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Science Or Slaughter? Two Opposing Views on Japanese Whaling: a Critical Discourse Analysis

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Science Or Slaughter? Two Opposing Views on Japanese Whaling: a Critical Discourse Analysis Science or Slaughter? Two Opposing Views on Japanese Whaling: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Jason Peppard An assignment for Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics Module 1 - Written Discourse March 2007 Centre for English Language Studies Department of English UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM Birmingham B15 2TT United Kingdom WD/06/04 Choose two news / current affairs texts, one from English-speaking media (e.g. a British or American TV news report, an Australian newspaper, etc) and the other from a media outlet in another country / language, but both dealing with the same ‘global’ events (e.g. the war in Iraq, the Asian Tsunami…). Critically discuss the two texts with reference to CDA (see Written Discourse unit 7). What differences in the representation of events, and in relations with the intended audience, can be identified? How might any such differences be related to underlying cultural and/or ideological issues? Estimated word count: 4445 1 1.0 Introduction This paper aims to identify and discuss cultural and/or ideological differences concerning the same ‘global’ event in media texts from two different countries, one from an English media outlet and the other from a non-English country. The texts will be analyzed from a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective. The topic to be discussed in this critical analysis is Japanese whaling. Japanese whaling, and whaling in general, has become an increasingly controversial topic over the years. Although only a handful of countries actively hunt whales, a great deal of media coverage and ensuing controversy resurfaces each time a new hunting season begins. Those opposed to whaling make arguments on ecological and moral grounds: Some species of whales are considered endangered which creates ecological debate while others claim that it is morally wrong to kill and eat whales since they are generally considered to be highly intelligent and sentient creatures. Pro-whaling groups counter that they have the right to hunt whales and argue that whaling is both ecologically and morally sound. Japan in particular gets the majority of media attention due to the extent of its whaling that it says is for scientific research. Fairclough’s (2001) Critical Discourse Analysis framework, consisting of ten main questions and some sub-questions, was used in the analysis and comparison of the following two media texts: 1) Japan’s Whale Hunters Set Sail for Slaughter in International Whale Sanctuary (U.S. Newswire, America) 2) Japan’s Antarctic Research Is Legal Activity (JWA News, Japan) 2 As can be predicted from the headlines alone, the representation of Japanese whaling in the texts was found to be both ideologically and culturally opposed: anti-whaling (American) written for an anti-whaling audience, versus pro-whaling (Japanese) written for a pro-whaling audience. Further analysis of the vocabulary, grammar and textual structures showed these ideological differences to be pervasive and imbedded throughout the respective texts. Interestingly, both texts used many of the same linguistic techniques and styles to push their ideologically opposing agendas. That the articles are arguing from opposing ideologies is quite obvious from the vocabulary choices and stated very clearly in the texts. What I found surprising however, is the more subtle bias found throughout the grammatical and textual structures of both texts. As a newcomer to Critical Discourse Analysis, I found it to be extremely eye opening – a very useful and powerful tool for identifying bias that is not as well known and utilized as it should be. Admittedly, I had not heard of CDA until I started studying Applied Linguistics. 2.0 Critical Discourse Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis is a relatively new branch within the multidisciplinary field of Discourse Analysis. Stubbs (1983) defines discourse analysis as: the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected spoken and written discourse. Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with language in use in social contexts (p. 1). Where Discourse Analysis studies language in a social context, Critical Discourse Analysis takes the analysis a step further, attempting “to show how discourse is shaped 3 by relations of power and ideologies” (Coulthard et al, 2000: 117-118). Fairclough (2001), an influential advocate of CDA, gives this definition: [CDA] analyses social interactions in a way which focuses upon their linguistic elements, and which sets out to show up their generally hidden determinants in the system of social relationships, as well as hidden effects they may have upon the system (p. 4). Critical Discourse Analysis therefore seeks to bring about change by exposing inequalities and biases in society that are embedded in discourse. Fowler (1995: 4) elaborates on the purpose of CDA, asserting that it challenges