values (Richardson, 2007). Since the man was born in Britain, the
headline could equally have stated that he was a British man. But this would
have appeared odd and would have suggested 'one of us'. Crime reporting
usually involves creating moral 'others', so that the perpetrator is not like 'us'
(Wykes, 2001; Mayr and Machin, 2012). The second headline, which human-
ises the man by referring to him as a 'father', has the opposite effect. Here he
is 'one of us'. One possible effect on the reader may be that the fraud in this
case was understandable, as the man was struggling to look after his children.
Van Dijk (1993) has shown that how the news aligns us alongside or against
people can be thought of as what he calls 'ideological squaring'. He shows how
texts often use referential choices to create opposites, to make events and
issues appear simplified in order to control their meaning. Representational
choices will always bring associations of values, ideas and activities, such as
whether we describe a group of 18 year-olds as 'young people', 'youths', or
'students'. We can see this in the following sentences:

The students hung around outside the shop.

The youths hung around outside the shop.

An author might use the second of these to hint at anti-social behaviour or at

disrespect. Teo (2000) carried out an analysis of the representation of drug
dealers in sectors of the Australian press. He found evidence of overlexicalisa-
tion of words emphasising that the protagonists were young:

'looks and sounds like is he is about 13','The 16 year old','five other youths',
'two young Asian gang members', 'some as young as 12', 'these kids', 'their
leader at 13', 'had beaten two murder charges by 17', 'at least two of the
accomplices were of the same age (i.e.13 and 14)' (Teo,2000: 21)

On the one hand, Teo suggests that such facts about age would be expected
if this is part of the facts of the story. But on the other hand, why do we find
this excessive use of terms related to youth? Of course emphasising youth
in this way can be seen as one way to create sympathy for them. Youth, and
specifically childhood, is often used in the press as a synonym for innocence
and vulnerability. Teo, however, rejects that 'youth' is used as a mitigating fac-
tor; rather it serves to add to the moral panic about drugs. 'The kids are out
of control.' What is society coming to?' We need greater discipline, law and
order in this society.' All these are common news themes that in fact serve to
distract from actual concrete social processes and issues to do with drugs and
drug dealing.

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

In the kind of news texts analysed by Teo, the participants are often evalu-
ated not on the basis of what they do but through representational strate-
gies. In this case, the young people may have been from deprived areas with
many social problems. But the author /paper chooses to silence these aspects
of who they are to foreground their youth, thereby signifying a specific dis-
course which suggests a threat to the moral order.
Van Dijk (1993) provides the example of different referential strategies in
the reporting of sexual assaults in the press. Where a man is considered guilty,
he will be referred to as a 'sex fiend', 'monster' or 'pervert'. In this case, he
will attack innocent women who will be referred to as 'mother', 'daughter'
or 'worker'. However, where the man is considered innocent, the referential
strategy will be different. In this case, the woman will be referred to as a 'divor-
cee' or through physical features such as 'blonde' or 'busty'. In this case, she
will have provoked an innocent man, referred to as 'hubby', 'father of four' or
'worker'. In this way, the referential strategy becomes part of the way we per-
ceive people and their actions. A number of writers (e.g. Clark, 1992; Zeynep,
2007) have shown how such referential strategies in newspapers reveal some
important ideological means through which women are represented in the
press, demonstrating they are not considered as individuals but are judged
against a Madonna-whore set of standards relating to appearances, mother-
hood and family. Crucially,these labels help to implicitly define the nature of
the crime, victimhood, guilt and consequences for the reader.

Classificationof socialactors
To help us to be more systematic when describing referential choices, Van
Leeuwen (1996) offers a comprehensive inventory of the ways that we can
classify people and the ideological effects that these classifications may have.
Later we will apply these to a series of examples in actual texts. But first we
explain the kinds of observations they allow us to make.

Personalisationand impersonalisation
We can ask to what extent the participant is personalised or impersonalised.
This can be observed in the following two sentences:

Professor John Smith requires academic staff to give notification of

strike action.
The university requires academic staff to give notification of strike
action.

In the second case, impersonalisation is used to give extra weight to a par-

ticular statement. It is not just a particular person but a whole institution

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

that requires something. This conceals certain issues. We could argue that the
staff, along with the students, are the university, so how could it be that the
university can tell them what to do? But here this has been phrased in a way
that giving notification may be in the interests of the university as a whole.
We often come across the same process when politicians say 'Our nation
believes ...' or 'Britain will not be held responsible ...'. This serves to conceal
who actually believes what and who is responsible in each case. In the EMDA
example in Chapter 2 (see p. 33) on lexis analysis, we read of 'the goals of
the Regional Economic Strategy'. These goals, however, have their origins in
a particular political organisation. The Strategy is not the holder of the goals,
but is itself a set of goals established by particular interests.

Individualisation
versuscollectivisation
It is also useful to consider how participants are described as individuals or
as part of a collectivity, as is shown in the following sentences:

Two soldiers, privates John Smith, and Jim Jones, were killed today by a
car bomb.
Militants were killed today by a car bomb.

In the first case, by being named, these soldiers are individualised, bringing
us closer to them. In the second case, the militants are simply a generic group.
In the following example we can see how additional referential information
individualises the participants in the first sentence even further:

Two soldiers, privates John Smith, and Jim Jones, both fathers of two
daughters, were killed today by a car bomb.

This information allows us to feel empathy with the soldiers. We can see the
confusing effect of this in the following sentence, as we are not normally given
personal details of participants classified as terror suspects because these
details would humanise them:

Terror suspects, both fathers of two daughters, were killed today by a

car bomb.

It is useful to ask which kinds of participants are individualised and which

are collectivised in texts, as we reveal which group is humanised.

Specificationand genericisation
We can also look at whether participants are represented as specific individu-
als or as a generic type. In our earlier example, we saw that the person accused

80
 Representing People: Language and Identity

of benefits fraud could be either named or identified as a type. Consider the

following two sentences:

A man, Mazar Hussein, challenged police today.

A Muslim man challenged police today.

In the second case, the man who challenged the police is represented as a
type. The generic category 'Muslim' can place this story into a news frame
where Muslims are a contemporary problem in Britain, either because of
their extremism or their cultural and religious 'otherness'. However, this man
may not even have been a practising Muslim. It could be like saying 'Christian
John Smith challenged police today'. The use of such generic terms that can be
used to give a newspaper story a 'racialised' slant, even though the newspa-
per itself may distance itself from a racist stance.

Nominationor functionalisation
Participants can be nominated in terms of who they are or functionalised by
being depicted in terms of what they do. For example:

George Bush said that democracy would win.

The American president said that democracy would win.

This can have different effects. Use of functionalisation can sound more offi-
cial, whereas nomination can sound more personal. Functionalisation can
also reduce people to a role which may in fact be assigned by the writer or be
generic, for example:

The demonstrator was injured outside the embassy.

The defendant was warned by Judge Peter Smithely-Smigely to be quiet

In these cases the 'demonstrator' and 'the defendant' are partially dehu-
manised by referring to them with functionalisation, which highlights only
their roles. Had both of these been named and been further personalised by
referring to them, for example, as 'mothers', we would have evaluated them
differently.
Functionalisation can also connote legitimacy. Machin and Mayr (2007),
in their analysis ofrepresentations of multiculturalism in a British regional
newspaper, showed that functionalisations, in the form of people's occupa-
tion, such as 'shop owner' and 'office workers', served to positively evalu-
ate people as legitimate and 'decent' members of a local community. Those
who were not so legitimate were represented in generic terms such as
'one local'.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Of course functionalisation can itself be an attempt to define what someone

actually does. In a Daily Mail anti-immigration story, we find the following
line:

A teenage scribbler in a liberal Sunday newspaper, who normally seems

to write reasonable sense, virtually accused me of being a neo-Nazi.

The author of the text does not name the journalist who has criticised him, but
uses the pejorative functionalisation 'teenage scribbler'. The author also uses
a technique pointed out by Van Dijk (1991) for the denial of racism, where he
first states that he normally has no problem with this person, but in this case
he does, pointing out that he is not normally biased. Denial of racism is often
worded along the following lines:

I normally I have no problems with ethnic minorities but in this case ...

It is also worth pointing out that 'but' works as a presuppositional trigger

(Levinson, 1983).

Use of honorifics
The way people are represented through what they do can also be achieved
through the use of 'functional honorifics'. These are terms that suggest a
degree of seniority or a role that requires a degree of respect. These will nor-
mally involve official roles, such as 'President', 'Lord', or 'Judge'. In short, these
signal the importance of a social actor or specialisation. We might find that
different ideological accounts of the same set of events will see honorifics
ascribed or withheld. In the following two sentences, the level of importance
of the statement changes.

A government spokesperson said yesterday that there was no official

involvement in the affair.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that there was no official
involvement in the affair.

In the second case, the use of the functional honorific makes the speaker
appear more important and authoritative. A person's level of authority can
be strategically diminished by removing honorifics and making them sound
more generic, as is the case in the first sentence.

Objectivation
Here participants are represented through a feature:

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

'A ball of fun' for a baby

'A beauty' for a woman

This means that participants can be reduced to this feature. A tabloid news-
paper might refer to a woman throughout an article as 'the Beauty' rather
than naming or functionalising her. In this case, we might argue that she is
reduced to her physical appearance and her 'womanness' becomes the key
part of who she is. This can be found often in ideological squaring, where a
female participant, whether she is involved in a legal or personal matter, is
represented only through being a woman. In such cases we can ask what is
backgrounded by this process. Van Dijk (1995) shows how this means that
certain moral issues can be connoted by what is reasonable behaviour for a
woman rather than for a man. For example, in crime reporting involving the
abuse or neglect of children, journalists often attribute more horror where a
woman is involved. A famous case in point is Myra Hindley, who was vilified
by the press and public far more than her partner, Ian Brady, for the crimes
they committed against children, despite the fact that Brady was the domi-
nant force behind the crimes they committed together.

Anonymisation
Participants in texts can often be anonymised.

A source said today that the government would be focusing on environ-

mental issues.
Some people believe that globalisation is a bad thing.

In the first case, it is common to see anonymised participants ('a source')

in newspapers. On the one hand, we rely on journalists to have legitimate
sources, but this conceals the way that certain social groups and organisa-
tions may not have equal access to journalists. In the second example, we can
see how politicians, in this case former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, can
use such representations ('some people') to avoid specification and develop-
ing a detailed and coherent argument. They allow us to conveniently summon
arguments that are then easy to dismiss.

Aggregation
Aggregation means that participants are quantified and treated as 'statistics':

Many thousands of immigrants are arriving in ...

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a
multi-million pound claim for compensation after they were offered

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

ham sandwiches during the holy month of Ramadan. (The Daily Mail,
26 October 2007)

Van Dijk (1991) shows that this kind of statistics can be utilised to give the
impression of objective research and scientific credibility, when in fact we are
not given specific figures. ls 'many thousands' 3,000 or 100,000, for example?
And what are 'scores'? In the news agency feed received by the IRN discussed
in Chapter 2, we find the following line:

One of the few suspects to express remorse over his alleged involve-
ment in last year's bombings on Indonesia's Bali island arrived at court
on Thursday.

In this case, how many is 'the few'? Exactly how many have shown remorse
and how many have not? What is the reason for not being informed? What
becomes apparent from this particular text is the depoliticisation of the sus-
pects' acts. We are not informed about the political aims of those who planted
the bombs. They become generic terrorists and part of the news frame of the
'war on terror'. What kind of remorse they expressed is not clear either. Does
this mean they now no longer believe in their political aims? So in cases of
aggregation, where actual numbers are replaced by such abstractions, we can
always ask what ideological work is being done.

Pronounversusnoun:the 'us' and 'them'division

Pronouns like 'us', 'we' and 'them' are used to align us alongside or against
particular ideas. Text producers can evoke their own ideas as being our ideas
and create a collective 'other' that is in opposition to these shared ideas
(Oktar, 2001; Eriksson and Aronsson, 2005).

We live in a democracy of which we are proud.

They shall not be allowed to threaten our democracies and freedom.
We have to decide to be strong and fight this global terrorism to the end.

Fairclough (2000: 152) has pointed out that the concept of 'we' is slip-
pery. This fact can be used by text producers and politicians to make vague
statements and conceal power relations. We' can mean 'the political party',
whereas in the next sentence it can mean 'the people of Britain', and further
down an unspecified group of nations. In the first example above, does 'we'
mean the people or a collection of superpowers?
We can see this vague use of 'we' in the Daily Mail anti-immigration story
above. In this case, it is used to evoke a shared British culture although the
exact composition of this 'we' is not overtly explained in the text. This can be
illustrated as follows:

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

Britain has an indigenous culture.

We must fight the deluge of immigrants.

These two sentences imply what is said in the following without actually say-
ing it:

We of the indigenous British culture must fight the deluge of immigrants.

Put in this way, the racist discourse becomes much more overt, whereas
splitting the information into two sentences helps the writer to conceal
this.

Suppression
What is missing from a text is just as important as what is in a text (Fairclough,
2003). Consider the following examples:

Globalisation is now affecting all national economies.

Market-based economies are establishing themselves in all areas of life.

In both these sentences the agent is missing. Globalisation is not something

that has the power to change things, but is a theory which attempts to describe
a perceived process or phenomenon that is caused by particular agents. It is
driven by large corporations and world economic organisations such as the
World Trade Organisation and World Bank. In the second sentence, market-
based economies are not agents themselves but are a result of a particular
political ideology. They have become established through specific political
decisions and waves of privatisation that have followed. The result of these
two sentences is that both globalisation and market-based economies appear
natural and inevitable, something that must be responded to and adapted to
rather than something that should be questioned.

Casestudy1: Aggregation
andsuppression
The first case study is a text from The Daily Mail (26 October 2007).

Musllm prisoners sue for mllllons after they were offered ham sandwiches
for Ramadan

(Continued)

85
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a multi-
million pound claim for compensation after they were offered ham sandwiches
during the holy month of Ramadan.

They say their human rights were breached when they were given a special
nightly menu - drawn up to recognise their specific dietary requirements - by
officers at HMP Leeds last month.

More than 200 Muslim inmates at the jail are believed to have been offered the
meat which is strictly forbidden by Islam.

The sandwich was one of three options on the menu card which was created to
cover the religious festival during which Muslims are required to fast during daylight.

They later complained to prison officers on duty but say they were told that the
menus had been printed in error.

Yet when they opened the sandwiches, having ordered cheese, some claim they
were still filled with boiled ham.

They are now launching legal action, insisting that their human rights were
breached and could each be entitled to up to £10,000 in compensation if they
win their case at court.

One Muslim inmate, a 28-year-old who was serving a 16-week sentence for driv-
ing whilst disqualified, said: 'When I opened my meal that night I found I'd been
given a ham sandwich. I'd asked for cheese.

'It was a breach of my human rights and I want compensation.'

He claimed that some inmates were so hungry they ended up eating the
sandwiches.

The prison denied that any Muslim prisoners had been given ham sandwiches
but admitted there had been a mistake when the menus were printed.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: 'An inappropriate menu card was
printed during Ramadan. This mistake was rectified immediately.

'Appropriate menu options for the lftaar evening meal were available throughout
Ramadan.

'Prison Service guidelines state that prisoners must have a diet which meets the
requirements of their religion.'

It comes as 16 Muslim inmates at Leeds Prison prepare to launch a separate

legal case over claims of mistreatment, including being given food that is forbid-
den by their religion.

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

They are expected to claim at a hearing next year that they were given meat
which was not halal.

Kate Maynard, from law firm Hickman and Rose Solicitors who is representing
some of the men, said: 'One of the issues they are worried about is that they were
being told food was halal when it wasn't.

'They are taking this to court to try to change conditions in the prison and make
conditions better.'

Last year the Prison Service was forced to apologise to Muslim inmates at a
category B jail after a kitchen worker was caught throwing ham into halal curries.

Prisoners at HMP Blakenhurst in Worcestershire each received a written apology.

The inmate behind the attack at the prison, which houses 1,070 offenders, was
observed throwing tinned ham into curries destined for Muslim inmates and sus-
pended from his job in the kitchen.

This text fuses two well-trodden news frames that are typical of this newspaper.
One of these discourses is that prison inmates are treated far too well and that
life inside a prison is like a holiday camp. Those who have visited prisons, as both
authors have, will know about the depressing and soul-draining effect they can have
on inmates. The other discourse is one which holds that foreigners who come to
Britain are unwilling to adapt to its culture and values. In this discourse, the British
themselves are represented as the victims. These discourses can both be seen in the
following lines from the text:

One Muslim inmate, a 28-year-old who was serving a 16-week sentence for driv-
ing whilst disqualified, said: 'When I opened my meal that night I found I'd been
given a ham sandwich. I'd asked for cheese.

'It was a breach of my human rights and I want compensation.'

Here we can see the implied outrage that such a person should dare to demand that
British society should bend to their whims. But what we are interested in specifically
in this chapter is the way that representational strategies, the way that some aspects
of identity are foregrounded and others backgrounded, form an important part of the
way the social world is mapped out for us. Other features of this text, which we will
come back to in later chapters, are also very important.
In this text there are four categories of participants: those who are complaining
about the prison food, other prison inmates, those who are part of the prison service
and a lawyer. The first category is represented always through the word 'Muslim'.
This term is overlexicalised in this text, being used nine times. Every time a prisoner
is mentioned, whether collectivsed as 'Muslim prisoners' or 'Muslim inmates', or as

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individuals, as in 'One Muslim inmate', the generic category 'Muslim' is used. In some
of these cases, other representational choices could have been used, such as simply
'prisoner', 'inmate' or 'men'. To be fair, the Muslim prisoners are referred to as 'men'
once: 'Kate Maynard, from law firm Hickman and Rose Solicitors who is representing
some of the men, said .. .' On one occasion the nominal group is expanded to
individualise a prisoner: in the case of 'a 28-year-old who was serving a 16-week
sentence for driving whilst disqualified'. However, these details about his sentence
might be said to further deligitimise his call to 'human rights'. Wherever there is such
overlexicalisation we can assume that for some reason there is some kind of over-
persuasion taking place which is normally evidence that something is problematic or
of ideological contention.
Other prisoners are represented as 'an inmate', 'kitchen worker', 'the men'.
Unlike the Muslim men, these prisoners are not represented in terms of their
religion or through longer nominal groups describing their age and the offence
for which they were imprisoned. They remain remote and impersonal. In another
story about prisons a different set of representational strategies might have been
used to position these men as 'others' in our society, such as 'offenders', 'monsters'
or 'thugs'. In this case, it is clear that these participants are backgrounded and
anonymised.
The people who work for the prison service are represented as 'officers', 'the prison',
'a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice'. Notable here is the use of functionalisation
and honorifics. The prison system here is represented as anonymous and official.
There is no personalisation of the prison itself by naming its officers.
We could imagine how the story could have been written differently, for example by
personalising the Muslim prisoners much more. There is clearly nothing in this story
to indicate that it might be the oppressive and unjust nature of the prison itself that
might foster or instigate this situation. In fact, sociological and criminological research
has revealed that prisons tend to be populated by the most vulnerable members of
our society, the poor and ethnic groups who already find themselves at the hard end
of the distribution of resources and opportunities (e.g. Scraton, 1997). Yet in this story
the choice of representational strategies, along with other features we will mention
later, serves to position the Muslim prisoners as 'other' in our society, while this is
not the case for the other prisoners, who are simply 'inmates' and 'men' rather than
'offenders', 'lags' or 'hardened criminals', as they are often referred to in popular
newspapers articles about prisons. The story could have been written as evidence
of the way that all kinds of people in prison are treated poorly and their religious and
cultural beliefs disrespected, or of financial cuts to the prison service which leave little
room for such sensitivities. This could have been connected to the implications for
retraining and rehabilitating the men in prison, the lack of which have been proven to
result in much higher chances of reoffending.

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

What is most notable in this text, however, in terms of representational strategies, is

the use of aggregation in 'more than 200 Muslim inmates', 'scores of Muslim inmates'.
These vague aggregations are then followed by the sentences:

They later complained to prison officers on duty but say they were told that the
menus had been printed in error.

Yet when they opened the sandwiches, having ordered cheese, some claim they
were still filled with boiled ham.

They are now launching legal action, insisting that their human rights were
breached and could each be entitled to up to £10,000 in compensation if they
win their case at court.

Here we find the representational term of 'they' used where we have not yet
been given a specific number. Are the 'scores' of Muslim inmates complaining and
launching legal action, or a proportion of these? The text uses this ambiguity to create
a sense of outrage and indicates a wider Muslim problem. Only towards the end of
the article are we told that 'It comes as 16 Muslim inmates at Leeds Prison prepare to
launch a separate legal case over claims of mistreatment, including being given food
that is forbidden by their religion'. And even here the complaint appears to include
those who have issues with other kinds of mistreatment.
In the text it is only the lawyer representing the inmates who is nominated. Her
name sounds un-Muslim and her comments are presented in a way to make them
appear much more measured than some of those she represents. Also, here it is the
non-Muslim participant who therefore appears as reasonable and legitimate and as
having agency.
The quoting verbs, which were dealt with in full in the previous chapter, are also
important in this text. These are the verbs used to represent how someone expresses
something. Here we can list some of those attributed to the prisoners.

Muslim prisoners complained to prison officers

Some claim they were still filled with boiled ham

Insisting that their human rights were breached

Where the prison officers speak we find:

Prison officers[ ... ] told that the menus had been printed in error

The quoting verbs chosen for the Muslim prisoners here are metapropositional
expressives. In other words, they are often not simply 'saying' or 'reporting' that they
had inappropriate food, but are rather forceful. Also the use of 'claim' lessens the

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certainty of their argument. We can see the difference if we substitute the quoting
verbs as in the following sentences.

Muslim prisoners reported to prison officers

Some explained they were still filled with boiled ham

suggesting that their human rights were breached

In the examples above the prisoners sound much more moderate and this reads
as if it is a simple narrative of the events as opposed to the 'rantings' of prisoners who
are, after all, offenders and therefore may find their claim to human rights somehow
reduced.
We will be looking at more details in this text in subsequent chapters. Also important,
for example, are the words that describe what people do as well as what they are.
These too help to evaluate events implicitly.

Casestudy2: Differentdiscourse
genresof participants
The following analysis of representational strategies is from the careers advice
section of the women's lifestyle magazine Marie Claire (2010) that was analysed
for simple lexical choices in Chapter 2. In this case we can think specifically about
the work done through some of the participants being drawn from fictional domains.
The text deals with the subject of how to maintain career opportunities in times of
economic downturn when your company is making your colleagues redundant.
Ideologically, this text is very powerful, as it recommends not that employees should
support each other or operate through trade unions in times of redundancies, but that
the individual should work strategically to take advantage of the situation for their
own gain. What we show here is that the fictional references help to soften this effect.
In this text, the social actors are: 'boss', 'manager', 'management', 'supervisor',
'Calandra', 'office hotshot', 'I', 'you', 'her', 'we', 'Pollyanna', 'cheerleader', 'co-workers',
'colleague', 'Tracy Flick', 'cubemate'. We can arrange these into four categories. The
first are more formal work terms, the second more trendy language, the third fictional
characters and, lastly, personal pronouns. Placing categories of social actors in a
table can help to visualise them.
On the one hand, we have a set of participants that we might expect when dealing
with the work environment as in 'boss', 'management', supervisor' and 'colleague',
although markedly absent here is any reference to trade unions. In this text the

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

Table 4 Representational strategies in Marie Claire text

Boss Office hotshot Calandra
Manager Cheerleader Pollyanna You
Management Cubemate Tracy Flick Her
Supervisor We
Co-workers
Colleague

woman who is addressed acts alone and strategically. She is not concerned about
the possibility of further redundancies or how she and her colleagues might work
together to prevent further job losses.
These work-type representational strategies place the events into a formal
work environment, although we should note that there are no more specific
functionalisations. We are not told what particular job is performed by these people,
only that they are generic 'supervisors' etc. In Chapter 2 we considered the way
that these lifestyle magazine articles do not document real workplaces and people,
but symbolise them. The images we looked at showed glamorous women standing
among a few props that connoted work. This was important to place the advice given
not in real circumstances but almost as playful fantasies which nonetheless play an
important role in signifying discourses where women are in control and have agency.
This lack of specificity in details of work type and roles serves the same function. Van
Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) suggest that wherever actual details are replaced by
abstractions we can assume that some kind of ideological work is taking place. What
is important to stress here is that just because these texts appear to be trivial and
playful we must not underestimate their ideological power.
Other representational choices in this text help to lighten the topic. If representational
strategies had relied only on formal work terms this may have made the text too dark.
But this is changed, on the one hand, through the use of trendy language as in 'office
hotshot', 'cubemate' and 'cheerleader'. We noted in our lexical analysis of this text
in Chapter 2 that this trendy language, this use of the latest expressions, plays an
important part in indicating that this is an up-to-date way of seeing the world. This is
a crucial part of lifestyle discourse which is harnessed to the 'latest-thing' discourse
of consumerism. So while this text, on the one hand, refers to actual functional
categories, we also find further abstractions in the form of trendy language.
Central to the choices of representational strategies in this text are the fictionalised
actors. 'Tracy Flick' is a fictional character portrayed by actress Reese Witherspoon
in a comedy movie called Election. In this movie, Flick is largely unpopular as she is
ambitious and self-focused but likeable, and is played by a very attractive Hollywood
actress. Pollyanna is a girl from children's fiction who is 'naughty' and assertive but

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

in an endearing way. By drawing on these fictional characters the analysis offered by

Marie Claire does not refer to real concrete issues of industrial dispute but is able to
draw on connotations of assertiveness, likeability and individuality.
We can imagine the effect of this kind of representational strategy if it were used
in an actual case of an industrial dispute. It would appear as bizarre if a news story
of a strike at a manufacturing plant referred to workers as 'Pollyannas'. Yet in the
world created by lifestyle magazines real-world terms and fiction blend seamlessly.
The fictional references lighten the tone of the piece away from the ideological basis
that we should all act only as individuals. In a time when the jobs of your colleagues
are threatened, you consider this only in the light of how it might influence the way
you negotiate your own career improvement. But what does it mean when, in the
representation of industrial change, fiction and reality are ambiguously juxtaposed?
Finally, what is important in terms of representational choices in this text is the use
of 'I' and 'you'. The use of personal pronouns is common in advertising and also in
conversational language (Machin and van Leeuwen, 2007). This text claims to be
neither but is drawing on both kinds of language. In advertising, these pronouns help
to personalise products and producers and their relationship with the consumer. For
example, an advertisement for mortgages might read: 'We agree with your wife. You
can afford a new house.'The conversational style of speaking to 'you' also prevents this
from reading as authoritative knowledge, but rather as the language of an expert who
speaks closer to the level of the addressee. This language therefore aims to be trusted
not on the basis of proscribed status, as is the case in the professions, but in terms of
its claim to personal experience, which is communicated partly through being on your
level through the use of personal pronouns and partly through the up-to-date language.
What is also interesting about the representational strategies found in these lifestyle
texts is that while they generally contain personal address through the personal
pronoun 'you', at the same time personal characteristics are suppressed. The text
creates a world of generic types, the 'Tracy Flick', the 'Pollyanna', the 'office gossip',
the generic 'boss'. Yet in reality how we experience our work lives depends on who
we are, our dispositions, our appearance, our qualifications and also those of our
boss. In these texts, as we often find in advertising, the world is reduced to a simple
problem-solution formula. None of this envisages personal issues. In the problems
and solutions offered, all persons can use them and they are universally applicable.
Everything is displaced to a set of strategies.

Casestudy3: Suppression
of socialactors
From a representational point of view, Fairclough (2003: 136) suggests that we
can look at what elements of events are included in a text and what elements are

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

excluded. Here we turn our attention to a text analysed by Kress (1985), where this
process is particularly important. A revisit of this text at this moment is timely, given
the way that established discourses on such topics have now changed.

Tropical savanna pastoral region

The environmental conditions of this region mean that it is poorly suited to most
forms of agriculture. It receives most of its rainfall during the summer monsoons,
and then experiences a winter drought. Furthermore, the natural savanna wood-
lands vegetation and grasslands have few nutrients for intensive grazing, the soils
are poor, the region is a long distance from markets, and transport facilities are
poorly developed. Thus, the land is used for little else except extensive beef cattle
grazing on farms which sometimes exceed 15,000 square kilometres in size. The
large size of the farms is needed because of the land's poor carrying capacity, which
may mean one beast needs 20 to 30 hectares to survive. Attempts were made to
establish irrigation agriculture around the Ord River in the 1960s, but saline soils,
high costs of long distance transport to markets, and the costs of dam and irriga-
tion canal construction led to the virtual failure of the scheme in the early 1970s.
It was intended to produce cotton, sugar cane and rice in the Ord River Scheme.
Another land use, mining, is now of greater value than beef grazing. Important
minerals include uranium (Rum Jungle, Ranger, Nabarlek), bauxite (Weipa, Michell
Plateau), iron ore (Yampi Sound, Fraces Creek), managanese (Groote Eylandt),
copper, lead, silver, zinc (all at Mount Isa) and gold (Tennant Creek). The largest
towns in the region are Darwin and Mount Isa, each with just over 35,000 people.

(S.B. & D.M. Codrington (1982) World of Contrasts: Case Studies in World
Development for Secondary Geography. Sydney: William Brooks, p. 193)

This text, intended for school children, contains some unspoken assumptions.
The exploitation of land for resources and profit is taken for granted. Landscapes
are to be assessed in terms of how much they can be used for a specific range of
activities and not on their own terms; hence there are expressions such as 'poorly
suited', 'soils are poor', 'long distance from market', 'land's poor carrying capacity'.
This landscape could have been assessed by its own merit. Consider a statement
such as 'the Amazon rainforest is poor for cattle grazing'. This is to see it only in terms
of how it can be exploited for profit and not for its natural beauty. Capitalist motives,
the importance of profit are not, however, expressed overtly.
This excerpt from a textbook for children published in the early 1980s clearly
indicates a time before concerns about the environment and global warming became
more widespread and more acceptable in Geography curricula.
We can investigate the language processes through which this takes place further
by looking specifically at the participants. In fact, what is notable about this text is the
suppression of social actors. All we find mentioned are '35,000 people'. Repeatedly,
we find sentences that lack agents. For example:

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Attempts were made to establish irrigation agriculture around the Ord River in
the 1960s.

The land is used for little except extensive beef cattle grazing.

The large size of the farms is needed because of the land's poor carrying capacity.

It was intended to produce cotton, sugar cane and rice in the Ord River Scheme.

In the first sentence, who made the attempts to establish irrigation? In the second
sentence, who is the land used by? In the third, who needs the farms to be large? In
the fourth, who was intending to produce cotton? Why are the children not told who
is behind these actions?
Where there is such a deletion of agents we must ask why this is the case. It
appears that while it is regarded as important that children learn about the principles
of capitalism, there may have been, during the 1980s, an emerging embarrassment
about the exploitation of this area and the world in this fashion.
We can ask the same kind of questions about the East Midlands Development
Agency mission statement also analysed for lexical choices in Chapter 2.

EMDA 'mission statement'

The vision is for the East Midlands to become a fast growing, dynamic economy
based on innovative, knowledge based companies competing successfully in the
global economy.

East Midlands Innovation launched its Regional Innovation Strategy and action
plan in November 2006. This sets out how we will use the knowledge, skills and
creativity of organisations and individuals to build an innovation led economy.

Our primary role to deliver our mission is to be the strategic driver of economic
development in the East Midlands, working with partners to deliver the goals of
the Regional Economic Strategy, which EMDA produces on behalf of the region.

I am committed to ensuring that these strategic priorities act as guiding princi-

ples for EMDA as we work with our partners in the region and beyond to achieve
the region's ambition to be a Top 20 Region by 201 O and a flourishing region
by 2020.

The participants in this text are: 'East Midlands Innovation', 'innovative, knowledge
based companies', 'we', 'organisations', 'individuals', 'I', 'partners', 'the strategic driver
of economic development'.
Fairclough (2003: 137) suggests that social events can be represented at different
levels of abstraction or generalisation. At a low level of abstraction we would be
able to see clearly what processes are being carried out with what kind of causality,

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

by which social actors and in which times and places, if relevant. A high level of
abstraction would be where these become obscured. In the Tropic Savanna text
above, to a critical reader the processes of exploitation are fairly clear, although
they are not described as such and although the participants involved in these are
excluded. In the EMDA text, however, it is difficult to identify what exactly is to be
done and how. There is also a high level of abstraction at the level of representational
strategies.
To begin with, at the level of abstraction there is 'East Midlands Innovation', with
connotations of 'ideas' and 'possibilities' through the use of the word 'Innovation'.
But what this agent actually is and what they do is unclear. Is this a company, or
simply a group of people? Later in the text we are told that the aim is to become
'the strategic driver of economic development'. But what does this mean exactly? Is
this to happen through investment, through addressing government policy, through
simply seeking to generate personal profits? Here we find that the text, rather than
stating 'we will strategically drive economic development', turns the process 'to
drive' into its identity. This strategy works to sidestep the act of making promises of
actual change.
A further abstraction is the participant 'innovative, knowledge based companies'.
Clearly all companies must have some kind of knowledge base, so in some way this is
an odd kind of representational strategy. Also, the word 'innovation' is used, so we can
assume that they will not be basing the economy on companies that wish to maintain
established practices. We then find other generalisations, such as 'organisations' and
'individuals'. We are not told who these are specifically. They could therefore refer to
anyone.
The use of the term 'partners' has the same effect. The discourse of 'partnership'
was an important part of the rhetoric of the New Labour government's consensual
style of politics, developed in Britain from the late 1990s (Newman, 2001). The term
generally meant public and private agencies working together, although it also had
the added meaning of the public being included in these partnerships, with all working
together as 'stakeholders'. What is glossed over is the way that the interests between
those parties may easily clash (Levitas, 2005).
In fact, the term 'stakeholders' glossed over the leading role often taken by private
companies. Commentators (Newman, 2001; Levitas, 2005) have written on the effects
of this attempt to deal with social issues - what became little more than an exercise in
ticking the right policy and directive boxes and meeting the right targets. Hundreds of
quasi-organisations become enmeshed with each other, adding layers of complexity
with little practical outcome.
Texts like the one above are generally designed to avoid any kind of specificity.
Occasionally the use of buzzwords can be seen to clash with reality, for example
when abstraction meets with actual everyday issues. As part of the Plan to generate

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

growth, productivity and competitiveness, EMDA described the ideal workforce. Here
the representational strategies are consistent with those found above:

EMDA 2010 Employment, !earning and skllls

A dynamic, flexible and skilled workforce helps businesses to thrive and indi-
viduals to maintain their employability. The East Midlands is characterised by a
combination of high employment and a predominance of jobs demanding low
skills and paying low wages.

What stands out in this short description is the fact that after stating the need
for a 'dynamic, flexible and skilled workforce', the next sentence tells us that in the
East Midlands there is 'a predominance of jobs demanding low skills and paying low
wages'. Yet, clearly, if the EMDA had the aim of creating a workforce appropriate to
the need for low skills and short-term contract work, this would not appear in line with
the discourse of 'vision' and innovation. And what exactly does it mean to employees
to be 'dynamic' and 'flexible'? These neo-capitalist buzzwords conceal unequal power
relations. As Cameron (2001) has argued, the capitalist's flexibility is the worker's
insecurity. Terrifyingly, these documents and policies do pass for legitimate and
official stances on concrete issues in our society.

Representational
strategiesin visual
communication
In the previous section on representational strategies in language we focused
on one specific class of lexical choices, those used to represent people. We
now carry out the same step of specialisation for visual communication. In
Chapter 2 we looked at the way that the visual representation of objects and
settings could be used to communicate more general ideas and discourses.
We explored how images may seek to depict specific people and how these
people can be used to connote general concepts, types of people, 'stereotypes',
and abstract ideas.
When carrying out an analysis of the way that meanings are communicated
through a combination of linguistic and visual representational strategies,
it is important to identify how the different affordances of the two modes
have been used to create different meanings. We can draw out the different
affordances by asking how each carries meanings that could not be commu-
nicated through the other.
We begin by looking at some simple ways that image designers can repre-
sent participants in more or less personalised ways.

