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Article published In:
Language, Context and Text
Vol. 3:2 (2021) ► pp.302–334

Prosody and ideology

A case study of one news report on the 2003 invasion of Iraq

ORCID logo | Macquarie University , Australia
ORCID logo | Universidad de La Pampa , Argentina

The focus of this paper is on the role choices in phonological systems (Brazil 1997; Halliday & Greaves 2008) play in the ideological work of a text. Using an instance of news reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, we show how prosodic choices – both those shared with other texts in this register, and those specific to this instance – contribute to the ideological force of the text. The ideological effects of prosodic choices in this text, we argue, include projecting a very particular interpretation of the invasion as if distant and objective, and giving prominence to claims that the invasion was measured and targeted, and by implication in accordance with international law.

Keywords: ideology, prosody, register, phonology, discourse intonation, language and war, language and news, Iraq War, systemic functional linguistics, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The cultural context of news
  • 3.Reading the news
  • 4.Prosodic choice and text structure
  • 5.Prosody in the service of “newsworthiness” and “impartiality”
  • 6.The role of prosody in constructing a narrative
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.20006.luk
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