Volume 5. December 2009. | December home |

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Title
On the Representation of Iran’s Post-resolution Nuclear Issues in American News Editorials; A Critical Discourse Analytic Perspective
                          

Authors

Hossein Rezaie Adriani (M.A.)
Tehran Tarbiat Moallem University

 Bio Data

Mahmood Reza Atai is associate professor of TEFL at Tehran Tarbiat Moallem University. His research interests include ESP, task based language teaching, and teacher education. His publications include 17 research articles published in inter/national journals and three EAP textbooks for Iranian university students.

Abstract
         This study explores the representation of Iran's nuclear issues throughout forty editorials form a host of American news casting outlets with regard to their discursive manipulation at structural and strategic layers. All the editorials were released after declaring the resolution, 1696, by the United Nations Security Council on July 31, 2006. To analyze the corpus, the critical discourse analytic framework of Van Dijk (1998) was adopted as the model for examining the data. The results confirm the CD analysts' conviction about the penetration of bias in the representation of a discursive event, in this case the journalistic debate over Iran's nuclear issues. Likewise, the findings support Van Dijk's ideological circle of overstating the deeds of 'us' (i.e. the Western side of the conflict) and understating those of 'them' (i.e. the Iranian side) by making use of specific structures and strategies.