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

Positioningthe viewerin relationto people

insidethe image
Distance
In pictures as in real life, distance signifies social relations. We 'keep our
distance' from people we do not want to 'be in touch with' and 'get close to
people' we see as part of our circle of friends or intimates. In images, dis-
tance translates as 'size of frame' (close, medium, or long shot). In Chapter 3
we looked at photographs of two politicians, Nick Clegg and David Cameron.
Both of these are closer shots. Therefore the photographer, or page editor,
as these may have been cropped to create this effect, has decided to take us
close to these politicians to their inner states and feelings. In the case of Clegg,
the photograph is perhaps meant to take us close to the 'real' Clegg,which is
reflected in the discourse in the accompanying text, where he comes across
as approachable and genuine. In the case of Cameron's photograph, the closer
shot gives the impression of giving access to his worries, which again is sup-
ported by the language in the text
Drawing on the analysis of gaze from the previous chapter, it is important
to point out that Clegg looks right at the viewer, engaging with us. Combined
with the close shot, these are important semiotic choices that help to show him
as open and sincere. Cameron, however, looks away or 'off-frame', which tends
to encourage us to observe participants more 'objectively' and consider what
their thoughts are. We could imagine the difference in meaning had the two
men been photographed in medium or long shot The same image of Clegg,but
in long shot, would not have connoted intimacy, but loneliness and isolation. At
that point it was important for the news media to bring us close to the 'real' pol-
iticians as part of their attempt to dramatise the lead-up to the general election.
In the Sun article in Chapter 2, 'Our Boys Blitz Taliban Bash' on page 40 the
accompanying photo depicts a soldier in medium shot. Here we are not meant
to consider his thoughts on any personal or intimate level, but we are drawn
to identify with his point of view more so than with that of the civilian, who
is positioned in long shot In many such news photographs, it is the civilians
who appear in long shot unless the story is specifically about their suffering
in wars or famines. The latter representations of civilians are normally the
subject of special reports in Sunday newspaper supplements rather than in
routine news reporting (see, for example, Machin, 2007b).
Coming back to the photographs from the women's lifestyle magazines we
looked at in Chapter 2, women tend to be photographed in close or medium
shot Again, close-ups are used when we are meant to imagine the woman as
the agent of the feelings expressed in the text, such as in relationship features
like 'Can you trust you boyfriend?', where a young women may be found gaz-
ing off-frame looking thoughtfully. Medium shots are used where it is impor-
tant that we see what the woman is wearing and to connote her acting in
modernist settings, as in the image on page 45.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

As for the Health Trust web page of Trust workers that we analysed on page
54, we can see a montage of close shots. The doctor even overlaps the edge
of the frame, bringing him further forward to suggest an increased degree of
social intimacy. On the North Essex Trust homepage below, we can see two
faces represented in close shot, symbolising patients of the Trust. Again, this
serves to take us closer to their experiences and feelings. Important in fore-
grounding the experiences of these two 'patients' are other iconographical
elements, as discussed in Chapter 2. The setting here is blurred with some
green shading that connotes nature, although this was most likely a studio
shot. Teeth here are particularly white and straight, and therefore connote
health, attractiveness and 'vibrancy'. There is high key lighting with a bright
background and highlights are visible on their faces, suggesting optimism as
opposed to darker shadings that are often used to connote darker moods.
Importantly, the effect of close proximity serves to bring the viewer into more
intimate relations with the participants and therefore serves to personalise
them. If we imagine the same image of these people positioned in the mid-
dle distance, this would have made them appear more as generic 'patients'
rather than as individuals. It is clearly in the interest of the Trust to represent
its users as highly personalised and special. Such techniques, as we have dis-
cussed previously, are one way by which matters of lack of quality of service
actually offered is glossed over.
Linguistically, too, the North Essex homepage backgrounds matters of ill-
ness and treatment, and foregrounds actions like 'transforming lives'. They
state that:

Our services are for people of all ages and we involve local people in the
planning and delivery of services. We are committed to treating every-
one with dignity and respect.

In terms of representational strategies, we find not specific people who

need specific treatment, but a sense of inclusion of 'people of all ages'. Would
we expect the service to exclude people of certain ages? The 'local people'
involved in planning and delivering services are generic people, which could
of course conceal the fact that they are local business people. But the term
'local' connotes something familiar and safe. Participants are again individu-
alised through nominating them: 'Sarah', 'Mrs Smith from Chelmsford'.

Angle
In pictures, as in real life, there are different ways we can engage with people.
Becoming involved with people means, literally, 'confronting' them, coming
'face to face' with them. In certain interactions, of course, we may not come
'face to face' but merely observe others, for example, when two people are
arguing. Here we will watch the action from side on. The side-on view is
more detached, although combined with closeness, it can, depending on the

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

S ite ~lee, I FH009 d< I Con\ld ui

se a,rch North EssexPartnership ~

NHSFoundilllonTNSI
lliil
ProfeSSKlnals

Welcome to the North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation

Trust
We prov ide mental health, substance misuse and soc!al
care services and support for over 17,000 individuals IN CRISIS? ...
and their families in north Essex.

Our services are for people of all ages and we involve local people in the planning and
delivery of services. We're committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect.

My Story

Sor11h: illepeopleetthe fi'ld9ut11boutwhaJdrives11s Annu11IpublgMeel ing2Q1Q-

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Figure 10 North Essex Partnership homepage

circumstances, index togetherness. So if we see a photograph of a person side-

on but very close-up, this can connote a close alignment and a sharedness
of position. This is sometimes communicated in side-on close-ups of British
and American soldiers with their military equipment. We are encouraged to
align with their thoughts and concerns. Ifwe see them further away, there is a
greater sense that we are a more remote observer of the scene.
On the North Essex Trust webpage above, we confront the two people, yet
they look slightly to the side. Combined with the closeness, this appears inti-
mate to a degree, yet they are represented as slightly to the side, so we are not
directly involved - we are observing them.
In images we also see people from behind. In the image of the Cosmopolitan
woman analysed in the Introduction, she is seen slightly from behind . Where
we see people from behind, this can often serve to offer us their point of view,
their perspective on the world. So if in an image we were to see the back of
a person and then beyond them another person pointing a gun at them, we
would take the perspective of the first person who faces the threat.
In the Cosmopolitanimage we have something in between looking at a per-
son as a voyeur and her engaging us. Since she is represented in medium shot
this is not an intimate viewpoint. But since she looks back at us we are also
acknowledged and therefore included in the image. In the work of Machin and
van Leeuwen (2007) on the way such magazines work, it is noted that it is
crucial that the reader is always addressed as part of a community of modern,
attractive women. On the one hand this works linguistically through personal
address 'you' and 'we', but also visually, through the address of gaze.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

In photographs we may also engage with the participants from the vertical
angle. You can either 'look down on' or 'look up to' people to various degrees.
As in real life, this can have a number of effects. Often looking down on some-
one can give a sense of their vulnerability, looking up at them can give a sense
of their power. For example, in the leaflets produced by children's charities,
the children are often positioned in a way that we look down at them to show
how vulnerable they are, whereas in lifestyle magazines, celebrities can be
photographed so that we look up to them.
In the image of the North Essex Health Trust website above, we look up at
the participants. We could say that this has the meaning potential to suggest
that they are empowered. We also look up slightly to the soldier in Helmand
province (see page 40 in Chapter 2), perhaps to connote that he has agency.
Were we to look down at him, he might appear vulnerable in this terrain.
Linguistically, in the text that accompanied this image, we found that the sol-
diers were represented as being professional and highly strategic, as opposed
to the chaotic and unprofessional enemy. The image helps to reinforce what is
expressed in the language.
We also look up at the woman from the Marie Claire article on page 46
in the same chapter, perhaps to suggest that she is somebody to emulate.
However, in the image of Nick Clegg on page 7 6 we are positioned at the same
height. This is one way to connote that he is 'an ordinary person'. On page
72 we also look slightly up at David Cameron. In this case, rather than giv-
ing him the appearance of agency, it combines with his downcast, thoughtful
gaze to amplify a sense that we are being brought close to his more intimate
thoughts. In the text that accompanied this image Cameron was presented as
a man concerned about his performance in a televised leadership debate. The
image communicates that we are being taken close up and intimate to a man
who is worried.

Individualisationversuscollectivisation
In the first section of this chapter we looked at some of the linguistic resources
available for representing participants as individuals, groups or anonymous
figures. We argued that all these could serve ideological ends in that they
evaluate the participants positively or negatively and align the reader to
events and actions in ways that are not necessarily stated overtly. There are
also visual semiotic resources available for achieving these effects in images.

Individualsand groups
We already know that people can be depicted as individuals or as a group. If
they are depicted as a group, they can be 'homogenised', that is they are made
to look like and/ or act or pose like each other to different degrees, creating

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

a 'they are all the same' or 'you can't tell them apart' impression. Often we
find images like these of immigrants or ethnic groups that accompany news
stories about the negative consequences of 'mass immigration'. Such images
serve to collectivise and generically represent people who may have many
complex and different reasons for being there, and at least reasons that are
highly compelling and personal. Yet they are represented as a homogenised
whole.
In the images taken from Cosmopolitan (page 45) magazine and Marie
Claire (page 7) we usually find women represented as individuals. This is
common in these women's lifestyle magazines. It is very rare to find more
than one woman represented. In the Marie Claire example, where the text
tells us of tips on how to get ahead even when there are redundancies in
your office, the image of the individual woman is one way to indicate that
the agent in this situation acts alone; it is one way that the reader is invited
to align with the events through this individual. Machin and van Leeuwen
(2007) have shown how in such magazines the woman is depicted as always
acting alone and strategically. In these magazines, there is no collective and
no society. Machin and van Leeuwen conclude that this representational
strategy is most suited to the requirements of the magazine to fit with the
ideology of individualism that lies at the root of Western consumerism and
corporate capitalism.
In the image of Helmand province we find only one soldier depicted. While
he is not named, he is still individualised visually through being represented
alone. Of course, it is unlikely that he would be out patrolling alone, and in the
text, linguistically, a larger number of British soldiers are represented and for
the most part they are collectivised. This visual depiction of the lone soldier
calmly patrolling perhaps serves to make the British army's presence in the
province seem less oppressive than it may seem to the civilians out there.

Genericand specificdepictions
In images people can be depicted as individuals or specific people. They can
be depicted as people who just happen to be black, Jewish or Muslim, or what-
ever, or they can be depicted as typical black people or Jews or Muslims. The
latter is achieved through stereotypical representations of dress, hairstyle
and grooming, and/or selected (and often exaggerated) physical features
(particularly in cartoons). The effect is to make the individuality of people
disappear behind the elements that categorise them. Cartoons in particular
can stylise and exaggerate individual as well as stereotyped group character-
istics (e.g. exaggerated facial features of certain ethnic groups). Clearly this
is a matter of degree - a dine that runs from the most blatant stereotypes
to a kind of selectivity that does not allow the actual variety of a group to be
depicted. In a sense we cannot do without categories, and hence it could be
argued we need stereotypes (Hall, 1997). However, if they carry negative con-
notations, stereotypes can become derogatory and/or racist.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

In the image of the soldier in Helmand province, the civilian in the back-
ground is included as a generic type. Commentaries on these kinds of rep-
resentations of indigenous people from around the world in the media have
shown how these often fulfil a number of expectations or stereotypes (Lutz
and Collins, 1993). In images in some sectors of the British press at the time
of writing, it was common to see newspaper items referring to Muslim peo-
ple in Britain showing one woman or groups of women dressed in full burqa.
The text itself does not claim that 'all Muslim women look like this', but such
generic visual representations may serve to suggest or connote that they are.

Exclusion:Ways of (not) representingothers

Certain categories of people are not represented in pictures of settings where
they are in fact present, or in events in which they participate. In many of
the images so far analysed we find important exclusions. Just as it is reveal-
ing to ask who is backgrounded or excluded linguistically from a text, so it is
important to ask the same visually. In the image of the soldier in Helmand
province, the rest of the soldiers and the victims of the attack described in
the text are excluded. Of course, it is not so easy to visually represent a mili-
tary attack through semiotic choices that communicate only strategy, profes-
sionalism and neutrality. Images of an actual military attack using artillery
would have shown destruction with maimed and dead people. That this is not
shown is ideologically significant. In photographs of the Vietnam war in the
1970s, images did show the horrors of war. War was represented for what it
is: squalor, suffering, pain, cruelty and abuse. In the Helmand province article
and in many other representation of the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the
public is not to see war represented in this fashion. This change suggests the
ideological requirement that authorities at this time do not wish the British
public to contemplate the effects of the military presence in this way.
In the Marie Claire career text, while linguistically colleagues and bosses
are represented, we do not see these visually. The people whom the woman
works for or against for her own gains are not depicted. This is important.
What if the text was accompanied by a photograph of a real office showing
a woman surrounded by her colleagues? This would of course anchor the
text in a real-life setting rather than the playful fantasy world couched in
trendy language and with fictional characters. What is clear is that the ide-
ology of individualism and rampant careerism communicated in this text is
expressed through both linguistic and visual semiotic resources. The image
here serves not to depict a particular woman at work, but to symbolise a
generic attractive and fashionable woman shown in an intimate close-up, and
in an abstracted setting. Linguistically she is trendy and confident, but also
operates close to a fictional realm. Machin and Thornborrow (2003) suggest
that these texts should be seen much like children's fairytales. They may take
place in the realm of fantasy but nevertheless they carry very real messages
about evaluations of identities, ideas, values and actions with possible social
consequences.

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 Representing People: Language and Identity

Conclusion
This chapter has dealt with the naming and visual representation of persons.
The communicator always has a range of semiotic choices available to them
when they wish to represent a person. The choices they make will never
be neutral but will be based on the way they wish to signpost what kind of
person they are representing, or how they wish to represent them as social
actors engaged in action. These choices allow us to place people in the social
world and to highlight certain aspects of identity we wish to draw attention to
or omit. Like lexical and iconographical choices in general, they can have the
effect of connoting sets of ideas, values and sequences of activity that are not
necessarily overtly articulated. And such choices, whether linguistic or vis-
ual, can serve to position those represented in relation to the viewer /reader.
Such choices may serve to implicitly legitimise or delegitimise the actions of
participants implicitly, since representational choices can connote broader
associations of ideas, values and motives. In society at any one time different
kinds of classifications tend to dominate and those who have power will seek
to promote those classifications that best serve their interests, whether these
are related to national or ethnic identity, or consumer lifestyle categories. In
analysis, as we have shown in this chapter, we must carefully describe the
different representational strategies for different participants and connect
this to broader discourses. We must also carefully consider the relationship
between linguistic and visual representation of social actors.

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 5
Representing Action: Transitivity
and Verb Processes

In the previous chapter we looked at the way participants are represented,

at how the words chosen to do this can signify discourses that shape the way
that we perceive participants, events and circumstances. These choices are
able to portray participants in ways that tend to align us alongside or against
them without overtly stating that this should be the case. As such, they are
able to align us likewise alongside the sequences of activity that these partici-
pants represent. In this chapter we see how the way we perceive people can
be shaped not only by representational strategies but also by the represen-
tation of transitivity or of how they are represented as acting or not acting.
Again, this can promote certain discourses and certain ideologies that are not
overtly stated.
Transitivity is simply the study of what people are depicted as doing and
refers, broadly, to who does what to whom, and how. This allows us to reveal
who plays an important role in a particular clause and who receives the con-
sequences of that action. A transitivity analysis of clause structure shows
us who is mainly given a subject (agent/participant) or object (affected/
patient) position. Based on the work of Halliday (1994), transitivity in this
sense goes beyond traditional grammatical approaches which distinguish
between verbs that take objects ('Mary opened the door') and verbs that do
not ('John slept').
Halliday emphasises that the grammar of a language is a system of
'options' from which speakers and writers choose according to social cir-
cumstances, with transitivity playing a key role in 'meaning making' in lan-
guage. This means that the choice of certain linguistic forms always has
significance, some of which may be ideological. Language is always part of
an intervention in the world, and we have stressed the importance of print
media, in particular, in constructing our everyday world and our expecta-
tions of it through the patterns of its representation. For example, as we saw
in Chapter 1 in the texts produced by the Regional Generation Agency EMDA,
the responsibilities of authorities and of the government may be systemati-
cally backgrounded or omitted; agency and responsibility for actions may
 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

be left implicit. This makes transitivity analysis not only a powerful basis
for analysing what is in texts, but also for what is absent from them. Van Dijk
(1991: 215-16), for example, found that '...negative acts of in-group mem-
bers, such as the authorities or the police, may be reduced in effect by plac-
ing them later in the sentence or by keeping the agency implicit, for instance
in passive sentences'.
Van Dijk (2000) has demonstrated that ethnic minorities are mostly shown
as active agents where they do something bad. Where things are done for or
against them, they are represented in a passive role.

Muslims win a transfer out of too 'white' jail (Daily Mail, 21 March 2008)
Terrorism convicts granted move from 'white' jail (Daily Telegraph, 21
March 2008)

In the first headline, Muslims are the active participants in 'winning' a trans-
fer from one prison to another, whereas in the second, they are the passive
recipients of a privilege. Both headlines construct this as something negative,
because prisoners should not be given privileges. The first headline 'others'
the participants in terms of their ethnicity ('Muslims'), whereas the second
does so in terms of their status as prisoners and terrorists ('terrorism con-
victs'). Both are negative expressions, although the second one is arguably
more condemnatory.
When analysing agency (who does what to whom) and action (what gets
done) we are interested in describing three aspects of meaning:

• participants (which includes both the 'doers' of the process as well as

the 'done-tos' who are at the receiving end of action; participants may be
people, things or abstract concepts)
• processes (represented by verbs and verbal groups)
• circumstances (these are adverbial groups or prepositional phrases,
detailing where, when and how something has occurred). These aspects
will be explained below. (Simpson and Mayr,2010: 66)

For example, in the sentence:

Three soldiers attacked a civilian yesterday
the actor element is the 'three soldiers' who carry out the process of attack-
ing. The goal is the 'civilian' who has been attacked, and the circumstance is
'yesterday' which locates the process in a temporal context. So in a transi-
tivity analysis we have first to identify the participants in a clause and then
the process types used. Halliday distinguishes six process types: material,
mental, behavioural, verbal, relational and existential. We can use these to
help us to think more carefully about what kinds of things are being done
in a text.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Materialprocesses
Material processes describe processes of doing. Usually, these are concrete
actions that have a material result or consequence, such as 'The police
arrested the burglar', although they may also represent abstract processes
such as 'Prices have fallen' or metaphorical processes such as 'She demol-
ished my argument'. The two key participants in material processes are the
actor and the goal. The actor is the part which performs the action and the
goal is the participant at whom the process is directed (the direct object in
traditional grammar). Some material processes have one participant only, the
actor, as in 'He walked away'. However, material processes can also involve
processes that have no clear goal, as in 'He arrived' or 'The army advanced'.
We can see the difference if we compare sentences with material processes
where there is a clear goal: 'The army attacked the village'.
We also find material processes where the actor is 'lost'. This is done
through passive clauses. Fairclough (2000: 163) has also argued that one
important thing we must look for in texts is where who acts and who has
responsibility has been obscured. For example:

The civilians were killed during a bombing raid.

The government found itself facing allegations of spin this week follow-
ing the release of some confusing crime statistics.

In both of these sentences who carried out the action is missing. Who killed
the civilians and who made the allegations? But passive verb structures can
be used with agents such as:

The civilians were protected by the soldiers.

In an analysis of a text we can ask which kinds of participants are described

in passive verb sentences and which are not. Van Dijk (2000) has shown, for
example, that ethnic minorities are only shown as active agents where they
do something bad. Where they are associated with anything positive, they are
represented in a passive role, where things are done for or against them.

The Muslim community was attacked.

Muslim extremists demanded a change in the law.

Material processes can also have beneficiaries, as in 'He built the house for
a customer'. Here the 'house' is the goal and the 'customer' the beneficiary.
Material processes can further be linked to what is called 'range'. This is some-
thing that is unaffected by the process, such as in 'I am conducting research'.
Here 'research' is connected to the process and is not a goal in itself.
What we can see from this account of material processes is that in a text
we can ask whether participants are represented as actors, goals, or as

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

beneficiaries of processes. By asking these questions we can get a clear sense

of who is active and who is passive in a sentence or text.

Mental processes
Mental processes are processes of sensing and can be divided into three
classes: 'cognition' (verbs of thinking, knowing or understanding), 'affection'
(verbs of liking, disliking or fearing) and 'perception' (verbs of seeing, hearing
or perceiving). Examples of the three classes of cognition, affection and per-
ception are, respectively: 'I understood the story', 'Peter liked the film a lot'
and We saw:many interesting buildings'. Mental processes allow us to gain
an insight into the feelings or states of mind of certain participants ('Women
.wo.rcy:too much about their physical appearance').
It is often the case that participants who are made the subjects of mental
processes are constructed as the 'focalisers' or 'reflectors' of action. These
actors are allowed an internal view of themselves. This can be one device
through which listeners and readers can be encouraged to have empathy with
that person. For example:

The mother had worried since her son's regiment had moved into the
region.

Here the reader is encouraged to empathise with the mother by being

informed of her worrying. In turn, this carries over to the soldier himself.
Indirectly we are told that he has a mother who worries about him. The sol-
dier is essentially an ordinary young man from an ordinary family.This serves
to help humanise the occupying forces and can be seen as an important part
of the humanitarian discourse of war. We might find that accounts of other
participants in a text contain no corresponding details about their mental
processes. So we learn nothing of the mental processes of the 'militants' or
the concerns of their mothers.
Mental processes can also be one way of showing that these participants
appear very busy, even though they participate in no material transactions.
And if these mental verbs are mainly about sensing and reacting, this can also
convey passivity. So, in the sentences above the mother is the only person
allowed an internal view of herself. We might tend to align with her thoughts.
But she still remains passive in the sense that she is not the agent of any actual
physical actions. Were we given access to the fears and worries of the soldiers
through sentences like:

The soldier worried as he protected the civilians.

Here we might attribute more humanity to the soldier rather than seeing him
simply as a member of an indifferent occupying force. During times where
nation states have been involved in armed conflict, it has been common to see

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

photographs of vulnerable-looking soldiers writing home to a loved one. In

the same way we are invited to experience the feelings of that participant
Clearly, whether or not a soldier misses his family has no bearing on the
actual political reasons for his presence in the occupied country nor on the
violence it suffers.
One particular kind of mental processes can be characterised as 'reactions'.
For example:

The marker was bewildered by the student's essay.

Here the mental process of the marker is a reaction to the work submitted
by the student. We can also see this in the following sentence:

He had fears for the student's progress.

This is important as texts not only tell us what we should do, or what has
happened, but also how people feel about things. Van Leeuwen (2008: 56)
points out that social roles, as reinforced in texts, prescribe not only actions
and identities, but also feelings.
In the Marie Claire text analysed in Chapter 2, where the woman is told how
to compete with her workmates to get ahead even when they are losing their
jobs, we find that we are given access to how she feels doing this:

I'm not looking to be promoted, but I also recognize no one wants chaos.

Throughout these feature items in many women's lifestyle magazines the

reader is continually being told how she will feel or what the feelings associ-
ated with certain actions are. For example:

His reaction made me feel so powerful.

I feel good about being in charge in bed. It makes me feel confident
about my sexuality.
When my best pal started playing games with me, I just didn't think the
job was worth holding onto.

One reason for this use of mental processes, and specifically reactions,
in such magazines is the fact that, as commentators have observed, women
always act alone because they are oriented towards social interaction rather
than creativity or intellectual skills. And for the most part they must get on
in society through manipulating others and through the power that their
body and sexuality affords them. In the Marie Claire article, and many oth-
ers, behaviour that might be seen as selfish and coldly strategic is legiti-
mised partly through reactions. Importantly, this can also be seen in this
instance as the way that these lifestyle magazines are closely tuned to acts of

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

consumption, where women are encouraged to align with both the brand of
the magazine and the values and identities associated with this, and the prod-
ucts and services that appear in its pages.
In any text we can ask how many process terms describe actions and how
many describe reactions. We might conclude that in particular areas of social
practice reactions are more important than actions. So in a text about immi-
gration, there may be a predominance of reactions attributed to those por-
trayed as 'us'. The immigrants meanwhile are the provokers of the reactions
(Van Leeuwen, 2008). We might find in a text that one group is portrayed as
producing actions, say terrorists, and the other group, the Americans, are pro-
ducing reactions. These reactions might be moderate and reasonable, such as
'The soldiers feared for the civilians during the attack'.
It is important to note that rather than having goals or beneficiaries, mental
processes relate to 'phenomena'. In the sentence 'I like you', 'you' is a phenom-
enon rather than a goal or beneficiary.
Another category of reactions are those that are not defined. Such as:

The policeman reacted.

The soldiers responded.

These can be used to conceal certain kinds of actions.

We can observe that different categories of participants are often given dif-
ferent types of reaction. In adverts, consumers tend to 'desire', 'need', 'want',
whereas the advertiser tends to 'think', 'know' and 'understand'. Here it is the
advertisers who position themselves to be able to fulfil our needs and wants
through their knowing and understanding.

Behaviouralprocesses
Behavioural processes, like watch, taste, stare, dream, breathe, cough, smile
and laugh denote psychological or physical behaviour. They are semanti-
cally a cross between material and mental processes. For example, 'look at'
and 'listen to' are classed as behavioural, whereas 'see' and 'hear' would be
mental processes. Behavioural processes are also in part about action. Unlike
material processes, however, the action has to be experienced by a single con-
scious being, i.e. a person. (We heard loud music'). We can see that 'The man
laughed' is an action, as is 'The soldier watched'. But neither of these suggests
that the actor has a particularly strong agency, nor are we given any sense of
a goal or a beneficiary.

Verbalprocesses
Verbal processes are expressed through the verb 'to say' and its many
synonyms. A verbal process typically consists of three participants: sayer,

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

receiver and verbiage. The sayer can be a human or human-like speaker, as

in 'The teacher explained the theory', but it can also be an inanimate item, as
in 'The paper alleges there was a lot of violence'. The receiver is the one at
whom the verbal process is directed: 'They told me to leave at once', while
the verbiage is a nominalised statement of the verbal process: 'The paper
provided a detailed account' or 'He said that this was the case'. In any text we
can ask which participants are represented as being associated more with
verbal processes. On the one hand, those who are allowed to have a voice in
the media may be those who have the most power. On the other hand, some
may be seen to have too much to say, as we will see later in this chapter. But
much can be revealed about agency when we analyse the extent to which
some participants are represented as doers of material processes with goals,
but others as thinkers and talkers.

Relational processes
These are processes that encode meanings about states of being, where things
are stated to exist in relation to other things. They are expressed through the
verb 'to be', which is the most frequent, but synonyms such as 'become', 'mean',
'define', 'symbolise', 'represent', 'stand for', 'refer to', 'mark' and 'exemplify' are
also classed as relational processes. To 'have' in the sense of possessing some-
thing is another relational process, as in 'She has. a car'. Relational processes
allow us to present as 'facts' what could be classed as opinion, as in 'A lot of
people ha.Ye. worries about immigration'.

Existentialprocesses
Existential processes represent that something exists or happens, as in 'There
has been an increase in enemy activity'. Existential processes typically use the
verb 'to be' or synonyms such as 'exist', 'arise' or 'occur', and they only have
one participant, as in 'There was an attack'. This participant, which is usu-
ally preceded by there is or there are, may be any kind of phenomenon and
often denotes a nominalised action. In the above example, the verb 'to attack'
has been turned into a nominalisation. This can have the effect of obscuring
agency and responsibility, as we are not told who may be behind the attack.
When we look at these processes and participants out of context, as in
the examples presented above, it is not clear what ideological function they
have as such. However, things are very different when transitivity is embod-
ied as discourse. For example, the relationship between actor and goal can
be ideologically significant if agency is backgrounded through the use of the
passive voice. In passives, the position of these elements is reversed, as in
'One civilian was killed by security forces', and it even allows the actor to be
omitted completely: 'One civilian was killed'. Even more backgrounding is
achieved through the use of a one-participant process such as 'One civilian
died', where the action appears not to be caused by the police at all. As we will

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

demonstrate, transitivity patterns, especially in the manipulation of agency

at the grammatical level, can be significant in terms of language and power.
Another way of characterising transitivity is in terms of the way that par-
ticipants in a clause, or social actors, can be activated or passivated.Activated,
social actors are represented as 'the active, dynamic forces in an activity' (Van
Leeuwen, 1996: 43-4), the ones who do things and make things happen. Being
activated, in this view, is an important and generally positive aspect of repre-
sentation. An activated actor's capacity for 'action, for making things happen,
for controlling others and so forth, is accentuated' (Fairclough, 2003: 150).
Action processes foreground agency, contributing to representations of power
(2003: 113). Machin and Thornborrow (2006), for example, use this model
to show how in women's magazines women are highly active but in terms of
behavioural processes, mental processes and material processes which have
no goal or outcome. So the women might be busy 'hoping', 'worrying', 'walking',
'watching', 'reading'. This is even though the magazine is branded as for the
'Fun, Fearless, Female',which would suggest a woman that indeed is 'out there'
accomplishing things in the world. The same kinds of process patterns have
been noted of the way that women behave in romantic fiction (Ryder, 1999):

She trailed through life in that red dressing-gown.

She moved languidly about.
She was so full of understanding.
She sat upright and quiet, with wide-open eyes.

The protagonists in these novels are not involved in material processes which
bring about changes in the world or those which have beneficiaries. We can
say, therefore, that they are 'passivated' rather than 'activated'. It is often the
male hero who is activated.
Van Leeuwen (1996: 90) uses the same analytical framework to describe the
way that children are represented textually in contrast to teachers. He analyses
the texts for 'transitivity' - in other words, actions that have an outcome. The
analysis reveals that children, in contrast to teachers, are rarely represented as
having an effect on the world. He concludes that 'clearly the ability to "transit''
requires a certain power, and the greater that power, the greater the range of
"goals" that may be affected by the actors actions' (1996: 90).
There is a theoretical assumption here, therefore, that levels of an actor's
agency are directly correlated to material process types and that individu-
als or groups not involved in such processes are represented as being weak
agents. Teo (2000: 27), in his analysis of racism in two Australian newspa-
pers, concludes that the agents or dominant subjects are those attributed
with material or verbal processes. In contrast, those who are not may be
'ineffectual'.
As regards material processes, it is also important to think about the goals
involved. Van Leeuwen (2008) explains that it is important to distinguish

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

between transactions with things and with people. Those which affect people
he calls interactive transactions, and those which affect things he calls instru-
mental transactions.
An example of an interactive goal would be:

I ushered Jenny into the room.

Instrumental transactions can also be applied to persons when they are

treated as things. This is often found in bureaucratised discourse, for example:

Staff should be placed in clear skills categories.

We can illustrate the way that these different kinds of verb processes clearly
point more subtly to the agency and lack of agency of different participants in
a particular social practice even though this is not overtly stated. Such iden-
tities, signifying whole discourses of values, roles and sequences of activity
have consequence in this case for actual professional practices.
Below are examples from medical journals relating to childbirth (from
Seamen, 2011). There has been much discussion in such journals and in gov-
ernment policy about the way that women can be empowered to make their
own choices for the kind of delivery they want, so that they can avoid unneces-
sary medical intervention. But this choice has never materialised and what is
argued in the literature to be largely pointless medical procedures (Kitzinger,
2005) are carried out automatically. Central to this issue is that much govern-
ment policy in Britain has emphasised that greater power should be given to
midwives and less to obstetricians, whose very raison d'etre is to carry our
surgical procedures. In units run by midwives, for example, there are few cae-
sarean sections, but these are usual in obstetrics-driven wards. If we exam-
ine recent journals, we find certain process types dominating the accounts of
how the two groups behave.
The obstetricians:

common surgical procedures performed by obstetrician residents

undertake perineal repair
obstetricians and gynaecologists formally instruct the repair

The midwives:

we have to really believe in our ability to give birth normally before we

can convince others
We have to be able to talk about normal birth in a way that encourages
people to want it
We have to really want normal birth before anyone will have any
confidence in it

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

postcards you can use to send to colleagues, exchange ideas or tell us

how you feel
use stories to make a point

We can see similarities between the midwives and the women in Machin
and Thornborrow's (2006) magazines and in Tea's (2000) description of the
agency of immigrant groups. The obstetricians carry out material processes
often with clear goals and beneficiaries. They 'undertake perineal repair', and
'surgical procedures' are 'performed' by them. Verbal processes of 'instruct-
ing' imply them to be authoritative. The midwives, in contrast, are engaged
in mental processes where they 'believe' and 'want'. We can see clearly from
these two cases which participants are most activated.

Adjuncts
The analysis of the medical journals on the subject of agency in childbirth
revealed a further way that the midwives were de-agentalised through their
grammatical positioning (Van Leeuwen, 1996). The lexical choice of adjuncts
had a significant impact upon the actors' status as social agents. Adjuncts are
simply lexical items that can be used to modify circumstances.
For example, in a key opening paragraph midwives are described as being:

routinely involved in assessing and recording the extent of perineal

trauma ... and [being] responsible for initiating appropriate interven-
tions and treatment.

From this we can see that midwives do not do the assessing, recording or
intervention; rather, they are part of these processes or at best simply start
them off rather than being their executors or managers. Thus, even when they
are involved in an action profile with a material outcome, they are function-
ally decentred from their activity by the use of the adjuncts involved and ini-
tiating, both of which show that midwives are not really in charge of doing
the action. Of the eight clauses within the text above representing the action
processes of midwives, five are decentred through the use of adjuncts. This is
not the case with the obstetricians.
The midwifery texts also reveal that there was a main social agent present,
but that this agent was an unidentified third person. This presence was
evoked through their business of'expecting', 'accepting' and 'recognising' that
midwives should or should not, must or must not, behave in a certain way.
For example:

midwives are expected to make assessments regarding management

of perineal trauma that are vitally important to the long-term health of
women.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

it is common practice and a generally accepted rule within many mater-

nity units'
Perine al repair is recognised as a role of the midwife

Who is doing the expecting and whose accepted rule it is remains unspecified.
Clearly, those in control do not have such mysterious powers watching over
them or defining their role and we found no such absentee actor included in
the obstetrics text.

Grammaticalpositioningof actions
A further linguistic strategy for representing social action is within a circum-
stance, such as within a prepositional phrase or subordinate clause. These
circumstances are useful for backgrounding certain acts and for foreground-
ing others.
Prepositional phrases begin with a preposition, such as 'for', 'at' or 'after'.
In the sentence We bought it for them', there is the main clause We bought
it' and the prepositional phrase 'for them'. A newspaper headline might use a
main clause and a prepositional phrase as in 'Boy stabbed at school'.
A subordinate clause will begin with a conjunction such as 'because' or
'after' or a relative pronoun such as 'which' or 'whose'. So in the sentence 'I
paid the shopkeeper when I left the shop', the last part, 'when I left the shop',
is the subordinate clause.
Richardson (2007: 207) argues that prepositional phrases can be used to
provide context for dominant clauses. In newspaper headlines, prepositional
phrases are also often used to reduce responsibility for certain actions. The
action may be in the dominant clause and the prepositional phrase may sup-
ply the details of the time, place and manner of action. In a headline provided
by Richardson, 'Children killed in US assault' (The Guardian, 2 April 2003),
the main emphasis is on 'Children killed'. Who is behind the killing, however,
is de-emphasised through the prepositional phrase. Richardson suggests
the editor could have written the same information as 'US kill children in
assault'. Here 'US kill children' is the dominant clause, which makes it abso-
lutely clear who is responsible for the action: the US are the actors in the
material process 'kill' and the 'children' are the goal of the action, whereas
the prepositional phrase 'in assault' just provides the details and context of
how this was done.
Van Dijk (1991) has also discussed the way that actions can be played down
when placed later in a sentence or embedded in a clause. He states that '[E]
vents may be strategically played down by the syntactic structure of the sen-
tences, for example, by referring to the event in a lower (later, less prominent)
embedded clause, or conversely by putting it in the first position when the
events need extra prominence' (1991: 216). For example:

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

The university management made severe staff cuts.

After extensive reductions in government funding, the university man-
agement made severe staff cuts.

In the second case, the information about the actions of the management has
been given less emphasis by placing it in the subordinate position.

