Multi-thematicity for the Translator of Ideologically

Sensitive Hard News Reports

By: Dr. Waleed B. Al-Amri

1. Introduction
A puzzled translator once sent an e-mail to a discussion group asking whether to translate a direct
quote into an indirect quote in his English translation of a report about the late maverick Palestinian
politician, Faisal Al-Hosaini. There are perhaps thousands such questions being asked by media
translators all over the world, as indeed translation is a vital component of the daily practice of the
media. The basic stuff of the news is statements by politicians, press releases, and reports by a
variety of media institutions which quite often originate in a foreign language. This scenario is of
course more relevant to some languages than others, but Arabic fits into this picture neatly.

A large proportion of the news is overwhelmingly disseminated in English by international news

agencies. News from these agencies makes up a considerable part of the content of most Arab
news media, particularly print media (Glass, 2001: 217 – 240). The English language dominates
the exchange of news around the world, especially through major international agencies such as
Reuters and Associated Press. Translation in such an environment plays an increasingly important
role.

Despite the importance of the genre of hard news reporting and the heavy reliance of Arab media
institutions on importing it from foreign language sources, this field remains seriously under-
researched in Arabic. This paper comes as an attempt to address the serious gap in research aimed
at assisting the translator to fulfil such a formidable task of translating hard news reports,
particularly in the context of the Arab media.

2. Definitions
In a precise manner, this endeavours to uncover ideological bias in hard news reports in daily
newspapers for the benefit of the translator who is a discourse analyst par excellence.

There are two immediate questions that arise from this statement:
1. What is the definition of ideology? Ideology is a generic term that has to be carefully defined
before one embarks on examining ideological bias in discourse.
2. Why ‘hard news reporting’ and not any other genre?

In what follows I will give brief answers to the above questions.

Ideology is one of the most elusive notions in the social sciences, and the aim of this study is not to
delve into the rich history of the theory of ideology, but to take from it a definition that is most in
tune with the scope of the current paper. For this purpose I would like to adopt Teun van Dijk’s
‘new’ theory of ideology, which provides the vital link between ideology and discourse (Ideology,
1998a). The theory has three main components:

1. Social functions. A theory of functions of ideologies for groups or institutions within societal
structure. This theory answers the simple question of why people develop and use ideologies in the
first place. It does not limit the role of ideology to the reproduction and legitimation of class
domination, nor does it treat ideologies in general as right or wrong, but rather as more or less
effective in promoting the interests of a group. The main social function of ideologies, therefore, is
the co-ordination of social practices of group members for the effective realization of the goals of a
social group, as well as the protection of its interests.
2. Cognitive structures. In order for ideologies to effectively sustain social functions, their cognitive
contents, structures and strategies should somehow be tailored to these social functions. What
people do as group members should reflect what they think as group members and vice versa. In
other words, social practices are underpinned by sociocultural and group-specific beliefs or social
representations, which include knowledge, attitudes, norms, values and ideologies.
3. Discursive expression and reproduction. Ideologies may be expressed directly (or indirectly) in
discourse, for example by means of expressing general opinions such as ‘Women are less
competent’ in male chauvinist ideology.

The answer to question (2), why hard news reporting and not any other genre, concerns the status
of news as the most prestigious of media genres and its role as the centre of expression of ideology
in modern society. Hard news as opposed to soft news or, as they are more commonly known,
features, which mainly but not exclusively speak out the individual voice of their writer, express the
voice of the collective author, i.e. the newspaper as an institution, in a distinctive style of which
objectivity is an essential element1.

It is now widely accepted in studies concerned with the language of the media, of which hard news
reporting is a major genre, that the media is not neutral but actually constructs and mediates
social practices: discoursal practices are ideologically invested in so far as they contribute to
sustaining or undermining a certain world-view. Therefore, this type of language requires a
critically oriented discourse analysis that can systematically critique the ideological forces at work
in different groups. Additionally, there is an acute shortage of studies of this genre in translation
studies.

3. Data and model of research

The data analysed is taken from four national daily newspapers, two written in Arabic and two in
English2. The data covers the 1998 Iraqi-UN standoff over arms inspections, which started on 12
January with the Iraqi decision to cease cooperation with UN arms inspectors and ended on 22
February when the UN Secretary-General clinched a deal with the Iraqi leadership, thus putting an
end to the crisis.

