Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán tin tức của báo chí mỹ về cuộc bầu cử tổng thống mỹ năm 2008

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ NGỌC ANH SELECTED AMERICAN MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 2008 U.S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN TIN TỨC CỦA BÁO CHÍ MỸ VỀ CUỘC BẦU CỬ TỔNG THỐNG MỸ NĂM 2008 M.A Thesis Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Prof Nguyễn Hòa, Ph D HANOI - 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF APPENDICES vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Scope of the research Aims of the research and research questions Methodology of the research Background information about the 2008 U.S Presidential Election Design of the research PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)? 1.2 The development of CDA 1.3 Directions in CDA 1.3.1 Van Dijk 1.3.2 Wodak 1.3.3 Fairclough 10 1.4 Principles of CDA 10 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12 2.1 Data 12 2.1.1 Data source 12 2.1.1.1 The New York Times 12 2.1.1.2 New York Post 12 2.1.2 Data collection and sampling 13 2.2 Analytical framework and methods 13 2.2.1 Headlines analysis 13 2.2.2 Full-text news report analysis 15 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 16 3.1 Headlines analysis 16 3.1.1 The New York Times 17 3.1.1.1 Representation of Mr Obama 17 3.1.1.2 Representation of Mr McCain 20 3.1.2 New York post 22 3.1.2.1 Representation of Mr Obama 23 3.1.2.2 Representation of Mr McCain 25 3.2 Full-text stories analysis 26 3.2.1 Naming referent 26 3.2.1.1 The New York Times 26 3.2.1.2 New York Post 27 3.2.2 Lexicalization 29 3.2.2.1 The New York Times 29 3.2.2.2 New York Post 33 PART 3: CONCLUSION Summary of major findings 36 Suggestions for further research 36 REFERENCES APPENDICES iv ABBREVIATIONS CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CL Critical Linguistics P New York Post SFG Systematic Functional Grammar SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics T The New York Times U.S the United States v LIST OF TABLES Table Summary of process types 14 Table Mr Obama’s roles in percentage in The New York Times 18 Table Mr McCain’s roles in percentage in The New York Times 21 Table Mr Obama’s roles in percentage in the New York Post 32 Table Mr McCain’s roles in percentage in the New York Post 26 Table Positivization of Mr Obama’s activities 30 Table Negativization for Mr McCain’s campaign and activities 32 Table Positivization for Mr McCain 34 Table Negativization for Mr Obama 35 vi LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Headlines from The New York Times Appendix Headlines from New York Post Part 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Everyday we use language, in other words - produce discourse, to negotiate, to give information, to ask for information or to make choices; in short, to communicate To discourse analysts, “discourse” means actual instances of communication in the medium of language In the discourse we produce are conventional ways of talking that create and perpetuate systems of ideologies and sets of beliefs about how the world works Van Dijk (1988) points out that discourse, in a wider sense, is a complex unit of language form, meaning and actions that might best be captured under the notion of a communicative event or communicative act Among many types of discourse produced under different contexts/communicative events, journalistic discourse has some very specific textual characteristics, specific methods of text production and consumption, and is defined by a particular set of relationships between itself and other agencies of symbolic and material power As Fowler (1991) pointed out, the language of the news is never neutral, and articles within newspaper must be regarded as constructed “stories” told from particular point of view When it comes to journalistic discourse analysis, the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach is often employed CDA is a methodology that enables a vigorous assessment of what is meant when language is used to describe and explain How the media describe and explain things or events and portray people can have a great influence on the public who often have decisions and choices to make That explains why the role of the media in electoral politics is key to the functioning of a democracy, because now most voters increasingly use the media as their primary source of information All the information about discourse and media briefly mentioned above leads the author of this thesis to the research topic and conduct a small study entitled “Selected American Media Coverage of the 2008 U.S Presidential Election: A Critical Discourse Analysis” 2 Scope of the research Within the limit of a minor thesis, this research focus only on the texts of the news reports published from 31st August 2008 to 1st November 2008 in the two dailies