A Critical Analysis of Political Discourse as Seen in Some of The New York Times Argumentative Editorials On the Balkan Wars

Abstract

The main concern of this thesis is to analyze argumentative editorials within a framework of critical discourse analysis. Critical discourse analysis is utilized as a tool to present a better understanding and critique of sociopolitical inequalities. It is also employed to establish the reader's awareness to evaluate argumentative practices and participate in bringing about social change. The research investigates fifty editorials, dealing with ethnic cleansing in the Balkan from 1992 - 1998. These editorials are specifically chosen as they manifest a sociopolitical problem that is characterized by inequalities, biases and ideological stances. Analyzing argumentative editorials of a widely read newspaper aims at revealing implicit ideological aspects that are inscribed on the lexical, grammatical and pragmatic levels. The analysis thus aids to demonstrate how the articles help reproduce and perpetuate existing political and ideological contexts. The thesis is divided into four main chapters, each dealing with a specific level of analysis. The macro and micro perspectives are investigated in each level. Chapter one provides a brief review on editorial writings and the linguistic theories on argumentation. It also presents the theoretical framework upon which the analysis depends. This framework is an integration of Van Eemeren and Grootendorst's (1992- 1996) Pragma-dialectics, Fairclough's (1989) critical discourse analysis, Halliday's (1994) functional theory and Van Dijk's (1980) macrostructure. Chapter two investigates the micro and macro semantics of argumentative editorials. Some semantic configurations and lexical items are found to portray either the writers' anguish or their indifference towards the issue. At the microsemantic level, different lexical relations are investigated.