The newspapers chosen are representative of the stands of the two opposing positions at both ends
of the crisis: one in favour of taking a tough line against Iraq, with the prospect of the military
option in mind, one advocating a diplomatic solution and seeing no other possible option as viable.
The English The Times and the Kuwaiti Al-Qabas were inclined towards the former view,
considering force as a likely option. On the other hand, the English The Guardian and Al-Quds Al-
Arabi (published by a Palestinian press) took the view that the crisis could be resolved via
diplomatic channels. These newspapers are all highly prestigious and widely read. Thus the analysis
covers the view of the crisis relayed by each respective newspaper over a period of 46 days (12
January until 26 February). The analysis takes into account hard news coverage of the events as
they unfold and the features that appeared on the pages of these papers touching on the issue, as
well as all verbal and non-verbal aspects of these reports.

Other newspapers have been briefly quoted for examples, the stance of which with regards to the
crisis in hand will be alluded to as we come to discuss them.

1
The basic distinction is actually made between hard news and features. Hard news is the staple product of newsmakers:
reports of accidents, conflict, natural disasters, celebrities and dignitaries (especially in Arab news media), government
announcements, and other events which have come to light or occurred since the previous issue. Hard news is the place
where a distinctive news style is to be found. The opposite to hard news is ‘soft’ news, which is not time-bound. Feature
articles are the most obvious issue of soft news. They provide personal opinions, e.g. editorials on hard news. In features,
journalists are allowed more freedom in terms of style, and many features are written by non-journalists. Objectivity, or the
impression of objectivity, is not a condition of features as it is for hard news reports. But in reality the line is not so distinctly
drawn between the two. (Bell, 1991: 14)
2
This paper is based on the research conducted in my PhD thesis (Al-Amri, 2002). I would like to express my deepest
gratitude for my supervisor, Prof. Mona Baker, without whose detailed supervision my research would not have come to a
fruitful completion.

2
The applied model of research, focuses on the multi-thematic nature of the sign. As represented
in figure 3.1 below, the multi-thematic nature of the sign does not emphasise the relation between
a single signifier and a single signified within the sign as in mainstream semiotics3, but rather
explores the possibility of a signifier or, more likely, a number of signifiers corresponding to a single
signified or, more frequently, a certain theme of that signified.

Signified
signifier
theme 1
signifier
theme 2
signifier
theme 3
signifier
ad infinitum

Figure 3.1 The multi-thematic nature of sign

The sign maker could employ more than one signifier to communicate a certain aspect of the
signified. For example, in an e-mail, capitalisation of words or stretches of words, by an unwritten
common code, signifies IMPORTANCE to many people: the theme of the weightiness of what is
written is communicated using two (or more) signifiers, the word which carries meaning by itself
and the capital letters. The multi-thematic nature of the sign is of particular importance in the
context of this research because it highlights the co-deployment of meaning between signifiers.
This is particularly true of certain genres in modern society, e.g. advertising and news reporting in
the press.

4- Multi-thematic manifestations in the genre of hard news

reporting
There are perhaps innumerable multi-thematic manifestations employed by newspaper editors as
clues to indicate to their readers a certain ideological position on the reported event. The topic is
far from exhausted, however a four-year Ph.D. research has lead me to uncovering the following:

4.1 Schema of the news

The Dutch discourse analyst, van Dijk’s examination of news categories draws on a large scale,
empirical study of the international coverage of the assassination of president-elect Bechir Gemayel
of Lebanon in September 1982. He represents the schema of news that resulted from this study as
follows:

3
This does not exclusively refer to the Saussurean sign relation as might be understood by the use of the terms ‘signifier’ and
‘signified’, for the restrictive view of sign relations applies to all the dyadic as well as triadic (like that of Charles S. Peirce)
models of semiotics .

3
 NEWS DISCOURSE

SUMMARY NEWS STO RY

EPISODE COMMENT
HEADLINE LEAD

EVENTS EXPECTATION EVALUA TION

CONSEQUENCES/
REACTIONS

MAIN EVENT BACKGROUND

EVENTS/ VERBAL REACTIONS

ACTIONS
CIRCUMSTANCES
HISTORY

CONTEXT PREVIOUS EVENTS

Figure 4.1.1 Schema of news discourse (modelled on van Dijk, 1986: 169)

The figure above will be explained through a report published by The Guardian, on Friday 13
November 1998.