Actionsthat are representedin abstraction

This is where actions become generalised and non-specific. For example, in:

It is important for staff to interact with students at the event

the details of what is done are obscured. In such cases it may not be so
important as to what is actually done but that staff appear to interact with
the students. This may be one indication of the situation where students now
paying higher fees need to be given the appearance that resources are being
dedicated to them. We can see this in the EMDAtext analysed for lexical con-
tent on page 33 in Chapter 2.

Our primary role to deliver our mission is to be the strategic driver of

economic development

In this sentence, the process 'deliver' is used to gloss over what is actually
done by such organisations. We find it again in another line from the same
EMDAtext:

Working with partners to deliver the goals of the Regional Economic

Strategy

Here we find 'deliver' again and also 'working', both of which are used to
gloss over the micro-processes that might comprise these actions. In the
Loughborough University mission statement also analysed in Chapter 2 (see
page 34) we find:

Loughborough University is a dynamic, forward looking institution,

committed to being a centre of excellence.

We can see here that processes like 'committed', a word that has become a
staple of corporate branding language, is used to abstract what the university
actually does in this respect. Do they mean they provide finance, a high number
of teaching staff and high-tech equipment and training? 'Commitment' is not
the same as actually 'doing', of course, but is a mental process. So when we

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

find such abstractions at the level of social action we have to ask why and
what is being concealed.
In Chapter 2 we looked at the way that a British National Health Trust
homepage promoted itself in terms of this kind of corporate language. We
considered this in the context of substantial cuts in state funding of health
services and waves of privatisation, with companies choosing the most profit-
able parts of services (Pollock, 2006). Looking at some of the process types
we find on this web page, again there is a predominance of abstraction:

To improve the health of people by pursuing excellence in healthcare

Here the Trust says that it will 'pursue' excellence. There is a clear goal of
'excellence in healthcare', but the verb process 'pursue' is an abstraction as it
tells us little about what they will actually do. Will they appoint many high-
quality doctors and nurses? Will they be funding all the latest medicines and
treatments? It is clear that wherever we find such abstraction, as Fairclough
(1989) points out, there is an indication of some kind of ideological manip-
ulation. By using the word 'pursue', the Trust can give the impression they
are actually doing something without specifying what this is. Pursuing excel-
lence, in fact, in this case appears to be accomplished by the micro-processes
of staff and services cuts.

Casestudy1: Overlexicalised
Muslimprisoners
In this first case study we carry out a transitivity analysis on a text analysed in Chapter
4 which reported on the following:

Muslim prisoners sue for millions after they were offered ham sandwiches for
Ramadan.

The story used representational strategies to overlexicalise the word 'Muslim'

and used extensive aggregation, such as 'scores of Muslims'. In contrast, those
representing the prison authorities were largely anonymised and functionalised to
foreground their professional roles. Those complaining were therefore represented
as a numerous 'other' and as outrageously imposing their religious views on
British culture even though they were criminals. Meanwhile the authorities were
represented as neutral and official. We considered how the story could have been
written differently in terms of the nature of the prison system and the broader lack
of sensitivities to human rights. Here we now look at the way that transitivity too can
shape the story ideologically.

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a multi-
million pound claim for compensation after they were offered ham sandwiches
during the holy month of Ramadan.

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

They say their human rights were breached when they were given a special
nightly menu - drawn up to recognise their specific dietary requirements - by
officers at HMP Leeds last month.

More than 200 Muslim inmates at the jail are believed to have been offered the
meat which is strictly forbidden by Islam.

The sandwich was one of three options on the menu card which was created
to cover the religious festival during which Muslims are required to fast during
daylight.

They later complained to prison officers on duty but say they were told that the
menus had been printed in error.

Yet when they opened the sandwiches, having ordered cheese, some claim they
were still filled with boiled ham.

They are now launching legal action, insisting that their human rights were
breached and could each be entitled to up to £10,000 in compensation if they
win their case at court.

One Muslim inmate, a 28-year-old who was serving a 16-week sentence for driv-
ing whilst disqualified, said: 'When I opened my meal that night I found I'd been
given a ham sandwich. I'd asked for cheese.

'It was a breach of my human rights and I want compensation.'

He claimed that some inmates were so hungry they ended up eating the
sandwiches.

The prison denied that any Muslim prisoners had been given ham sandwiches
but admitted there had been a mistake when the menus were printed.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: 'An inappropriate menu card was
printed during Ramadan. This mistake was rectified immediately.

'Appropriate menu options for the lftaar evening meal were available throughout
Ramadan.

'Prison Service guidelines state that prisoners must have a diet which meets the
requirements of their religion.'

It comes as 16 Muslim inmates at Leeds Prison prepare to launch a separate

legal case over claims of mistreatment, including being given food that is forbid-
den by their religion.

They are expected to claim at a hearing next year that they were given meat
which was not halal.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Kate Maynard, from law firm Hickman and Rose Solicitors who is representing
some of the men, said: 'One of the issues they are worried about is that they were
being told food was halal when it wasn't.

'They are taking this to court to try to change conditions in the prison and make
conditions better.'

Last year the Prison Service was forced to apologise to Muslim inmates at a
category B jail after a kitchen worker was caught throwing ham into halal curries.

Prisoners at HMP Blakenhurst in Worcestershire each received a written apology.

The inmate behind the attack at the prison, which houses 1,070 offenders, was
observed throwing tinned ham into curries destined for Muslim inmates and sus-
pended from his job in the kitchen.

Let us first deal with the transitivity patterns used to represent the Muslims who
complained about the ham sandwiches they were served. Their actions are
represented in terms of material processes:

Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a multi-million pound
claim for compensation.

They are now launching legal action,

This gives the impression that the Muslim will do something dramatic. The verbs
'started' or 'initiate' could equally have been used but would seem more moderate.
It is important in this text, along with the overlexicalisation of the representational
category of 'Muslim' and the aggregation that describes 'scores of Muslims' to show
the magnitude of this event.
We can think about 'launching' in this case as an example of abstraction. Exactly
what does 'launching' mean here? At which stage of the legal process are they? News
reports of a sensational nature often use abstractions in this way to simplify stories.
We find the Muslim inmates actions represented through other verb processes in:

could each be entitled to up to £10,000 in compensation

This relational verb 'be entitled' adds to the sense of outrage as to prisoners, who
are clearly not integrated in British society and culture, nor respecters of its laws, are
'entitled' to compensation.
We also find extensive use of verbal processes:

insisting that their human rights were breached

They later complained to prison officers on duty

some claim they were still filled with boiled ham.

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

He claimed that some inmates were so hungry they ended up eating the
sandwiches

In this sentence we are given a sense of the prisoners being highly vocal. In contrast,
we find no verbal processes for the prison officers, for example. Again, this adds to
the sense that scores of Muslims are making a lot of noise, insisting, and complaining
and launching legal action, despite being the 'other' and criminals.
We find one mental process, where we are told that the inmate serving time for
driving while disqualified 'wants' compensation:

It was a breach of my human rights and I want compensation.

Here we are given a glimpse inside this prisoner's mental world. He 'wants'
compensation. This adds to the cumulative effect of the supposedly inappropriate way
that these men are behaving and how they think, demanding what they perceive to
be their rights. Being told here what he wants enhances the sense of audacity. Those
who are being punished in prison should behave appropriately. The text also forms
part of an anti-immigration/racist discourse that portrays foreigners or members of
other cultural groups as being unwilling to adapt to British culture.
We also find the use of dominant clauses to foreground the identities of the
prisoners, and prepositional phrases, as in:

Muslim prisoners sue for millions after they were offered ...

In these cases, the nouns 'Muslim', 'scores of Muslims', 'more than 200 Muslims' are
regularly foregrounded by being placed at the beginning of sentences with the details
of what they are doing placed further back in prepositional phrases and subordinate
clauses. We can see the effect of these sentences if we change the clause order. The
sentence

Muslim prisoners sue for millions after they were offered ham sandwiches for
Ramadan

could be rephrased as:

After they were offered ham sandwiches for Ramadan Muslim prisoners sue for
millions

Here it is the fact that the Muslim prisoners were offered ham sandwiches for
Ramadan that is foregrounded, which helps to make their response seem much more
reasonable. The sentence is now about the offering of the sandwiches and not the
fact that they are Muslims. This appears to be precisely what Van Dijk (1991: 215-16)
had in mind when he argued that 'negative acts of in-group members ... may be
reduced by placing them later in the sentence'. We can see the same effect when we
change the following sentence:

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

More than 200 Muslim inmates at the jail are believed to have been offered the
meat which is strictly forbidden by Islam.

Which can be written alternatively as:

Meat strictly forbidden by Islam is believed to have been offered to more than
200 Muslim inmates.

This is all evidence of the way that the identities of the prisoners and their actions
are foregrounded over and above those of the prison service. The reversal of the last
sentence really captures what this whole event is about, and offering ham to Muslim
prisoners during Ramadan, while it may have been a mistake, does not speak well for
a country which has claimed to welcome multiculturalism.
In contrast to the Muslim prisoners, the prison authorities are represented as having
acted reasonably. What we find are material processes that emphasise agency, but
also moderation. In the following sentences we find that the ham was only 'offered',
mentioned twice, as opposed to 'given'. This gives a sense of the prisoners having a
choice. And the word 'offer' suggests some degree of grace and generosity:

... after they were offered ham sandwiches during the holy month of Ramadan .

.. . to have been offered the meat

And the same sense of shifting responsibility through there being choice is
expressed by the relational verb 'available' in the following sentence.

Appropriate menu options for the lftaar evening meal were available.

Importantly, in all of these three cases we find passivised verb processes. The
sandwiches 'were offered' and the menu options 'were available'. So there is no
agent in these processes, even though 'offering' is itself a transitive verb. If these
sentences were written differently we can see the effect of these passive clauses.
For example:

The prison offered ham sandwiches during the holy month of Ramadan.

This sentence makes it very clear what happened.

Other verb processes are used to increase a sense of the prison authorities
behaving considerately. We find that the prison authorities 'drew up a special menu',
suggesting actions carried out specifically with the Muslim inmates in mind as a
result of the mental process of 'recognition'. So whereas we are given access to
the internal mental world of the prisoners only in terms of what one man 'wants', the
mental world of the authorities is one which 'recognises'. Then we find the use of the
material process of 'created to cover' to describe the production of the menu. This
again reinforces the sense of the intentions of the authorities.

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

a special nightly menu - drawn up to recognise their specific dietary requirements

the menu card which was created to cover the religious festival during
Finally,we find a sequence of verbal processesthat also point to the stance of the prison.

The prison denied that any Muslim prisoners had been given ham sandwiches
but admitted there had been a mistake when the menus were printed

The prison 'denies' that anyone had been given ham sandwiches, a verb process
that is often used by journalists to imply guilt, as we saw in Chapter 3 on quoting verbs.
But here this is quickly balanced with the verb 'admitted'. So the prison authorities are
decent enough to accept something went wrong. The case made by the language
appears to be that the Muslim prisoners were 'offered' the sandwiches, which were
therefore 'available' but not 'given' to them. Nevertheless we are told that:

the mistake was rectified immediately.

In sum, it appears that the prison authorities made a mistake by putting ham
sandwiches on the menu during Ramadan, which caused the inmates to complain.
The story has been written in terms of verb processes to foreground the actions of
the Muslims and their aggressive attitude. The actions of the prison meanwhile are
downplayed. The result, combined with the representational strategies, is a story that
draws on two typical news frames of the more right-wing press: those in prison are
treated too well and the criminal justice system is now more concerned with their
rights than those of their victims (see Mayr and Machin, 2012); and immigrants and
different cultural/ethnic groups are swamping British culture with their demands. But
by drawing out the verb processes here we have been able to show some of the
mechanisms through which what actually happened has been recontextualised.

Casestudy2: The Helmandprovincestory

In this second case study we analyse the verb processes in the news report analysed
on page 40 in Chapter 2 on lexical analysis.

BRITISH commandos launched a devastating blitz on the Taliban - as the evil

terrorists held a party to celebrate Benazir Bhutto's murder.

The dawn raid was staged after messages were intercepted about the sick
knees-up in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Royal Marines crept into position as the fanatics partied the night away just hours
after Ms Bhutto was killed in Pakistan.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

The bash was being held in ruined compounds a few hundred yards from Our
Boys' remote base in Kajaki.

Ragtag Taliban sentries tried to hit back with machine gun fire - but stood no
chance against the heroes of 40 Commando's Charlie Company.

Bloodthirsty

The terrorists were pounded with mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns.

Two bloodthirsty revellers trying to creep towards Our Boys in a trench were spotted
by thermal-imaging equipment - and targeted with a Javelin heat-seeking missile.

The £65,000 rocket- designed to stop Soviet tanks - locked on to their body heat
and tore more than a kilometer across the desert in seconds.

Troop Sergeant Dominic Conway, 32 - who directed mortar rounds - grinned: "It
must have had quite a detrimental effect on their morale."

Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used to be
their backyard and now we've made it ours."

The story tells of a successful attack by British soldiers on a group of Taliban. It

appears that the Taliban were attacked by surprise when the British soldiers identified
them and fired a high-tech missile into their midst. In this chapter we looked at some
of the representational strategies, particularly that the British soldiers, who were
described in professional terms as 'British commandos', 'Troop Sergeant', 'Charlie
Company' and through other positive naming strategies such as 'Our Boys' and
'Heroes', whereas the Taliban were described as 'fanatics', 'animals', 'Ragtag Taliban
sentries' to delegitimise and dehumanise them. Below we have placed the verb
processes attributed to them in a table.
To begin with, the British soldiers are represented as agents in the text. We find the
following material processes:

Launched

Intercepted

Staged

Targeted

Used

All of these connote professional activities and represent the soldiers as agents.
They connote precision, as in the material processes 'intercepted', 'targeted' and
'crept'. On the other hand, some of these are abstractions. 'Launched a devastating

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

Table 5 Transitivity in Helmand province text

British soldiers Taliban
Launched a devastating blitz Held a party

Intercepted messages Tried to hit back

Crept into position Trying to creep

Staged a dawn raid Were targeted

Targeted Partied

Used missiles that locked onto their body heat Stood no chance

Grinned Were pounded with mortars

Directed mortar rounds

Made their back yard ours

blitz' appears to conceal the precise actions that were performed by the soldiers. For
the most part, it seems that they simply moved into position and fired mortars and
a heat-sensitive missile, designed to destroy tanks, at the Taliban. But 'launching'
conveys much more magnitude and drama and glosses over what is involved in
concrete terms.
All these verb processes suggest a clear attempt at representing warfare as an
adventure performed by precision-trained troops. Anyone who has read accounts of
frontline combat by former frontline soldiers will know more of the chaos, desperation,
horror and pure luck that defines the situation.
The soldiers are also represented by verbal processes as they joke about the effect
the operation has on their morale:
Sgt Conway, from Whitley Bay, Tyneside, said of the Taliban lair: "It used to be their
backyard and now we've made it ours."
We are given access to their mental state through the behavioural verb 'grinned'. This
could be interpreted as simply indicating pride in their work through an understated
and ironic account of the results of the missile attack having a 'detrimental effect on
their morale'. Alternatively, it could be seen more cynically in the context of the deaths
and mutilation of the enemy.
The Taliban are represented as passive. Verbs position them as receivers, as in
where they were 'targeted' and 'pounded with mortars'. Where they do attempt
manoeuvres they are characterised with adjuncts 'tried' to hit back and 'trying' to creep.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

We can see the differences in verb processes for the two groups. One behaves
strategically and professionally, the other is the receiver of actions performed by the
British army and since they only 'try' to hit back and creep they are neither competent
nor successful. But one important question we can answer here is what processes
have been backgounded in this text. The effects of the missile are absent from
the text. There are no verb processes, such as 'being dismembered', 'maimed', or
horrifically wounded'.

Casestudy3: A predominance
ofverbalprocesses
In this third case study we see how a high quantity of verb processes can create an
impression of a threat where there is none. This news item is from The Daily Mail (12
January 2010)

Guilty? It's a badge of honour say Muslim hate mob (and because we're on ben-
efits, the state will pay our costs)

A group of Muslim extremists who screamed 'rapists' and 'murderers' at British

soldiers went unpunished yesterday - and called their conviction 'a badge of hon-
our'. The five were given conditional discharges for shouting 'baby killers' and 'ter-
rorists' and waving placards at hundreds of soldiers returning from Iraq. Outside
court they were surrounded by a mob of supporters and boasted they would do
the same again, saying they wanted to see sharia law in Britain. The men, all
of whom are on benefits, were each ordered to pay £500 in costs towards the
prosecution. Outside the court, they defiantly declared: 'The taxpayer paid for this
court case. The taxpayer will pay for the fines too out of benefits'. Surrounded
by other followers of lslam4UK - the group led by so-called preacher of hate
Anjem Choudary - they said they would protest again. Their backers waved a
banner saying: 'Islam will dominate the world. Freedom can go to hell'. Some of
the group members were linked to an egg attack on Tory peer Baroness Warsi
when she visited Luton two months ago. The peer - who was hit by at least one
of the eggs - faced a group of shouting protesters telling her that she was not a
proper Muslim. No one was charged. During their six-day trial, the men argued
they were exercising their right to freedom of speech and had been telling the
truth about the conduct of British forces in Iraq. They were part of a demon-
stration against the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, who were marching
through Luton after returning from Iraq. The protest sparked a hostile stand-off
with angry members of the public who had been cheering the soldiers. Yesterday

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

at Luton Magistrates' Court, five of the group were found guilty of using threaten-
ing, abusive, insulting words and behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm
and distress to others. They were Salladar Choudhury, 31, Munin Abdul, 28, Jalal
Ahmed, 21, Yousaf Bashir, 29, and Ziaur Rahman, 32, all from Luton. Two others
were acquitted. Although the offence carries a maximum fine of £1,000, the five
were merely given a conditional discharge for two years by District Judge Carolyn
Mellanby, which means if they are found guilty of anything else this conviction will
be taken into account. The protesters had refused to stand for the judge as she
entered and left court. But she yesterday said she did not wish to 'set a precedent'
by charging them with contempt of court because of this.

This text provides a report on the court case for a number of Muslim men who had,
the text explains, shouted abuse at marching British soldiers who had just returned from
Iraq. This story can be seen as part of the same trend in some sectors of the British
press at the time, for example the text we dealt with above on the soldiers in Helmand
province. That text, we argued, sought to get the public behind 'Our Boys', rather than
to garner support for this war in terms of its aims. What is particularly interesting in this
text is the foregrounding of verbal processes to represent the 'extremists'.
First, we can look at the representational strategies in this text. On the one hand,
we have those used to represent the accused men:

Group of Muslim extremists; the five; mob of supporters; them; followers; group;
preacher of hate; backers; shouting protesters; Muslim.

Then we find a list names:

Salladar Choudhury; Munin Abdul; Jalal Ahmed; Yousaf Bashir; Ziaur Rahman

What is important in this text is that the arguments made by the accused men are
not considered. We are to evaluate them on how they are represented, which we
can see from this list is in terms of being a 'mob', 'followers' (rather than supporters)
and 'extremists'. These are for the most part collectivised and generic. We do find
personalisation through the use of the list of names. It is a usual convention in court
reporting for journalists to supply the names, but when listed along with their ages in
this manner this has the effect of collectivising them as offenders.
Next we have a collection of representational terms that are used for the 'us':

Taxpayer (twice); British forces; soldiers; 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment;
members of the Public; judge; Peer; Baroness Wasi; District Judge Carolyn
Mellanby.

Here we find honorifics, such as 'peer' and 'Baroness', and naming, as in 'Carolyn
Mellanby', which does serve to functionalise and individualise the social actors. We
also have examples of functionalisation in 'soldiers', 'judge' and 'taxpayers'. For the

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

long nominal group that is used to represent the soldiers 'the 2nd Battalion Royal
Anglian Regiment', we could have found something much more generic such as
'the military', 'the army'. But such news items often include honorifics (Royal) and
provenance (Anglian Regiment) in order to enhance the army's heritage and sense of
it being part of the fabric of British public life.
There is also the collective and highly abstract term 'members of the public'. We
are to assume that the accused men are not part of this category. Newspapers often
use terms such as 'the British public', 'residents' or 'families' in ways that implicitly
exclude certain kinds of people, such as 'anti-social' youth (Mayr and Machin, 2012).
In some ways, of course, many members of the British public may also have extreme
views and might also be 'followers'. But here they are described through a single
abstract category. Together, we have the British public, those who represent them,
the Regiment which defends their interests and official institutional figures which are
part of British society. Many of us, however, might feel that we do not align with a
generalised 'British public' nor feel any connection to peers and Baronesses and the
system of privilege that they represent. Nor might we feel represented by the military.
So on the one hand we have the British public and its cherished and ancient
institutions, and on the other a 'mob' of religious fanatics and of 'followers'. We can
now look at what these two sides are represented as doing.
What stands out in this text is that the accused are represented mainly through
verbal processes:

screamed 'rapists' and 'murderers' at British soldiers

shouting 'baby killers' and 'terrorists'

defiantly declared: 'The taxpayer paid for this court case. The taxpayer will pay for
the fines too out of benefits

argued they were exercising their right to freedom

called their conviction 'a badge of honour'

boasted they would do the same again,

telling her that she was not a proper Muslim

said they would protest again.

saying they wanted to see sharia law in Britain

Verbal processes fall somewhere between mental processes and behavioural

processes, as noted by Van Leeuwen (2008). In this case, we can see that these
processes give us a sense of having access to the mental worlds of the speakers.
We have also seen the way that these verbs of saying can be used by authors to
shape the way we perceive intentions and identities of social actors in Chapter 3.

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

What we see here is that many of these suggest confidence and aggression. They
'scream', 'shout', 'declare' and 'argue'. We also find a sense of arrogance as they
'boast' and show 'defiance' and mock the taxpayer. They have the arrogance to say
that they want to see Sharia law in Britain. This is supported by the metapropositional
verb 'refused' to stand for the judge as she entered and left court.
In contrast, there are few material and relational processes:

waving placards

waved a banner

(filru on benefits

One could argue that the fact that these men are on benefits is beside the point
in the context of the story. However, being 'on benefits' is important for the overall
agenda of the newspaper in that it contributes to a typical representation of
foreigners in general who wish to come to Britain, live off its resources, but then
demand that their own cultural practices are respected over those of the British
public.

They are shown as being recipients of processes:

led by so-called preacher of hate Anjem Choudary

linked to an egg attack on Tory peer Baroness Warsi when she visited Luton two
months ago

Surrounded by other followers of lslam4UK

went unpunished yesterday

were merely given a conditional discharge for two years

Again, we find little agency on behalf of the accused men. They are 'led' by a
preacher, 'surrounded' by other followers. Some sectors of the print media are fond of
presenting such groups not as driven by thought through ideas and concerns, but led
and pushed by charismatic, fanatical and embittered leaders. They are also 'linked'
to an egg attack, which is hardly 9/11 and 7/7 again, yet which gives a sense of their
persistence.
Finally, we find evidence that British society is not dealing with these people, as
they went unpunished and were merely given a conditional discharge. Again, this is
part of a well-trodden discourse about the British courts not protecting ordinary British
citizens and victims of crime (see Jewkes, 2011).
The other participants in this text, 'the soldiers', are represented as 'marching' and
'returning from Iraq'. There is no indication of the soldiers responding to the shouts
of the extremists.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

We do find one sentence where the actions of the soldiers against which the
accused are demonstrating are represented through a verbal process, where they
argue they are:

telling the truth about the conduct of British forces in Iraq

In fact, the actions of the soldiers have been represented here by a noun 'conduct', which
is an abstraction. It tells us nothing about the details of the actions in which the soldiers
have been participating. In this way the text backgrounds actions by the military who are
represented with honorifics (Royal) and provenance (Anglian), through '2nd Battalion
Royal Anglian Regiment', and foregrounds the verbal processes of the accused.
We could also see the non-response of the soldiers as relational processes. They
are professional and focused in contrast to the wild fanaticism of the extremist mob.
We also find the crowds are 'cheering' which positively represents the crowd's feelings
through a verbal process.
In sum, this text is about a mob of religious fanatics who follow a fanatical leader
and who hate our national institutions and abuse the hospitality we give them. They
do not actually do anything but are aggressive, vocal and arrogant and wish to replace
our own institutions with their own.
That same story was represented slightly differently in other British newspapers. The
Observer (12 March 2009), for example, did present the voice of other Muslims who saw
the demonstration as politicisation rather than extremism. If these people are shouting
their feelings in the street, should this not be the kind of behaviour that is to be expected. It
is only a problem when this becomes violent. The Observer cites a postgraduate student:

"These people are certainly not extremists. They're just impassioned. Unless they're
part of a group which is engaged in a violent organisation like Al-Qaeda, then just
standing on the street with placards does not make them extremists. Rather, this is
an example of politicisation. Second and third generation Muslims especially have
become very politicised in Britain. One reason for this is the foreign policy of the
UK and US etc, but another is the demonisation of the Muslim community. They've
been pushed into politicisation rather than stepped into it willingly."

What becomes clear is the way that The Daily Mail ideologically seeks to
background the notion of their being reasons for anyone's anger. The military, public
institutions and the British public appear to be one entity with one common goal
according to the discourse offered by this newspaper.

Casestudy4: Femalepassivityinwomen'snovels
The following is an extract from Stephanie Meyer's novel Twilight. The extract
begins with the male character Edward using his hands to stop a van that was

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

about to run over Bella. What we see is that while Bella is attributed many verb
processes and the story is about her, she is the protagonist, these processes are
of a certain type.

[His hand] was suddenly gripping the body of the van, and something [Edward]
was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a rag doll's, till they hit the tire
of the tan car.

"Bella? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up, and realized he was holding
me against the side of his body in an iron grasp.

"Be careful," he warned as I struggled. "I think you've hit your head pretty hard."

I became aware of a throbbing ache centred above my left ear.

"Ow," I said, surprised.

"That's what I thought." His voice, amazingly, sounded like he was suppressing
laughter.

"How in the ... " I trailed off, trying to clear my head, get my bearings. "How did you
get here so fast?"

"I was standing right next to you, Bella," he said, his tone serious again.

I turned to sit up, and this time he let me, releasing his hold around my waist and
sliding as far from me as he could in the limited space. I looked at his concerned,
innocent expression and was disorientated again by the force of his gold-colored
eyes. What was I asking him?

Stephanie Meyer, 2006. Twilight. London: Atom, pp. 48-9.

In this passage it is Edward who is the main agent by being represented through
material processes:

9.dJming the body of the van

dragging me, swinging my legs around like a rag doll's

he was holding me against the side of his body in an iron grasp.

releasing his hold around my waist

It is he in the passage who has the capacity for agentive action, to affect another
entity (Fowler, 1991: 71). We also find prepositional phrases, such as 'in an iron
grasp' to stress the dynamic force of the doer. Meanwhile, Bella is the patient of these
processes, which foregrounds her passivity. The verb 'let' in the line 'I turned to sit up,
and this time he let me' makes her passivity overt.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Bella is attributed two mental processes:

trying to clear my head,

get my bearings

We also find the adjunct 'trying to clear my head', which further dilutes her level of
agency through positioning her not as doer, but at best as actor attempting to do. To
some extent these verbs also serve to give us access to Bella's internal mental world.
This is also accomplished through mental verbs which Edward is not attributed:

realized he was holding me

was disorientated again

We also find Bella's actions represented through material and behavioural processes
which do not convey agency:

as I struggled

tried to sit up

I looked at his concerned, innocent expression

and verbal processes:

trailed off

said

In some contexts 'struggle' could be seen as a verb of agency, as in 'We struggle

to overthrow the oppressors', but here we are given no goal; we only find that she
struggles. These verb processes represent her strongly as having a 'being' kind of
agency.
And Bella's process 'struggled' is also backgrounded through its representation
within a prepositional clause. The main processes of warning Bella is attributed to
Edward in the dominant clause.
This extract is typical of a particular genre of women's fiction. Through an analysis
of transitivity patterns rather than lexical items that would connote passivity more
overtly, we find a world where women appear to need and depend on men. This
discourse incorporates participants (powerful, dynamic men; weak, passive
females), behaviours (men's actions bring about change in world; females submit to
consequences while not acting consequentially themselves) and values around men
protecting and acting on behalf of women.
In other kinds of women's fiction, as Machin and Thornborrow (2003) show, women
are attributed material processes, but mainly in relation to their sexuality and acts of

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

seduction. In the text in the Chapter 2 on lexical analysis, we saw that in a Marie Claire
item on how to get a promotion, even where colleagues are being made redundant,
the woman had agency to do things like:

Scale the corporate ladder

Negotiate a title bump

Mind your alliances

Be a relentless cheerleader for your company

Align yourself with the office hotshot

Commiserate with your axed colleague over cocktails

In the analysis of this text in this chapter and on social actors we found that there
was a mixture of professional terms (such as 'colleague' and 'manager') and
trendy language (such as 'canned', 'title bump', 'cubemate') and that participants
also included fictional characters from movies and children's stories as reference
points (such as 'Tracy Flick'). In terms of transitivity, we find a predominance of
abstractions where the details of certain actions are not explained and where
actual goals are never very clear. Being a 'relentless cheerleader', a relational
process, is unspecific, as is 'commiserating with an axed colleague over cocktails'.
What exactly would you say to a colleague who has just lost their job when it is
clear you are not supporting them but looking to turn this into an opportunity for
yourself?

The visual representationof transitivity

We can use the same set of verb categories offered by Halliday to think about
the visual representation of social action. We can think about what, visually,
participants are represented as doing, whether there has been deletion of
agents and whether the image helps to bring in an abstracted sense of what
is going on. This too can be one way we can ask who is represented as agents,
who is passive and where we are offered access to internal mental worlds.
So here we can modify Halliday's (1978) six processes to deal with visual
representation.
What will be important when we analyse visual representation of transi-
tivity is the extent to which this is the same as the linguistic representations
of transitivity. Are these the same or different, and if so in what ways? We
can ask how this helps to foreground and background certain meanings in
different contexts.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Casestudy1: MarieClairewomanon page46 in Chapter2

We considered the actions carried out by the woman in this text earlier in this chapter.
Here we are interested in how she is represented visually in terms of transitivity.We can
then return to the linguistic representation to consider the relationship between the two.
The woman in the image is engaged in the behavioural process of looking. It is this
looking off-frame in such magazine images that encourages the viewer to imagine
what the woman's thoughts are. In women's lifestyle magazines women look off-frame
either upwards and optimistically or downwards and pessimistically as discussed in
Chapter 3, although looking downwards can also be interpreted as looking wistfully as
if remembering or recollecting. The viewer is then encouraged to imagine the depicted
person as the agent or subject of the accompanying text. So in this case the woman is
thinking positively about the possibilities of the actions described linguistically. As we
discussed in terms of social actor analysis (page 91) and transitivity (page 131) these
are essentially highly selfish acts. Her colleagues are facing job losses. She does not
rally alongside them and there is no sense of collegial spirit or union representatives.
The point is only how to turn this to one's own advantage.
Linguistically, the actual impact of this selfish act is toned down through the use of
abstractions in terms of transitivity, as in 'Scale the corporate ladder' and 'Commiserate
with your axed colleague over cocktails', which hide the actual micro-details of what
is involved. It is made to appear fun through trendy language, as in 'office hotshot,'
'canned', 'title bump', 'cubemate', and also placed slightly outside naturalistic reality
and into the realm of playful fiction by reference to the protagonists of comedy films
and children's fiction. Visually, we see a woman who is dressed in casual clothing- not
a sharp business suit that might have connoted ambition and ruthlessness - who also
smiles pleasantly and softly. We do not see a woman engaged in the same activities
depicted linguistically. We do not see her manipulating people or commiserating.
Visual representation appears to have an important role in the representation of
discourses in women's lifestyle magazines. In stories about sex, a woman might
report that she has had sex with a waiter in the restaurant toilets, while she was in fact
out with her boyfriend. Such a story would be typical of female sexual transgression
found in such magazines (see Caldas Coulthard, 1994), where women are portrayed
as naughty and as challenging traditional female roles. Such stories are often
accompanied by photographs, such as the image shown below, which depict gentler
and sensual sexual acts and which take place with soft lighting and in abstracted
settings. But what would happen if the story was accompanied by a naturalistic
photograph of the woman in the toilet? This would immediately change the story.
These images, of the sensual kiss and of the woman in Marie Claire, are not
naturalistic ways of representation, but something more sensory. Backgrounds are
never clearly articulated. These images are generally of a particularly abstracted
and sensual nature. These are abstract empty settings that evoke a deterritorialised

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

Figure 11 Sensual kiss from Marie Claire

simplicity and modernist aesthetic. As Machin and Thornborrow (2003) point out,
the events and actions depicted linguistically are therefore placed in an exciting and
sensual fantasy world . As Fairclough (2003) explains , wherever abstractions replace
actual places, actions and persons , we must beware that ideological work is being
done . In these lifestyle magazines women are depicted in texts as being sexually
transgressive and as getting ahead at work . Visually, they are represented in sensual
moments and exciting modernist settings engaged mainly in mental , existential and,
in the case of sex, behavioural processes . Much of the agency represented , or at least
connoted , in the texts would not have the same nature or implications if carried out in
the real world . But placing these into fantasy worlds helps to amplify the opportunities
for representing social practices without their normal consequences. Hawkes (1996),
in criticism of 'power feminists ' such as Camille Paglia, who celebrated the use of
seduction by pop stars such as Madonna as indicative of true female power, argued
that in the world outside stage and video , such behaviour can be problematic for
young women . Sexual explicitness and overt seduction are on the whole not viewed
by most men as a political statement of women 's power . The same argument could
be made as regards these images in lifestyle magazines .

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Casestudy2: Soldiersin Helmandprovince

This is the story we have analysed in terms of lexical analysis (page 40) and above
in this chapter in terms of transitivity. We found that the soldiers, represented as
social actors in terms of professional and functional categories, were engaged in the
following kinds of verb processes:

Launched a devastating blitz; crept into position; staged a dawn raid; used mis-
siles that locked onto their body heat; grinned; directed mortar rounds.

These verb processes were both material and behavioural, emphasising precision
and professionalism. We concluded above that these were often abstractions that
concealed actual actions and that they backgrounded the real effects of war on
people. We also found the process 'grinned', where a soldier apparently gloats at
the effect of the attack. It is only at this point that professionalism appears to be
diminished, although it is included in the text possibly as an indicator of the pleasant
humour of 'Our Boys', therefore humanising them.
Visually, we find the soldier engaged in the material process of walking, seemingly
without any clear aim, or perhaps 'patrolling'. A civilian is engaged in the behavioural
process of 'watching'. We can see that while linguistically the chaos and squalor of
war is backgrounded through a series of process terms that emphasise precision
and professionalism, visually the processes are completely suppressed and replaced
only by an image of a patrolling soldier. Civilians are represented as completely
passive and therefore, we might argue, in need of protection. Different wars have
been represented visually in different ways over time. It is only during the Vietnam
war that actual ongoing combat and its effects on soldiers and civilians were shown
to the public. In Afghanistan, at the time of writing, we mainly see images intended
to gain support for the troops. Here we see not an army attacking or seeking to kill
enemies, but single soldiers walking. Civilians are not shown as large groups that
might become affected by the conflict, but as a lone civilian watching calmly or in
need of protection.