The New York Times and New York Post, on the topic of the 2008 U.S Presidential Election In this research, 45 headlines and 24 full-text news reports are analyzed As this is a purely linguistic study, the author is not, by any means or in any way, expressing her own political point of view Aims of the research and research questions The general goal of this research is to investigate the ideological function of language in representing the world and constructing certain realities The main objective is to look into the ways language be employed by two media institutions to produce discourse to present the two 2008 U.S presidential candidates More specifically, this thesis aims at: - Providing a textual analysis of the news on the 2008 U.S presidential election in the light of Critical Discourse Analysis - Giving an illustration of the CDA concepts as well as analysis procedures - Conveying a message that CDA provides a useful, systematic way for language users and language learners to begin raising awareness of the ideologies embedded in discourse, as language not only reflects and records but also shapes, distorts and even create realities, both culturally and naturally To achieve these aims, the following research questions are proposed: (i) What are the representations of the two 2008 presidential candidates, the Republican John McCain and the Democrat Barack Obama, constructed by The New York Times and the New York Post? (ii) What are the underlying ideologies embedded in the way The New York Times and New York Post represent the two candidates? (iii) How are such ideologies encoded in the discourse of the two newspapers? Methodology of the research Following in this part is a brief summary of the basic steps taken in the research The first step is to conduct a literature review The author searched for reference via the thesis advisor, Dr Nguyen Hoa, lectures of related subjects like Research Methods, Applied Linguistics, etc., books and journals in the libraries and materials from the Internet The second step is searching for data News reports published from 31st August 2008 to 1st November 2008 in the two selected newspapers were collected Then the data for analysis were sampled through random sampling Through thoroughly examining of the sampled data, closely looking into prominent linguistic features in the data, proper analytical tools were then decided The next step in investigating two sets of data – headlines and full-text news reports - Analyzing selected headlines according to transitivity system - Analyzing selected full-text news reports according to two discursive strategies of naming referents and lexicalization Through the analysis of the two sets of data, the study attempts to find out the similarities as well as differences in the way the two newspapers reported on the same topic, the same people Based on the findings, further ideologies embedded in the text are discussed Background information about the 2008 U.S Presidential Election The United States presidential election of 2008 was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 It was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election Outgoing Republican President George W Bush's policies and actions and the American public's desire for change were key issues throughout the campaign, and during the general election campaign, both major party candidates ran on a platform of change and reform in Washington Domestic policy and the economy eventually emerged as the main themes in the last few months of the election campaign, particularly after the onset of the 2008 economic crisis Democrat Barack Obama, then - junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona Nine states changed allegiance from the 2004 election Each had voted for the Republican nominee in 2004 and contributed to Obama's sizable Electoral College victory The selected electors from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia voted for President and Vice President of the United States on December 15, 2008 Those votes were tallied before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 2009 Obama received 365 electoral votes, and McCain 173 There were several unique aspects of the 2008 election The election was the first in which an African American was elected President, and the first time a Roman Catholic was elected Vice President It was also the first time two sitting senators ran against each other It was the first election in 56 years in which neither an incumbent president (Bush was barred from seeking a third term by the Twenty-second Amendment) nor a vice president (Dick Cheney did not seek the presidency) ran It was also the first time the Republican Party nominated a woman for Vice President and only the second time a woman was nominated for Vice President on a major party ticket Also, voter turnout for the 2008 election was the highest in at least 40 years