Miscellaneous published in:
Studying Identity: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges[Journal of Language and Politics 2:2] 2003
► pp. 361–404
Miscellaneous
An actor or an undefined threat?
The role of "terrorist" in the discourse of international news agencies
Maija Stenvall | University of Helsinki
The paper studies the use of the word terrorist in the dispatches of two major international news agencies, AP and Reuters. It can be assumed that the attacks on September 11, 2001, have changed the role of terrorist and affected the meaning of the word. While terrorists have been traditionally construed as violent actors, they are now, more and more, seen as a static threat. The paper examines three collocations — terrorist attack, terrorist threat and terrorist suspect — as grammatical metaphors (cf. Halliday 1994); the collocation terrorist network is analysed as a conceptual metaphor (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Linguistic strategies manifested in the data form a pattern that I call “anti-terrorism discourse”. Modality and general vagueness of the language are conspicuous features in the news agency dispatches on terrorism; the reports focus on what may happen or may have happened. This can be argued to undermine the factuality of news agency discourse.
Keywords: metaphor, transitivity, modality, factuality, terrorist, news agency discourse, anti-terrorism discourse, collocation
Published online: 18 November 2003
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.2.2.10ste
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.2.2.10ste
References
Books and print articles
Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo
2002a Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge: Perseus.
Bell, Allan
1991 The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
Boyd-Barrett, Oliver.
1980 The International News Agencies. London: Constable.
Boyd-Barrett, Oliver
1998 ‘Global’ News Agencies. In: Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen (eds). The Globalization of News. London: Sage, 19–34. 
Castells, Manuel
1996 The Rise of the Network Society: Oxford, and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Channell, Joanna
2000 Corpus-Based Analysis of Evaluative Lexis. In: Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson (eds). Evaluation in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 38–55.
Chilton, Paul
1996 Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common European Home. Berne and New York: Peter Lang.
Fairclough, Norman
1992 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fishman, Mark
1980 Manufacturing the News. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.
Fowler, Roger
1991 Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
Goldstein, Norm
(ed.) 2000 The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. Cambridge: Perseus Publishing.
Halliday, Michael
1994 An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd edition. London: Edward Arnold.
1998 Things and relations. Regrammaticising experience as technical knowledge. In: James R. Martin and Robert Veel (eds). Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science. London and New York: Routledge, 184–235.
Hartley, John
1982 Understanding News. London: Methuen.
Huddleston, Rodney
1984 Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark
1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lakoff, George and Turner, Mark
1989 More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lyons, John
1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nas, Peter J. M. and Houweling, Tanja
1999 The network metaphor. An assessment of Castells’ network society paradigm. In: Peter J. M. Nas and Patricio Silva (eds). Modernization, Leadership and Participation. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 21–38.
Sinclair, John
1991 Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(ed.) 1995 Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary. London: Harper Collins.
Solin, Anna
2001 Tracing Texts. Intertextuality in Environmental Discourse. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
Stenvall, Maija
1995 The Last Round of the Maastricht Poker Game: A Study of News Agency Language. Language Forum 3(1–2), 1–57.
Thompson, Geoff and Hunston, Susan
2000 Evaluation: An Introduction. In: Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson (eds). Evaluation in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–27.
Tunstall, Jeremy
1999 World News Duopoly. In: Howard Tumber (ed.). News: A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 191–200. (reprinted from Tunstall, Jeremy and David Machin 1999 The Anglo-American Media Connection. New York: Oxford University Press).
van Dijk, Teun A.
1988 News as Discourse. Hillsdale N. J.: Erlbaum.
1998 Opinions and ideologies in the press. In: Allan Bell and Peter Garrett (eds). Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell, 21–63.
Wood, Mark
ed. 1995
Reuters
Style Guide
Scientific articles and essays, distributed electronically
Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo
. Exclusive Essay by the Author of the book “Linked: The New Science of Networks” 2002b
<http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=07382066-79&displayonly=authorInterview>; accessed November 6, 2002.
Chilton, Paul
“Notes on 11 September 2001.” Distributed 12.9.2001 on the CRITICS-L list.
<http://www.watsoninstitute.org/infopeace/911/chilton_discourse.html>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Lakoff, George
1991 “Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf.” Distributed via electronic bulletin boards, January 1991. <http://philosophy.-uoregon.edu/metaphor/lakoff-l.htm>; accessed November 6, 2002
Nas Peter J. M. and Antonia J. Houweling
1999 “The network metaphor, An assessment of Castells’ network society paradigm.”