Casestudy3: HealthTrustwebsites
In earlier chapters we considered the lexis and representation of social actors on two
National Health Service Trust homepages. We considered these as part of the wave
of changes to the Trusts in terms of privatisation, reduction of services, lack of equal
access, etc., and other rafts of government cuts. Alongside these we found language

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 Representing Action: Transitivity and Verb Processes

that relied on abstraction and signifiers of action, such as 'innovative' 'excellence' and
'vision', with an emphasis on 'partnership' and 'cooperation'. All this was typical of
the empty business language described by Chiapello and Fairclough (2002). Such
language serves to give the impression of there being dynamic action where in fact
there is little.
We can also ask what kinds of visual transitivity are represented on these
homepages. On page 54 in Chapter 2 we find the Heart of England homepage. For
the most part we see behavioural processes as three of the participants smile at the
viewer. We might have expected to have found images of actual workers carrying
out the material processes that are involved in health care. So we could have found
a nurse bandaging an arm, a surgeon examining someone's head, a health support
worker demonstrating how a piece of equipment worked. We do see two people who
appear to be engaged in work. One of these has her back to the viewer and appears
to be working at a computer and the other appears to be a switchboard operator,
smiling and presumably directing a caller. So the work processes represented are
related to communication and administration and not to actual health care processes.
The practices of the health service are therefore backgounded, while communication
and dealing with clients are foregrounded. The (linguistic) focus is on the attitudes and
'values' of the Trust. It is committed to cooperation. Visually, too, we find behavioural
processes that signify the same cooperation, through smiling faces and though
verbal processes showing the telephone operator and the administrator, who will be
presumably also smiling as they log your appointment in two years' time. All of this
conceals increases in temporary working contracts, job freezes, low staff morale and
the reliance on agency staff.
The homepage for the North Essex Partnership Health Trust represents two
people as engaged in the behavioural processes of looking and smiling. They are
not depicted as the beneficiaries of the material processes carried out by the Health
Trust. In line with the Heart of England Trust, the woman is cited as saying 'They listen
to me and really help'. Government policy has emphasised the need for public bodies
to offer choice and accountability (Levitas, 2005), while at the same time dismantling
the possibilities for these bodies to offer high-quality services. The effectivity of such
bodies becomes measured by arbitrarily contrived target criteria, many based around
the concepts of choice, cooperation and partnership. Levitas points out how these
may have little to do with the quality of actual received services and may end up
being aims in themselves. What we can see from these homepages, by looking at
the representation of action visually, is the level of abstraction and the centrality of
behavioural processes as actual concrete activities are replaced by smiling care
workers, the activities of those whose job it is to log and direct our calls and the
reactions of former patients who respond not in terms of whether they are now well
but whether they were 'listened to'.

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Conclusion
What we have shown in this chapter is that it is fruitful to analyse texts for
what participants are represented as doing both linguistically and visually.
This is important since it is one more way that we can examine the details
of texts to reveal the underlying discourses. We have provided a set of cat-
egories for analysing action that allow us to break down actions in ways that
permit us to observe more precisely who has power and who does not, who
is humanised and who is not, and a number of other issues that point to the
ideology buried in a text. We also saw that there could be differences in lin-
guistic and visual representations. Visually,a soldier might be represented as
being thoughtful and watchful while a text represents them behaving aggres-
sively. In such cases, we can ask how the two work together to communicate
discourses - that the image can provide a humanitarian setting for the action
in the written text. What we have shown is that one useful way to carry out
this kind of analysis is to create tables that allow us to compare the kinds of
actions attributed to different participants.

136
 6
Concealing and Taking for
Granted: Nominalisation and
Presupposition

In this chapter we look at two linguistic strategies of concealment: nominali-

sation and presupposition. Nominalisation typically replaces verb processes
with a noun construction, which can obscure agency and responsibility for an
action, what exactly happened and when it took place. Presupposition is one
skilful way by which authors are able to imply meanings without overtly sta-
ting them, or present things as taken for granted and stable when in fact they
may be contestable and ideological. In this chapter, we first look at nominali-
sation, exploring how it can be identified, and then look at how it can be used
as an ideological tool analysing a number of case studies. We then move on to
presupposition and return to look at examples in the same set of case studies.

Nominalisation
In Chapter 5 on the representation of social action we were concerned with
the way that agents can be concealed through the use of passive verbs. We can
see this in the following example:

The civilianswere killed during a bombing raid (by the American bombers).

In a passive sentence like this, those responsible for the action may be either
backgrounded or left out completely. If we want to make explicit who is
behind the action, we have to turn the sentence into an active sentence. An
active verb form would reveal the agent, as in:

The American bombers killed the civilians during the raid.

Here ½mericans' are the actors, represented through the active material proc-
ess 'killed', with 'the civilians' being the goals of that action.
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

As we just have seen, the passive verb form is useful for backgrounding
who performed the action represented by the verbal process. So we might
hear:

Student fees have been increased by four hundred per cent.

Those who are behind 'increasing' the fees may prefer to use such a verb form
to avoid having to say:

We have increased fees by four hundred per cent.

However, active agent deletion can be moved a stage further into nominalisa-
tion. This is where a verb process is transformed into a noun construction,
creating further ambiguity, which can be intentional. For example, the previ-
ous sentences regarding the American bombers and the killing of civilians
would be written as:

The killing of civilians during the bombing raid

In this case, all sense of agency is removed as the act of killing is represented as
a nominalisation. Where we include the agent, we are told that the American
bombers did the killing. When the passive verb form is used we either know
that the civilians were killed by the Americans, but then this information is
backgrounded, or it can be left out completely. The nominalisation obscures
those responsible for the killing even further and also distances the event
from any moment in time.
The following two examples illustrate the important difference between
passive verbs and nouns:

The global economy was changed

The changed global economy

Here too we can see here that there is an important difference between sim-
ple removal of the agent and nominalisation. While the first of these two
sentences uses a passivised verb to conceal the agent of the change in the
economy, the second presents it as a noun, as a thing. There is no question
of it being changed by an agent; it simply has changed. In fact 'globalisation'
is often used as a nominalisation when it is actually a process. This itself
can make it appear a simple fact rather than the result of political decisions.
Fairclough (2000: 26) points out that in such constructions there is:

no specification of who or what is changing, a backgrounding of the proc-

esses of change themselves and a foregrounding of their effects. In back-
grounding the processes themselves, nominalization also backgrounds
questions of agency and causality, of who or what causes change.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

This is an important observation, as what might be a process that we can chal-

lenge or do something about, is presented as simply a thing that is. Often poli-
ticians speak of 'the changed global economy' being a reason for the fact that
life is now different in many ways. Yet by presenting it as a fact they hide that
they have contributed to this state of affairs and have made decisions that have
been unpopular with many people.
In the following example, a management consulting group gives advice for
businesses:

[the talk] looks at the longer-term picture and examines which coun-
tries will emerge in better shape and what should be done to respond to
the changed global economy.

There is no sense that any agents have been changing the global economy. The
global economy is basically a result of free trade unhampered by national gov-
ernments and trade tariffs. After the Second World War, the USApushed for
the loosening of trade restrictions to sell its products around the world, using
its military and economic power to motivate governments to do this, in the
latter case using the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to
provide loans and foster development. Much of this went to support projects
run by Western corporations. The World Trade Organisation, formerly known
as GATT,gradually opened up world trade to manufacturing and, later, to
service industries, allowing Western and other large international corpora-
tions to establish themselves around the planet. The changed global economy
has been, and still is, the result of a deliberate project promoted by specific
agents for their own purposes. The nominal group 'the changed global econ-
omy' simplifies what this actually means, which is a world economy where
large corporations are able to move into increasingly newer markets to take
advantage of cheaper labour and resources and take advantage of their exist-
ing economies of scale.
It should be now clear that nominalisations can be important ideologically.
In a text, we may find that one set of participants are responsible for actions,
meaning that they are responsible for the circumstances, whereas another
group is unable to act. Or by representing processes as things, the necessity
of having to deal with them can be omitted. As well as the effects of nominali-
sation we have just considered, there are a number we can look for in texts.
What follows is a list of these effects.

Effectsof nominalisation
In summary, changing a verb or process into a nominalisation can have eight
important effects:

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

1 People are removed and therefore responsibility for the action has also
been removed. This makes it seem as though events just happen

We can see how this process works in the following example:

The student lost his course work and was rather upset
The student was upset about the loss of his course work.

In the second case, the fact that the student was the person who lost the
coursework is concealed by turning the process 'to lose' into 'the loss'. This
removal of responsibility can be seen equally in the next example:

I am sorry I have failed to return my library book on time.

I am sorry about the failure to return my library book on time.

Here the student appears able to gloss over the fact that she personally has
not returned the library book, simply by representing it as a 'failure'. By using
such constructions the student can suggest that the failure may have been
due to other reasons than she forgot or did not bother.
In the following case we can see that this can also make the process appear
as neutral and more objective once presented as a fact:

We analysed (process) the data. This revealed a number of trends.

The analysis (nominalisation) of the data revealed a number of trends.

We can imagine the different impressions these two sentences would create
about the validity of a piece of research, say on crime trends, offered by a
political party or local council:

Analysis of statistics has been shown to reveal no relation between

crime and poverty.

As compared to:

We analysed the statistics which revealed there is no relation between

crime and poverty.

In the first case, the use of the nominalisation 'analysis' implies that there
may have been some independent research carried out, whereas in the
second there could be some personal interest involved. Often in advertise-
ments for products or services we find that 'analysis' and 'research' are cited,
although we are not told who did the analysing and researching. We can see
the use of the same technique in a statement made on behalf of a nuclear
power plant reported by the BBCon 1 March 2010. The headline was 'Gulls

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

contaminated with radiation culled at Sellafield'. We will just look at one sen-
tence here:

Monitoring and analysis has shown that the contamination is at such a

low level that it poses no threat to health.

Here we can see that the first two nominalisations conceal who has carried
out the monitoring and analysis. The third nominalisation is used to conceal
the agent of the contamination. Was there a leak somewhere or was safety
compromised and by whom?

2 Nominalisation can clearly hide both the agent and the affected since our
vision has been channelled and narrowed

Fighting has affected the fil!Jlll}y of services to rural areas.

This is a general and not specific act and is used here to gloss over who is the
initiator and who is affected. This is a hypothetical example, but what is con-
cealed is whether one set of forces blew up roads, bridges and infrastructure,
say through carpet bombing, or was there a more equal level of combat This
can be one way in which taking responsibility for affecting civilian lives can
be sidestepped.
We can also see this process of obscuring who exactly did what in the
following:

A demonstration against increased tuition fees took place in front of the

main building caused disruption to classes.

This could have been written:

Students demonstrating against increased tuition fees in front of the

main building caused disruption to classes.

In the first place, there is simply 'a demonstration'. When we include the
agents, the students themselves, we change the nature of the disruption, as it
is the very people that benefit from the classes who have decided to demon-
strate rather that attend. One of the authors can recall being infuriated many
years ago when a radio news item reported on a strike he was participating
in in the following way:

The strike has now prevented workers from entering the plant for over
a week.

In this case, it may have been that the picket line consisted of workers and
it was only members of the management who were inside the plant. But the

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nominalisation of 'the workers who are striking' into the noun 'the strike'
obscures this. This kind of language use helps to represent strikes as enemies
of the ordinary people and the ordinary worker and as mere disruption to the
smooth running of services.

3 Nominaliation can remove any sense of time

We can see this in the following example:

The Prime Minister rejected a call to carry out an inquiry into allega-
tions of corruption. He announced that the tightening of sanctions was
a decision that had been made through all the legal channels.

Here nominalisations are not marked for tense so they are outside time. This
has the effect of avoiding when and how likely something is, which is neces-
sary with verbs. When did someone call for an inquiry? When were the allega-
tions made or the sanctions tightened? When was the decision made through
legal channels? We can see here that as well as agent deletion, all sense of
time is omitted. Yet we are given a sense of receiving information that is filled
with actions and events.
Whenever there is deletion of actors, processes or circumstances, we must
ask why this is the case. In the above statement, had the times and identities
been included, the simple announcement made by the Prime Minister may
have seemed less conclusive.

4 Since actions become a thing, it can be counted, described, classified and

qualified through the resources of the nominal group, but this means that
causality is now of secondary concern

We can see this in the following sentence:

There were two precision strikes on the installation.

By turning an action (to strike) into a thing (a strike), a sense of the action is
retained, but as a nominalisation, we can now point to it, describe its physical
qualities, classify it and qualify it So we can say it is a precisionstrike. We can
see the same in the following regarding the failure to return the library books:

The regretful failure to return my library books on time.

Here the student can express an apology, yet still sidestep actually taking
responsibility. The same process can be used to 'dress up' other kinds of
actions that have been nominalised:

Decisive and precise strikes on enemy positions have been successful.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

This addition of words that evaluate the noun or nominalisation creates nom-
inal groups. The nominal group is a noun (called the 'head') surrounded by
other words that characterise or evaluate that noun. Within any clause this
nominal group works as though it were a single noun. So, 'decisive and pre-
cise strikes' functions as a single noun. These can then themselves become
units used for the basis of discussion. So the complex process of performing
an attack, performed by a particular agent with a particular subject, becomes
something remote and formal in subsequent uses. Newspapers begin to refer
to 'decisive and precision strikes'.
5 Nominalisations can function as new participants in new constructions
We can see this in the following sentence:

The Vice Chancellor said that the demonstration regrettably caused dis-
ruption to the education of students.

In this example, 'the demonstration' has become an actor in itself rather than
a process. This further increases the opacity of the other nominalisations.
And in such cases other student action can be simply merged with the first
one. So a later demonstration against increasing class sizes can then be spo-
ken of as follows by the Vice Chancellor:

Demonstrations over the past month have caused extensive disruption

to learning and teaching.

Both of these times (where students expressed unhappiness with university

life) are lumped together as factors that are disrupting 'learning and teach-
ing'. Of course it could be argued that massive increases in tuition fees and
increases in class sizes are the biggest disruption to learning and teaching.
6 Nominalisations can themselves become stable entities that will enter
common usage
This can be seen in the following example:

Globalisation should be seen as an opportunity for all ofus.

People commonly refer to globalisation as a noun, so that it has for the most
part been forgotten that it is a process and one that has been a result of spe-
cific kinds of political and economic decisions.
In the following example we can see that 'precision strikes' themselves
become the thing that is referred to rather that the micro-actions that com-
prised the original process that was replaced by the nominalisation:

The President said that precision strikes had not been responsible for
civilian deaths in the region.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

7 The process is still in the sentence, so the text accumulates a sense of

action but avoids agents, times and specificity through simplification

We can get a sense of this in the following sentence, which is a head-

line from a newspaper describing the capture of Saddam Hussein by US
forces:

Instant blitz on his lair

Rather than explaining the details of what the USforces did, we find the entity
'a blitz', which has also been classified as 'instant', connoting decisiveness on
the part of the US forces. What this also shows is that the use of nominalisa-
tion in headlines is perfect for creating a sense of action through punchy, pacy
language.

8 The text is becoming more dense or compressed. Details of events are

reduced.

Fighting has affected the supply of services to rural areas.

We can see in this sentence that the nominalisations 'fighting' and 'supply'
allow the omission of who is fighting and who is doing the supplying and what
processes this involves. We observed the same above in the text from which
this extract is taken:

The Prime Minister rejected a call to carry out an inquiry into allega-
tions of corruption.

By deleting times and agents, this text becomes very compressed as we are
not told who made the 'call', who should carry out the inquiry, who made the
allegations, or when any of this took place. Compression of events in this way
can make simple solutions appear more reasonable and feasible. In the exam-
ple above regarding the student demonstrations, we can see that it is much
simpler to say

Demonstrations must no longer be allowed to disrupt teaching and

learning

than it is to make the same kind of statement where all details about actors
and processes are included, as in

Students demonstrating against increased fees and excessive classroom

sizes must no longer be allowed to do so as this disrupts teaching and
learning.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

Makingnominalisedsentences
Learning how to make nominalised sentences yourself is one good way to get
used to identifying them in other texts. This process can be illustrated with
the following example:

The staffconstructed the course with the aim ofgenerating maximumincome.

Here it is clear who constructed the course. In the following sentence we

delete the agent to create a passive verb:

The course was constructed with the aim of generating maximum income.

Then to create the nominalisation we do the following:

1 Identify the active verb in the clause

2 Change the verb into the nominalised form.

Active verb: 'constructed'

.l,
Nominalisation
.l,
'Construction'

The resulting sentence is:

The construction of the course aimed at generating maximum income.

For reasons covered above on the effects of nominalisation, this sentence

might be preferred by those describing how the course came about. On
the one hand, it is shorter and more concise. In addition, 'the construction'
appears to be more objective and conceals who did the constructing. In uni-
versities it is not uncommon for instructions on new courses and the kinds of
assessment criteria to be adopted to come directly from management, rather
than being generated by academics or practitioners who believe them to be
necessary for purposes of skills or knowledge transferral. This may be under-
standable where management have the responsibility to run the university in
times where there are extensive budget cuts.

The nominalgroup and relative clauses

We can expand, modify or describe the information contained in a nominali-
sation through the addition of a clause containing further nominal groups.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

A type of clause common to nominal groups is a relative clause. These are

dependent clauses, meaning that they cannot stand alone without the main or
independent clause. They are linked to the main clause by relative pronouns
such as 'which' or 'who', or by relative adverbs such as 'where', 'when' and
'why'. For example:

It was the demonstration taking place in front of the building which was
found threatening by many staff and students.

Here the actions of the students have been replaced by the nominalisation
'the demonstration', which, as we saw above, conceals that it was the students
actually demonstrating and backgrounds the need to provide their motiva-
tions to do so. In addition, the use of the nominalisation means that it can then
be further qualified, namely that it was found threatening and linked to con-
sequences. The use of the nominalisation rather than the process facilitates
the addition of this information.

Casestudy1:TonyBlair
In the Introduction to this book we considered the way that former British Prime
Minister Tony Blair used language to create a sense that he was presenting a solution
to certain global conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, without actually saying
anything concrete. Nominalisations were one key part of his linguistic strategy, the
result being that the identity of the agent, when they carry out the process and its
effects are all sidestepped:

'Religious understanding is key to defeating hostilities threatening the world'.

'Understanding religion and people of faith is an essential part of understanding

our increasingly globalized world.'

Throughout this particular speech, Tony Blair talks about 'understanding' and
'knowledge' as nominalisations and nouns rather than processes. By taking this
step he is able to background what exactly it is that we need to understand or know.
Following on from this, he states: 'What needs to be globalized is knowledge and
understanding .... It is knowledge that gives us foresight and help people realize what
they have in common.'
The key here is that Blair avoids having to state any facts at all. He avoids any
concrete explanation by treating 'understanding' and 'knowledge' as things rather than
processes. Rather than saying 'We need to understand ....' or 'We need to know...', we
simply need the things: 'knowledge' and 'understanding'.
We emphasise that the problems to which Blair refers involve fundamental
differences in world-view. If one group believes that global capitalism should be

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

allowed to dominate all aspects of life and the other group that global capitalism is
fundamentally wrong and immoral, what level of understanding are we referring to
here? And many world conflicts such as that between of Israel and Palestine involve
complex and brutal histories, military occupation and wider political and economic
interests. In both these cases, will what we need to 'know' and 'understand' about
each other prevent such hostilities? In his speech Blair never says what he means
by 'knowledge' and 'understanding'. Nevertheless, by avoiding saying what we need
to know and understand he is able to give a stirring and humane speech filled with
hope and certainty since these two terms connote compassion and a humane liberal
attitude.

Casestudy2: The EMDA mission statement

Coming back to the EMDA mission statement, we also see the way that nominalisation
can be used:

EMDA 'mission statement'

The vision is for the East Midlands to become a fast growing. dynamic

2 economy based on innovative, knowledge-based companies competing

3 successfully in the global economy.

4 East Midlands Innovation launched its Regional Innovation Strategy and

5 action plan in November 2006. This sets out how we will use the knowledge,

6 skills and creativity of organizations and individuals to build an innovation

7 led economy.

8 Our primary role to deliver our mission is to be the strategic driver of

9 economic development in the East Midlands, working with partners to

1O deliver the goals of the Regional Economic Strategy, which EMDA

11 produces on behalf of the region.

This text is full of nouns and nominalisations. Since they are nominalised, their
connotative powers can be used without the inconvenience of having so be specific
about agents, times and outcomes.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

In line 1 we find

The vision is for the East Midlands to become ...

Here 'the vision' appears to replace the process of 'seeing' or 'predicting'.

We predict/see that the East Midlands will become ...

Of course 'vision' connotes something that is not simply seeing, but has almost
religious associations. And in this sense it appears less as a firm prediction or
promise. But 'vision' here can also be thought of as concealing agency, time and
causality. 'The vision' as a nominalised process allows for much more generalisation
than 'seeing' or 'predicting'.
In lines 1 and 2 we find:

... the East Midlands to become a fast growing, dynamic economy

Leaving out the noun 'economy', this could be written as

the East Midlands will grow fast and become dynamic

The problem is, as in the case of the use of 'vision' rather than 'seeing', this sounds
too specific and implies a sense of time through which 'it will grow fast'. Organisations
that make this kind of promise are much more likely to be held accountable than those
who have 'visions' that regions will become 'fast growing dynamic economies'.
In line 2 we find:

based on innovative, knowledge-based companies

In the fashion of Tony Blair's comments above regarding understanding other

cultures, the nominalisation 'knowledge' replaces the process of 'knowing'. By taking
this step, the author can avoid stating what they 'know'. Of course all companies must
have some kind of knowledge; they must know something. Here the text may refer to
companies that provide information. But again, who do they inform and about what?
Stating this in the nominalised form retains the connotative powers of these terms
without the requirement to specify.
We see other uses of nominalisations that can then be referred to as fixed entities
in the following use of 'innovation':

East Midlands Innovation

Regional Innovation Strategy

an innovation led economy.

Here, the act of innovating, where agents and other details must be provided, has
been replaced simply by the nominalisation 'innovation'. It is this switch from actual
concrete processes that involve bringing about the new, change and knowing, to

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

nominalisations that are then referred to consistently as entities that has become the
stuff of corporate and government language (Chiapello and Fairclough, 2002). This
linguistic stepping away from processes of what is predicted, known and innovated
towards abstracted entities is one clue to the way that these official bodies seek to
conceal from us who is doing what to whom, who provides what kinds of services
and takes what kind of responsibility. At the same time this is carried out in a culture
of accountability characterised by league tables and appraisal criteria, which many
argue carry information equally as abstracted and divorced from everyday practices,
procedures and attainments.
On page 34 of Chapter 2 we considered the corporate language of the Loughborough
University website, which stated:

Loughborough University is a dynamic, forward looking institution, committed to

being a centre of excellence in teaching, learning and enterprise.

Rather than Loughborough University stating that it 'looks forward', it is nominalised

as a 'forward looking institution'. Presented in this way, what is being looked forward
to is backgrounded. And as we considered in Chapter 2, 'forward' here carries
connotations of something good, whereas backwards or 'looking at where we are'
presumably is bad. In Chapter 7 we will consider the way that we tend to think about
our experiences metaphorically. Here we find the metaphor of a journey, where there
is a need to look ahead to where we are going rather than back to where we have
come from, but metaphors, while foregrounding some aspects of an experience, can
background others, just like other forms of language. Perhaps important institutions
in our society should mostly be looking backwards, considering historically what has
produced the best teaching and learning, rather than being distracted by the next
obstacle on the journey.

Casestudy3:The MarieClairearticleand Muslim

prisonersstory
In earlier chapters we have analysed an article from Marie Claire, which offered advice
on how women can still get promotion while people around them are losing their jobs.
While the article promotes a highly cynical act of individualism rather that collective
action, it does so through certain kinds of choices of representation of social actors
and of social action that make this appear as slightly abstracted fun, with one foot in a
fictional domain. Nominalisation, too, is used in the article to background processes,
agents and those affected, and is another strategy by which the advice offered by the
magazine is legitimised. We find this in the first lines:

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Yes, it is still possible to scale the corporate ladder in spite of layoffs. Here, Bob
Calandra, co-author of How to Keep Your Job in a Tough Competitive Market,
offers advice for gingerly negotiating a title bump.

We find two important noun constructions. The first is the nominalisation 'layoffs'
in line 1. It could have been written using the verb process 'laid off' to explain that
'colleagues are being laid off', but here the use of nominalisation helps to background
the fact that there are people suffering, which might compel a different kind of more
collective action.
The second noun construction is found in the last line in 'title bump'. By turning the
process of 'seeking promotion' into a noun, it distances its connection to actions, and
also allows the use of the trendy language. Along with the other linguistic devices in
the text, already discussed, this aids abstraction and fosters a sense that this process
is a simple one and with few moral implications.
In the next line we find:

Be a relentless cheerleader for the company, even if it means irking co-workers.

Your manager is bound to pick up on your positive outlook and use you as a
model.

Again, there is the use of trendy language in the nominalisation of 'cheerleading'. Of

course this is also a complete abstraction as it is not specified what'being a cheerleader'
in the context of a company entails. Nonetheless, the use of nominalisation allows it
to become an entity that can be discussed as a thing rather than a process linked into
a cause/effect chain.
In the following example of the news text about Muslim prisoners analysed in
Chapters 3 and 5, we can see how nominalisation can be used to increase the
pace of a story. In this text we found that there was an overlexicalisation of the word
'Muslim' along with non-specific aggregation of their number as 'scores'. They were
also represented through mainly aggressive verbal processes, where they were
'complaining' and 'demanding', and the actual causes of their grievances were often
placed in subordinate clauses to background them:

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a multi-
million pound claim for compensation after they were offered ham sandwiches
during the holy month of Ramadan. (The Daily Mail, 26 October 2007)

Here the noun 'claim', replacing the verb process 'to claim', allows the creation of the
nominal group 'multi-million pound claim'. This is how the sentences would have read
had the verb process 'to claim' been used:

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are to claim millions of pounds
in compensation.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

Here, by using the verb 'to claim', we lose the dramatic verb 'set to launch'. The
nominal group 'multi-million pound claim' here can be used to increase drama, but
also to increase abstraction and causal links, because details become naturally
compressed. We will look at this process in news texts in the following example.

Casestudy4: 'Blitzon Lair'story

In the following newspaper item from The Sun (20 March 2003) about the Iraq war,
we find extensive use of nominalisation to compress information and to give the story
added pace, which is particularly in the tradition of tabloid newspapers. There are
many linguistic features we could analyse in this story, such as the lexical euphemisms
used to represent acts by the American army, as in 'soften up' and 'isolated strikes',
and the overlexicalisation of terms that point to advanced technology, which is used to
background the actual violence and destruction that results (such as 'satellite-guided
bombs', 'F117 Nighthawk stealth fighters', 'Unmanned spy drones'). Here, however,
we restrict our attention to the nouns and nominalisations found in this text. We will
return later to the role of presupposition.

INSTANT BLITZ ON HIS LAIR

Saddam home blast

AMERICAN cruise missiles struck Baghdad early today in a surprise decapita-

tion strike.

Three explosions were heard as the US launched an attack on what they called
'a target of opportunity'.

Forty-three missiles fired from warships in the Gulf and satellite-guided bombs
dropped by Stealth jets hit a house in southern Baghdad.

Saddam and his two sons were thought to be staying there.

US military chiefs decided on the isolated strike after intelligence reports had
pinned down Saddam's whereabouts yesterday afternoon.

US F15 strike Eagles and F117 Nighthawk stealth fighters were diverted from a
mission to soften up targets in the southern no-fly zone.

They were sent north to Baghdad after intelligence reports were shown to US
Commander-in-Chief General Tommy Franks giving him a shot at hitting Saddam
and his top henchmen.

(Continued)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

(Continued)

Unmanned spy drones were filming live pictures of movements above Baghdad
and beaming them back to US Central Command in Qatar.

A Pentagon source said: 'It was a selective air strike - a strike of opportunity'.

The text begins with two nouns, both of which conceal the actual details of the
operation and which serve, tabloid-style, to provide punchy, exciting language:

Instant blitz on his lair

Saddam home blast

Here 'blitz' and 'blast' conceal agents and what actually took place in concrete terms.
What actually constituted a 'blitz' and 'blast' in this case? Of what magnitude was
this explosion? How many houses were destroyed and how many people killed?
The Blitz after all is a term used to refer to the prolonged bombing raids on London
during the Second World War. This is a common way that news media such as The
Sun abstract the actual processes involved in warfare. Through their abstract nature
they background actual intentionality and levels of violence and destruction (Van Dijk,
2008: 823). Were many people injured and maimed after the 43 missiles and the
bombs dropped from the planes exploded? This is not discussed. Instead the noun
'blitz' is used, which connotes 'energy' and 'action', but also communicate 'precision'
and 'intelligence'.
This text is further evidence of the way that nominalisations become stable entities.
We find the nominal groups 'surprise decapitation strike' in lines 2-3 and 'the isolated
strike' in line 8. Both 'surprise' and 'isolated' here imply precise, contained and minimal
collateral damage. Later in the article, in line 18, we are told 'It was a selective air
strike - a strike of opportunity'. Again, the actual details of the attack have become a
stable entity that can now be talked about in different ways using different modifiers.
In fact, firing 43 cruise missiles and an unspecified number of bombs being dropped
from aircraft suggests that the impact may have been slightly more than isolated,
selective and instant.
It is also worth mentioning how the nominalisations in this text help to transform the
outcome of the attack into circumstances, as in:

American cruise missiles struck Baghdad early today in a surprise decapitation

strike.

The preposition 'in' positions the nominalised 'surprise decapitation strike' as

circumstance or context of the material process 'struck', rather than as the result of
missiles striking. And of course in this sentence it is the cruise missiles who are the
agents that do the striking, rather than the Americans. The sentence could have been
written:

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

Americans fired 43 cruise missiles and dropped bombs on Baghdad earlier today
in a surprise decapitation strike.

Here, the active material processes 'fired' and 'dropped' make the Americans
responsible for the action, although this sentence still gives a sense that the firing
was in the circumstance of the surprise decapitation strike rather than the strike being
the same thing as the firing.
In line 4, we find a typical news language nominalisation of an attack:

The US launched an attack on what they called 'a target of opportunity

We can only speculate why the journalist did not simply say 'the US attacked',
but here the use of the nominalisation 'attack' allows the use of 'launched', which
connotes additional drama.

Presupposition
Presupposition is to do with what kinds of meanings are assumed as given
in a text, what Fairclough calls the 'pre-constructed elements' (1995a: 107).
In fact, all language use is filled with presupposition. Even the sentence 'The
bag is heavy' involves the assumption that you know what 'a bag' is and what
'heavy' is. But it is productive to look at texts or spoken language for the
meanings that are present as given, yet which are highly contestable.
Much of how we process texts is of course subconscious. We are not con-
tinually monitoring what people mean, although in some contexts we may
come to be aware that someone is using a slightly different meaning from
the one we would normally use for something. Normally, people have to rely
on shared presuppositions. We cannot say 'I will put this in my bag ... what I
mean by a bag is ...'.People would give up talking, although sometimes we are
called upon to be more precise about what we mean.
In many cases, particularly those we analyse in this book, what is presented
as given, as not requiring definition, is deeply ideological. And we have shown
so far that language is continually used to foreground certain things and
silence others. Therefore looking what is assumed in a text can be revealing.
What is a text setting out as 'the known'? We can see this in a sentence such as:

British culture is under threat by immigration.

This assumes that there is such a thing as 'British culture'. Studies in Social
Anthropology and Cultural Studies have shown that this idea of monolithic
or 'essentialised' cultures is mostly an illusion. Concepts like 'British culture'
hide massive variation, differences and change within that culture. Yet such
concepts can be used to advance particular interests and ideologies. Often,

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

the concept 'British culture' is found in the more right-wing national press to
create a contrast to 'immigrants' who threaten to dilute this culture.
We see the same use of presupposition in the following sentence:

In a Christian society such as Britain is there place for single faith

schools based on Islam?

Here the presupposition is that Britain is a Christian society. What this means,
at what level, is not articulated. One of the authors grew up in Britain and
experienced Christianity only at school in the form of what he perceived as
oppressive moralising during morning assemblies, which seemed difficult
to believe in at a time of economic upheaval and strikes, where authorities
appeared largely as enemies of people. Therefore, Britain might be a Christian
society only in the sense of an official religion rather than as the basic cosmol-
ogy of the majority of inhabitants. Some writers even argue that places like
Britain have never been true Christian societies (e.g. Duerr, 1985), arguing
that more recent histories gloss over the central role of Paganism even into
the twentieth century.
Presupposition can be used in order to build a basis for what sounds like
a logical argument, as above. There is such a thing as 'British culture' and
therefore immigration must be seen as a threat. If Britain is a Christian soci-
ety, why should other religions be allowed to set up their own schools? These
two examples serve to illustrate how text producers can establish what is to
be known and shared.
Fairclough (199 Sa) discusses the way that language can reconstitute the
social world. If the fact that there is a global economy becomes accepted as a
given, as it has for the most part in the Western news media, then we sideline
the fact that it is open for contestation, that it is part of political decisions and
choices that are being made right now. If we can make everyone accept that
there is a British culture, then people can be more easily persuaded that it is
something that must be protected, and that things and people that are not part
of this culture can be identified and dealt with. The same goes for the sentence:

The British people are a generous lot, but their patience is being tried
on the subject of immigration ....

Here the presupposition is that there is a 'British people' who would identify
themselves as such. The inclination to align with this group is made more
attractive by the evaluation of them as generous. But this serves the same role
as accepting that there is a 'British culture', although it is harder to argue that
there is not a 'British people', as this can mean people who were born in the
country and/or who closely associate with that country. For van Dijk (1991 ),
this is a classic move of racist rhetoric. We can see how these kinds of presup-
positions work in the following newspaper text, from The Daily Express (23
February 2010).

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

LABOURSAYWE AREALLRACISTS
1 LABOURdismissed the British public's widespread opposition to
mass
2 immigration as 'racism', a Government document revealed yesterday.
Officials
3 made it clear that public opinion was strongly against relaxing bor-
der controls. But
4 ministers were urged to ignore voters' 'racist' views and press ahead
with a secret
5 policy to encourage migrants to flood into Britain. Whitehall experts
even
6 proposed a major propaganda campaign to soften up voters in prepa-
ration for the
7 mass influx of newcomers. The details were laid bare in the original
draft of a
8 policy document released for the first time under the Freedom of
Information Act
9 Last night critics accused the Government of snubbing the concerns
of British
10 citizens in their deliberate pursuit of a multicultural society.

In line 1 we can see that it is presupposed that there is an entity called the
'British public', and that its views on immigration are widespread and not of
a minority. Such a presupposition conceals the complexity of viewpoints and
the different kinds of people that comprise a society like Britain.
In lines 1 and 2 it is presupposed that there is indeed mass immigration.
No figures are presented to substantiate this claim. It is simply presented as
a given.
In line 3, the presupposition is that there is a thing called 'public opinion',
which again backgrounds the possibility of differing viewpoints held among
tens of millions of people in a society that has experienced many generations
of immigration.
In line 7 we are told details were laid bare in the original draft So it is pre-
supposed that there have been others, presumably those that have concealed
the original plans. This is not explicitly stated, however.
In line 7 we are told there will be a 'mass influx of newcomers'. The way
immigration is presented here presupposes that that there is such a thing as
'old comers', in other words an identifiable, authentic, real British people. The
term 'mass' also presupposes that the intake of large numbers of people will
not be gradual but sudden.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Lines 9 and 10 presuppose that a large number of British people have the
same 'concerns'. Together, all of these presuppositions create a sense of a
coherent British citizenry who have a shared heritage and shared opinion and
who are accused of being racist by the Labour government simply for believ-
ing it wrong to accept the mass new comers.
We can see the way that presupposition is used below in a local Council pol-
icy document. This is an extract from the East Midlands Development Agency
mission statement analysed for lexical content and nominalisation previously.
What we see here is that the presuppositions are identities and entities that
have become common currency in government-speak drawn from corporate
business language. Such is the layering of these presuppositions, as taken-for-
granted concepts, that it becomes impossible to grasp what is actually going
on:

The vision is for the East Midlands to become a fast growing, dynamic
economy based on innovative, knowledge based companies competing
successfully in the global economy.
East Midlands Innovation launched its Regional Innovation Strategy and
action plan in November 2006. This sets out how we will use the knowl-
edge, skills and creativity of organisations and individuals to build an
innovation led economy

This presupposes that there is indeed a global economy which is taken for
granted and identifiable, despite the fact that many analysts see global eco-
nomic processes as far from equal around the planet and being characterised
by particular relations of power and driven by certain interests, particularly
those of large multinational corporations and banks (Fairclough, 2003: 163).
We can also ask what exactly is a 'dynamic economy'? 'Dynamic' suggests
something moving. Therefore is it presupposed here that things that are sta-
ble are bad? And what is an 'innovative, knowledge based company'. Are there
indeed such companies? 'Innovation' here has become a corporate buzzword
with entirely positive connotations. What it implicitly implies is that change
and adaptation are good things as opposed to stability and established prac-
tices. If this was expressed overtly rather than through presupposition, it
might sound a much less attractive proposal in that there is a lack of respect
for and value of existing industry and more traditional skills.
Of course this language of change and adaptation very much fits in with the
economic patterns of global processes where we do indeed appear to have
shifted away from times of relative stability to those of relative instability.
What texts like this do, however, through presupposition, is help to conceal
that such things might be choices as regards how we run our societies rather
than facts to which we must inevitably adapt.
In the following sentences we can see how useful presupposition can be for
allowing speakers to strategically avoid being explicit about what they mean,
while allowing them to create the basis of what they can then go on to say.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

These are all common in political speeches, news texts and can also be found
in any case of language use where people engage in more strategic debates,
such as in web biogs:

This new model of organisation ...