The two candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain are nearly 25 years apart in age This is the largest age disparity between the two major party presidential candidates in history, surpassing Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, (23 years apart in age) who ran against each other in the 1996 presidential election On January 20, 2009, Obama was inaugurated to the presidency at the age of 47 years 138 days He is the fourth youngest man to be elected president, after John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Ulysses Grant, and the fifth youngest president when inaugurated, after Kennedy, Clinton, Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt Polls taken in the last few months of the presidential campaign as well as exit polls conducted on Election Day showed the economy as the top concern for voters In the fall of 2008, many news sources were reporting that the economy was suffering its most serious downturn since the Great Depression During this period John McCain's election prospects fell with several politically costly comments about the economy 26 McC’s a plan man & O takes it slow McCain’s cancer: lies of the Times He’s closing up the gap Apparently, through the analysis of headlines in the New York Post, it can be seen that the coverage of Mr McCain was much more favorable than that of Mr Obama, which is in contrast to that of The New York Times By uncovering the ideology embedded in the transitivity system of headlines, we have had a reason to believe that there was no totally ―objective‖ coverage in the two newspapers 3.2 Full-text stories analysis The following full-text stories analysis can help to make it clearer the discursive strategies and hidden ideologies in the way The New York Times and the New York Post represent the two candidates in the US 2008 Presidential Election The most prominent features under analysis are naming referents and lexicalization 3.2.1 Naming referents 3.2.1.1 The New York Times In general, the two presidential candidates are both dressed formally and in The New York Times This newspaper chose a neutral approach for their naming reference by always putting titles before the full names or the last names of both candidates, wherever those names appeared in their text Nowhere in the stories can we find first names standing alone This formal naming style shows the respect toward both candidates In The New York Times news reports, Mr Obama was often called: Mr Barack Obama Senator Barack Obama Mr Obama the Democratic presidential nominee the presumptive Democratic nominee the Democratic candidate from Illinois 27 Meanwhile, Mr McCain was equally formally dressed as: Mr McCain Senator John McCain the Republican nominee the presumptive Republican presidential nominee the Republican of Arizona However, along with neutral namings, there were still some other subtle ways that The New York Times dressed Mr Obama, for example: the natural speechmaker the first African-American presidential nominee Referring Mr Obama as a ―speechmaker‖ (in a positive way), The New York Times could remind readers of the Democratic candidate’s public speaking talent which is a leader’s essential characteristic Also, dressing Mr Obama as ―the first African-American presidential nominee‖ could stir readers’ emotions, as well as emphasize the historical remarkable achievement of Mr Obama being an official Democratic candidate running in the presidential election Noticeably, there was no such pro-positive way of dressing Mr McCain in The New York Times (there was no pro-negative name reference for him, either) Mr McCain was always dressed formally and neutrally To sum up, although The New York Times did use neutral and objective references to the two candidates in most of the cases, there were subtle traces that they somehow addressed Mr Obama more favorably 3.2.1.2 The New York Post In comparison with The New York Times, there is one big difference in the way the New York Post dressed the two presidential nominees, which is they never use the title ―Mr.‖ before full names or last names of any candidates They use only the two titles ―Democrat‖ and ―Republican‖ to distinguish between the two parties They called the presidential nominees ―the Democrat Barack Obama” and ―the Republican John McCain” in case they liked to use titles 28 In most other cases, this newspaper only used the names (full names or last names) of the two candidates without any titles Their treatment for the naming the two nominees are mostly equal at first glance In the New York Post text, Mr Obama was mostly called: Barack Obama Obama the Democrat the Democratic candidate the Chicago Democrat Mr McCain received the same way of naming: John McCain McCain Republican John McCain the Arizona senator Leaders or a politician’s being referred to with their full names or last names without title is common in American culture However, in some cases, the New York Post did not use the last name but the first name to address Mr Obama, which seemed not to show respect to the Democratic candidate, as in the headline ―Barack took illegal donation‖ or in the text: ―By this point, the nature of the undecided vote has likely shifted from people who are torn between wanting change and worrying about Obama to people who have basically decided not to back Barack but haven't sufficiently collected their thoughts to come out for McCain.