Volume 2 (1) 2008

Modality as a linguistic device encompasses a variety of forms, including (but not limited to) modal auxiliaries, modal verbs, modal adverbs, and modal adjectives.  The present paper focuses specifically on the use of modal auxiliaries in two political texts.  The first text, Beyond Greed: A Traditional Conservative Confronts Neoconservative Excess, is by Hugh Segal, who might be described as a ‘mainstream’ Canadian conservative, and the second, The War Against the Family, is by William D. Gairdner, who represents a far right neoconservative position in Canadian politics.  Fowler (1985) proposes five categories of modality:  validity, predictability, desirability, obligation, and permission.  Following Fowler, I classify the modals in Segal’s book of approximately 35,000 words and in a representative 35,000 words segment of Gairdner’s book. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming number of clauses in both texts fall into the categories of validity and predictability, which are, to some extent, the default modalities of (quasi) academic non-fiction texts.  Interesting difference arise, however, when one considers the deontic modalities of desirability, permission, and obligation. Using the data obtained through this analysis, I argue that Segal’s writing constitutes persuasion, whereas Gairdner’s constitutes manipulation.

Deconstructing discourse by means of counter-discourse is proposed as one method for critical discourse analysis. The case study concerns Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s controversial president with a massive presence in public discourse and the media. Apparently for the first time, samples of the discourse from his ‘49 laws’ are presented in English.

This methodological-critical paper aims to investigate the interplay between three prime strategies for legitimisation of the speaker’s actions, or actions for which she/he bears responsibility in political discourse: proximisation (cf. Cap 2006), common ground, and assertion-based patterns. It starts with a brief description of the phenomenon of linguistic legitimisation of the speaker’s actions, or of actions for which she/he is responsible. The notion may be readily associated with one of the positive politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987), however, it is far more than a politeness strategy, as it consists of a number of pragmatic and extra-pragmatic phenomena: (a) proximisation theory and the STA model for legitimisation (Cap 2005, 2006) enriched with positive, negative and neutral values, (b) assertive speech acts, and their role in assertive-directive and thesis-antithesis patterns, (c) common ground strategy. The operation of these mechanisms will be demonstrated in the analysis of a speech delivered by the Spanish Prime Minister on the acceptance of the bill allowing same-sex marriages. The application of a top-down approach to the analysis (de? Beaugrande 1991) reveals that all the aforementioned aspects comprise a net of complementary linguistic mechanisms ideally suited for the purpose of legitimisation.

Whether in legal practice or jurisprudence, court judgments or case briefs are one of the most important legal genres for the legal profession. The paper aims to examine contrastively the linguistic characteristics, moves and rhetoric of Chinese and American court judgments, with the aim of specifying the rhetorical preferences that are characteristic of ‘standard’ judgments. Legal cultures are employed to account for the generic and rhetorical differences. This study also has an underlying pedagogical motivation in that the results would be of great value and interest to the Chinese students of Language for Legal Purposes (LLP) and the lawyers practicing foreign legal affairs.

The study focuses on news reports relating to Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who were given extensive media coverage during the handover period. The transition of both premiers was considered an event as Abdullah’s leadership style is viewed as different from his predecessor, while Lee’s ascension is expected since he is the son of the first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. The investigation of the present study is undertaken using the analytic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) employed by van Dijk (1996, 1998), Fairclough (1992a, 1995a, 1995b, 2003) and Fowler (1991). The analysis looks at a general characterization of the newspaper discourse, with a focus on particular discursive strategies (i.e. newspaper headlines, leads, captions under photographs; quotation patterns; over-lexicalisation) employed to conceal ideological meanings. A corpus of newspaper articles of a local daily, The Star, is examined on 100 days after Abdullah took office, and the three months leading to Lee’s premiership. Results from the analyses illustrate how the representation of Abdullah and Lee as ‘Mr Nice Guy’ and ‘Mr Mysterious Guy’ respectively, are reinforced using the various discursive strategies mentioned above.

The study is concerned with revealing some changes in the discourse of the multinational fast food company McDonald’s in responding to the criticisms against its business practice, particularly through investigating two ideologically competing communicative voices: the criticisms of McDonald’s business practice (e.g. the London Greenpeace leaflet ‘What’s Wrong with McDonald’s?’) and letters from the McDonald’s CEO (Chief Executive Officer) to shareholders titled ‘Dear Fellow Shareholders’ in the annual reports published in 1997, 2003 and 2006. The study also discusses what caused those changes through looking at changes in consumer behaviour, culture and life style in society.  These changes are investigated by an analytical framework, Discourse Formations (DFs) (McAndrew, 2001, 2004), which provides a chance to witness the ideological struggles and changes in intratextual and intertextual relations. The intertextual analysis is based on analysing the consistently foregrounded intratextual meanings around core participants. In this study, the core participants are from the key terms in the criticism leaflet ‘What’s Wrong with McDonald’s?’ which brought the most crucial impact on damaging McDonald’s brand image through McDonald’s business history. The meanings of core participants are investigated and compared intratextually and intertextually in McDonald’s 1997, 2003 and 2006 CEO’s letters, which relates the meanings of the corresponding core participants with using the terms, Alliance or Opposition. Through the intertextual analysis and using Critical Discourse Analysis perspectives, the study will find how McDonald’s changes the construction of its social relationships, identities and beliefs in dealing with the criticisms.