This presupposes that there was an old model of organisation. And in current
thinking it appears that 'new' is generally accepted as good and the 'old' as bad.

Militants launched a new wave of attacks today...

This suggests that there was an old wave distinctive from this one. The 'mili-
tants' themselves might see themselves as simply involved in an ongoing
struggle against their oppressors. But presenting their activities as 'a new
wave' can suggest that the danger is increasing or be a call to respond by the
authorities or military.

The real issue is ...

This presupposes that there are other issues, but that they are not so impor-
tant. A politician faced with a set of social problems relating to teenagers that
are clearly linked poverty and unemployment, related matters of margin-
alisation and lack of self-esteem might say: 'The real issue here is parental
responsibility'. They avoid saying that the other factors are at play as well,
but allow themselves to define the terrain and to sidestep responsibility for
actual structural issues that cause the problem in the first place. A similar
kind of presupposition would be:

We need to discuss the underlying issues ...

Here the suggestion is that what we have already discussed is just the surface
and that what is to be said will be more crucial and fundamental. Of course
what are presented as 'the underlying issues' may be purely opinion and ide-
ology. We can see Tony Blair's use of this idea of there being real and under-
lying issues in a speech given to the British House of Commons in 2003 in a
debate on the war in Iraq and the link between terror and weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). He uses expressions like 'real issue' and 'underlying
issue' to legitimise his own agenda and to sideline others.

1 But, of course, in a sense, any fair observer does not really dispute
that Iraq is in
2 breach and that 1441 implies action in such circumstances. The real
problem is that,
3 underneath, people dispute that Iraq is a threat; dispute the link
between terrorism

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

4 and WMD; dispute the whole basis of our assertion that the two
together constitute
5 a fundamental assault on our way of life.
(www.guardian.co. uk/politics/2 003 /mar /18 /foreignpolicy.iraq 1)

In this extract, we see the first use of presupposition in line 1 to delegitimise

opposing views with the words 'any fair observer does not really dispute'.
This presupposes that anyone who does dispute this is therefore not a fair
observer. The second use is in the line 2: 'The real problem is that'. So there
may be other issues but this is the really important one that we should be
talking about. This is given emphasis in line 3 with the words 'underneath
people dispute'. This presupposes that there may be more superficial and
surface arguments made that are in fact simply concealing the real denial of
the fact that Iran is a threat and that there is a link between terrorism and
WMD. Blair here positions himself as therefore revealing what lies under-
neath. Finally,in line 5 we find the presupposition 'assault on our way of life',
presuming that there is a 'way of life' that we all share. What aspect of this he
means is not made clear; it is simply presupposed that this is self-evident. In
fact during the period where leaders such as Blair and Bush were referring
to the ½xis of Evil' and WMD,they often characterised what was under threat
as being not political and economic power or access to global resources such
as oil, but 'our way of life'. What happens is that such presuppositions enter
into common usage in the media in a broader sense and increasingly come to
appear as self-evident and then background their original ideological usage.
We find Blair using the same term in September 2006:

This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence
of foreign policy. It is an attack on our way of life. It is global. It has an
ideology.
Other typical uses of such presuppositions by politicians are:
We should take this opportunity ...

This can be used to portray something as an opportunity when others might

not see it this way. It could be one rhetorical strategy to give a positive spin on
something that might otherwise be seen as negative. We find this in a speech
given by George Bush in 2001 at the height of the 'War on Terror' rhetoric,
when Bush sought to promote the idea of abandoning a weapons treaty in
order to establish a new generation of missile defences:

To maintain peace, to protect our own citizens and our own allies and
friends, we must seek security based on more than the grim premise
that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us. This is an important
opportunity for the world to rethink the unthinkable and to find new
ways to keep the peace.

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

Rather than present this situation as a difficult one, he represents it as

an opportunity for the world to move on and find new ways to keep the
peace.
We see the same use of presupposition in a speech given by David Cameron
before the British general election in 2010.

1 Itis time for change. And ifwe do not take this opportunity, grasp this
hour, to set
2 a new direction for Britain then I tell you in all frankness it will be too
late. It will
3 be too late in five years' time to say we should have got rid of them,
too late to
4 reverse the decline, the debt will be too big, the bureaucracy too
bloated, the small
5 businesses too stifled, the slope Britain is sliding down will be too
steep:
6 So to every voter listening to us now we say solemnly, if not now it
will be too
7 late. It is time, time to say we can rescue our country, time to refuse
to get poorer
8 and more indebted, time to say Britain is not doomed to decline, time
to let the
9 Labour party fight its squabbles out of power where it can do no
harm, time to
10 invite the forces of hell to get the hell out of Downing Street.

In line 1 we find 'if we do not take this opportunity', which assumes that this
is in fact an opportunity, so presenting this in a positive light. In this extract
we also find repeated use of 'Britain' represented through personification as
an entity in itself that has coherent experiences. Cameron therefore sidesteps
the complex nature of the electorate and the very different experiences of
those who comprise it
In line 2 we find the expression 'set a new direction for Britain', which
assumes that Britain as a whole is moving in one coherent direction and that
the old direction was not successful.
In line 7 we find 'time to refuse to get poorer and more indebted', which
presupposes that we are aware of the country's and our personal financial
situation and debt; it also suggests that we previously accepted the situation
and agreed to become poor and indebted and that Cameron's suggestions
need to be put into practice immediately as now is the time.
Every time you ... (you are repeatedly doing something)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

A politician might announce: 'Every time I hear an objection to the possibil-

ities offered by the introduction of private finance into the health services ....'
This gives a sense ofroutine, that the politician is used to such objections, and
even bored by them. David Cameron can be seen here using this strategy in a
different speech when referring to the persistent undemocratic actions of the
Iranian state without, of course, having to say specifically how many times
this has happened.

Every time the Iranian state has tried to choke the flow of information to
dampen down the protests, people have turned to technology to share
and access information.

We can see that Cameron is able to use 'every time' to create a sense of Iran
being a constant and persistent problem.
A further example is:

Let me address your concerns ...

When a politician uses this presupposition they can make the assumption
that citizens do actually have concerns and that the speaker /politician is
claiming to know what they are. Politicians often use this presupposition to
control what concerns you are permitted to have. A speech might begin: 'We
are all shocked and appalled about the recent losses of life of our boys fighting
for our country overseas. Let me today address your concerns ...' They can use
this to go on to lay out what kind of concerns people have, shaping these to fit
their own aims and interests. In the case of' our boys' overseas, they might go
on to thoroughly address concerns regarding quality of equipment and sup-
port for those who get injured and killed and simply not mention matters of
political reasons for the conflict.
In the speech extract below, New Labour leader Ed Milliband spoke of'your
concerns' after Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election in order to be
able to list the kinds of issues that he would deal with.

You wanted your concerns about the impact of immigration on com-

munities to be heard, and I understand your frustration that we didn't
seem to be on your side.

One set of common presuppositions used by speakers are the following:

Every reasonable person knows that...

Politicians and people in general can use this kind of statement to suggest that
what follows is universally reasonable according to some widely accepted
and common sense standards of truth. Of course what they are saying is that
if you are not in agreement then you are not reasonable. A very similar pre-
supposition is:

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 Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalisation and Presupposition

Nobody in their right mind would think that...

Here the speaker is implicitly saying that anyone who disagrees with their
point of view is insane. We have already seen something very similar used
by Tony Blair in the extract from his speech above. Below we see how this
is used as a typical rhetorical strategy found in discussion on a web blog
about a war against Iran. We can see how successive replies also begin with
presuppositions:

As every reasonable person knows, the only side which benefits from a
war with Iran & Iranians, is only and I mean really ONLYthe dictatorship
of the mullahs in Iran.
Let's be realistic and see the situation in Iran without any pre-judgements.
(One thing I must say here that I hope I am not discussing something
with someone who is by any chance supporting the mullahs or the
shah's dictatorship.)
While not getting into a specific discussion regarding the sanctions, I
felt it necessary to clarify the truth. Too many people make assumptions
on what the sanctions are without spending the time to learn the truth.
Thanks!
(www.huffingtonpostcom/ socialjkoroushl 33 6/listen- to-iranian-voices
_b_742416_62218194.html)

In the first line, the writer implies that if you do not agree with the statement,
then you are simply not reasonable. The first reply, by beginning with 'Let's
be realistic', implies that what has been said is not realistic but what they are
saying is. The third speaker uses a typical rhetorical move used by politicians
where they state that 'without getting into the specific details of the situation'
they will clarify the situation. This implies that they do indeed know all the
specific details of the situation and that these details do in fact support the
argument they are about to make.

What is your reaction to that? Or What action will you take?

These sentences presuppose that you do or should have a reaction and that
you should have some kind of plan of action. In either case to say you have no
reaction or no plan of action might seem inappropriate. A journalist might ask
a politician:

What action are you going to take against the Afghan dictatorship after
they have thwarted trade agreements?

Here it is assumed that action must be taken and that the politician should
be able to simply say what this is in easy terms, when of course responses

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

may require careful consideration and strategies at a diplomatic level. Some

writers have argued that part of the success of American presidents, such as
the two George Bushes over those like Jimmy Carter, is that they were bet-
ter able to present easy decisive solutions to the public, even if in the longer
term these decisions would have less favourable outcomes (McConnell,2001;
Mcclintock, 2002).

Conclusion
In this chapter we looked at ways by which, in the first place, identities,
responsibilities and contexts can be concealed in language and, in the second
place, where the contestable is presented as taken for granted and, finally,
where meanings are implied but remain unstated. Nominalisation and pre-
supposition are important tools where authors wish to persuade without
stating ideologies overtly. Nominalisation is specifically important when
authors seek to represent processes and events through abstractions rather
than through the micro-details of who did what to whom. In our analysis, we
can list the kinds of participants and actions that are abstracted and those
that are not. We can also look, as we did above, at the ways that authors seek
to promote certain kinds of concepts as taken for granted and ask what are
the consequences of so doing.

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 7
Persuading with Abstraction:
Rhetoric and Metaphor

There is a widely shared assumption that metaphor is about flowery lan-

guage, that it is something associated with poetry and creative writing. But
linguists have shown that metaphor is fundamental to human thought and
that metaphorical thinking underlies all of our statements about the world
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Chilton, 1996; Hart, 2008; Semino, 2008). The
study of metaphor and other rhetorical tropes has been closely aligned to the
study of political rhetoric. Since the time of Aristotle, there has been an inter-
est in how to persuade people in the context of public speaking. It was pos-
sible during his time to train in rhetorical skills that would include hyperbole,
metaphor, metonymy and puns, all of which we will consider in this chapter.
What we show in this chapter is that it is not so much that metaphor is
opposed to truth, but rather that it is a fundamental part of human cognitive
processes. We continually think of things by reference to others in order to
understand them. But what is most important is that this process can influ-
ence the way we understand that thing or concept For example, we can find
in children's textbooks:

The heart is the mechanism that pumps oxygen around the body to feed
the important organs of the body.

Of course, the heart is not a mechanism. It is not literally made up of com-

ponents. This view of the body as a machine can be traced to the industrial
revolution, when the machine and engineering became popular models for
thinking about society and the natural world. On the one hand, this metaphor
can help us grasp that the heart can be seen as performing one role fitting in
with other 'components' in the body. On the other hand, we might argue that
this misrepresents the heart as it is not a mechanism.
Cameron (2003) notes that such metaphors are useful for pedagogical pur-
poses as they appeal to kinds of knowledge the reader may already have. We
might understand that when the heart fails, it is because part of the mecha-
nism, one of its components, has a fault. An operation can then be performed
to repair that part
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

In other views of medicine and the human body, however, such as in Chinese
and holistic medicine, this view of the heart as a machine would be problem-
atic as it encourages a view of the body as being comprised of separate, dis-
tinct elements. This fragmented view of the body, some would argue, tends
to shift attention away from more holistic pre-emptive healthcare practices
that view the body as a whole. One of the authors has seen an acupuncturist
turn a breached baby prior to labour by putting needles in various parts of the
woman's body, but not in her stomach and not in the baby. Which part of the
machine, which mechanism, is the acupuncturist adjusting or fixing?
What is important here is to grasp that metaphor is an everyday part oflan-
guage and an important way of how we grasp reality. But metaphors can be of
ideological significance. Which metaphors become accepted can have impli-
cations not only for how we think about and understand the world, but also
for how we act, the institutions we build and how we organise our societies.
Fairclough (1995a: 94) points out that metaphors have hidden ideologi-
cal loadings due to the way that they can conceal and shape understandings,
while at the same time giving the impression that they reveal them. They are,
therefore, one linguistic way of hiding underlying power relations. Metaphor
and other rhetorical tropes provide excellent linguistics resources for those
who wish to replace actual concrete processes, identities and settings with
abstractions. This chapter will provide a set of tools and case studies that
allow us to think more precisely about how this can be done.
Arnheim (1969) has shown the important role of metaphor in visual com-
munication. For example, we might make a small space between our thumb
and forefinger and say 'I was this far away from hitting him'. Yet there was no
spatial issue at the time, rather one of mood. We might say of a person that
'they have their feet on the ground' to express that they are a sensible person,
as opposed to 'having their head in the clouds'. Yet being sensible has no natu-
ral relation to height, to the ground or to clouds. Such metaphors become so
widely used that they come to appear natural and commonsensical.
We can see how invisible metaphors can be by looking at the instance of
'happy' as 'up' and 'sad' as 'down'. Why is this accepted? Why should happy
be up? We can say 'Things are looking up' and 'The house price market is
sinking', but why should reduced prices be down? Our language is filled with
such references. We can say We have run-away inflation', but is inflation a
self-propelled being?
For Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and for Arnheim (1969), metaphor is one
fundamental way in which humans organise their experiences. We under-
stand and experience the world through a network of culturally established
metaphors. Speakers can tap into some of these metaphors in order to make
arguments seem more plausible or to delegitimise others, as we will be show-
ing throughout this chapter. This is because when we use metaphors we can
highlight one aspect of experience, while at the same time concealing others.
For example, the heart-as-mechanism metaphor draws our attention to the
idea that the heart carries out a role like the part of a machine, but conceals

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 Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor

the fact that the body might be better thought of as a whole. Hospital patients
who have health problems that fall between or overlap two specialist depart-
ments often experience great difficulties in accessing the appropriate treat-
ment. One woman known to the authors had a degenerative bone condition
and recurring non-malignant skin cancers. She was treated for each by sepa-
rate departments who were not used to communicating with each other. It
was only after much effort on her part over many years that she was finally
granted a visit to a specialist geneticist who identified that her condition may
have been one single problem caused by a genetic defect when she was an
embryo.
Semino (2008) comments on the widely held view that science is objec-
tive and descriptive. She notes examples that are often discussed in science,
such as 'the greenhouse effect', 'genetic codes', 'electrical waves and particles',
which contain metaphors. Since scientists deal with highly complex concepts
that are often poorly understood and difficult to perceive, the use of meta-
phors allows them to explain these in simplified terms and to persuade us that
their explanations are valid. Of course we must ask, as in the case of the meta-
phor of the heart as a mechanism, what the effects of these metaphors are and
in what ways they shape thinking, practice and even the way we organise our
institutions. As Semino (2008: 33) points out, when metaphors become the
dominant way of thinking about a phenomenon it may become very difficult
to challenge the metaphors used to describe it, since these become the com-
monsense or naturalised way of understanding the world.

Metaphordomains
In Latin, metaphora denotes something that is carried somewhere else.
So in communication, we transport processes of understanding from one
realm or conceptual domain to another (Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff and Nunez,
1997). Here we use the term 'conceptual domain' as it expresses the fact
that metaphor is not simply about language or visual communication, but
about thought itself and the embodiment of human experience. That is why
we understand personality differences sometimes in terms of colliding
objects. This can help us feel that we understand them better and can more
easily deal with them.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) characterise this process of metaphorical
construction in terms of 'source domain' and 'target domain'. These can be
explained as follows:

Target domain: the topic or concept that we want to describe through

the metaphor.
Source domain: the concept that we draw upon in order to create the
metaphor.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

A common conceptual metaphor in English is an 'idea is food', which can be

found in expressions such as 'Your argument is half-baked' or 'I have to digest
his nasty comments'. In this metaphor, the target domain (i.e. the entity being
talked about) is 'idea', whereas the source domain (i.e. the concept for meta-
phor construction) is 'food'.
Cameron (2007) has shown that when we talk about certain subjects
they might be dominated by reference to one particular source domain. For
example, when we talk about relationships, this is often done in terms of a
journey:

They are just at the start of their journey together.

After four years he wants to take a different path.
It has been a bumpy road for the two of them.
Look how far we have come.
We'll just have to go our separate ways.
We can't turn back now.
This relationship isn't going anywhere.
We've gone off the track.

Reconciliation draws on the same conceptual domain:

There is another mountain to climb now.

One step at a time
The feelings that were there at the beginning
I just have to keep looking forward.

Of course, relationships have no natural comparison to a journey, but this has

become an established way of talking about them. In such cases we can ask
how metaphors shape our experiences and perceptions of the world and how
they serve to define solutions. Let us consider the following metaphors:

Society is an organism
Society is a market

If we accept the first of the two, then we have to work to make sure all parts
of it are healthy and work together. If we accept the second, then society is a
place where everyone has their abilities on offer for trade. In this case, it is
those who have more to offer or who offer 'better value' who will get ahead.
While the organism metaphor emphasises cooperation, the market metaphor
emphasises competition.

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 Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor

If one of these metaphors becomes accepted as how we think of society,

or is the model used by government, this will affect the way we organise that
society. It will affect the kinds of institutions we build and the kinds of people
who are given authority to run it. The ideas governing education will change
as we think of children needing 'marketable' skills to compete with each other
rather than abilities and skills that will ensure that our society is a just and
compassionate community. This might exclude the arts, philosophy and lit-
erature, unless of course money can be made out of them. Such a society may
not have a well-developed welfare state as this might be considered to be
against the ideology of a society where people must compete.

Rhetoricaltropes
In the rest of this chapter we will look at a number of different kinds of rhe-
torical tropes. We list these giving illustrations and then apply them to a
number of case studies.

Metaphor
As we have seen above, a metaphor is basically the means by which we under-
stand one concept in terms of another. For example:

Banks have said that we must not let the economy stagnate.
The housing market bubble has burst.
The situation in Afghanistan has overheated.

Here we find the state of the economy described through reference to water
that has remained still for too long. The housing market being compared to
a bubble suggests that it was always fragile, and 'overheating' draws on the
metaphor of cooking. In each case, the use of the metaphor obscures what has
actually happened and can dramatically simplify processes. Such metaphors
can also make the economic situation and war sound much more positive or
negative.
In the EMDAexample, we find the organisation will:

work with our partners in the region and beyond to achieve the region's
ambition to be a Top 20 Region by 2010 and a flourishing region by 2020.

This sentence uses a plant metaphor ('flourishing') to describe its aims. As we

have stated in Chapter 2, problems, solutions and outcomes in this text are all
concealed in rhetoric. What exactly will be done is not specified, so no one can in
fact be held accountable. Another popular metaphor in documents like these as

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

well as in political discourse is where we collectively 'build' our future. We 'lay

foundations', 'cement' parts together, 'lay cornerstones'. The building metaphor
allows the author to avoid specifying just what they will do while at the same time
summoning up a sense of progress and collaboration (Charteris-Black, 2004).
We can see the use of yet another metaphor in the following statement:

The minister will have to prepare for the political fallout.

This is a nuclear war-based metaphor, which suggests that there has been a
big problem that has exploded and therefore had an impact, and that there
will be consequences that could be long-term and complex to deal with.

This tidal wave of generosity will help them rebuild their flattened
homes and shattered lives.

A sentence like this one is typical of journalistic cliches during a disasters. Here
the use of the tidal wave metaphor suggests overwhelming generosity, so is used
in a positive sense. Very often, however, the tidal flood metaphor is used nega-
tively in tabloid newspapers to refer to immigration (e.g. Baker et al., 2008).

Media storm
Storm of controversy

This suggests something relentless that may last for a while and cause dam-
age. We can say that the media storm has passed, but of course storms are
neither rational nor purposeful.
Metaphors can be quite deliberately persuasive, particularly when used in
political discourse. For example, Lu and Ahrens (2008) quote examples from
Taiwanese political speeches to show how politicians use metaphor to give a
sense of their commitment, plans and how they create unity through abstrac-
tion rather than concrete details:

Ever since the beginning of the country, [our countrymen in the past]
have been trying to construct a country of the people, by the people, for
the people.
We will complete the sacred mission both of constructing the base for
our comeback and of glorifying China.
Every achievement we have come from the cornerstones which were
laid down by the sacrifice and perseverance of innumerable forebears.
The national father directed the revolution ... The new groundwork of
the ROCwas laid down at that moment.
Taiwan is striding across invisible thresholds ... and it will finally go
through the gate of hope to democracy and prosperity.

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 Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor

We can see in these examples that the source domain is buildings and construc-
tion. The history of the country consisted of laying down the groundwork, con-
structing the base, laying down the cornerstones. This is portrayed as a collective
act that obscures how this was actually achieved. Cornerstones sound strong
and solid, a basis for the structure that follows, but to what do these actually
refer? Building metaphors are commonly found in political speeches (Charteris-
Black, 2004). They convey a sense of progress, of building something together,
without actually stating what this might be. In the above case, many people in
Taiwan would not have wanted to be part of mainland China. The 'cornerstones'
may have been seen rather as agencies of oppression and control and certainly
not of the order that might lead to moving through a gate of hope to democracy.
In the following example, Charteris-Black (2006) shows the use of source
domains that reference natural disasters in different media representations
of immigration in Britain.

Britain is facing a nightly tidal wave of asylum seekers from Cherbourg,

France's biggest port. (The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2002, in Charteris-
Black, 2006: 570)
We will also clamp down on the flood of 'asylum seekers: the vast majority
of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home coun-
tries. (British National Party Manifesto,2005, in Charteris-Black,2006: 570)
Since the trickle of applicants has become a flood and Parliament has been
called upon to pass six substantial Acts in eleven years, trying to cope with
the increasing numbers and progressively tighten up procedures at the
application and appeal stages ... (Asylum and Immigration Act, 2004, in
Charteris-Black, 2006: 571)

In these examples, asylum seekers are described in terms of a 'flood'. No actual

flood is involved, but this metaphor brings with it connotations of a natural
disaster rather than a social matter, from which terrified people are seeking
refuge. Foreigners overwhelming a country like a flood removes any sense of
the needs of these people or the possibility of compassion on our behalf. Unless
careful measures are put into place, this flood will be difficult to contain.
In the following metaphor in a speech given by former British Home
Secretary Michael Howard on asylum and immigration on 22 September
2004, Charteris-Black points to something more subtle:

Take housing, for example. The majority of immigrants settle in London

and the South East, where pressures on housing are most pronounced.
By contrast, many disadvantaged communities will perceive that new-
comers are in competition for scarce resources and public services,
such as housing and school places. The pressure on resources in those
areas is often intense and local services.
(http://news.bbe.co. uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3 6 79618.stm)

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Here Howard uses the metaphor of 'pressure' to describe the effects on hous-
ing. However, there is no actual 'pressure', which describes a physical force.
So we are given a sense that this pressure amounts to physical force. We also
know that when the pressure in containers becomes too great they explode.
These kinds of metaphor are so familiar with us that they often go unno-
ticed. Nevertheless they bring with them different kinds of qualities, fore-
grounding some things and concealing others. For example, immigrants are
constructed in certain sectors of the press mostly as a problem, whereas the
benefits they bring to a country remain relatively under-discussed. In the last
example above, the term 'pressure' means that the problems are caused by
the newcomers rather than by those whose responsibility it is to provide an
adequate supply of housing.

Hyperbole
This is where there is exaggeration, such as:

I felt ten feet tall

We all died laughing
I've told you a million times not to call me a liar

We also might find it in news texts, for example in the following sentence:

The demonstration was a mob rampage

or

The frenzied bloody attack

When representing 'our side' in the conflict, a journalist might want to

describe this last example rather as:

A strategic frontal assault.

In the fashion of Van Dijk's ideological squaring (1995), we could imagine

that enemies carry out 'frenzied bloody attacks', whereas our own side car-
ries out 'strategic operations'. A favoured demonstration may be described
as a 'human tide', whereas an unfavoured one may be a 'mob rampage'. We
can always look for the use of hyperbole in texts and think about what they
conceal and how they evaluate persons, places and events.

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Personification/objectification
Personification means that human qualities or abilities are assigned to
abstractions or inanimate objects. Again, this can obscure actual agents and
processes. For example:

Democracy will not stand by while this happens.

Democracy is not an agent but a political model. Yet politicians often speak of
it in this way to mean that they, their party, or their government, along with a
selection of other allied national governments, will not stand by. By personi-
fying democracy as an agent, they are able to conceal who the actors are. They
are also able to hide behind a concept that is generally highly valued by many.
If democracy indeed has a problem with something, then it must be an enemy
of freedom and fairness.
We can also see this process of concealment in the following line:

The credit crunch has made all of us rethink.

Again, the 'credit crunch' is not an agent that can make us think. It is a term
that has come to be used to characterise a complex set of economic circum-
stances caused by banks speculating wildly in the property market through
offering unsecured mortgages. But using the term 'credit crunch' allows the
actual causes and agents behind the economic crisis to be suppressed.

Metonymy
This is the substitution of one thing for another with which it is closely associ-
ated. For example, instead of saying 'I am making progress with the writing
and editing of the book' we might say 'the book is coming along'. Or it can be
a trope that substitutes an associated word for another word. So instead of
'senior police officers', we might say 'top brass'.
The suits in the office upstairs (officials)
Downing Street/The Kremlin said today (the British/Russian government)
The Redtops all carried the story (the tabloid newspapers)

Metonymy can be yet another strategy to conceal the actual people behind an
organisation/institution and their actions. We might say 'The top brass want
this done', meaning in fact our line manager, in order to make our task sound
more important.

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Synecdoche
This is where the part represents the whole. This also has the important
function of allowing the speaker to avoid being specific. Here are some
examples:

We need a few bodies to fill the room (a few people)

There are a few good heads in the department (good people)
I want a new set of wheels (a new car)
Want a few jars tonight? (come and drink a few beers)
We need some new blood here (some new people)
There are few new faces here
The country won't stand for it (the government and its citizens)

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair was once asked about the solution
to poverty, he replied that it was mainly a matter of 'banging a few heads
together'. Here these heads represent those placed in positions to implement
policy. But through this utterance he avoids saying exactly who he means and
what processes he will implement to make sure the right policies are intro-
duced. In fact, Blair's party was often credited with having good ideas, but
regarded as rather weak at actually realising these.

Metaphorsignalling
There may be linguistic devices in texts that draw attention to the use of met-
aphors. Goatly (1997) refers to these as signalling devices. This is where a
speaker might say 'metaphorically speaking','so to speak', 'as it were', or 'literally':

My head was literally ready to explode towards the end of that lecture.

In this case, it appears that the signalling device points to how appropriate
the metaphor is in this instance.

I was ready to murder them all, so to speak

In this case, 'so to speak' has the effect of hedging the use of the metaphor. It
signals a more self-conscious use.
We now move on to look at a number of case studies where we find all of
the above rhetorical tropes used for potentially ideological purposes.

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Casestudy1: George Bush Speech

First of all, we can look at a classic use of rhetorical tropes in a speech by George
Bush just after the events of September 11, 2001 . As is typical of times of conflict,
we find objectification and personification of the nation and the cause. And we find
metaphors used to abstract the reasons and nature of the conflict which therefore
simplify the nature of the response.

President Bush's address to a Joint session of Congress on Thursday night,

September 20, 2001

After all that has just passed, all the lives taken and all the possibilities and hopes
that died with them, it is natural to wonder if America's future is one of fear.

Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead and dangers to
face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them.

As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be
an age of terror. This will be an age of liberty here and across the world.

Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief
and anger we have found our mission and our moment.

Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achieve-
ment of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.

Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and
our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We
will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.

We find objectification and personification in the following:

this country will define our times

We can see that here the country becomes the agent. This kind of personification
sidesteps who exactly will be doing the defining, connoting the 'country' as a coherent
single voice rather than consisting of people with differing views and competing
ideologies. We can see this in the following:

As long as the United States of America is determined and strong

Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence

(Continued)

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(Continued)

Politicians have traditionally evoked the nation as agent in order to rally people to
their own intentions. This personification can be used to gloss over the differences
between people and between the views held by different people and those held by
the politician. The following examples help to draw this out:

The university requires prior notification of any individual strike action by staff.

Here it is not the 'university' as a whole that requires this information. The university
can be thought of in the first place of comprising lecturers, researchers, students,
library staff, administrators, etc. It is in fact in this case only the university management
who would require notification. However, phrasing it in this way, using personification,
glosses over different interests and points of view that may exist across the university.
The staff may well be striking for reasons of resource cuts that they feel will affect
students' quality of learning and teaching in the longer term. In the same way, we can
see that Bush attempts to convey a sense of common response and common interest.
Both authors knew American colleagues who at the time were highly concerned about
US foreign policy. Yet the power of such objectification in these kinds of speeches
and other media representations at the time served to position the voices of these
academics therefore outside 'our country', 'our nation'. This allows the speaker to
conceal exactly whose interests and actions are being referred to and also creates
the impression of a shared interest.
We also find personification in the line

Freedom and fear are at war.

So it is not so much that America and other interests are in conflict, but that it is the
concepts themselves that are in dispute. The actual nature of the problem is therefore
abstracted. It also provides one step towards the nature of the solution.
We also find objectification in the following:

all the lives taken and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them

Here the possibilities and hopes become entities that have lives which can be ended.
Here this is both objectification and synecdoche as the hopes and possibilities come
to represent the future lives of the people. But turning these into real tangible things,
and then speaking of their death, makes them appear more tragic.
Other metaphors are where Bush refers to acts of terrorism as a 'dark threat'.
The possible effect of this is that Bush is able to construct an image of the threat
as concrete, as terrorists constituting an evil to be feared, and one which equally
positions the future as a 'thing' in need of protection. Thus, where the act of 'lifting the
dark threat' is not literal, Bush uses this metaphor to instigate fear, incite activism, and
to legitimate the fight against terror.
We find synecdoche in the line

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We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage

It is not in fact the world, but the people who live in it. This creates an impression
of magnitude and importance and of the 'rightness' of what must be done since the
whole world will be rallied behind a common cause. And does this mean the whole
world population or those people or specifically those Western governments who
have certain shared interests with the USA? The verb to 'rally' is an abstraction. It
conveys motivation and persuasion, although this can gloss over a wide range of
micro-processes. Does this involve and include military and economic pressures put
on countries that are believed to harbour terrorists, for example?
Also of note in this extract is Bush's metaphorical construction of time. For example:

this country will define our times, not be defined by them

Here, time is given a commodity status, a sense of being a concrete entity which
can be physically shaped and which embodies human experience. Time therefore
becomes something that can be shared, protected and defined. This is also found in
the idea of an 'age of terror', in which personification is used to construct 'age' as an
entity in itself that can commit acts of terror against America. Again, this abstracts
the nature of these threats, their causes and consequences. We also find time
represented as a thing in the line

we have found ... our moment

Here, time becomes an object or entity that can be discovered. 'Moment' represents
purpose, or the time to act. The kind of representation suggests that such moments
are out there waiting to be found. As such, this use of metaphor represents this as a
kind of opportunity and therefore a chance to do the 'right' thing.
We also find a metaphor of journey in the lines:

The advance of human freedom

After all that has just passed

Events are metaphorically constructed as scenes on a journey. Alongside the

personification of nation and concepts such as freedom, journeys are also often used
as one important source domain in political speeches. These are useful as they can
give a sense of travelling together, of being on the right or wrong path, of moving in
the right direction.
Other metaphors include:

all the lives taken

will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future

(Continued)

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(Continued)

In the first case, lives are constructed as commodities. People are not just killed but
are described as 'taken', implying something unjust and premature, which America
as a collective must fight. The second sentence uses the metaphor of 'lifting' to
represent the acts that must follow that will rectify the situation. What shall be done
is not specified, but there is a sense of lifting and removing the dark threat, which is
therefore represented as an object that can be physically removed.
In sum, we can see that there is little concrete description of events, victims,
agents, and causality in Bush's speech. Rather, America is personified as a physical
entity with intentions. Time is a commodity and also an agent that can be acted upon
and have an identity. Who will side with America is abstracted through synecdoche
as 'the world'. The events in question are part of a bigger journey of freedom, and
actions involve 'finding our moment' and 'lifting dark threats'. Such speeches are
clearly engineered to conceal differences of opinion behind a personified nation that
is positioned on a greater journey which involves a greater cause where actual threats
and subsequent actions are abstracted to avoid complexity and difficulty.
Graham et al. (2004) speak of a number of key features of calls to war by politicians
over the past thousand years. These include the creation of an evil enemy, an
appeal to a greater cause, an appeal to the history of the nation, an appeal to unity
behind a greater power source. We can see these above in Bush's speech and the
important role of metaphor in their construction. The enemy is a 'dark threat', the
greater cause is one of the 'advancement of human freedom', the history of the nation
is represented by the 'great achievement of our time', presumably with America as
leader. The greater power source in this case appears to be the 'mission' which is
bound up with freedom itself.

Case study2: David Cameron Speech

In this second case study, we look at an extract from a speech by David Cameron,
at the time leader of the opposition. In previous chapters we have considered
Fairclough's (2003) suggestion that the more actual, concrete details about persons,
events and processes are abstracted, the more we will find ideological work being
done. In the following, we find that metaphor is one key part of the way that Cameron
remains entirely in the realm of abstraction:

David Cameron: Let's mend our broken society

Rt Hon David Cameron, Tuesday, Aprll 27 2010

Something is broken. Society is broken.

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The broken society is not one thing alone. It is not just the crime. It is a whole stew
of violence, anti-social behaviour, debt, addiction, family breakdown, educational
failure, poverty and despair.

This is life - or the backdrop of life - for millions of people in this country.
So how should we respond? The first response - the human response - is to feel
unutterably sad at so much waste. Wasted hopes. Wasted potential. Wasted lives.

But sadness and anger aren't going to change anything on their own. Mending
the broken society needs head as well as heart. It requires us to have an under-
standing of what has gone wrong as well as a clear approach to putting things
right.

And my argument today is this. We have arrived at this point in our society for
a number of reasons, many completely divorced from politics and what govern-
ment does. But I am certain that government is a big part of the problem - its size
has now reached a point where it is actually making our social problems worse.
That's because by trying to do too much, it has drained the lifeblood of a strong
society - personal and social responsibility. And the biggest victims are those
at the bottom, who suffer most when crime rises and educational standards fall.
They are the victims of state failure. They are the victims of big government.
There is, I believe, only one way out of this national crisis - and that is what I have
called the Big Society. A society where we see social responsibility, not state con-
trol, as the principal driving force for social progress. A society where we come
together, and work together, to solve problems.

In order to draw out the level of abstraction here and the role played by metaphor, we
analyse this extract in terms of the problems identified, those effected by them, and in
terms of the solutions proposed.

The problem
In this speech, the problem is represented through two metaphors. First, that
'society is broken' and that it is in need of 'mending'.

Let's mend our broken society

Something is broken. Society is broken.

Here, society is represented as an object or thing rather than as a concept or idea.

And this object or thing is broken. The source domain here would be objects, such as
plates, toys, windows or machines that break. In speeches it is often the case that we
hear society spoken of, as we mentioned above, through a metaphor of it being either

(Continued)

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(Continued)

an organism or a market. Of course in this case it could not be broken, although in

the first it could be ill or diseased. What matters here is that if something is broken,
the question is can it be mended? And here Cameron urges that this is what we must
do. Given the nature of the source domain of the metaphor, society must either be
put back together or repaired in some way. What is implied through this metaphor is
that society should be put back into its prior state where it was not broken. It is not
that it should be changed, rethought, but only returned to how it was before it was
broken. What exactly this means remains implied, appealing to a nostalgic view of
'when things were better'. At precisely what point in the past society was broken is
not specified. We are not told how things were before they were broken or how they
can simply be mended, when the world as a whole has changed and is constantly
changing.
The second metaphor used to describe the nature of the problem draws on a
cooking metaphor:

It is a stew of violence, anti-social behaviour, debt, addiction, family breakdown,

educational failure, poverty and despair.