‖ Detailed examination of the text suggests that, the New York Post never use the first name ―John‖ for Mr John McCain! They even used casually spoken way of ―O‖ or ―Bam‖ instead of ―Obama‖ in their headlines For, Mr McCain they neutrally used the reference ―Mac‖ or ―MCC‖ Looking deeper into the text of the New York Post, it can be seen that while Mr McCain was still referred to neutrally in all quotes, Mr Obama was referred to as ―celebrity‖, ―tax raiser”, “world's biggest celebrity‖ in quotes: 29 “After being painted by McCain's ads as a "celebrity" and a tax raiser, Obama yesterday released a cheeky ad that flashes back to 1982, when McCain, now 72, first came to Washington” "He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star is fading," a female narrator says When a politician is called a ―celebrity‖, it seems that he is more of an entertainment man rather than a decent leader Things become worse when that celebrity’s star is fading, and it is the worst when a presidential candidate is referred to as a ―tax raiser‖! There were not as such negative references for Mr McCain in the New York Post The newspaper seemed to emphasize the ―bad name‖ for the Democratic nominee in contract to a pro-positive naming reference for the Republican one 3.2.2 Lexicalization In this part, wordings for the two presidential candidates’ campaigns are analyzed to make it clearer the underlying ideology of the two newspapers in representing each candidate 3.2.2.1 The New York Times Through its word-choice to describe the two candidates, readers of the New York Times can easily recognize more positive wording for Mr Obama’s campaign results and activities and more unfavorable lexicalization for Mr McCain’s In this newspaper, Mr Obama is often described as a leader putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change, with a cool head and sound judgment, and more and more voters are leaning toward Mr Obama’s side It can be seen that, behind The New York Times’ word-choice is its support, and an attempt to call for support, for the Democratic candidate – Mr Obama Table Positivization of Mr Obama’s activities Source Positive words for Mr Obama Unlike his opponent, Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, Mr Obama does not brand himself as the ―straight talk‖ candidate, but he has presented himself as a change agent with new, workable, bipartisan ideas for the economy Mr Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running 30 for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls Senator Barack Obama raised more money in August than any presidential candidate has ever recorded in a one-month period They [American voters] liked his [Obama’s] calm demeanor and the way he had handled the attacks on him from the McCain campaign They [the American] continued to express greater confidence in Mr Obama’s ability to manage the economy, even as Mr McCain has aggressively sought to raise doubts about it The ratings dwarfed the audience for the Summer Olympics and the season finale of ―American Idol‖ in May, and added to what was already a sense of buoyancy within the Obama campaign Democrats went to bed having heard terrific reviews of the final night of their convention television reviewers and commentators praised the overall staging [of Mr Obama’s speech] The stagecraft was so phenomenal! [Mr Obama] had an opportunity to get his message across to a record-breaking crowd of millions of American voters, and he used it effectively Mr Obama took pains to be gracious he also remained calm, cool and collected for the most part — showing survival skills that he learned in his brutal 16-month battle for the nomination to keep the focus on the economy, to show that he could be trusted to change the direction of the country and to remain relaxed and steady As voters have gotten to know Senator Barack Obama, they have warmed up to him, with more than half, 53 percent, now saying they have a favorable impression of him the percentage of those who hold a favorable opinion of Mr Obama is up 10 points since last month Those words for Mr Obama such as “a change agent”, “gracious”, “calm”, “cool”, “steady”, “be trusted”, “effectively”, “phenomenal”, “confidence”, “terrific”, etc were highly positive With such words, Mr Obama was portrayed to have met challenge after challenge but still managed and made impressive progress in the race to the White