The Way of Using Socio- Semantic Features to Identify Social Actors in National and International Newspapers about Iran's Nuclear Program.

Subject Areas : Media Management

Giti Taki ¹ , Maryam Nakhaei ²

1 - Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Sistan and Baluchestan University, Iran
2 - Master of Public Linguistics, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran

Received: 2017-01-13 Accepted : 2018-09-08 Published : 2018-08-23

Keywords: differentiation, personalization, impersonalization, critical discourse analysis, association,

Abstract :

Critical discourse analysis basically is the way of representation of social and political events in language. It makes visible the common – sense social and cultural assumptions which below the level of conscious awareness, are embedded in all forms of language that people use. In this regard and based on critical discourse analysis, Van Leeuwen (1996) has presented a theoretical framework with socio – semantic features, as representation of social actors, which is for analyzing text. Based on the theory, this study will try to analyze the using of four features of the theory, personalization, impersonalization, association, differentiation, in a selection of national and international newspapers' headlines about Iran's nuclear program during 2001-2012. The study will answer this question that whether national and international newspapers use these features to represent social actors and is there any difference between them in using these features? To do this, 242 headlines of two national newspaper, Keyhan and Iran, and two international newspaper, The Washington post and The Guardian were selected and analyzed by using an analytical- descriptive method. The findings showed both national and international newspapers the features in representation of social actors about Iran's nuclear program but each group uses them differently.