If we think about this literally, it is an odd juxtaposition of metaphors.

Society is broken - it is a stew.

On the one hand, it has been observed that this mixing of metaphors has traditionally
been thought of as bad language use (Semino, 2008), even though it is something
we frequently find in language. However, in this instance, the second, 'stew' metaphor
is so well-trodden that is virtually invisible. And it may be a clue to the high level of
abstraction in the text that such mixing does not appear to be obvious or incongruent.
Nevertheless the 'stew' metaphor has an important role to play here. We are not told
if 'violence', 'anti-social behaviour', 'debt', 'addiction', 'family breakdown', 'educational
failure', 'poverty' and 'despair' are part of one common problem, or if they might be
interrelated. They are simply a stew, which is a kind of meal that bubbles away on the
heat while a collection of non-specific ingredients merge into its mass, often becoming
slightly indistinct. But crucially, the elements of a stew have no causal connection; they
simply float around in the stew and merge. In contrast, the list of phenomena offered by
Cameron has causal links. Educational failure has been linked to poverty which in turn
may lead to anti-social behaviour, violence, debt and family breakdown.
The fact that we are not told how these different 'ingredients' in the stew are
connected means that the complexity of the solution can in itself be more abstracted.
Had the causal sequence and relations been made explicit, this would not have fitted
with the solution Cameron has to offer. Is it that poverty is caused by poor distribution
of wealth, high unemployment by jobs shifting abroad in the global economy, and
has debt led to despair and family beakdown? It has been shown (e.g. Levitas,
2005) that many of the changes now faced in British society are due to economic

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policies in favour of global capitalism. This has led to a gradual removal of Britain from
manufacturing-related trade, which provided jobs across the country. Accompanying
free market policies and the privatisation of public services has resulted in other
dramatic changes in quality of life for many people. What is concealed from this list of
features, therefore, through the use of the metaphor, is causality.
What is also of interest in the list of things in the stew provided by Cameron is
that the causes are placed towards the end of the sentence, such as 'poverty' and
'educational failure', and the consequences such as 'anti-social behaviour' and 'debt'
are placed at the top to raise their salience. In fact, the order of causality is reversed
in the sentence. As Van Dijk (1991) points out, this is one device by which identities
and events can be made more or less salient. Here we also see the way that natural
sequences of events are inverted (Van Leeuwen, 2008).

Thosewhoare affected
We are told that the victims in this 'broken society' are:

And the biggest victims are those at the bottom, who suffer most when crime
rises and educational standards fall.

In the first place, those who are affected are represented as 'victims'. The term
'victim' is usually associated with crime, where there is a perpetrator or criminal. And
we are not told who these victims are in any concrete terms, yet a metaphor of 'those
at the bottom' is used. Of course, a society can have no physical top or bottom,
but up and down/top and bottom are accepted metaphors used to represent social
order. Here Cameron is seeking to appeal to those who might have traditionally
been Labour voters or even more right-wing voters, who may not see themselves
as being at the 'top' of society. Cameron could have used an expression such as
'those who are socially excluded', 'those at the margins of society' or 'poorer people'.
Research has shown the extent of poverty and social exclusion in Britain (Levitas,
2005). Cameron, however, glosses over why there are people 'at the bottom' and
what this really means.
We also find a deletion of agents and causality in the following sentence:

when crime rises and educational standards fall

Here, the verb constructions conceal who causes crime to rise and educational
standards to fall. One part of Cameron's new policies after winning the general
election has been the introduction of far-reaching cuts in education.
Overall, Cameron's speech appears to be an excellent example of how to obfuscate
causes in a way that allows more abstracted solutions to carry weight, as we shall
see below.

(Continued)

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(Continued)

The causeof the problem

Causes lie not in clear economic policy, but in abstractions:

They are the victims of state failure.

government is a big part of the problem

it has drained the lifeblood of a strong society

Exactly what the government has done or not done is not specified. Again, we find
the use of the word 'victims', which obscures who exactly these people are, what their
structural position in society is and how they have been affected. Government is a 'big
part' of the problem, where the problem is an object that can be divided up into parts,
rather than a complex history of decisions and factors. And what the government has
done has 'drained the lifeblood of a strong society'. Again, this is a metaphor that is
used so often in English that it appears neutral. But it is an abstraction. Here society
is not an object that can be broken, but an organism from which the blood has been
drained to make it weak.
So far we have seen that the nature and causes of the problem have been
presented as abstractions. Where actual concrete social phenomena have been
mentioned, these have been presented in ways that silences their relations and
reverses causality. It is in this context that Cameron then offers his solution.

The solution
The solution too remains firmly in the realm of abstraction:

There is, I believe, only one way out of this national crisis - and that is what I have
called the Big Society. A society where we see social responsibility, not state con-
trol, as the principal driving force for social progress. A society where we come
together, and work together, to solve problems.

First, we find the spatial metaphor of 'only one way out'. The crisis is therefore a kind
container where Cameron is the politician who can lead us to the exit. This is a typical
move in political rhetoric, where Cameron positions himself as the one to show us this
exit, which will then take us outside the container. Presumably, the container is the
one which contains the heady mixture previously characterised as a stew.
Next, we find the metaphor of the 'Big Society'. Cameron does not specify that the
previous situation is a 'Small Society'. But 'Big' suggests that society can be thought of
as a physical entity where 'Big' is a good thing. In other contexts a 'Big Society' could
be taken as something oppressive and controlling. And this large physical entity is
one where the state has less control but where we instead take responsibility. Exactly

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what kind of change will be produced is not specified, but represented through a
sense of movement, of society moving forward, again in terms of the metaphor
'driving force' and the journey of 'social progress'.
In this society, Cameron continues, we 'come together and work together' to solve
problems. Who exactly the 'we' is remains unspecified as does what 'coming together'
means. Cameron's discourse of a 'Big Society' and image of state control alludes to
a familiar Conservative Party discourse of laissez-faire politics, where the state plays
a minimal role and supports a free market. His metaphors of a 'broken society, of the
'stew' of problems and his 'Big Society' are all new metaphors that communicate a
familiar discourse. But what exactly the problems are, and how they are to be dealt
with, is communicated only at the level of abstraction. We can imagine how his solution
would have appeared had he been specific about the problems. Had he explained the
changes in the global economy and its consequences for British society, or the likely
effects of increased privatisation, and had he looked at increasing unemployment and
temporary contract work and its relation to poverty, crime and other social problems
and then offered his solution, it would have seemed absurd.
What in fact is communicated here is very little at all apart from a repetition of older
Conservative free market ideology. Yet exactly how this will mend the broken society
is not specified. This kind of speech was typical of those made by Cameron leading
up to the general election which he won in 2010.

Casestudy3: HousingCrisisReportin
TimesNewspaper
The following text from the Business section of the British Times newspaper (9 November
2008) deals with economic decline in Detroit, of which the housing market is one part.
At the time in the press, particularly in the UK, price changes in the housing market after
several years of increases had begun to fall. While there was some more accurate and
measured debate about what was actually happening, much of it was characterised by
hyperbole and metaphor. We find one such example in the text below. What is interesting
here is that this text is from the Business section of what presents itself as a serious
newspaper. Yet there is very little concrete information present in this item, in which
hyperbole, metaphor and personification conceal causality and actual processes.

America's Darkest Fear: To end up llke Detroit

The $1 house has become symbolic of one city's nightmare decline, writes Tony
Allen-Mills in Detroit.

(Continued)

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(Continued)

On a quiet, tree-lined road near Detroit's city airport, sits a house that was briefly
the most famous in America.

When the three-bedroom home at 8111 Traverse Street found a buyer last sum-
mer, the purchase price made headlines around the world - the house sold for
one dollar, then worth about 50p.

The unnamed buyer was a local woman who bought the house as an investment.

Yet two months later, America's spiraling financial crisis is wreaking so much new
havoc in decaying property markets like Detroit's that even a $1 house cannot be
resold for a profit. As the home of America's once-omnipotent automobile indus-
try, the city of Detroit is scarcely a stranger to adversity.

'Blight is creeping like a fungus through many of Detroit's proud neighborhoods,'

an article in Time magazine noted in 1961.

It has since become America's poorest city, the Motown that lost its mojo. Last
week the city's big-three motoring manufacturers, Ford, General Motors and
Chrysler, announced their worst monthly results for car sales since 1993.

The house on Traverse Street tells part of the story of a decline so dizzying that
other cities around America have begun to talk fearfully of 'Detroitification', a
seemingly irreversible condition of urban despair that slowly takes grip of once-
flourishing communities and strips them of value and life.

For much of the world it might seem unthinkable that a house in a large American
city could be sold for a single dollar, but the shocking reality of Detroit's urban
implosion is that there are tens of thousands such homes in varying states of
calamitous disrepair, with no hope of finding buyers.

Officials still debate the varying causes of the city's ruin, but race riots in the
1960s, competition from foreign carmakers, a galloping murder rate and a flour-
ishing drug culture all took a heavy toll.

In the past 40 years, Detroit has lost half its population, which is now estimated
at 850,000 - more than 80% of them African-American.

The credit crisis of the past year has exacerbated the city's woes. Downtown
have been frozen for lack of funding.

Last week the city tore up a project to build new blocks of up market flats along
the Detroit river ...

As neighborhoods wilted in a blitz of foreclosures, prices sank like stones ...

The kind of decay that was primarily restricted to poor black neighborhoods is
spreading to much grander homes.

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This news story uses a mixture of metaphors and is an example of just how diverse
the source domains can be even in one text. What they have in common is a sense of
motion that is out of control and of organic decay and putrefaction.
In the first place, the fact that this is far from a measured assessment of the situation
is signposted by the use of hyperbole:

nightmare decline

spiraling financial crisis

galloping murder rate

a blitz of foreclosures

the city tore up a project to build new blocks

All of these add to the magnitude and pace of the story. What they also do is draw on
a number of source domains to convey a sense of fast pace and uncontrollability to
the unfolding events. The murder rate draws on the movement of horses, the financial
crisis is represented as an object moving in widening circles, the housing project has
not been cancelled but 'torn up'. We find other metaphors of the same nature:

decline so dizzying

Detroit's urban implosion

prices sank like stones

'Dizzying' here suggests rapid, fast-spinning motion, 'implosion' suggests an

uncontrollable force and 'sinking like stones' is at the same time fast, relentless and
inevitable.
We also find a number of metaphors drawn from the source domain of fungal
diseases:

decaying property markets

Blight is creeping like a fungus through many of Detroit's proud neighborhoods

flourishing drug culture

neighborhoods wilted

The kind of decay that was primarily restricted to poor black neighborhoods is
spreading to much grander homes

Here, the problem of house prices and economic decline is represented in terms
of a fungal attack that creates decay, blight, a disease caused by fungi, and which
creeps across the city, spreading to new areas. Other phenomena are then described
through the language of fungal disease, such as the way the drug culture is flourishing.

(Continued)

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(Continued)

All this is leading to neighbourhoods simply wilting. These language constructions

completely remove agents and causality. Fungal attacks spread without intention or
reason; it is simply what they do. But economic decline in cities has concrete causes
and agents. What and who is causing these problems and how can they be solved?
We also find extensive personification in the text, which can also have the effect of
removing agents and causality:

America's spiraling financial crisis is wreaking so much new havoc

Here the financial crisis itself is represented as having agency when at the time it
appeared to be clear that it was decisions made by banks that were the actual drivers
of these problems.

urban despair that slowly takes grip

'Urban despair' cannot literally take grip of anything, but it is given this human
quality as it makes for greater drama, and again as it removes agency. The despair,
which is the result of the situation, is made the agent. But what are the processes that
have causes this result?
There are a number of examples of personification that refer to the city of Detroit
itself as having feelings and as the agent of verb processes:

It continues to lose residents

exacerbated the city's woes

the city tore up a project to build new blocks of up market flats

These personifications allow the writer to state that this problem affects the whole
of the city, rather than certain sections of the population. One of the authors knew
a colleague who was living in Detroit at that time, who, when asked, was not aware
of the situation, of the fungal-like spread of decline and dizzying problems. This
rhetorical move allows the author of the newspaper article to then state:

other cities around America have begun to talk fearfully of 'Detroitification'

Cities themselves do not talk, and stating it like this avoids having to cite who
exactly it is that is talking fearfully.
These personifications demonstrate how causality can be concealed. Who was it
who actually made the decision to not build the flats? Was it property investors?
In sum, this article uses metaphors of energy and movement - 'spiraling',
'galloping', 'blitz', 'sank like stones' - to create drama, along with metaphors of fungal-
like disease. It also uses personification, so that the whole city and individual areas
are experiencing problems rather than specific people who have specific problems.
The background of the banking crisis - banks who speculated on housing, and the

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 Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor

governments who bailed them - out is excluded. What exactly needs to be done is not
dealt with. In sum, we have a text filled with abstraction which is low on actual agents,
processes and causality. Yet it is found in the Business section of a major British
newspaper. Ideologically, it appears to serve to distract from the actual concrete
situation.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have shown that metaphor is not simply about flowery
and poetic language. Metaphor is fundamental to human thought. And it can
be used as a tool to help us to make sense of things. But it can also be used
strategically as a tool for abstracting processes and agents in order to recon-
textualise practices and to foreground and background. We have seen that
the broader normalisation of a metaphor can have consequences for the way
we might organise our societies, as in the case where we view society as a
market where we all compete to offer our services. This has implications for
how we run our schools and how we take care of and support each other. We
have seen that rhetorical tropes are excellent tools for abstraction, for gloss-
ing over micro-details, but we have also seen how powerfully compelling they
can be as they drive our understanding of one thing by another that can be
much more emotive or simplistic. So the tendency of the mass media to draw
on highly sexualised images to advertise commodities can become a kind of
'pollution' that our 'children' are breathing. In our analyses we must identify
these rhetorical tropes but then also point out the wider discourses that these
communicate, identifying what is abstracted, glossed over, and what kinds of
sequences of activity are promoted as a result.

185
 8
Committing and Evading:
Truth, Modality and Hedging

In this chapter, we discuss a characteristic of language that tells us about peo-

ple's commitment to what they say. In language, people might want to appear
to be firmly aligned to an idea or thing but at the same time wish to limit how
much this is represented in terms of a firm promise or command. This system
is called 'modality' (Hodge and Kress, 1979 /1993). According to Fairclough
(1992, 2003), modality includes any unit of language that expresses the
speaker's or writer's personal opinion of or commitment to what they say,
such as hedging (I believe /think/ suppose), modal verbs, modal adjectives
and their adverbial equivalents. There is 'high modality' and 'low modal-
ity'. We use these language structures all the time when we speak and write.
These indicate our judgement of probabilities and obligations, signal factual-
ity, certainty and doubt.
As well as being able to convey and obtain information, language also pro-
vides resources for being able to communicate and assess how we and oth-
ers feel about that information, how certain we are about it. Since language
is about concealing as well as revealing, to deceive as well as inform, there
are components of grammar that will help to facilitate this without being too
obvious. Hodge and Kress (1979) identify modals as one important tool for
accomplishing this.
In visual communication, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) have suggested,
too, there are features and qualities that can be usefully thought of as carry-
ing out the same role as modals in language. They identify visual qualities,
such as the level of articulation of detail in objects and settings, degrees of
naturalistic lighting and colour, and the way that these create distance from
how things appear in the real world. As with modals in language, these 'visual
modals' can be used to conceal and 'dress up' levels of truth and commitment
to reality.
In this chapter, we will look at both linguistic modality and visual modality.
As we look at linguistic modality, we will also consider the phenomenon of
'hedging'. This is a term used to describe the way that in language we often
 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

use terms or grammar to soften the impact of what we have to say, or to miti-
gate something.

Modalityin language
We can see how modals communicate our levels of certainty in the following
example:
I will have a beer tonight.
I may have a beer tonight.
In the first sentence, the speaker indicates much more commitment than in
the second sentence. This is only a trivial example. But it shows the way that
modals are used in everyday language to express levels of commitment to
what we do or do not do.
Modality has been categorised in many ways, but here we distinguish three:
Epistemic modality: This is to do with the speaker's/author's judgement
of the truth of any proposition. So if I say 'I may have a beer tonight', I am
expressing uncertainty about the proposition 'I am having a beer tonight'.
Slightly more certainty is expressed in the proposition 'I will probably have
a beer tonight'. In other words, epistemic modals show how certain you are
something will happen, or is the case.
Deontic modality: This is to do with influencing people and events. So if
I say 'Students must do the essay', I am expressing greater influence than if I
say 'Students may do the essay'. Deontic modals are therefore about how we
compel and instruct others.
Dynamic modality: This is related to possibility and ability, but is not sub-
jective in the manner of the first two modalities. For example, if we say 'I can
do this essay' or 'Tomorrow I will go to the dentist' or 'You can eat your lunch
in this room', I am not so much expressing my judgement nor attempting to
influence others, but indicating an ability to complete an action or the likeli-
hood of events.
Modality can also be associated with hedging terms, such as 'I think', 'kind
of/sort of', 'seems' or 'often'. This becomes clear in the difference between:
This is the correct procedure.
I think this might be the correct procedure.
This seems to be the correct procedure.

The second sentence is an example of epistemic modality, where we find

evidence of the speaker's judgement of the level of truth of the proposition
'This is the correct procedure'. The third sentence is an example of dynamic

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

modality, where the speaker offers a sense of possibility. An example of deon-

tic modality here would be:

You have to carry out this procedure.

Modals expressing high degrees of certainty might be used in order to con-

vince people. We can see this in an excerpt from a text on multiculturalism by
British Conservative leader David Cameron (The Observer, 29 January 2007):

We must not fall for the illusion that the problems of community cohe-
sion can be solved simply through top-down, quick-fix state action. State
action is certainly necessary today, but it is not sufficient But it must
also be the right kind of action, expressed in a calm, thoughtful and rea-
sonable way.

Here Cameron uses the modal 'must' frequently, asserting his certainty and
confidence. Imagine if he said in the last sentence: 'It should be the right kind
of action' or 'It might be the right kind of action'. Where we find texts filled
with uncertainty and lack of commitment, we are dealing with an author
who feels much less confident. Later in Cameron's speech we do find lower
commitment:

But I don't believe this should mean any abandonment of the fundamen-
tal principle of one people under one law. Religious freedom is a cardi-
nal principle of the British liberal tradition. But liberalism also means
this: that there is a limit to the role of religion in public life.

Here while there is certainty about religious freedom being a cardinal prin-
ciple, Cameron slightly reduces his commitment to the idea of the abandon-
ment of the fundamental principle of one people under one law by using 'I
believe' and 'should' in the first line. He could have said:

This cannot mean any abandonment of the fundamental principle of

one people under one law.

or

This will not mean any abandonment of the fundamental principle of

one people under one law.

But the lowered modality here allows him to appear sincere. By saying 'I
believe' rather than 'it is the case', he is able to communicate a sense of his
moral stance, giving access to his internal world. Politicians must strike a bal-
ance between being perceived as certain and decisive and being approach-
able and humane.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

Finally,we can see how Cameron attributes less certainty and commitment
to others:

Some say the risk is inflation. Others say it's recession. So some think
there should be more intervention by the Government in the financial
markets. Some say there should be less.

He does not specify who the 'some' are, anonymising them, but they are not
described as 'knowing' or even 'believing' that there should be more inter-
vention by government, but only 'think' it This is a technique often used
to detract from what others hold to be the case. But importantly, the use of
modality here allows Cameron to tell us, through the way he indicates lev-
els of commitments and sincerity and the doubts of others, something about
his own identity as a sincere and committed man, yet one who is thought-
ful and certainly not authoritarian. Fairclough (2003: 166) points to the way
that modality plays an important role in the 'texturing of identities'. What you
commit yourself to, what you show caution about, is one way that we com-
municate about the kind of person we are. Language must not only be able to
convey information, but must also allow us to gauge how speakers relate to
this information.
Murray (2002) offers an excellent example of talk that shows a lack in con-
fidence through the use of modals. This is a statement by a nurse:

Yeah. I think it, sort of, provided very holistic care for the elderly lady
coming through the unit, who actually gained more benefits than sim-
ply having a wound dressed on 'er leg. Erm, I think that had it, had she
'a' been seen in an ordinary unit without nurse practitioner cover, the
chances are that the, er, medical staff there would've dealt with 'er leg.
(2 002, www.peter-murray.net/msc/ dissch6.htm)

We find extensive use of 'I think', rather than simply a description of facts. We
also find other devices for lowering modality, as 'sort of' and 'actually', 'the
chances are'. In the first line, even the word 'very' lowers the nurse's com-
mitment to exactly how holistic the care was. The first line could have been
worded in this way:

It provided holistic care for the elderly lady coming through the unit,

Such use ofmodals would probably not be found, for example, in the speech
of a doctor, even though the doctor may have no more knowledge than the
nurse. Again, here we find that modals are a strong indication of identity.
Murray suggests that here the nurse indicates her lack of sense of power
over knowledge.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Modalsand authority
The use of modals tells us something about the author's identity and crucially,
therefore, how much power they have over others and over knowledge. Ifwe
read a document from our employers saying the employee 'will' do something
rather than they 'should' or that the employer 'thinks we should do it', these
will give us a very different sense of the power that they believe they have
over us.

Staff will notify the University about any strike action.

Staff should notify the University about any strike action.
We think that staff should notify the University about any strike action.

Clearly, here there is a descending order of authority. In the last case in par-
ticular, it is unlikely any staff will feel compelled to submit a notification.
This order of authority is made more explicit in the following. Again, we see
the descending order of power by the speaker:

You will come with me.

You must come with me.
The authorities order you must come with me.

In the first sentence, the speaker has the power to state what will happen. In
the second, also, using deontic modality, they appeal to some unmentioned
power using 'must'. In the last sentence, their own power is so weak that they
have to name the authority. We often hear children use this last one, when
they say to a sibling 'You've got to come - No, I won't - Mummy says you've
got to'.
We often find that pop psychologists and style gurus on TV and in lifestyle
magazines use modals like 'will' and high modality verbs such as 'is' to create
a sense of their own authority over knowledge.

People who are successful in life are those who can adapt quickly. I call
these 'adaptors'. The next category are those that worry ...

Pop psychologists are therefore able to provide authority for their opinions
not by the citation of research or other established professionals in psychol-
ogy or sociology, but through use of modals such as 'can' and 'are'.
The case of the pop psychologist brings us on to our next point. Certain
modals also have a function in concealing power relations. 'She may talk' can
either express permission or suggest a possibility. Again, a speaker can use
this to build up a sense of power while at the same time being able to deny
it. This means that coercion can be masked in surface forms of rationality. In

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

some cases there is no ambiguity, but this is rare. This suggests that the ambi-
guity is highly functional and is an important part of the quality of language,
rather than a problem (Hodge and Kress, 1979: 122). We can see this ambigu-
ity in the following:

You cannot swim here.

You may do any of the essay questions.

The first example might refer to the fact that you cannot swim for legal or
safety reasons. Or it could have been placed there by an annoyed neighbour.
The second suggests both a sense of having an option but also that you are
being allowed to do so. We can see the same ambiguity in a political speech:

We must take globalisation as an opportunity.

This ambiguity can be captured in two separate sentences, which indicate the
two possible meanings of the sentences:

The evidence compels us to take globalisation as an opportunity.

I am telling you to take globalisation as an opportunity.

We find the same ambiguity in the following:

We cannot avoid the fact that we are now part of a global economic
order.

Does 'cannot' here mean that since national economies are now subordinate
tothe World Trade Organisation and the World Bank that there are legal rea-
sons why we cannot avoid the fact? Or does it mean that it would not be rea-
sonable to think otherwise?
Importantly, modal verbs are also ambiguous about temporality.

We must adapt to changes in global markets through building a

knowledge-based economy that is dynamic and versatile.

Here, the modal 'must' is ambiguous about the time frame involved. Is this
referring to the future? Is it a statement about what will happen or is it a
general law that applies right now? This indeterminacy is useful for speakers
who have the contradictory task of portraying a specific issue and giving a
sense of addressing it without actually making clear what this involves.
Hodge and Kress (1979) point to the functional nature of this ambiguity.
If we assume that language has the role to deceive as well as inform, then
grammar will contain forms that allow us to avoid making certain kinds of
distinctions. Modals encode probabilities and certainties, but conceal time
and power.

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Finally,we can use modals to protect our utterances from criticism:

Teacher: Do you understand this process?

Student: Yes, I think I can. I'm sort of realising it's perhaps the key part
of the course.

Hedging
As well as modal verbs, authors can use hedging in order to create a strategic
ambiguity within their claims (Wood and Kroger, 2000). Hedging means that
a speaker avoids directness or commitment to something, although, as we
will see, this can often be used to give the impression of being detailed and
precise. Hedging can be used to distance ourselves from what we say and to
attempt to dilute the force of our statements and therefore reduce chances
of any unwelcome responses. For example, The Daily Mail anti-immigration
article we looked at previously stated:

Some people say that multiculturalism is outmoded, but, in fact, it is still

orthodox thinking.

There is no reason to hedge by 'some people say'. Who these people are and
what relevance they have to what has to be said is not clear. And there appears
to be no additional benefit by saying 'in fact'. But these structures allow the
author to 'dress up' the sentence:

I think multiculturalism is outmoded but it is nevertheless still ortho-

dox thinking.

'Padding' our language in this way softens the impact of the bluntness of an
message.
In the same article there is further evidence of hedging through 'some-
times', 'quite often', and 'little':

These incomers sometimes expect everyone to speak to them in their

own language, and they quite often make little attempt to integrate
themselves into French society or culture.

The sentence could have been written along these lines:

Incomers expect everyone to speak in their own language and make no

attempt to integrate themselves into French society or culture.

Adding more vague aggregation, such as 'quite often' and 'little' helps to dilute
the force of what is being said.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

Sunoo (1998) demonstrates that terms such as 'some', 'many' and 'others'
can be used to gloss over lack of concrete evidence by giving the following
example:

Corporate universities come in many shapes and sizes. Some. such as

Motorola University, have campus locations around the globe. Others.
such as Dell University, SunU and Verifone University, have no campus
at all. Many have committed to the virtual university model to express
their learning philosophy and commitment to continuous learning.
(cited in Faber, 2003: 16)

Here, the author of this text aims to justify the virtual university model, but
does so through rather vague evidence. Exactly how many universities have
committed to this and how many universities have no campus at all?
rusting et al (2002) gives examples of the way that exchange students dis-
tance themselves from the cultural stereotypes they use through hedging.
Here the hedging is indicated in italics:

Um, apart from I don't know if it's true but I got the impression that
French men are most sexist

It appears that this person states their belief that French men are sexist But
they hedge this statement by using lowered modality, such as 'I don't know if
it's true' and 'I gotthe impression' and through the use of the quantifier 'most'.
Political speeches are full of hedging devices. Here are some examples from
Resche (2004). Again, the hedging is indicated in italics:

The American economy, like all advanced capitalist economies, is con-

tinually in the process of what Joseph Schumpeter, a number of decades
ago, called 'creative destruction'. Capital equipment, production proc-
esses,financial and labor market infrastructure, and the whole panoply of
private institutions that make up a market economy are always in a state
of flux - in almost all cases evolving into more efficient regimes.

Resche points out that this could be shortened to:

Though many sectors are being thoroughly affected by creative destruc-

tion, our economy will be stronger and more competitive in the end.

Without hedging, however, the speech would lose the elements that serve
to soften its contents. Hedges can also serve the important role of giving the
impression that the opposite is taking place, that they are increasing the level
of explanation and clarification, rather than obfuscating it In this example, the
author hedges the condition of the US economy by saying it is not the only
one affected (like all advanced capitalist economies). And he 'explains' and

193
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

legitimises this by reference to a famous economist (Schumpeter). No exact date

is given so we cannot check exactly what he means ('a number of decades ago').
What we have here is a whole range of hedging features that allow this
simple statement to sound more authoritative and persuasive. It allows cush-
ioning from the impact of what is being said and also gives the impression
of expertise through technical language. Drawing on the work of Selinker
(1979), Rounds (1982), Banks (1994), Dudley-Evans (1994) and Resche
(2004), we can identify just what these features are and show how they can
be used to hedge the following statement:

There are many deadlines at this time of year so I was not able to com-
plete my assignments.

• Long noun phrases:

A lot of similarly timed deadlines at this time of year all which show a
lack of coordination between staff, prevented successful completion of
my assignments.

Here we can see that the actual process of not handing in the assignment has
been pushed to the back of the sentence into the subordinate clause behind
the long noun phrase. Van Dijk (1993) has shown that this is one grammatical
technique for backgrounding information.

• Modal verbs and adverbs such as 'may', 'perhaps' and auxiliary verbs such
as 'seems to' and adverbs such as 'especially':

ltseems to be the case that a lot of similarly timed deadlines at this time
of year perhaps all which show a lack of coordination between staff,
could have tended to prevent successful completion of my assignments.

Here the speaker lowers the certainty of what they say and hides behind the
lowered modality.

• Approximators 'some', 'somewhat' and the compounding of these 'to a

somewhat lesser extent':

Some similarly timed deadlines at this time of year perhaps, all which
show a lack of coordination between staff, could somewhat have tended
to prevent successful completion of my assignments.

We can see here that these hedges allow the speaker to conceal exactly how
many deadlines fall at the same time and to distance themselves from the
commitment to the fact that they did prevent assignment completion.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

• Non-factive verbs such as 'report', 'suggest':

Some students seem to be reporting that it may be the case that there are
a lot of similarly timed deadlines at this time of year, perhaps suggest-
ing a lack of coordination between staff, could especially have tended to
prevent successful completion of my assignments.

Again, we can see how this allows for a sense of vagueness.

• Comparative forms of adverbs such as 'more concerned than before'

suggest precision:

Some students seem to be reporting that it may be the case that there
are more similarly timed deadlines at this time of year than before, per-
haps suggesting a lack of coordination between staff, that could have
tended to prevent successful completion of my assignments.

Again, here we are given an increased sense of precision and evidence, as

comparisons are being made. This can be increased further with the follow-
ing feature.

• Specific times and referral to history such as 'since last year', 'in 1998',
'previously':

Some students have on numerous occasions reported that it may be

the case that there are more similarly timed deadlines at this time of
year than the same date last year, perhaps suggesting less coordination
between staff than in previous years, that could have tended to prevent
successful completion of my November assignments.

Here the speaker is able to use times to convey a sense of precision, continuity
and a sense that they have an awareness of the broader picture. Mention of
history and time in speeches can also suggest wisdom. A speaker might say
'over the last half century', or 'the last two generations have known'.

• Reference to an official body, report, person or expert:

Historically there has been much better coordination between staff as

regards coordination of essay deadlines than we now experience. Official
departmental documentation appears to have traditionally supported
the idea of responding to student suggestions that might assist in learn-
ing and assessment processes, especially where there might be an issue
of impeding assignment submission. Will this generation of students
have to tolerate different levels of respect than in this former age?

195
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

Among the highlighted hedging here we find appeals to history, tradition and
also, importantly, 'official departmental documentation', although exactly
what evidence this provides is kept vague and could be referring simply
to a course handbook or webpage. Politicians especially will even add
references to previous kinds of policy or political personalities, although
quotes will often be conveniently altered or paraphrased.

Historically there has been much better coordination between staff

as regards coordination of essay deadlines than we now experience.
Official departmental documentation appears to have traditionally sup-
ported the idea of responding to student suggestions that might assist
in learning and assessment processes. Since the times when Plato was
engaging with his pupils in ancient Greece,scholarly thinking has always
been based on certain levels of acceptable mutual respect between the
taught and the teacher, especially where there might be an issue of
impending assignment submission.

Of course, we are entering the realm of the absurd here in terms of the stu-
dent's excuse for not submitting their essay. But this is in fact not atypical of
how politicians use such references.

• Connectors such as 'while', 'although', 'nonetheless', 'moreover' are important

to convey that the speaker is covering all the options and alternative
explanations. This can be important when speakers are required to appear
cautious (Selinker, 1979):

Some staff might consider it somewhat convenient to place assignment

deadlines without attention to broader degree timetable matters as
outlined in official University documentation. Nonetheless, as Winston
Churchill always reminded us, we must be mindful of how history will
judge us, and they might therefore want to accept the suggestion that
they have been instrumental in damaging the fluency of student essay
submission precisely in this last semester.

• Excessive defining of concepts and terms:

Essay submission deadlines, that point at which learners are tested on

curricula contents, have been placed around similar dates this semester,
what we might want to call, drawing inspiration from the educationalist
Roan Bruner, as 'heavy clustering', which has placed a somewhat oner-
ous load on students concerned to submit their work precisely on time,
meaning that date and time specifically documented in individual course
material supplied by tutors.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

Resche (2 004) also points to the way that hedging can be thought of as simply
breaking all the rules of standard use of English:

1 Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.

2 Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
3 Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
4 Prefer the short word to the long.
5 Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

According to Resche, particularly politicians who wish to use hedging will

prefer words that sound more sophisticated and learned. For example:

'Facilitate' is preferred to 'allow'

'Necessitate' is preferred to 'require'

½ugment' is preferred to 'increase'

'Envisage' over 'foresee'

'Paucity' rather than 'shortage'

'Cessation' rather than 'end'

Of course the use of all these hedging techniques will depend on the perceived
audience.
We can now go back to Resche's example, which we considered earlier on,
and show exactly what hedging ingredients are present. This is an example
from a speech by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.

The American economy, like all advanced capitalist economies, is con-

tinually in the process of what Joseph Schumpeter, a number of decades
ago, called 'creative destruction'. Capital equipment, production proc-
esses, financial and labor market infrastructure, and the whole panoply
of private institutions that make up a market economy are always in a
state of flux - in almost all cases evolving into more efficient regimes.
(4 September 1998, cited page 731)

First, we are given a comparison 'like all advanced capitalist economies'.

This gives a sense of explanation and consideration, yet is vague as to the way
in which it is like all capitalist economies. We find reference to expertise and
history in 'what Joseph Schumpeter, a number of decades ago' and then speci-
fication of concepts in 'creative destruction', none of which really help us to
understand what is going on. We then find a very long noun phrase in 'Capital
equipment, production processes, financial and labor market infrastruc-
ture, and the whole panoply of private institutions that make up a market

197
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

economy', which suggests wide knowledge and precision, but which in fact
stalls over what is actually going to be said. Finally, we find the lowered
modality of 'almost', leading into further apparent clarification 'in almost all
cases evolving into more efficient regimes'.
As Resche points out, this could have been phrased:

Though many sectors are being thoroughly affected by creative destruc-

tion, our economy will be stronger and more competitive in the end.

What this in fact conveys is that we should not worry so much about job losses
and closures of industry, as this is a natural part of capitalism that ultimately
leads to a better economy. The use of hedging devices makes it more difficult
to pin this down.

Casestudy1: Blogcommenton knifecrime

This first example is from a blog on a newspaper site ( The Daily Mail - downloaded
1 May 2011) where readers were commenting on the government's response to
announced increases in knife crime.

It concerns me that everyone is so brain washed over the issue of knives. If you're
the kind of person who gets angry enough with someone (over something seri-
ous like bumping into you!) to want to kill them then the weapon used is irrelevant.
You're a loose cannon and a potential murderer, nothing is going to change that.
When these groups of youths kill someone then they could just as easily just
keep kicking the victim in the head. People seem to think we can just magically
change people attitudes about violence (not to mention of course they don't care
about the law in the first place).

This statement is characterised by high modality. There is slight hedging in the first
sentence with the approximator 'so', but the high modality is something we might expect
on such biogs where blunter statements are often made. It could have simply been written:

It concerns me that everyone is brain washed over the issue of knives.

But for the most part we find certainty:

If you're the kind of person who gets angry enough with someone [ ... ]to want to
kill them then the weapon used is irrelevant.

Here we find high modality using dynamic modality through use of the verb 'is'. Direct
causality is used. The writer could have used epistemic modality to say 'I think that
if you're the kind of person who ... ' or lowered dynamic modality: 'If you're the kind
of person who gets angry enough with someone [ ... ] to want to kill them then the
weapon used may be irrelevant.'

