A Critical Discourse Analysis of Iraqi
Soldier’s Image in Western Media
Abstract
The security situations witnessed in Iraq after 2003 were mainly characterized by instability. This represented a great challenge for Iraqi forces to impose security, and protect citizens. This has increasingly made the international medias in general and Western media in particular shed light on the Iraqi situations, including Iraqi soldiers (henceforth ISs). This has led to the emergence of a real research gap, represented by some important questions regarding the nature of the Western media’s attitude towards the IS.So, this study is an attempt to reveal the image of the IS in western media( henceforthWM).
The study is based on the hypotheses that the IS is positively depicted in WM, represented by the American and British media, and that there is a difference between these two medias in the degree of their positive attitude towards the ISs.
To achieve the aims of the study and verify its hypotheses, two types of procedures have been followed: theoretical and practical. The theoretical procedure consists of presenting a theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA), including its basic concepts, approaches, models of analysis, in addition to some related previous studies. On the other hand, the practical procedure consists of selecting five American articles from the Wall Street Journal, VOX, International Business Times, Los Angeles Time, New York Times and five British articles from Independent, The Sun, BBC News, and the Daily Mail. The selected articles have been analyzed in the light of an adapted form of van Dijk ‘s model (2000). The obtained results have been analyzed using suitable statistical tools.
The analysis of the results has shown that the attitude of both American and British media is positive. The results have also shown that the British articles manifest higher rates of frequencies and percentages of positive linguistic elements and positive ideologies than the American ones.
The study ends up with a number of recommendations and suggestions for further research based on the study’s findings.