House 31 Readers could see and feel a potential president who could bring in better changes and brighter future and was worth their trust and ballots, and who had the will and ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to America’s problems Barack Obama for the President, that seemed to be the ideology of this newspaper Meanwhile, Mr McCain’s image and his activities as well as campaign results were rather negatively portrayed (not all the time, but much more negative than that of Mr Obama): Table Negativization for Mr McCain’s campaign and activities Source Negative words for Mr McCain gave less attention, and offered very few specifics, to the growing economic woes of American voters has never been comfortable talking about the economy got into a relatively lengthy discourse on how the housing crisis started in a slip of the tongue in Pennsylvania he [McCain] then added, ―this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners.‖ voters are much more likely to identify Mr Obama — and not Mr McCain — as someone who would bring change to Washington seeks a comeback in the face of declining poll numbers in battlegrounds grew angry as he attacked Mr Obama There were several moments when Mr McCain’s tactics and tone appeared not to help him His voice turned edgy at times and his frozen smile and wide eyes — which blinked frequently and distractingly at times — seemed a little strange Even voters who are planning to vote for Mr McCain say their enthusiasm has waned Mr McCain made no progress in appealing to voters on a personal level favorable opinion of Mr McCain remained stable, and unfavorable opinion rose to 45 percent now from 35 percent in September advantages [for McCain] appear to have evaporated Recent Gallup polls show Mr McCain running far behind Senator Barack Obama among 32 Hispanic voters nationwide Senator John McCain is giving up on his efforts to win the state of Michigan, Mr McCain’s free-market approach would impose particular burdens on small businesses and old-line manufacturers that are already struggling regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions Mr McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire Then he falsely claimed that Mr Obama supported ―comprehensive sex education‖ for kindergartners and misrepresented Mr Obama’s positions on energy and health care A McCain advertisement called ―Fact Check‖ was itself found to be “less than honest” Senator Orrin G Hatch of Utah, called ―ridiculous‖ the [McCain’s] implication that Mr Obama’s ―lipstick on a pig‖ comment was a reference to Ms Palin Some who have criticized Mr McCain have accused him of blatant untruths and of failing to correct himself when errors were pointed out that more voters see Mr McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr Obama With both explicit and implicit unfavorable description of his campaign as well as his manner, Mr McCain was painted by The New York Times as an aggressive, not very capable candidate who had lots of attacks but very few victories and lacked of necessary quality for a would-be president, especially in time of economic crisis He was ―never been comfortable‖ talking about economy He made ―lengthy‖ speech; he ―failed to correct himself‖ Many other words with negative mode, and unfavorable phrases appeared in the text representing Mr McCain, such as “ridiculous”, “falsely”, “misrepresented”, “burdens”, “edgy voice”, “frozen”, “distractingly”, “strange”, “less than honest”, “blatant untruths”, “under particularly heavy fire”, “advantages evaporated”, “giving up”, “running far behind”, etc 33 3.2.2.2 New York Post Unlike The New York Times, it is clear that the New York Post favored Mr McCain over Mr Obama Table Positivization for Mr McCain Source Positive words for Mr McCain John McCain's gains over the last five days are remaking the political landscape as Election Day approaches all three of the top tracking polls (the most current and reliable measurements out there) show McCain hot on Obama's heels McCain has closed to a point where the race will likely be very, very close After all, white voters back McCain by double digits John McCain is making strides among independents McCain's improvement in the poll, and the fact that there is still a notable slice of the electorate that is either yet undecided or soft in their support of one candidate or the other, indicates that anything could still happen in this race McCain raised more than double Obama's take from energy companies John McCain unveiled a new ad yesterday quoting a surprising figure slamming Democrats for the country's economic mess Rothschild praised McCain's pick for vice president John McCain leads Barack Obama in Ohio, even though nearly half of those polled say they are worse off than they were four years ago John McCain unveiled his plan yesterday to prevent future disasters on Wall Street John McCain announced earlier