common sense by showing that information can be presented in various ways with very different results. In Language and the News: discourse and ideology in the press (1991), Fowler examines the pervasive bias in the press, arguing that the ‘content’ of newspapers is not based on facts, but on ideas, beliefs, values, theories, propositions and ideology (p. 1). Other issues of inequality and ideology that CDA has been used to investigate are racism (see Wodak, 1995; Krishnamurthy, 1995), sexism (see Caldas-Coulthard, 1999) and sexuality (see Gough and Talbot, 1995). The methods of Critical Discourse Analysis are as diverse as the disciplines they have been drawn from. Fairclough (2001) includes linguistics proper, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive psychology and discourse analysis in his list of contributors to the discipline. What each of these approaches lacks however, is an adequate way of critically relating discourse to social practice, which is the main concern of CDA. In Language and Power (2001: 92-93), Fairclough presents a framework consisting of ten main questions and sub-questions that can be used to critically analyze a text, stressing 4 that it is meant as a “guide and not a blueprint” (p. 92). The questions are divided into three main categories: vocabulary, grammar and textual structures: A. Vocabulary 1. What experiential values do words have? What classification schemes are drawn upon? Are there words that are ideologically contested? Is there rewording or overwording? What ideologically significant meaning relations (synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy) are there between words? 2. What relational values do words have? Are there euphemistic expressions? Are there markedly formal or informal words? 3. What expressive values do words have? 4. What metaphors are used? B. Grammar 5. What experiential values do grammatical features have? What types of process and participant predominate? Is agency unclear? Are processes what they seem? Are nominalizations used? Are sentences active or passive? Are sentences positive or negative? 6. What relational values do grammatical features have? What modes (declarative, grammatical question, imperative) are used? Are there important features of relational modality? Are the pronouns we and you used, and if so, how? 7. What expressive values do grammatical features have? Are there important features of expressive modality? 8. How are (simple) sentences linked together? What logical connectors are used? 5 Are complex sentences characterized by coordination or subordination? What means are used for referring inside and outside the text? C. Textual structures 9. What interactional conventions are used? Are there ways in which one participant controls the turns of others? 10. What larger-scale structures does the text have? The framework is constructed around three values: experiential, relational and expressive. Text with experiential value is connected to the worldview of the text producer; it gives clues to how he or she sees and experiences the environment. Text with relational value shows what social relationships are being mediated through the production and interpretation of the text. Finally, the expressive value of a text shows how the producer of the text evaluates what is being discussed. Fairclough emphasizes that any formal feature can have two or three of these values at one time (ibid: 93). Fairclough’s CDA framework was used to do the following analysis for two reasons: First, he is “one of the most active proponents of the critical orientation to language studies” (Coulthard et al., 2001: 121); he is referenced heavily and his work was found to be the most readily accessible. Secondly, his framework is easy to use and the step-by- step layout is very helpful for people who are new to language study and discourse analysis in particular. 3.0 Critical Discourse Analysis of the texts In this section, Fairclough’s CDA framework will be applied to the two texts in order to expose their ideological and cultural differences concerning Japanese whaling. The 6 analysis will clearly demonstrate that “there are always different ways of saying the same thing, and they are not accidental alternatives. Differences in expression carry ideological distinction (and thus differences in representation) (Fowler, 1991: 4). The first text, Japan’s Whale Hunters Set Sail for Slaughter in International Whale Sanctuary (see Appendix 1) will be referred to as Text A; the second text, Japan’s Antarctic Research Is Legal Activity (see Appendix 2) will be referred to as Text B. Only those questions from Fairclough’s framework that are deemed relevant will be addressed: Neither text makes use of metaphor (Question 4) while Question 9 is primarily meant for analyzing dialogue. 3.1 Contextual analysis The context of culture refers to the unique environment of a text, which in turn contains a context of situation (Malinowski, 1935; cited in Coulthard et al., 2000: 121). The context of situation can be broken down further into the Hallidayan terms of field, tenor and mode. Field refers to what is happening and what is being discussed.
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