The first news schema van Dijk discusses (1986: 160-162) is summary. Summaries express the
most important topics or themes of a report; that is, what the report is about. Van Dijk (ibid: 161)
says that summaries have the important strategic function of conveying to the reader what the
intended thematic macrostructures of the report will be, ‘so the reader need not construct his
macrostructure from the sentences of the text, a bottom-up process that is much more difficult’.
Readers reconstruct details of the report they are reading through specific knowledge about the
situation obtained from previous press reports, that is from what is known as model of situation in
memory (see van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). This model is the memory representation of
accumulated experiences and information about a given situation as they were interpreted by the
reader. Additionally, this model provides specifics, and the elements in the text may recall the
information elements from the model (van Dijk, 1985: 81). Thus the newspaper does not have to
explain its ideological position to its readers in every particular report.

Furthermore, van Dijk (1986: 161) divides summaries into two categories: headlines, and the lead.
The category ‘headline’ is constituted by the various headlines, such as the main headline, and
possible upper and lower headlines. In our example the main headline is: ‘Saddam’s last chance’,
and the lower headline is: ‘Military build-up continues in Gulf’. This category is typographically
marked by large bold letters, and, in most cases, printed across the width of the whole article.
Semantically, the headline expresses the highest level of thematic macrostructure of the report: it
signals the most relevant or important information of the news report. Cognitively, therefore, it is
the information in the headline that monitors the further processes of reading and comprehension
(ibid.).

The second division of the schema summary is that of the ‘lead’. Leads occur in initial position,
under the headline, and, in many newspapers, are separated from the rest of the story. In our
example the lead is

PRESIDENT Saddam Hussein still has a chance to back down in the crisis over United Nations
weapons inspections, the United States and Britain signalled yesterday. But they continued to
bolster military forces in the Gulf region in preparation for air strikes that could be launched against
Iraq without further warning.

The lead features a fuller expression of the thematic structure of the news report, and often
repeats the highest level of thematic macrostructure as it is expressed in the headline(s). Leads do
not only have a summary function, but also they introduce the report: they summarise the central
theme of the report and establish the point of the story. According to the normative rules of
newswriting, the lead must express the major semantic categories of a news event: who, what,

4
where, when, how, and so on. However, this rule is not fully explicit as leads do not express all the
information about every single news event dealt with in the report, but only pertain to the
macropropositions of the report, and hence to the main actors, i.e. President Saddam Hussein,
America and Britain; main event, i.e. a chance to back down and bolstering military force; main
location, i.e. the Gulf, and so on4.

After the summary comes the main event. This category organises all information about the recent
events that gave rise to a news report. In the current example, the main event is ‘the new chance
for Iraq to avert military actions as signalled by US and British leaderships’. The information in the
main event(s) category forms the basis of news values such as negativity and ideological proximity.
Van Dijk (1986: 162) stresses that there are strict constraints upon what count as main events.
The events in this category must have taken place (or been discovered) within the limits of one or
two previous days.

The third news category identified by van Dijk (ibid: 164-165) is that of background. Van Dijk
(ibid.) makes a distinction within background information between context, previous events and
history. The context covers all the information in the news report about the actual situation in
which the main news event takes place. These are the general socio-political states of affair, or
current events during which the specific event takes place. Van Dijk adds that, in practice, context
is marked by textual indications of temporal or local co-occurrence, expressed by words such as
‘during’, ‘while’, ‘at the same time’, ‘as’, or simply ‘in’. Main events that have little to do with one
another but which occur in the same context (the same situation, country, etc.) are very likely to
be reported in the same news report. To serve The Guardian’s editorial policy concerning the
situation in Iraq, the main event that Iraq still has a chance to avert a military strike as signalled
by US and British officials is couched in the immediate context of military build-up in the Gulf
region, thus making the US and British promises of a last chance appear hypocritical. Let us
consider the following:

[Photograph of the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister looking dismayed and the bleak caption: ‘We don’t
see any light at the end of the tunnel. There is a tunnel after the tunnel’.]