this month that his campaign raised $47 million in August, also a personal best John McCain warned that Barack Obama's policies would drive the country deeper into recession Clearly, although not denying the fact that on the whole, Mr McCain was behind in the race, the New York Post tended to inform more about his positive side and events Even a small gain of Mr McCain was covered by detail in this paper The gap between Mr 34 McCain and Mr Obama was described, but in the angle that it was closing up as in: “McCain hot on Obama’s heel”, “John McCain is making strides among independents”, “McCain has closed to a point”, “white voters back McCain by double digits”, etc In analyzing the discourse, we can see that words denoting progress were repeatedly used, like: “gain”, “improvement “, “raise”, “praise”, “lead”, etc In addition, New York Post also presented Mr McCain as a determined man with sound policies who could bring in great change especially for economy, from ―unveiled a surprising figure slamming Democrats for the country's economic mess‖ to “prevent future disasters on Wall Street” On the contrary, Mr Obama’s leading was also mentioned but only as contemporary and unstable advantage: “anything could still happen in this race” Table Negativization for Mr Obama Source Negative words for Mr Obama Obama is on the defensive - staving off accusations of closet socialism and trying to wriggle out of his once overt advocacy of income redistribution "Spreading the wealth around" has become the anti-Obama slogan The double dose of Obama's support for spreading the wealth around and his affiliation with the toxic Rev Wright are eroding his once-formidable lead As the Democrat moved convincingly ahead last week, voters began to seriously consider what kind of president he'd be people pondered whether they really want to trust Obama with this kind of power If the contest inspires them all to vote, Obama will lose his campaign has exposed some gaping weaknesses in the electoral process - and some even more serious problems with today's mass media The FBI has opened an investigation into the Obama-friendly group ACORN, which has been associated with fraudulent registrations and other misconduct in many jurisdictions Obama broke a promise to stick with public financing data reflects a dip in support for Obama over the last week as McCain 35 began to focus on the economy He [Obama] never admits how the law would wreck the small businesses he has sworn to promote Admitting that his [Obama’s] supporters have grown "nervous" as he slides in the polls Barack Obama urged his supporters yesterday not to get "cocky" despite his steady lead in the polls The Republican National Committee will file a fund-raising complaint against Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign today, accusing it of accepting donations that exceed federal limits, as well as illegal contributions from foreigners In its discourse, the New York Time regularly presented Mr Obama as a person losing support from voters with description of ―a dip in support for Obama”, “slides in the polls”, “anti-Obama slogan” Also, the newspaper portrayed Mr Obama as an unreliable candidate and seemed to attempt to evoke doubts about his policy as well confidence voters had for him, saying he “broke a promise to stick with public financing”, and his policies are “eroding his once-formidable lead”, “voters began to seriously consider what kind of president he'd be” or “whether they really want to trust Obama with this kind of power” Many other unfavorable words and phrases for Mr Obama can be found across New York Post’s stories, such as: “nervous”, “cocky”, “illegal”, “fraudulent”, “complaint against”, “weakness”, “misconduct”, “admit”, etc It can be seen that Mr Obama was heavily unfavorably portrayed 36 Part 3: CONCLUSION Summary of major findings In analyzing news stories from The New York Times and New York Post, the underlying ideologies encoded in these two newspapers are uncovered From the different representations of the two presidential nominees in the two dailies, it can be concluded that with the use of language as a medium, the two newspapers showed their different ideological viewpoints and evaluation for the two candidates Behind their ways of running headlines, naming referents and lexical choice are their attitude and emotion, though they are theoretically supposed to be neutral and objective The New York Times supported Mr Obama to become the 44 th President of the United States, and they certainly aimed at forming a similar viewpoint and attitude among their readers-voters They portrayed Mr Obama as a promising candidate, with a cool head and warm heart His positive activities and achievements are covered more in the daily, in an attempt to persuade the public that he deserved their ballots On the contrary, New York Post endorsed Mr McCain Their discourse focused on representing