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

In the next line we find slightly lowered modality:

When these groups of youths kill someone then they could just as easily just
keep kicking the victim in the head.

Here the dynamic modality 'could' could have been written as:

When these groups of youths kill someone then they will just as easily just keep
kicking the victim in the head.

But what we find in language that is designed to be persuasive, as we saw earlier in

the example of David Cameron, is that there will be both high levels of certainty and
more modest claims in order to present a more considered set of assertions, to sound
less arrogant perhaps. Of course the use of 'could' still suggests high probability, but
it is slightly more moderate.
Finally, in classic style the views of others are presented as low epistemic modality:

People seem to think we can just magically change people's attitudes about
violence.

These people are not represented as 'knowing' or being 'certain', but simply thinking
these attitudes can be changed, which implies they are mistaken.

Casestudy2: Glossingoverthe implication

of
militaryfundingcutbacks
Taken from 'Army cutbacks could lead to housing crisis; Christopher Bellamy, Defence
Correspondent, examines the implications of defence cuts', The Independent, 19
June 1990.

With the unification of Germany, it seems likely that there will no longer be a need
for a full brigade in Berlin. A token presence, perhaps a battalion, might remain.
As far as Germany as a whole is concerned, senior Nato planners propose to
move over to a structure with multinational covering forces furthest east, then
quick reaction forces and, lastly, heavier manoeuvre forces, possibly organised
as four corps. These would replace the eight deployed forward in West Germany,
of which Britain provides one, accounting for practically all BAOR.

Other forces would be needed to contribute to quick reaction forces (perhaps an

air-mobile brigade) and the multinational screening forces, so the overall strength_
might remain unaltered.

(Continued)

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(Continued)

It seems more likely that Britain might provide, say, an armoured/infantry division,
a quick reaction brigade, and maybe a brigade's worth of troops for the covering
forces. It is not inconceivable that BAOR's strength might be halved.

What we can observe in this text is the predominance of low dynamic modality. Very
little in the text is presented as certain. In fact it is presented as pure speculation. The
speaker may of course represent events in this manner, knowing that the events are
certain, but use lower modalities as a way of hedging and therefore providing a buffer
from the reality of the situation.

With the unification of Germany, it seems likely that there will no longer be a
need for a full brigade in Berlin. A token presence, perhaps a battalion, might
remain.

Here it might be the case that the speaker is seeking to create a panic without
actually committing himself to any of the statements and presenting them as facts,
as in:

With the unification of Germany there will no longer be a need for a full brigade
in Berlin. A token presence of a battalion will remain.

We might argue that journalists should not produce reports in which they are unable
to state facts in this manner, although some journalism scholars have observed that
much reporting is comprised of high levels of speculation as opposed to actual facts
(Jaworski et al., 2003).
In the next line, we find that Nato 'propose' rather that 'will carry out' changes:

Nato planners propose to move over to a structure with multinational covering

forces furthest east.

Stating that Nato planners 'propose' as opposed to 'will' make the reductions, also
softens what is about to happen. It is still not certain that it will happen.
Towards the end of this extract we find very low dynamic modality in the form of:

It seems more likely that Britain might provide, say, an armoured/infantry

division.

It is not inconceivable that BAOR's strength might be halved.

Both of these uses of modality display particularly low levels of commitment.

In summary, we find that this text consists of very little hard evidence. Although it
appears to present a list of facts, they are all delivered with low levels of commitment
by the author. Since journalists are rarely held to account on how stories pan out over
time, this is not of importance in terms of reporting strategies.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

Modalityand certaintyin visual

communication
On page 7 in the Introduction of this book we find an image from Cosmopolitan
magazine. At first glance, we can see that this is a posed image and not an
image of a woman in a naturalistic setting. We can tell this from the iconogra-
phy and staged nature of the image. Elements have clearly been deliberately
placed for the purposes not of everyday activities, but for the purposes of the
image. This kind of image is an example of the photograph as a symbolic sys-
tem rather than as an image that stands on its own, that documents a moment
in time. It is also a kind of photograph typical of the era of branding where
marketing takes place not so much through describing product details, but
through loading the product with certain values. Here the image is used to
load the woman's lifestyle magazine with a particular set of values, ideas and
identities which can signify women's agency, glamour and fun.
One important quality of such images is the way they are almost 'unreal'.
In this case the background is slightly out of focus and appears over-exposed,
suffusing it with a feeling of brightness and airiness. In fact, the background
in many such images is eliminated altogether, which can be taken to a further
level through the reduction of objects and other elements in the image. So a
woman will be seen posing in an empty, airy, out-of-focus setting. This kind
of decontextualisation allows photographs to be more easily inserted into a
variety of contexts, and allows them to acquire a 'conceptual' feel. The world
of Cosmopolitanis the bright and happy world of 'positive thinking' favoured
by contemporary corporate and consumer ideology. It is this 'unrealness' that
we are specifically interested in describing in this section.
Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) have pointed out that verisimilitude has
never been the only criterion for the truth of images. Scientific diagrams must
be truthful, not in the sense that they look like what they represent, but in the
sense that they correspond to the underlying nature or 'essence' of what they
represent. Scientific diagrams can more faithfully represent something such
as the workings of the body, for example, than a detailed photograph which
shows unnecessary features and only the surface. Diagrams can get beneath
this surface and eliminate needless details.
Another possible validity criterion for images, Kress and van Leeuwen sug-
gest, is their emotive resonance. Here what matters is neither the truth of
verisimilitude, as in the photograph, nor the abstract, 'essential' truth of the
scientific diagram, but 'sensory truth'. We find this, for example, in impres-
sionist paintings. Also children's toys tend to represent the sensory experi-
ence of objects, such as where a toy car has massive wheels to emphasise
the 'wheelness' of vehicles. Kress and van Leeuwen call this 'sensory modal-
ity'. From the point of view of photographic realism, such 'sensory' images
will be less realistic, but this time not because of a reduction, but because of

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an increase in the use of the means of visual representation: uncannily fine

detail, richer colour, extra deep perspective.
In the case of the Cosmopolitan image, we find a move towards both the
abstract truth, where we cut away unnecessary elements and, at the same
time, the sensory, emotive truth, through saturated light, enhanced colour,
etc. In doing so they are also increasingly moving away from the naturalistic,
empirical truth.
We can see this same quality of abstraction and sensory modality on the
North Essex Health Trust website homepage on page 99 in Chapter 4. The
two participants are seen against a decontextualised background which is
suffused with an optimistic light
In Language as Ideology, Hodge and Kress (1979: 127) pointed out that
there are ways of expressing modality other than through language. So just
as in language we can communicate different levels of commitment to truth
through modal verbs such as 'is', 'might be' and 'will be', so in visual commu-
nication there are modality markers. As linguists have specified such markers
in language, so Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) offered a list of modality mark-
ers for visual communication. These can be used as tools to describe different
elements, features and qualities of images in order to assess their modality
levels and types.

Markersof visual modality

The following means of visual expression are used to indicate modality in
images, but they can, in principle, be applied to all forms of visual communi-
cation. These are important and useful tools for drawing our attention to the
meaning potential of the elements, features and styles of images. As with the
linguistic modality markers, they increase our ability to describe what we see.
• Degrees of the articulation of detail
This is the scale from the simplest line drawing to the sharpest and most finely
grained photograph. We can see in the Cosmopolitan image that details of the
woman's skin, her clothing, appear to have been reduced partly through the
diffused lighting effect. In this sense, modality has been lowered. In contrast,
in the Helmand province photograph in Chapter 2, we can see the details of
the clothing of the soldier in the manner had we been there. This image is
therefore closer to naturalistic modality in this respect.
There is, in the case of the Cosmopolitan image therefore a shift away from
naturalistic modality. The woman is not a specific person, but symbolises a
type. In such cases, identity is specified by a number of particular deliberate
features such as dress, hairstyle, make-up and posture. The woman herself is
pretty but unremarkable, and represents a type through her clothes, expres-
sion and hair, representative of the generic people who populate such lifestyle
magazines and advertising.

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 Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging

What is more interesting is when we find photographs used to illustrate real

news stories in lower modality images. For example, we might find a photo-
graph of a person depicted through reduced articulation of detail for an article
on knife crime. What does this mean when the news media show us images that
do not intend to document specific instances of crime, but rather to symbolise
them? Also,we can ask what happens when news stories use graphics and dia-
grams to represent events such as military strikes. Here we can ask in which
instances articulation of detail is most reduced. In graphics which represent
military manoeuvres, we might see depictions of soldiers and equipment such
as aircraft in higher modality than explosions and targets that are represented
by rough icons. In such cases we can ask why the reverse is not the case.
• Degrees of articulation of the background - ranging from a blank
background, via lightly sketched in or out-of-focus backgrounds, to
maximally sharp and detailed backgrounds
In terms of this modality marker, we can see that the background in the North
Essex Health Trust image (page 99) is of very low articulation. There is only an
indication of green haze in the background, as if suggesting nature. Here we can
see the move to abstract truth, communicated through the expressions of the
participants. In the Cosmopolitan image, modality is reduced only slightly, but
more so than in the Helmand province image. What we can see in these images
is a continuum of levels from documenting backgrounds to symbolising them.
We might expect branding images to be of a more symbolic nature. But
often in the media we find images of soldiers, politicians and criminals in
completely decontextualised, low naturalistic settings. Here the aim is not to
document particular instances of combat, political decisions or actual crimi-
nals, but to symbolise them. We can see this in the case of the Cameron pho-
tograph on page 72 in Chapter 3. Here there is no more than a suggestion of
a setting. It is not intended, therefore, to document what Cameron did at any
one moment, but to symbolise his feelings and reactions. The story depicted
Cameron as a man under pressure from rivals in the build-up to the general
election in 2010. In the case of the Cosmopolitan article, the image symbolises
glamour and seduction, which is used to load the text with values that lift it
above its mundane content.
• Degrees of depth articulation - ranging from the absence of any depth
to maximally deep perspective, with other possibilities (e.g. simple
overlapping) in between
In the Helmand province photograph we find good depth articulation. This is
unlike the North Essex Partnership Health Trust image, where we find virtu-
ally none.
Through lowered articulation of details, of background and diminished
depth, these images lose their origin in time and space. The image of the per-
son with the knife is not in any particular place and time but simply symbol-
ises knife crime.

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What happens is that in images with reduced articulation of details of

settings the consequent removal of time and space discourages the viewer
from placing such events in actual socio-economic-political contexts and
rather indexes typical news frames or discourses about war, health and
education, crime, etc. A news item about a school might show an image, or
footage, of children in school uniforms sitting behind computers where a
teacher points at one screen. These visuals may symbolise 'schooling', but
may not help the viewer to conceive the huge waves of changes that have
come to grip the education system in terms of funding cuts and privatisa-
tion. The world of low modality visuals must lean on well-trodden themes
and connotations.
• Degreesof articulation of light and shadow- ranging from zero articulation
to the maximum number of degrees of 'depth' of shade, with other options
in between
This is lowest in the Cosmopolitanimage. We find rather unnatural patterns
of shade and light, whereas in natural settings we do not see scenes saturated
with bright light in this way. On the one hand, we can say that this is another
shift towards abstraction, but on the other, this increase, the saturation of
light, also has a sensory effect. In the case of the Cosmopolitanimage, this
bright suffused light suggests an airy, positive mood.
In the Helmand province image we find naturalistic levels of light and
shadow. This is interesting, given that the image itself shows nothing of the
military attack described in the text it accompanies. The image, on one level,
appears to document a moment in time. But at the same time it documents a
moment of calm, showing a soldier patrolling and not the violence depicted
in the story. What we showed in Chapter 5 on transitivity demonstrates that
the actual violence and effects of the violence are not represented in the
story; instead, we find a language that connotes professionalism, military
intelligence and precision. The image, too, connotes professionalism. While
the image is different from the text, both work together to signify profession-
alism rather than warmongering. That the image does nothing to illustrate
the violence described in the story is partly sidestepped by the use of the
high modality image that claims to realistically represent military activity in
Helmand province.
On the Essex Health Trust image, light sources appear to be coming
from both above and below the participant, thereby reducing the amount
of darkness we might normally find. Again, we see the importance of
avoiding darker shades in order to signify optimism. We can imagine how
the image would have appeared had there been more shadow present.
Here, along with the lack of articulation of background, we find a lowered
modality image. We might have expected images of real patients and real
doctors and nurses located in actual hospital settings. Here we want to
ask what is concealed by this use of abstraction. What is backgrounded
and recontextualised? In previous sections we have considered the way

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that these Health Trusts are experiencing new levels of privatisation and
a decline of services. Yet what is foregrounded are corporate buzzwords
such as 'innovation' and 'communication', and branding processes, which
is also evidenced by the use of the symbolic image that does not document
the actual practices and locations of the Trust but seeks to load it with
values of satisfaction and well-being.
• Degrees of articulation of tone - ranging from just two shades of tonal
gradation, back and white (or a light and dark version of another colour)
to maximum tonal gradation
Again, in the Cosmopolitanimage we find reduced tonal gradation. We do
not find the same tonal patterns we might find in everyday settings. In the
Helmand province image we do find levels of articulation of tone that we
would find in naturalistic settings. In images we can find extremes of light
and dark tones, which can signify extremes of emotion, truth or obscurity. In
Western cultures, brightness has metaphorical associations of transparency
and truth as opposed to darkness which has associations of concealment, lack
of clarity and the unknown.
• Degrees of colour modulation - ranging from flat, unmodulated colour to
the representation of all the fine nuances of a given colour
In the Cosmopolitanimage, the colours appear less modulated than we would
expect in naturalistic images. This can be seen on the woman's sweater and on
the floor where there appears to be only brightness under the table. Reduced
modulation brings a sense of simplicity and certainty, whereas full realisation
of modulation can make an image appear 'gritty', where all is revealed in its
essence. This technique can be used by photographers to connote realism. In
adverts, we often find lowered levels of modulation.
• Degreesof colour saturation - ranging from black and white to maximally
saturated colours
Saturated colours tend to suggest emotional intensity, while more dilute colours
suggest something more subtle and measured. In the Cosmopolitanimage, we
find increased degrees of colour saturation. The white of the woman's sweater
and the darkness of her hair both appear more saturated than we would nor-
mally find. Again, this is typical of the world of advertisements, where it is
important to bring a sensory and more emotionally intense view of the world.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have looked at characteristics in language and images
that allow us to assess commitment to truth. In language, we have seen that
modality can be used by speakers to commit to some things strongly while

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hedging their commitment to others. We saw how modals can be related to

people's own sense of power and authority and how hedging can be used
to communicate precision and information while in fact only obscuring and
obfuscating. We saw that in the case of images, too, we can look at character-
istics where they diverge from naturalistic representations. Analysing these
divergences can, as with modals in language, allow us to consider the kinds of
identities, values and sequences that are being communicated.

206
 Conclusion: Doing Critical
Discourse Analysis and its
Discontents

Having presented a range of tools for the multimodal critical analysis of texts
in this book, we now want to address a number of criticisms that have been
brought forward against this analytical approach. First, however, we will
reconsider the method we have used in this book to select, describe and ana-
lyse texts critically.
Conducting a CDA analysis often involves the analysis of only a small
number of texts, even of just one or two. These are selected according to the
interests of the analyst, where perhaps they have observed ideology in opera-
tion, where they can then describe the linguistic and grammatical choices
used by the author in order to persuasively communicate this ideology. The
analysis will, or should, then draw out features in the text not normally obvi-
ous to the casual reader. The ideology, buried, or somewhat concealed, in the
text will become clear. It is this process of revealing the discourses embedded
in texts that is seen as one important step in bringing ideological positions
out into the open so that they can be more easily challenged.
The texts considered throughout this book have been analysed in pre-
cisely this fashion. As we have shown throughout this book, CDAcan certainly
increase our ability to describe texts and to document how they communicate.
In CDA,the texts chosen are presented as typical of a particular ideology
or discourse. For example, Kress (1985) analysed several texts from school
books to show how the ideology of capitalism was presented as neutral. He
did not seek to prove that this is the case through a broader study of say 100
school book texts, nor by claiming that the text he analysed constitutes a
random sample of a broader collection. While his analysis is compelling, as
we learn more about the way such texts work to conceal actual motives and
power relations, he provides no evidence to prove that these texts are typi-
cal of those we find in all or at least many school books. His chosen examples
could therefore in fact be atypical. The same could be said of the texts we have
presented throughout this book. To what extent have we proven that the texts
taken from women's lifestyle magazines, for example, are characteristic of the
discourses normally found in these kinds of magazines?
Often the relevance of a particular text analysed in CDAis made implicitly
by researchers by considering them politically interesting enough to be ana-
lysed. So a newspaper text that can be shown to be implicitly racist is a rea-
sonable target for analysis, as it is a worthy task to be carrying out The major
 A Critical Discourse Analysis

academic CDAjournals, such as Discourse & Society, will contain many papers
which analyse lone texts as examples of a particular dominant discourse in
a society. This linguistic research is often presented as an important step in
the wider quest to critically challenge the uneven power relations in our soci-
eties. Throughout the chapters in this book, texts have been chosen which
tend to reflect the interests of the powerful and promote particular ideolo-
gies. As we saw in Chapter 2, this can take the form of language which seeks
to gloss over the consequences of the gradual privatisation of health services
in Britain, foregrounding values of'communication' both visually and linguis-
tically, while backgrounding actual concrete issues of treatment, staffing and
facilities that are currently undergoing massive cuts and restructuring in the
interests of private investment.
Drawing attention to the strategies by which visual and linguistic semiotic
choices are harnessed to conceal this process is one way through which we
might reveal the way that this business and neoliberal ideology is being dis-
seminated. But why we are analysing the text, in terms of it being representa-
tive of broader trends, has perhaps not been spelled out so clearly.
Analysts may even say that what is found in the texts they analyse is char-
acteristic of broader discourses. For example, in several chapters in this book
we have analysed a news story about an event in Afghanistan which sought to
portray the actions of British troops deployed there in a positive manner. We
could say the ideology in this text is connected to broader pro-war discourses.
But what authors do not do is show exactly what these discourses are in any
concrete sense. Discourses are often presented as identifiable, yet are never
clearly defined. And what we call a 'discourse' may rather be a vaguer and
shifting collection of values, ideas, identities and sequences of activity.
CDAmethods have come under criticism from various scholars. Some of
these are to do with the epistemological question of how the term 'critical'
is to be defined. Does being 'critical' simply mean attacking ideas, attitudes
and values we do not agree with? And does it mean arbitrarily choosing texts
that fit with our analysis? However, most of the criticism concern questions
of methodology, as we have indicated above. We first list these and then sug-
gest a number of additional methods that can help improve our own analysis.
Criticisms of CDAhave focused on certain inter-related issues which can be
summarized as follows:

CDAis not the only 'critical' approach

CDAis an exercise in interpretation, not analysis
CDAfor the most part ignores real readers and listeners
CDAdoes not pay enough attention to text production
CDAis not cognitive enough
CDAis too selective, partial and qualitative
CDAis too ambitious in its quest for social change

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 Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and its Discontents

All of these challenges can apply equally to Multimodal Critical Discourse

Analysis (MCDA).
Toolan (1997: 83), who claims to be 'very much more in favour of CDAthan
against it', takes issue with the apparent claim of CDanalysts that they are the
first to 'really see and address the workings of power in discourse' (1997: 87).
The study of ideology and language was not started by CDA,of course. The
question of the relationship between ideology and language has been debated
since Plato and Aristotle, and has been the subject of constructivist theories
of language. For example, critical research on language has also been the con-
cern of Voloshinov (1929), whose Marxist theory of language and ideology
regards every instance of language use as ideological. Within sociology, there
is a broad tradition of work on the social construction of reality (e.g. Berger
and Luckmann, 1966). Hammersley (1996), who deals with the philosophical
foundations underlying the notion 'critical', charges CDAwith reducing rela-
tions between people to a relation of domination between oppressors and
oppressed. Bhabha (1990) argues that we must not lose sight of the way that
people have different and complex relations to different power structures in
any society. For example, a woman may find herself in a lesser position of
power due to her gender but in a higher position of power due to social class
and ethnicity.
As regards MCDA,there has been a wave of literature emerging since the
pioneering work of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and the rediscovery
in this light of the work of O'Toole (1994 ). Examples of this are Liu and
O'Halloran's (2009) work on image-text relations, Baldry and Thibaults'
(2006) work on new media, Abousnnouga and Machin's (2009, 2011)
work on three-dimensional objects and Jewitt's (2006, 2007) work on the
classroom learning environment. This wave of literature appears to claim
to be pioneering the critical analysis of the visual mode. Yet this body of
research, as exciting as it may be, appears to overlook much research con-
ducted over a century in semiotics, much of which has engaged with the
very same problems of seeking out a more systematic way to analyse visual
communication.
What is more, since the 1970s traditions in Media Studies, Film Studies,
Cultural Studies and Art Studies have been engaging in the analysis of the
contribution the visual makes to communicating ideologies (e.g. Hall, 1981,
1990; Arnett, 1994; Malkin et al., 1999). The work of visual designers and
film editors themselves appears to be rich in techniques and models use-
ful for visual communication, which has also largely remained ignored,
perhaps with the exception of Kress and van Leeuwen (2002), O'Halloran
(2004) and Machin and Niblock (2008). The point is that along with CDA,
multimodality can often appear to be claiming a critical and analytical posi-
tion for itself that appears to sideline other significant work being carried
out in other fields.
Widdowson (1995, 1998), one of the most outspoken critics of CDA,has
taken issue with the central tenets of CDA,maintaining that CDA is not a
method of analysis but an exercise in interpretation, in which 'interpretation in

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

support of belief takes precedence over analysis in support of theory' (199 5:

159). Moreover, he contends that CDAprivileges particular meanings of texts
while largely ignoring alternative readings, including how ordinary people
read and understand texts. Reactions of real communities to what the ana-
lysts deem ideological discourse are rarely taken into account. In this book we
have tended to take a negative stance on women's lifestyle magazines, such
as Marie Claire, for their individualism and aligning of women's agency along-
side the interests of consumer capitalism. Yet many women, across countries
where these magazines are sold, may feel that they indeed offer new oppor-
tunities for them to act outside the burdens of an intensely patriarchal society
and to actually celebrate their own sexuality. They may ask what is wrong
with the glamorous, stylised world that these magazines represent. They may
even find them inspirational and a relief from some of the more mundane
aspects of their own everyday lives.
In terms of the way we have analysed the images in this book, we could
likewise argue that what has taken place is in fact more interpretation than
analysis. We analysed the image of the soldier in Helmand province in several
chapters, pointing to things like foregrounding and backgrounding, individu-
alisation and modality as indicators of how real or not the image claims to
be. But there are two questions we can ask about this process. First, do peo-
ple really look at such images or are they simply background? They expect
to see an image of a soldier and are given one. The image admittedly shows
none of the violence reported in the story, but do we need all the technical
observations from MCDAin order to work this out? Second, some authors
(e.g. Bal, 1991; Dillon, 2006) argue that when we look at images, any part of
them might stand out for us. In the Helmand province image we see a civilian
in the background and slightly out of focus. We could argue that the civil-
ian seemingly watching passively is evidence for the need of the presence of
the soldier who patrols calmly. But other interpretations are also possible.
Another viewer might see the civilian as a dangerous militia spy, the soldier
as vulnerable and naive with his back to him. Bal (1991) stressed that we
should take care not to place too much emphasis on particular elements or
features of images at the expense of others. Why we choose one over another
is highly subjective and always a matter of interpretation. Bal (1991: 181)
argues that 'the image we see is subordinated to the meanings we know'. In
other words, an analysis may always tell us more about the viewer than the
image itself.
One way of thinking about Widdowson's criticisms is that the analyses
produced by CDAand MCDAare 'post hoc'. Put differently, the analyst looks
at the text, makes a decision to analyse it and then uses the CDAtools to
demonstrate that this is more than a simple interpretation but rather a
systematic and controlled exercise that can be empirically repeated by oth-
ers. Forceville (1999) has been highly critical of some of the work of Kress
and van Leeuwen (1996) in this regard, although it could be argued that he
chooses some of the weaker elements in their work to challenge, as does

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Machin (2007a). Forceville (1999) suggests that multimodal analysis can

constitute of little more than having an idea of what is going on in an image,
such as the Helmand province photograph, and then going back to the image
as an analyst in order to see multimodal features such as modality and fore-
grounding, in order to legitimise both the interpretation made and the con-
cepts used to do so. The concepts appear useful since they have been shown
to have produced the findings and are not simply the interpretation of the
analyst.
It could also be argued that many CDA researchers choose cases that
are easier to analyse and which on one level are fairly obvious in terms
of what they communicate even without in-depth analysis (Widdowson,
1998). If a newspaper article runs the headline 'Britain swamped by flood
of immigrants', do we need linguistic analysis to work out that it is anti-
immigration? However, to counter that view we would argue that anyone
reading, for example, Kress's (1985) analysis of school books would find it
difficult to make the claim that the less than obvious deletion of agents and
presentation of power relations through modals is not particularly reveal-
ing in terms of the way the world and certain actions and events are por-
trayed to children.
Yet another significant criticism is that CDAdoes not pay enough attention
to the intentions of text producers. If the main purpose of the analysis is to
uncover and challenge the repressive discourse practices of powerful, inter-
ested groups, then what needs to be considered are the effects of these prac-
tices on ordinary (non-academic) people. With regard to the analysis of media
discourse, Richardson (2007) and Verschuren (1985) have both argued that
the analysis of the social conditions of text production and consumption in
CDAremains an underdeveloped area and that too much discourse analysis
ignores 'the structrual and functional properties of the news gathering and
reporting process (Verschuren, 1985: vii; quoted in Richardson, 2007: 40).
Machin and Niblock (2008) have shown the crucial importance of consulting
designers and marketing before drawing conclusions about the images and
compositions found in media. Machin and Mayr (2007) show the importance
of carrying out interviews with journalists and editors to understand what
might appear as a denial ofracism in newspapers. We will address this impor-
tant issue further below.
MCDAhas also been criticised for not sufficiently consulting with pro-
ducers. Bateman, Delin and Henschel (2004) and Machin (2009) argue that
much visual or multimodal CDAassumes that the kinds of meanings and
interpretations offered by the analyst are to some extent imposed through
his or her analysis. In Chapter 8 we carried out an analysis of modality in
images. We showed how Cosmopolitan magazine uses images that had low-
ered articulation of detail in the backgrounds. So they had lowered modality
on this particular scale. We concluded that this made the image symbolise
a set of values for the reader rather than document a particular moment
in time. But can we guarantee that readers would encounter the image in

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this way? Rather than reading the image in terms of visual modality mark-
ers, would they not simply see it as one genre of photography? And would
the meaning of the image be affected by small details such as articulation
of detail? Are readers dealing with such a magazine at a level where they
are expecting realism? If the magazine producer used a specific image of a
woman, should we not ask them why they do this? What if we offered the
analysis of the Cosmopolitan image carried out in this book to the editor of
the magazine who then told us 'I never wanted to use those kinds of images,
but they are very cheap and free of international images rights manage-
ment'? This would render our multimodal analysis somewhat absurd and
invalid if we made the claim that were revealing a specific ideology. It would
be rather like you painting your garden shed red as someone gave you some
paint they had left over and you had no money to buy the green paint you
wanted, and in fact hated the red. Later a multimodal discourse analyst
turns up and interprets your ideology on the basis of the hue and saturation
of the red you have used.
A criticism linked to the previous one relates to the role of cognition in
CDA.Cognition describes the mental processing that is involved in both the
reading and understanding of texts and discourse. Adopting a specifically
cognitive approach, O'Halloran (2003) addresses two of the key stages in
CDA investigations, interpretation and explanation. O'Halloran argues that
CDAhas focused mainly on 'explanation-stage analysis', in which it seeks to
account for the connections between texts and wider socio-cultural practices
at the expense of interpretation. However, as CDAclaims to interpret texts on
behalf of readers who might be unknowingly manipulated, there needs to be
an analysis of the relationship between readers and the texts being read and
this necessarily involves more focus on cognition. According to O'Halloran,
there has been 'relatively little cognitive focus on how text can mystify for
readers the events being described'. Similarly, Chilton (2005: 30) points out
that CDA,by and large, has not paid enough attention to the question of 'how
the human mind works when engaged in social and political action, which is
largely, for humans, verbal action'.
Van Dijk (1991, 1993, 2001) has developed a 'socio-cognitive' frame-
work, which theorises the relationship between social systems and indi-
vidual cognition. His approach for analysing news (particularly the role of
the media in the reproduction of racism) is in ways similar to Fairclough's
(1989) three-dimensional view of discourse (discourse as text, discourse
practice and social practice), but at the same time differs in that his analysis
of news production and consumption has a social-psychological emphasis
on processes of social cognition. Cognition, according to Van Dijk, is miss-
ing from many studies in CDAwhich fail to show how societal structures
influence discourse structures and how these societal structures are in turn
enacted, legitimated or challenged by discourse. For example, he argues
that racism is both a cognitive and social phenomenon that has the social
function of protecting the 'in-group'. More recently, Van Dijk (1996, 1998)

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 Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and its Discontents

has turned to more general questions of power abuse and the reproduction
of inequality through ideologies. Unlike Fairclough, Van Dijk argues that no
direct link should be made between discourse structures and social struc-
tures, because these are mediated by the interface of personal and social
cognition.
From within CDA,the 'discourse-historical approach' can be seen as an
extension of Van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach. Developed in Vienna by
Ruth Wodak and her associates, it is intent on tracing the historical (intertex-
tual) history of phrases and arguments (see, for example, Van Leeuwen and
Wodak, 1999). It centres on political issues, such as racism, and attempts to
integrate systematically all available background information in the analy-
sis and interpretation of the different layers of a text (see Reisigl and Wodak,
2001; Machin and Mayr, 2007). Developed initially to address the problem
of anti-semitic language behaviour in contemporary Austria, the discourse-
historical methodology is designed to analyse 'implicit prejudiced utter-
ances, as well as to identify and expose the codes and allusions contained
in prejudiced discourse' (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 267). The method
includes gathering original documents (e.g. Nazi documents on war activi-
ties in the Balkans) and ethnographic research about the past (e.g. inter-
views with war veterans) and then moves on to more wide-ranging data
collection in the form of analysing contemporary news reporting, political
discourse and lay discourse. One important feature of this approach is the
practical relevance of its findings. Wodak (1996) has applied her method
also to communication in organisations and to language barriers in courts,
schools and hospitals. More recent research has been concerned with the
discursive construction of national identities and with the European Union
(e.g. Iedema and Wodak, 1999).
Our fourth criticism, that CDA is too selective, partial and qualitative,
overlaps with some of the discussion above. The view here is that the ana-
lyst selects a text or type of discourse known in advance to be contentious,
the confirmation for which is presented through an analysis that in essence
only partially addresses certain patterns of language in the text The lin-
guistic analysis may therefore become a mere supplement to what the ana-
lyst has decided a priori about the text (Simpson and Mayr, 2010). Garzone
and Santulli (2004: 352) claim that because CDApractitioners are especially
preoccupied with sociological and political issues, they 'tend to focus their
attention on larger discursive units of text', often at the expense of 'linguistic
analysis proper'. They therefore suggest the incorporation of corpus-linguistic
tools into a CDAanalysis.
As for the criticism that CDA is mainly qualitative, Stubbs (1997), who
calls himself 'basically sympathetic' to CDA,challenges CDJYsmethodological
assumptions. He claims that although CDApresents valid arguments about
text organisation, its linguistic basis is inadequate. Stubbs questions whether
CDA actually adheres to 'standards of careful, rigorous and systematic
analysis' (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 259). In other words, analysts make

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

generalisations about social representation and social change without the

linguistic evidence to support it There is also no systematic comparison
between texts. As a corpus linguist, Stubbs argues that CDAwould benefit
from using quantitative and comparative methods (see below).
While Stubbs (1997) suggests a quantitative analysis of texts to strengthen
CDJYs methodology, Widdowson (1998) suggests a more ethnographic
approach that would look at how the intended discourse recipients - and not
only the discourse analysts - understand and interpret texts. It is precisely
because CDAraises important social issues, has an agenda of 'potentially very
considerable social significance' (Stubbs, (1997: 114) and 'seeks to reveal
how language is used and abused in the exercise of social power and the sup-
pression of human rights' (Widdowson, 1998: 136) that enhancing its meth-
odology should be a priority.
The final criticism concerns the question of how effective CDA is as a
method and what it has accomplished in terms of social change and equal-
ity. Hammersley (1996) claims that CDAappears too ambitious in aiming for
'social change', which is only vaguely defined in the CDAliterature. Because of
this, researchers may over-interpret the data, whereby ideological evaluation
becomes part and parcel of textual analysis.
This observation corresponds closely to Widdowson's claim that CDAis
ideologically committed to a specific form of interpretation of texts. Jones
(2007: 366) goes as far as saying that 'despite the good intentions and radical
social agenda of its practitioners', CDAas a discipline is invalid. According to
Jones, the problem is not with its aims themselves, but with its conception of
'discourse', which may not be helpful in understanding and criticising real-life
communicative processes.
Another counter to the idea that CDA is itself ideologically driven, and
therefore selective, is that all research is in fact carried out with some con-
ceptualisation of what we should be investigating, of why certain phenomena
and not others should be subject to research. Philosophers of science, such
as Polanyi (1958), Popper (1934) and Kuhn (1962), all point to the way that
what we call scientific investigation and experimentation is always conducted
within established paradigms of knowledge that are always arbitrary and cul-
turally bound. These authors suggest that the only true innovation comes by
accident, such is the way that paradigms limit our view of the world and how
we can investigate it

Addressingthe criticisms
It is important to note that CDAresearchers have tackled many of the issues
we raise here in recent publications. For instance, Van Dijk (2005) has always
integrated cognition in his critical analysis of texts. Similarly, Chouliaraki
and Fairclough (1999: 61-2), perhaps in response to Widdowson's cri-
tique, acknowledge that CDAshould be combined with ethnography which

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 Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and its Discontents

would require 'the systematic presence of the researcher in the context of

the practice under study'. Furthermore, ethnography, they continue, can
yield 'precisely the sort of knowledge that CDA often extrapolates from
text', such as 'the beliefs, values and desires of its participants'. An early
example of a CDAanalysis that uses an ethnographic approach is Wodak's
(1996) participant-observation study of an out-patient clinic in Vienna. In
turn, ethnography can benefit from CDA'spremise that 'data descriptions
should not be regarded as faithful descriptions of the external world', but
as particular perspectives of the social world that need to be analysed criti-
cally (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999: 62). Wodak makes this clear in the
following statement:

A fully 'critical' account of discourse would ... require theorization and

description of both the social processes and structures which give rise
to the production of the text, and of the social structures and processes
within which individuals or groups as social historical subjects, create
meanings in their interactions with texts. (Wodak, 2001: 3)

Clearly,as Wodak's remarks indicate, there seems to be an increasing aware-

ness by CDApractitioners of the 'discursive scope' that a text can have.
Machin and Niblock (2008) have also taken the step of supporting their
visual analysis with interviews with text producers, allowing them to explain
visual designs through the processes of marketing strategies. Machin and van
Leeuwen (2007), too, carried out MCDAanalyses of global magazines and
computer games, supporting these with interviews with editors and design-
ers and also by carrying out interviews with readers and users. In this way,
they were able to provide links in terms of the ways that discourses are har-
nessed and used in different levels of semiotic production.
In spite of the interconnected criticisms raised in this chapter, there is no
doubt that in the broader context of language study, the practice of CDAhas
brought to light important issues concerning ideology and power. It has cer-
tainly helped to contribute to our understanding, among other things, of the
discourses of racism and sexism. Another academic reflex of the CDAmethod,
pointed out by Simpson and Mayr (2010), is that it has encouraged people,
especially the young, to interrogate the discourses that surround them in
their everyday lives.
We now move on to making suggestions as to how a CDA-styleanalysis can
be extended, enriched and made more rigorous. We restrict ourselves here
to two main methods: the corpus approach and the ethnographic approach.
Each of the areas will be outlined in turn.