Saddam’s last chance

Military build-up

continues in the Gulf

PRESIDENT Saddam Hussein still has a chance to back down in the crisis over United Nations
weapons inspections, the United States and Britain signalled yesterday. But they continued to
bolster military forces in the Gulf region in preparation for air strikes that could be launched
against Iraq without further warning.

Leaders and officials in Washington and London said compliance with UN resolutions would avert
punishment, as defiant Iraq again demanded an end to seven years of international economic
sanctions5.

Note: the ‘context’ is italicised in the above excerpts.

4
Allan Bell considers the lead, not the headline, as the most distinctive feature of news discourse and accordingly deals
extensively with this notion in his 1991 book.
5
The report continues to give statements and actions of US and British officials as well as preparations in Iraq and Israel, all
attesting to large-scale preparation for war.

5
Placing a large photo that spreads across the width of the article on top of the main headline is not
a very common layout in newspaper hard news reports and is clearly there for a purpose. In
cognitive terms, the photograph is thus placed to activate in the minds of the readers the situation
models that they have come to associate with The Guardian over a long period of time: i.e.
sympathy towards Iraq. Then comes the main headline, which is closely guarded by a lower
headline indicating to the reader the divergence between the words and actions of the US and
British officials: although they promise Iraq a chance to back down, they continue building up
military power in the Gulf. This move is also repeated in the lead and the divergence is further
highlighted by the use of the connective ‘but’. Additionally, in the first paragraph of the story
another dimension of the context is mentioned using the connective ‘as’: Iraq’s ‘defiant’ stance to
‘seven years of international sanctions’. This makes the words of leaders in London and
Washington, that ‘compliance with UN resolutions would avert punishment’, appear paradoxical.
The contextual indicators, statements by officials on the imminence of the strikes, units loyal to the
Iraqi leadership being deployed across Baghdad, American aircraft being moved to the region, and
Israeli preparation for attacks by Iraq, occupy the larger part of the report. All this leads one to
conclude that the statements of officials in London and Washington are couched in a context that
does not support their truth-value. Also one can conclude that the distribution of news schema can
be ideologically motivated, and usually is.

After background comes the category consequences. Journalists often include a ‘consequences’
category in news reports, which covers information about the actions and events that immediately
follow the main news event(s), and that can be seen as caused by the main events. The relevance
and importance of events are often measured by their consequences. Sometimes consequences
may become so important that they downgrade the actual main event(s) of the news story.
Although van Dijk considers verbal reactions to be the only standard subcategory of
‘consequences’, Bell (1991: 170) suggests that consequences may have another subcategory, i.e.
non-verbal consequences. This is only a matter of making explicit what van Dijk (op. cit. 165)
implied by defining consequences as ‘the actions and events that immediately follow the main news
events’. So ‘consequences’, indeed, covers both verbal reactions and non-verbal consequences.
‘Main events’, ‘background’ and ‘consequences’ together constitute what van Dijk (ibid.: 167) calls
a complete news episode, the core of a news story.

The final category that results from van Dijk’s analysis of news reports is comments. Although
there is a widespread journalistic ideology that facts and opinion should be separated, many news
reports include implicit or explicit information that has evaluative dimensions. This may simply be
presented in the form of speculations or expectations about what might happen next. Van Dijk
(ibid.) observes that opinion in this case need not be personal, although it is necessarily ‘political
and ideological’, because it presupposes beliefs about and attitudes towards rules and laws of a
social, political, or cultural nature. In our report, The Guardian editors concluded the news with
speculations about the future of the Iraqi-UN affair; albeit in quite a subtle way.

Overall indications yesterday were of two governments prepared to use force, but unable to answer
the key question: if President Saddam does give way and allow weapons inspections to resume, as
he seemed to do last February, who can guarantee that the whole cycle of the Iraqi obstruction and
western threat will not happen again? US officials stressed there was still time to avert air-strikes if
the Iraqi leader rescinded his October 31 decision to cut off cooperation with weapons inspectors.
Baghdad is demanding that the Security Council takes steps towards lifting sanctions, imposed in
1990 when its troops invaded Kuwait.
“We are not in a rush to use military force”, said the state department’s James Rubin. “We have
given Iraq chance after chance, time after time to come back into compliance.”
Iraqi opposition sources said that any air strikes would have to be hard and sustained to shake, let
alone topple, the regime. “The mood in Baghdad is mixed,” said one well-informed opposition
activist. “If you exclude supporters of the regime, some oppose attack because they believe it will
only deepen their suffering. Others want attacks, thinking that it will bring about Saddam’s end.”