<http://www.transformaties.org/bibliotheek/nas.htm> (accessed November 6, 2002).
Electronic news media and journal articles
Angwin, Julia
“After the Cataclysm, Many Americans Grope for the Words to Describe ‘It’.” The Wall Street Journal 3.10.2001. <http://wsjclassroomedition.com/tj_100301_lang.htm>; accessed September 9, 2002.
Burns, Jim
“Watts Angered by Reuters’ Refusal to Use ‘Terrorist’ Label.” CNSNews.com 5.10.2001. <http://www.newsmax.com/cgi-bin>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Cohen, Eliot A.
A review of Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s book “Linked: The New Science of Networks”, Foreign Affairs Magazine September/October 2002. <http://www.foreign-affairs.org/20020901fabook9767/albert-laszlo-barabasi/linked-the-new-science-of-networks.html>; accessed November 6, 2002.
Kurtz, Howard
“Peter Jennings, in the News for What He Didn’t Say.” Washington Post 24.9.2001; Page C01. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14272–2001-Sep23>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Libaw, Oliver
“Defining Terrorism. Little Agreement on Where to Draw the Line.” abcNEWS.com 11.10.2001. <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/strike_-011011definingterror.html>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Loohauis, Jackie
“After the terrorist attacks new terms shred old definitions.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, last updated 14.10.2001. <http://www.jsonline.com/enter/gen/oct01/words15101201.asp>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Onion, Amanda
“Tongue-Tied. How Language Became a Struggle and May Change in Wake of Attacks.” abcNEWS.com 10.10.2001. <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/ scitech/DailyNews/strike_language0111011.html>; accessed September 10, 2002.
Schreiber, Dave
“When a word fuels the fear.” St. Petersburg Times Online: Floridian 15.10.2001. <http://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Floridian/When_a_word_fuels_-the.shtml>; accessed November 7, 2002.
Solomon, Norman
“Playing the “Terrorism” Card.” Media Beat 13.2.2003. http://www.fair.org/media-beat/030213.html>; accessed April 28, 2003.
Electronic documents by unnamed authors
“AP Today. Facts&Figures. Everything you need to know about AP in less than two pages.”
<http://www.ap.org/pages/aptoday/>; accessed April 29, 2003.
“Background Information on Terrorist Groups.” U. S. Department of State: Patterns of Global Terrorism — 2000
released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism 30.4.2001. <http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm>; accessed November 7, 2002.
“Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” U. S. Department of State: Fact Sheet by Office of Counterterrorism
23.10.2002. <http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2002/12389.htm> accessed November 22, 2002.
“Grammatical metaphor.”
University of Oslo: Functional Grammar Course Homepage 2001
<http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/systemic/metaphor.htm>; accessed September 10, 2002.
“Redesignation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” U. S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
[Public Notice 3795], 5.10.2001. <http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2001/10/fr100501.html>; accessed November 7, 2002.
“Reuters About Us: Editorial Policy”
<http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial>; accessed April 29, 2003.
“Reuters Statement regarding Editorial Policy.”
Media Statement 25.9.2001. <http://about.reuters.com/statement2.asp>; accessed September 10, 2002.
“United Nations action against terrorism.” ODCCP update
December 2001. <http://www.undcp.org/odccp/newsletter_2001–12–01_1_page006.html>; accessed November 6, 2002.
Speech transcripts from the World Wide Web
“Bush Announces Start of a “War on Terror”.” Text of the address of President Bush to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People
The White House Office of the Press Secretary 20.9.2001. <http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01092051.htm>; accessed September 16, 2002.
“President Thanks World Coalition for Anti-Terrorism Efforts.” Text of “Remarks by the President [Bush] on the Six-Month Anniversary of the September 11th Attacks”
The White House Office of the Press Secretary 11.3.2002. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020311–1.html>; accessed November 7, 2002.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addressing the 34th Zionist Congress at Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem, 20.6.2002. Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser
transcript of the English translation). <http://www.isracast.com/zc/>; accessed April 28, 2003.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Rasmussen, Joel
2015. ‘Should each of us take over the role as watcher?’ Attitudes on Twitter towards the 2014 Norwegian terror alert.
Journal of Multicultural Discourses 10:2 ► pp. 197 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.