The use of corpusstudiesin CDA

As we pointed out, one of the criticisms levelled at CDAis its largely quali-
tative method of inquiry and relative lack of quantitative (and comparative)

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

methods. CDA researchers have traditionally been subjective and to some

degree partial in the way they approach the texts (spoken, written, multimo-
dal) they wish to analyse critically. The benefit a quantitative analysis offers is
to firm up interpretations made on linguistic evidence. The recent introduc-
tion of corpus techniques has been the most marked change in CDJYsmethod-
ology, with many studies balancing qualitative and quantitative dimensions
of textual analysis through a combination ofCDAwith the methods of Corpus
Linguistics (CL). In particular, what can be addressed is 'the problem of the
representativeness of the samples of language analysed and the need to check
the hypotheses developed in qualitative analysis against empirically verifi-
able data, chosen on the basis of explicit and objective criteria and collected
using rigorous scientific and statistical procedures' (Garzone and Santulli,
2004: 353).
Media discourse, particularly newspaper discourse, offers fertile ground
for testing out a combined CDA/CL approach. For example, Baker and
McEnery (2005) have used a corpus ofnewspaper texts, as well as the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website, to examine
concordances and collocations of the terms refugee(s) and asylum seeker(s),
which revealed discourses of such people being framed 'as packages, invad-
ers, pests or water'. Baker et al. (2008) and Gabrielatos and Baker (2008)
went on to analyse the discursive construction of refugees and asylum seek-
ers in a corpus of 140 million words of UK press articles between 1996
and 2005 (the RASIMcorpus of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and
migrants). The combined use ofCDA and CL,and the use of techniques such
as keyword searches, concordance and collocational analyses using special-
ist corpus software, has been described as a 'useful methodological synergy'
by Baker et al. (2008). However, as Gabrielatos and Baker (2008: 33) them-
selves point out, it is still up to the analyst 'to make sense of the linguistic
patterns thrown up via the corpus-based processes'. So although CLmight go
some way towards making CDAanalysis more objective and verifiable, there
are still some qualitative and subjective assessments involved in any joint
CDA/CLapproach.

The use of ethnographicmethodsin CDA

As we noted, Widdowson contends that what is actually revealed by CDA
is no more than the ideology of the analyst, and this has neither legitimacy
nor authority (1995: 169). In support of this argument, Widdowson (1996:
60-69) targets a specific analysis by Fairclough which has now come to be
known as the 'baby book analysis' (Fairclough, 1992: 169ff). Fairclough anal-
yses two medical texts for pregnant women, with the main focus on The Baby
Book and some contrastive analysis of the Pregnancy Book. What Widdowson
was most concerned about was the largely unwarranted claims made by
the analyst about the reactions pregnant women might have to these texts.

216
 Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and its Discontents

Widdowson also points out that neither the consumers nor the producers of
the texts were consulted. Instead, one could argue, the text was selected as
preconceived evidence of the problems assumed to exist in it, and the result-
ing, partial analysis only endorsed this position. For instance, Fairclough
argues that a problem with The Baby Book is the sense it gives of the text
producer writing from a position of 'insider knowledge' (Fairclough, 1992:
173). Yet Simpson and Mayr (2010) suggest that this could be a positive fea-
ture of the book, where the insider knowledge of a medic, rather than, say,
the speculative commentary of a non-specialist, might offer reassurance to
pregnant women.
The latter point appears to have been borne out through an ethnographic
study by McFarland (2006) of the Baby Book texts. Using questionnaires
as well as a range of alternatively worded versions of the relevant texts,
McFarland was able to elicit quantitative data through the responses of the 24
members of a group of real mothers. The women's reactions to the texts were
different in significant ways to the positions attributed to them by Fairclough.
While the survey tended to confirm some of Fairclough's observations about
the different 'voices' in the texts, the general attitude of the women to the
texts was much more positive and, contrary to Fairclough, they welcomed the
texts' attempts to try to 'reassure', 'rationalise' or 'calm' their intended read-
ership (Simpson and Mayr, 2010).
Adding an ethnographic dimension to the analysis of newspaper discourse
is especially important. This can mean interviewing editors and journalists
or spending some time with news agencies to observe how they work. In this
respect, Machin and Mayr's (2007) critical analysis of the Leicester Mercury
underscores the importance of interviewing its editor about the paper's poli-
cies on multiculturalism. It is therefore important to bear in mind that the
study of text production and/or consumption can be usefully enriched by an
ethnographic approach which investigates the processes that lie behind the
production of (newspaper) texts (see Stubbs, 1997).
Similarly, other recent work which has put the study of the reaction to and
reception of discourse to the fore is Benwell's (2005) study of male readers'
responses to men's magazines and its possible contribution to an under-
standing of the discourses in and around men's magazines. Benwell's method
consisted of unstructured interviews with male men's magazine readers and
is therefore an important complement to Benwell's (2002) critical multimo-
dal analysis of men's magazines.
In Chapter 1 of this book we looked at the way that a young woman in a
bar used discourses of women's agency that could be related to broader dis-
courses within feminism and which are found recontextualised in women's
lifestyle magazines and television programmes. What an ethnographic com-
ponent in CDAcould do is help to connect production and textual analysis
to the way that people live their everyday lives. This in turn will allow us
to speak more confidently about the nature of the way ideology works and
the way that dominant discourses are used by people. In terms of both CDA

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 A Critical Discourse Analysis

and MCDA,we will then be able to think about the way that people make,
use and reuse semiotic choices. All semiotic materials, language and images,
are used in social contexts. It is here in their use that they shape us as we
use them (although by using them we shape them too). If we want to reveal
ideology and challenge it, we must have a clearer sense of how these semi-
otic resources are used and reused not only in mass media sites, but in our
everyday lives.

218
 Glossary

Abstraction This is where the level of information or concrete details about

an event or process are reduced or replaced by generalisations or broader
concepts. This can be done in order to conceal certain aspects and foreground
others. We can monitor levels of abstraction by looking for the absence of
processes and participants or the use of ambiguous concepts or metaphors
that distract from the actual micro-processes that took place. For example, in
the sentence 'The demonstrators moved forward aggressively and the police
reacted: it is not clear what the police actually did. We can ask why an author
might seek to background this process.

Connotation This is the association a word or visual element can bring. So

a photograph of a woman depicts or 'denotes' a woman, whereas since she
wears a suit and carries a mobile phone, she connotes confidence, independ-
ence and success. The word 'independence' in Western culture can connote
not lack ofresponsibility, isolation or selfishness, but confidence and strength.
Connotations, therefore, can be deeply ideological.

Critical stance The idea of 'critical' language study is the process of analys-
ing linguistic elements in order to reveal connections between language, power
and ideology that are hidden from people. CDAtypically analyses news texts,
political speeches, advertisements, school books, etc., exposing strategies that
appear normal or neutral on the surface, but which may in fact be ideological
and seek to shape the representation of events and persons for particular ends.
The term 'critical' here therefore means 'denaturalising' the language to reveal
the kinds of ideas, absences and taken-for-granted assumptions in [the] texts.
This will allow us to reveal the kinds of power interests buried in these texts.

Discourse This is a term that has many wide uses and meanings. In Media
Studies, we often find the term 'media discourse', 'television discourse' or
even ½merican discourse'. In CDA,discourse is used as a particular represen-
tation of the world. Discourses comprise participants, values, ideas, settings,
times and sequences of activity. So CDAwill analyse the details of texts to
reveal what kinds of discourses are being presented to readers. A discourse
may be communicated by reference to specific social actors which will in turn
signify kinds of actions, values and ideas without these being specified. It is
difficult to see what might be meant by terms such as 'television discourse' or
½merican discourse' and the term 'discourse' can often be found interchange-
ably with 'genre'. Of course it is a problem to actually define the limits of one
particular discourse.
 Glossary

Gender Whereas 'sex' is a biological and physiological category, referring

to anatomical differences between women and men, 'gender' is a social con-
struct that refers to the traits that men and women are assigned. These traits
are not immutable, but socially and culturally determined and learned.

Genre Discourses can be found or realised in different genres. So the 'war on

terror' discourse can be realised in speeches, movies, computer games and
play (through plastic war toys). Genres are difficult to define and often blend,
but they are characterised by a set of conventions and styles. Genres are also
associated with purpose. So a speech can have the aim of persuasion and a
movie the purpose of entertainment. News texts can have the purpose of
informing, although more tabloid forms may also have the aim of enter-
taining. Nevertheless, all genres can be means of disseminating the same
discourses and ideologies.

Hegemony This is a concept to describe the mechanisms through which

dominant groups in society (media, politicians, religious and secular insti-
tutions) succeed in persuading subordinate groups to accept the farmer's
moral, political and cultural values. Discourse constructs hegemonic attitude,
opinions and beliefs in such a way as to make these appear 'natural' and 'com-
mon sense'.

Iconography In the sense in which it is used in this book, iconography is the

visual equivalent of lexical analysis. It is the analysis of the visual elements
and features of any image, layout, picture or photograph. As with lexical anal-
ysis, the aim is to carry out careful descriptive analysis in order to show what
discourses are being communicated.

Iconology A term used in art history and the analysis of art, it is a process
whereby elements and features of paintings and sculptures are analysed in
terms of their symbolic and historical meaning. For example, a statue of a sol-
dier may depict the figure removing his hat. This is associated in Christianity,
with bearing one's head before God, and is therefore associated with purity.
So too can we consider the origins of meaning of elements and features in
contemporary representations.

Ideology Ideologies are simply representations of the world, they are world-
views, views on how society should be organised. Everyone has an ideology,but
the analysis of ideology is generally associated with those views of the world
that are associated with power and exploitation. In this book, we have consid-
ered the ideology of capitalism, which seeks to naturalise the organisation of
society for the purposes of the wealthy being able to generate more capital.

Implicature Likepresupposition, implicature is a way of delivering information

implicitly and leaving it to the hearer to make assumptions about its meaning.

220
 Glossary

Implicatures depend on the addressee's capacity to draw inferences when the

literal meaning of an utterance is not intended. For example, in the exchange

A Are you going to Paul's party?

B I have to work.

B does not say that she is not going to Paul's party but she implicates it.

Implicit meanings CDA is often concerned with drawing out the implicit
meanings in texts. This means meanings that are not made overtly or explic-
itly and may need closer analysis to draw out. For example, if a politician says
'British culture is under threat from immigration', they are implicitly saying
something like ~II British people are alike and share the same values, which
should not change and that non-British cultures are inferior. We can also look
for the implicit meanings of images.

Lexical analysis This is simply looking at the kinds of word choices found in
texts and their significations. Analysis asks what kind of 'lexical field' is being
created. So, for example, if a management letter informing of budget cuts uses
terms such as 'opportunity', 'dynamic', 'cooperation', 'new', we can see that
they attempt to give a positive spin on the events - to create a lexical field not
of waste and damage, but of possibility.

Metaphor This is the means by which we understand one concept in terms

of another, through a process which involves a transference or 'mapping'
between the two concepts. Common conceptual metaphors are 'Life is a jour-
ney', as in We are at a crossroads' or 'Don't let anybody stand in your way.
Metaphors can be deliberately persuasive and often conceal underlying power
relations (e.g. the use of 'disease metaphors' to describe and augment social
problems, as in 'Drugs spread through our communities like an epidemic').

Modality In language, modals are an indication of an author's commitment to

the truth of a statement or necessity. Modal verbs are 'will', 'must', 'might' and
'is'. We can see that We will go there' indicates a greater commitment than
We might go there'. There are two main kinds of modality. Epistemic modality
is about probability, as seen in the previous example. Deontic modality is
about necessity, as in We must go there'. In images, modals characterise a
number of scales that can be used to consider the extent to which an image
deviates from naturalistic modality, that is, how it would appear were we to
simply have been there, although different types of modality can characterise
things like scientific diagrams.

Moral panic This is a sporadic episode which makes society worry that the
values and principles it upholds may be in jeopardy. Moral panics are usu-
ally set in motion by a condition, episode, person or group of people who

221
 Glossary

become defined as a threat to these values (e.g. young people, drug takers,
immigrants, football hooligans, paedophiles, etc.). News coverage of moral
panics is often disproportionate to the actual social problem.

Multimodal In linguistics, this term came to be associated with the realisa-

tion that meaning was communicated not only through the linguistic mode,
but by other semiotic modes such as the visual, sound or gesture. In Media
Studies and Cultural Studies this might seem a rather obvious discovery, but
linguists, with their tradition of more precise observation and description,
began to offer useful tools to those outside their field who were interested in
other modes of communication.

Nominalisation This is where verb processes are represented in the form of

nouns. So the sentence 'Management created a new system of accountabil-
ity', which contains the verb 'created', could be written as 'the creation of a
new system of accountability' using the noun 'creation'. This has a number of
important effects. It can be used to conceal agents, simplify complex
processes and delete time and place.

Overlexicalisation This is where we find a word or its synonyms 'over-

present' in a text (i.e. the word or its synonyms are used more than we would
normally expect). This is normally evidence of some kind of moral awkward-
ness or attempt to over-persuade. For example, if a document from a Human
Resources department sent to staff displays an overuse of the word 'oppor-
tunity' and its synonyms, we might suspect that there is at least ambiguity of
there being any real opportunity present in what is being proposed.

Presupposition This is basically a taken-for-granted assumption found in

communication. In fact, all language and communication could be said to rely
in presupposition. If a person speaks of a table to you, they have the presup-
position that you know what a table is. But in CDAit is important to think
about which kinds of concepts are presented as taken for granted and which
are contestable. So if a politician speaks of 'French culture being under threat
by immigration', there is the presupposition that there is such a clearly iden-
tifiable thing as 'French culture'. In fact, if we look at the people who live in
France, we find a massive array of ways of living that have long been in flux.
Yet politicians can seek to use such presuppositions in order to create a basis
for their arguments.

Quoting verbs These are the verbs used to represent the way people speak.
For example, 'Jane complained about the food' or 'Jane whinged about the
food'. Important here is the fact that both of these are evaluations of what Jane
says and one represents her actions and perhaps her identity in very differ-
ent ways without overtly doing so. We can analyse the kinds of quoting verbs
attributed to different speakers.

222
 Glossary

Recontextualisation This is where language is used to transform events

and practices where elements are changed, replaced, removed or simplified.
Whenever social actors or events are absent or the micro-processes of an
event are simplified or abstracted, we can assume that recontextualisation
has taken place. So, for example, an image of a smiling, pretty woman hold-
ing a tiny seedling in her hand can be used in the media to represent the
fragility of the environment and human responsibility. But what is removed
here is who actually does the damage, what is being damaged and what the
remedy might be. We might argue that these events have been recontextual-
ised to background the role of global capitalism in the abuse of the world's
resources.

Salience In images, there are a number of ways that elements and features
can be made to attract our attention or be given importance. In this case, they
are given salience. For example, a feature might be foreground, given a bright-
er colour, or a central position. Different elements and features can be given
different kinds of salience to draw attention in different ways and create dif-
ferent hierarchies of importance.

Semiotic resource When humans communicate, they have a range of semiot-

ic resources available to them in term of words, images, sounds, colours, pos-
tures. To some extent when we communicate we draw upon a set of shared
semiotic resources. CDAand Social Semiotics have been concerned to docu-
ment the underlying available resources or system of choices so that we can
best understand what the meaning potentials of semiotic resources are.

Signification This can simply be the process of a word or visual element giv-
ing meaning. So a word such as 'table' signifies the thing, a table. And a word
like 'democracy' can signify 'a way of organising society and political power',
although, of course, what is signified may mean different things to different
people. But we can say that any word, such as 'democracy', or visual element,
can be used to signify a whole range of associations, identities, persons or
sequences of activity. Signification, therefore, is an important way that dis-
courses can be communicated without them being so overtly stated.

Social actor analysis A set of linguistic categories that can be applied to the
analysis of any discourse in which people are evaluated through the way they
are named, categorised (either by their occupation or social activity, such as
'teacher', 'immigrant') and/or identified in terms of age, gender, provenance,
class, race or religion (e.g. 'a 28-year-old Polish woman'). Newspapers can
include, but also exclude, certain social actors to suit their interests. In cer-
tain newspapers, we often find negative representations of young people and
immigrants in connection with crime, violence and social welfare in many
media. Social actor categories can also be applied to visual forms of commu-
nications, such as images.

223
 Glossary

Structural oppositions In representational strategies it may be common

to find that one side of an opposition is used to imply its opposite, which is
absent from the text. In news texts that represent criminals, their evilness or
immorality is emphasised, thus implying the morality and goodness of the
rest of the social order. Or a management text may refer to the importance of
now being dynamic, innovative, forward thinking. What is not stated is that
therefore staff must currently be static, averse to change and thinking only
about now and the past

Suppression This is where social actors or aspects of an event are back-

grounded or removed from a representation. For example, in the sentence
'Cuts to the education budget resulted in a drop in standards', who made the
cuts has been deleted. In such cases we must ask what ideological work is
being done.

Transitivity In CDA,this is the study of social action. It is the study of verbs in

order to reveal who is represented as the agent or otherwise in texts. In CDA,
this draws for the most part on the verb classification of Halliday (1978), who
distinguished between material, behavioural, mental, verbal, existential and
relational verbs. Texts can be analysed to see which kinds of verb classifica-
tions tend to be used to characterise the actions of certain groups. The same
set of categories can be applied visually.

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231
 Index

Abousnnouga, G. 209 Cameron,David cont

Achugar, M. 37 image 72
aggregation 84, 85-90, 116, 118, 150 angle 100
Ahrens, K. 168 background 203
Allen-Mills,Tony 181-2 distance 97
anti-immigration article (Dai!), Mail, 2007) 20-1 gaze 72, 73
hedging 192 multiculturalism speech (2007), and high/low modality
nominalisation/fimctionalisation 82 188-9, 199
'us' and 'them' (pronoun vs. noun) divisions 84-5 'sexualization' speech (2010), 3-4
Aristotle 163 metaphor 20
Arnheim, R. 164 speech (2010) and presupposition 159-60
attributes of objects 11, 51-2 Cameron, L. 163, 166
cartoons 101
Baker, P. 216 Charteris-Black,J.169-70
Bal,M.210 Chiapello, E. 33, 135
Baldry, A. 1, 209 Chilton, P. 212
Bali bombing (IRN re-write, 2003) Chomskeyan linguistics 18
aggregation 84 Chouliaraki, L. 214
suppression/absence 38-9 Churchill, Winston 196
Banks, D. 194 classification of social actors 79-96
Barthes, Roland 32, 49, 51, 74 aggregation 83-4, 85-90, 116, 118, 150
Bateman, J. A. 211 anonymisation 83
Bellamy, Christopher 199-200 individualisation vs. collectivisation 80
Benwell, B. 217 nominalisation or functionalisation 81-2, 88, 91, 125-6
Bhabha, H. K. 209 objectivation 82-3
Blair, Tony personalisation vs. impersonalisation 79-80
House of Commons speech (2003), and presupposition pronoun vs. noun ('us' and 'them1 84-5
157-8, 161 specification vs. genericisation 80-1
image 62, 70 suppression 38-9, 85-90, 92-4, 94-6
gaze 73 use of honorifics 82, 88,125,126, 128
pose 75 Clegg,Nick, image 76
Iraq inquiry report (Dai!), Mail 2010), quoting verbs angle 100
study61-5 distance97
and metapropositional verbs 63, 65, 73 gaze 73, 76, 97
nominalisation study 146-7 pose 75
use ofsynecdoche 172 connotations, word see word connotations
World Faith Foundation speech (2010), 'knowledge' connotative value and quoting verbs 58-9
5-6, 17, 18 connotation/denotation in images 49-51
Brady, Ian 83 connotators 51, 53, 56
Brown, Gordon content analysis-type approaches 1
image 66, 70 Cosmopolitanmagazine 7,8-9, 10, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 31-2
gaze 73 alternative interpretations 211-12
letter to soldiers' families (Dai!), Mail, 2009), quoting articulation of detail 202-3
verbs study 65-8 attributes ofobjects 51-2
metapropositional verbs 67 background 203
neutral structuring 6 7 colour modulation 205
Bush, George Qunior) colour saturation 205
speech (2001), and presupposition 158-9 denotation/connotation 49-51
speech to Congress (2001), rhetorical tropes study 173-6 and feminism 23, 28
personification/objectification 173-4 gaze 71-2
synecdoche 174-5, 176 individualism 101
'time' metaphors 175,176 light and shadow 204-5
medium frame 99
Calandra, Bob 150 modality and certainty 201, 202
Caldas-Coulthard, C. 28, 59, 61 pose 73, 75
Cameron, David 96 semiotic choices 23-4
broken society speech (2010), rhetorical tropes study settings 52-3
176-81 signifiers SO
abstraction 176, 180 symbolic value SO
source domains 177-8 tone 205
 Index

Critical Discourse Analysis Goatly,A. 172

concept of 4-6 Graham, P.176
corpus studies 215-16 Gramsci, A. 24, 25
criticisms addressed 214-15
criticisms and challenges to 13-14, 207-14 Halliday, M.A. K. 7, 11, 17-18, 26, 39, 70,104,131
ethnographic methods 214-15, 216-17 Hammersley, M. 214
critical linguistics 2-4, 5, 6, 7, 18 Hawkes, G. 133
health service changes 36-7
Danish newspaper cartoons article (Dai!), Telegraph, 2006), Heart ofEngland NHSTrust website homepage
quoting verbs study 68-9 image 54
de Tracy, Destutt 24 compared with North Glamorgan Trust
Delin,J. 211 53-4, 54-6
denotation/connotation 49-51 and gaze 71
Detroit housing crisis report (Times, 2008), rhetorical tropes overlapping 55
study 181-5 visual transivity study 134-5
hyperbole 183 text 36
personification/objectification 184 lexical suppression/absence 39
source domains 183-5 word connotation 36
discourse 20-4 hedging 13, 186-7, 192-8
compared with ideology concept 25 anti-immigration article (Dai!), Mail, 2007) 192
concept of 11 approximators 194
of information 44 comparative forms ofadverbs 195
and lexical choices 32 connectors 196
and lexical fields 30, 31 excessive defining 196
of women's agency 53 knife crime blog (Dai!), Mail, 2011) study 198-9
drugs explosion article (Sun, 2002), and lexical choices 42-5 long noun phrases 194
Dudley-Evans, Tony 194 military cutbacks article (The Independent, 1990), study
199-200
East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission modal verbs 194
statement 33 non-factive verbs 195
actions represented in abstraction 115 reference to official bodies 195-6
lexical choices 33-4 specific times 195
metaphor 167 Helmand province article (Sun, 2007)
nominalisation study 147-9 image40
overlexicalisation 37-8 alternative interpretations 210,211
personalisation vs. impersonalisation 80 angle 100
presupposition 156 background 203
suppression of social actors study 94-6 depth 203
transitivity 104-5 distance97
exclusion, in images 102 focus 55
foregrounding 56
Fairclough, Norman 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 21, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 44, generic depiction 102
45, 49, 84, 92-3, 94, 106, 116, 133, 135, 138, 153, 154, individualisation 101
164,176,186,190,212,213,214, 216-17 light and shadow 204
feminism 23, 28, 53 see also Power Feminism overlapping 55
Forceville, C.210-11 tone 205
foregrounding/backgrounding transitivity study 121-4, 134
images 53, 56 text 40-1
text and British soldiers' agency 122-3
and grammatical positioning of actions 114 structural opposition 41-2
Muslim prisoner article 87, 119-20 hen night example, semiotic resources 26-9
Foucault, Michel 20, 26 Henschel, R. 211
Fowler, Roger 2, 18, 31 Hindley, Myra 83
Hodge, Robert 2, 7, 16,186,191,202
Gabrielatos, C. 216 Howard, Michael, speech on asylum and immigration
gaze 70-4, 97 (2004), and metaphor 169-70
Blair image 62, 73 hyperbole 170, 183
Brown image 66, 73
Cameron image 72, 73 iconography 31, 49-51
Clegg image 73, 76, 97 ideological squaring 40, 41, 78
Cosmopolitan image 71-2 ideology 24-6
'demand image' 71 original Marxist conception of24-5
HeartofEngland NHSTrust website and power 4, 5, 6, 24, 25
image71 texts reflecting our own 47-9
Marie Claire image 72-3 individualisation vs. collectivisation in images 100-2
'mood systems' 71 exclusion 102
'offer image' 71-2 generic and specific depictions 101-2
'up' and 'down' 72 individuals and groups 100-1
gender roles and behaviour 29 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 139
generic and specific depictions Iran web blog, and presupposition 161
in images 101-2 Iraq War report (Sun, 2003), nominalisation study
intext80-1 151-3

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 Index

Jewitt, C.209 Mayr,A. 81,211,215,217

Johnson, M. 164, 165 McEnery,T. 216
Jones, P.214 McFarland, K. 217
men 18, 28
knife crime blog (Dai!), Mail, 2011), modality in language metaphor 12-13, 163-5, 167-70
study 198-9 anti-immigration article (Dai!), Mail,
Kress, Gunter 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 18, 29, 70, 71, 93,186, 191, 2007) 20
201-2, 207,209,210,211 Bush speech (2001) 174, 175-6
Kuhn, T. S. 214 Michael Howard speech (2004) 169-70
metaphor domains 165-7
'Labour say we are all racists' story (Dai!), Express, 2010), source 165-6, 169, 177-8, 183-5
and presupposition 154-6 target 165-6
Lakoff, G. 164, 165 metaphor signalling 172
language metaphorical tropes 12-13
denaturalising 5, 9 midwives and obstetricians example, material and mental
and identity 77-96 processes 112-14
importance of social context 16 adjuncts 113-14
links with power and ideology 4, 5, 6 military cutbacks article (Independent, 1990), modality and
relationship with thought 15-19 hedging study 199-200
as a set ofresources 15-29 Milliband, Ed, speech (2010), and presupposition 160
as social construction and practice 2-3, 4 modality, in language 13,186, 187-90
Structuralist views 17 Cameron speech (2007) 188-9, 199
as a system 17 deontic 187
langue and parole 17 dynamic 187-8
Leach, Edmund 16 epistemic 187
Levitas, R. 135 knife crime blog (Dai!), Mail, 2011)
lexical analysis 11, 30-56 198-9
lexical choices military cutbacks article (Independent,
and discourse 30, 31, 32 1990) 199-200
and genre of communication 42-7 modality, visual 13, 186, 201-6
drugs explosion article (Sun, 2002) 42-5 background 203
expert and technical terms 46-7 Cameron image, background 203
genre indicators 46-7 colour modulation 205
texts reflecting our own ideology 47-9 colour saturation 205
see alsoword connotations Cosmopolitan image 201, 202-3
lexical fields 11, 30-1 background 203
and discourse 30, 31 colour modulation 205
linguistic determinism 16-17 colour saturation 205
Liu, Y.209 light and shadow 204-5
Loughborough University mission statement 34-5 tone 205
actions represented in abstraction 115-16 depth articulation 203-4
lexical analysis 35 detail202-3
metaphorical language 149 Helmand province image (Sun, 2007)
nominalisation 149 background 203
Lu,L.W.168 depth 203
light and shadow 204
Machin, D. 23, 35, 46,47, 81, 99,101,102,111,113, 130-1, tone 205
133,209, 210-11, 215,217 light and shadow 204-5
Marie Claire magazine article studies 90-2, 210 markers 202-5
images 45, 133 North Essex Partnership NHSTrust website image
abstraction and sensuality 132-3 abstraction and sensory modality 202
angle 100 background 203
foregrounding 56 depth articulation 203
gaze 72-3 light and shadow 204
individualisation 101 'sensory' 201-2
looking off frame 132 tone 205
pose 75 modals and authority 190-2
sensual kiss 132, 133 multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA)1-2, 6-11,
settings 52-3 26,31
transitivity study 132-3 multimodal social semiotics 17
text46 Murray, C. 189
and agency 131 Muslim 'extremist' court case article (Dai!), Mail, 2010)
different discourse genres study 90-2 abstraction 128
exclusion 102 and agency 127
functionalisations 91 behavioural processes 126-7
genre indicators 46-7 functionalisation 125-6
mental processes 108 material processes 127
nominalisation study 149-50 mental processes 126-7
representational strategies 90-2 Observer newspaper comparison 128
suppression/absence 47 relational processes 127
transitivity abstractions 131 representational strategies 125-6
Marx, Karl 24-5 transitivity study 124-8

234
 Index

Muslim'extremist' court case article cont. pose cont.

use of honorifics 88,125,126, 128 Cosmopolitan image 73, 74
verbal processes 126-7, 128 Marie Claire image 75
Muslim prisoner article (Dai(y Mail, 2007) Power Feminists 133
aggregation and suppression study 83-4, 85-90, 116, power relations 24-6
118,150 discourse 4, 5
foregrounding/backgrounding 119-20 and semiotic choices 15
functionalisation 88 and visual communication 10
mental processes 119,120 presupposition 4, 13, 137, 153-62
metapropostitonal verbs 89 Blair's House of Commons speech (2003) 157-8, 161
nominalisation 150-1 Bush Qunior) speech (2001) 158-9
overlexification 88, 116, 118, 150 Cameron speech (2010) 159-60
quoting verbs 89-90 East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission
transitivity study 116-21 statement 156
use of honorifics 88 Iran web blog 161
verbal processes 120,121,150 'Labour say we are all racists' story (Dai(y Express, 2010)
Muslims, representation in the media 31, 77-8 154-6
Milliband speech (2010) 160
New Labour discourse 34
news, as social construction 21-3, 26 quoting verbs 11-12, 57-69
Niblock, S. 209,211,215 Blair at Iraq inquiry report (Dai(y Mail, 2010) study 61-5
9/11173 Brown's letter to soldiers' families (Dai(y Mail, 2009)
nominalisation 13, 137-53, 162 study65-8
Blair atthe Iraq inquiry (Dai(y Mail, 2010) study 146-7 and connotative value 58-9
East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission Danish newspaper cartoons (Dai(y Telegraph, 2006)
statement study 147-9 study68-9
eight effects of 139-44 descriptive 59, 60, 65
groups and relative clauses 145-6 meaning potentials 59
Iraq War report (Sun, 2003) study 151-3 metalinguistic 59, 60
Loughborough Universitywebsite metapropositional 59, 60, 63, 65, 67, 73, 89
example 149 Muslim prisoner article (Dai(y Mail, 2007) 89-90
making sentences 145 neutral structuring 59, 65, 67, 69
Marie Claire article study 149-50 transcript 59, 60
Muslim Prisoners (Dai(y Mail, 2007)
study 150-1 racist stereotypes, and ideologies 4
North Essex Partnership Health Trust homepage representational strategies in language 77-9
image99 classification of social actors 79-96
angle 99, 100 East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission
background 203 statement 95
close-frame images 98, 99 ideological squaring 40, 41, 78
colour and tone 55 Marie Clair article study 90-2
depth 203 Muslim 'extremists' court case article (Dai(y Mail, 2010)
North Essex Partnership Health Trust 125-6
light and shadow 204 Muslim prisoner article (Dai(y Mail, 2007) study85-90
and 'sensory modality' 202 referential 79
text99 suppression of social actors study 92-6
individualisation 98 representational strategies, visual 96-102
transivity study 135 angle 98-100
North Glamorgan NHSTrust homepage, compared with distance (size of frame) 97-8
Heart ofEngland NHSTrust 53-4, 54-6 exclusion 102
generic and specific depictions 101-2
obstetricians and midwives example, material and mental individuals and groups 100-2
processes 112-14 Resche, C. 193,194, 197-8
adjuncts 113-14 rhetorical tropes 13, 167-72
O'Halloran, K. L.1, 209,212 abstraction 176, 180
O'Toole,M. 209 Bush Qunior) speech (2001) study 173-6
overlexicalisation 37-8, 78 Cameron's broken society speech (2010) study 176-81
East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission Detroit housing crisis report (Times, 2008) study 181-5
statement 37-8 hyperbole 170,183
Helmand province article (Sun, 2007) 42 metonymy 171
Muslim prisoner article (Dai(y Mail, 2007) 88, 116-21, personification/objectification 171,
150 173-4, 184
synecdoche 172, 174-5, 176
Paglia, Camille 133 see also metaphor
Panofsky, E. 32 Richardson,). E.114, 211
Polanyi, M. 214
Pollock,A. 36-7 Saddam Hussein 144
Popper, K. 214 salience and visual iconography 54-6
pose 74-6 colour55
Blair image 75 focus 55
Clegg image 75 foregrounding 56
and connotators of identities 74 overlapping 56

235
 Index

salience and visual iconography cont. transitivity (verb processes) cont.

and potent cultural symbols 54 material processes 105, 106-7, 109,110,113,114,
size 54-5 118, 120-1, 122-3, 126-7, 129, 130-1, 134, 137,
tone 55 152,153
Sapir, Edward 16 mental processes 12,105, 107-9, 113,115,119,120,
Sapir-Whorftheory 16, 17 126-7, 130,212
saturation-dilution spectrum 19 Muslim 'extremist' court case (Dai!),Mail, 2010) study
Saussure, F.17 124-8
Schumpeter, Joseph 193, 197 Muslim prisoner article (Dai!), Mail, 2007) study
Selinker, L.194 116-21
Semino, E. 164 noun replacement 13
semiotic choices 11, 15-29 obstetricians and midwives example 112-14
communication through 15-19 relational processes 110, 126-7
discourse and signification 20-4 social actors activated/passivated 111
and everyday identity 26-9 Twilight(Meyer) study 128-31
ideology and power 24-6 verbal processes 109-10, 121, 126-7, 128
semiotic resources, lexical 11-12, 13, 17 transitivity, visual representations 131-6
analysing 30-1, 32-49 behavioural processes 132,133,134,135
semiotic resources, visual 12 existential processes 133
analysing 31-2,49-56 foregrounding/backgrounding meanings 131
representing speakers' attitude through 70-6 Health Trusts websites study 134-5
gaze 70-4 Helmand province image (Sun, 2007)
and metaphorical association 72 study 134
pose 74-6 Marie Claire image study 132-3
settings of images 52-4 material processes 111-12, 134, 135
signification 15, 20-4 mental processes 133
signifiers, and the Cosmopolitan image SO Trew, Tony 2, 18
Simpson, P.215,217 tropical savannah text study, suppression of social actors
simulated equalization 45 92-4, 95
social semiotic theory of communication 17-19 Twilight (Meyer) transitivity analysis 128-31
and everyday identity 26-9 behavioural processes 130
and visual communication 18-19 material processes 129, 130
structural opposition 11, 39-42 mental processes 130
Structuralism 17
Stubbs, M. 213-14 van Dijk,T.A. 4, 30, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84,105,106,114, 119,
Sunoo, B. P. 193 154,170,179,194, 212-13, 214
suppression/lexical absence 38-9, 85-90 van Leeuwen, Theo 1, 7, 8, 10, 21, 23, 32, 35, 46, 47, 48, 70,
symbolic value, and the Cosmopolitan image SO 71, 91, 99, 101, 108, 111-12, 126, 186, 201-2, 209,
synecdoche 172, 174-5, 176 210,215
systemic functional theory 7 Verschuren,J. 211
Vietnam War photographs 102, 134
Teo, P. 37, 78-9, 113 Voloshinov,V.209
Thibault, P. 1, 209
Thornborrow, J. 102, 111, 113, 130-1, 133 Whorf, Benjamin 16
Toolan, M. 209 Widdowson, H. 209-10, 214, 216-17
Totnes drug dealing article (Dai!),Mail, 2003), and 'enemies Wodak, Ruth 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 21, 24, 48, 91,213,215
of society' discourse 21-3, 26 women
transitivity (verb processes) 12, 104-31 agency discourses 23-4, 35, 53
actions represented in abstraction 115-16, 128,131 hen night example 26-9
actor element 105, 106, 110 passivity in Twilight extract 128-31
adjuncts 113-14 photographed in close or medium frame 97
behavioural processes 105, 109, 111, 120, 123, 126-7, power and social class/ethnicity 209
130,134 sexuality as source of power 52
circumstance element 105 as wives and mothers 18, 19, 23
existential processes 11, 105, 110-11 word connotations 32-7
focalisers/reflectors of action 107 East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA)mission
goal element 105, 106-7, 110, 111-12 statement 33-4
grammatical positioning of actions 114-15 Heart ofEngland NHSTrust homepage 36-7
Halliday's six categories 12, 14, 16, 106 Loughborough University mission
Helmand province article (Sun, 2007) study 121-4 statement 34-5
interactive/instrumental transactions 112 World Bank 139, 191
and the manipulation of agency 110-11, 112 World Trade Organisation (WTO) 139, 191

236