him as a hero struggling hard and making progress as well as an experienced leader with sound policy Through this small analysis, it can also be drawn out that, ideological bias in media is somehow classical, despite the tradition of seeking relative neutrality and objectivity in the American journalism Certain media tend to be more democratic or republican and endorse their chosen candidate Suggestions for further research It is suggested that further research extend to: - Analyzing other discursive strategies such as over-lexicalization, generalization or quotation patterns - Analyzing the discourse of other media institutions such as radio coverage, television coverage or the Internet - Analyzing the discourse of other newspapers rather than The New York Times and New York Post REFERENCES Fairclough, N (1989) Language and Power Harlow: Longman Fairclough, N (1992) Critical Language Awareness London & New York: Longman Fairclough, N (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (Language in Social Life Series) London Fairclough,N / Woddak, R (1997) Critical Discourse Analysis In van Dijk, T.A.(ed) Introduction to Discourse Analysis London, pp 258-284 Fairclough, N (2001) Language and Power London: Longman Fowler, R et al (1979) Language and Control London: KRP Fowler, R (1991) Language in the news: Discourse and Ideology in the Press London & New York: Routledge Halliday, M.A.K (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Arnold Hoa, N (2003) Phân tích Diễn ngôn: Một số Vấn đề Lý luận Phương pháp Hanoi: Nxb ĐHQGHN 10 Hoa, N (2006) Phân tích Diễn ngôn Phê phán, Lý luận Phương pháp Hanoi: Nxb ĐHQGHN 11 Kress, G (1991) “Critical Discourse Analysis”, in Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Vol.11 Cambridge: CUP, pp 84-97 12 van Dijk, T.A (1988) News as Discourse New Jersey: Erlbaum 13 van Dijk, T.A (1991) Racism and the Press London: Soutledge 14 van Dijk, T.A (1993) Principles of discourse Analysis In: Discourse & Society, 4(2): 249 – 283 15 van Dijk, T.A (1995) Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis In S.& A l Wenden (eds) Language and Peace Dartmouth: Aldershot, pp 17-33 16 van Dijk, T.A (1998) Ideology - A multidiscipline study London: Sage 17 Van, Hoang Van (2006) Introducing Discourse Analysis Hanoi: Nxb Giáo Dục 18 Woddak, R (1996) Disorders in Discourse London: Longman 19 Woddak, R (2001) “What’s CDA about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its development” In Woddak, R & Mayer, M Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis London: Sage Websites: www.nypost.com www.nytimes.com www.wikipedia.org www.journalism.org www.discourse-analysis.com www.etd.lsu.edu www.socialresearchmethods.net APPENDIX Headlines from The New York Times T1 McCain Excites Crowds With Criticism of Obama T2 Obama Wraps His Hopes Inside Economic Anxiety T3 Obama Raises a Record $66 Million in a Month T4 McCain Seen as Less Likely to Bring Change, Poll Finds T5 Portraying McCain as a Man of the Past T6 Obama’s Speech Is a TV Hit, With Viewers and Commentators Alike T7 McCain Tries to Link Obama to Financial Crisis T8 Obama Briefly Leaving Trail to See Ill Grandmother T9 McCain Attacks, but Obama Stays Steady T10 Obama Appeal Rises in Poll; No Gains for McCain Ticket T11 McCain Is Faltering Among Hispanic Voters T12 McCain Abandons His Efforts to Win Michigan T13 Business Cool Toward McCain’s Health Coverage Plan T14 Obama Led Opponent in Spending in August T15 McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions T16 Poll Says McCain Is Hurting His Bid by Using Attacks APPENDIX Headlines from New York Post P1 HOPE FOR MCCAIN - POLLS SAY HE'S CLOSING THE GAP P2 STEALING AN ELECTION? OBAMA'S DUBIOUS ALLIES P3 OBAMA ON SERIOUS ROLL IN THE SWING-STATE POLLS P4 RULES POLLS AS BELL TOLLS P5 MCGAINING IN LATEST POLL P6 MAC'S SURPRISE WEAPON: BUBBA P7 MCCAIN'S CANCER: LIES OF THE TIMES P8 A LABOR DILEMMA FOR PRESIDENT BAM P9 'O' HAS BAD NEWS FOR O P10 MCC'S A PLAN MAN & O TAKES IT SLOW P11 BARACK RISES AS STOX FALL P12 BA-RACKING UP ANOTHER $66 MILLION P13 BAM AD IS 'MAC' VS PCS P14 BAM OUTDOES JOHN IN NEGATIVE ADS P15 O'S GRAN VERY ILL P16 POLL POSITION FAVORS OBAMA P17 BAM WARNS PALS: DON'T GET COCKY! P18 BARACK TOOK ILLEGAL DONATIONS: GOP P19 MAC FINDS O'S POLICY DEPRESSING ... Functional Grammar London: Arnold Hoa, N (2003) Phân tích Diễn ngơn: Một số Vấn đề Lý luận Phương pháp Hanoi: Nxb ĐHQGHN 10 Hoa, N (2006) Phân tích Diễn ngơn Phê phán, Lý luận Phương pháp Hanoi: Nxb ĐHQGHN... representing the world and constructing certain realities The main objective is to look into the ways language be employed by two media institutions to produce discourse to present the two 2008. .. discussed Background information about the 2008 U.S Presidential Election The United States presidential election of 2008 was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 It was the 56th quadrennial United