6
After a detailed account of the immediate context, that is of tension building up in the region and
steady drumbeats of warnings by the US and British officials, The Guardian raises the central
question to this issue: what assurances do we have that this cycle will not happen again? Then The
Guardian evaluates the current situation in the light of the question asked by showing the attitudes
of those in charge on both sides of the conflict. American officials are cited as saying that they are
‘not in a rush’ to use military force and stressing that there is a chance for averting air strikes on
Iraq: “We have given Iraq chance after chance, time after time to come back into compliance”. At
the other end the Iraqis are demanding an end to the sanctions imposed on them 8 years earlier
and will continue to do so. It seems to be a continual cycle of obstruction of weapons inspections in
Iraq and threats of using air force in Washington and London: there is no light at the end of the
tunnel.

The Guardian continues its evaluation of the situation by citing Iraqi opposition sources: any attack
on Iraq will have to be hard and sustained to be able to overthrow the Iraqi leader and really end
once and for all this cat and mouse game that the Iraqi leadership is playing with the United Sates
and Britain. Finally The Guardian reminds its readers that the only thing that attacks will bring
about is a deepening of the suffering of Iraqi people, citing ‘a well-informed’ Iraqi opposition leader
talking about the mixed mood on the streets of Baghdad.

4.2 Quotation in news reporting

There are a variety of classifications and approaches to quotations (c.f. Short, 1988; Short et al,
1996 and 1997), however, I wish to distinguish between two major types of discourse
representation in news reports, namely direct reported speech (also called direct quotation, direct
discourse) and indirect reported speech (also called indirect quotation, indirect discourse). A simple
way to characterise the difference between the two is to say that direct speech claims to reproduce
the original utterance verbatim, while indirect speech only reports the original through a
paraphrase6.

Crucially, the world may present itself in at least two ways to journalists: not just in the form of
‘physical’ events, which journalists can then classify in accordance with their own ideological
positions, but also – and even much more frequently – in the form of events that have been
already assimilated (by others) into an ideological schema. (Jacobs, 1999: 255)

In both acts of ‘newsgathering’ (more appropriately referred to as ‘newsmaking’) journalists are

relying on the words of others, e.g. eyewitnesses, the police, spokespersons. Indeed, it is widely
agreed in the analyses of how journalists work that ‘most stages of news production involve the
processing of text and talk’ (van Dijk, 1988: 179). All this text and talk is chiefly represented in the
news report through quoting. Quoting is one of the very few ‘representational devices’ that directly
reflect a central newsmaking routine—that of sourcing (Zelizer, 1989: 372). Owing to the centrality
of this issue to journalistic practice, all aspects of quoting practices7 have been thoroughly studied
by a good number of specialists8. However, more germane to my concern in this paper is the
question: how do journalists draw the attention of readers to certain ideologically-preferred
readings of news through quotations? This is especially important if we take into consideration that
the cited discourse of the other could have, and usually does, ideological assumptions built into it
which run counter to those held by the newspaper.

To see how journalists are able to manipulate the represented discourse the following sample
report, which is taken from the newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 17 February 1998, will be analysed
below9.

6
Also I would like to draw attention to a third type of discourse representation, i.e. that of ‘bracketing’, a category that will
be introduced later in this paper.
7
For instance, quotation recontextualisation, syntactic variations, and most importantly the various functions of quotation.
8
To learn more about these and for further references, see Zelizer 1989, Gruber 1993, and Waugh 1995.
9
This is my translation of the report from Arabic.

7
An unexpected visit by the Qatari foreign minister to Baghdad upsets the Kuwaitis…
Speculations in Washington over putting off the strike until after Hajj
Iraq warns Kuwait and Bahrain against the repercussions of “Desert Thunder”
Brimakov forewarns “chemical disaster”... Chirac expects imminent solution
Iraq warned Washington, Kuwait and Bahrain yesterday of the dire consequences of a military
attack. In the meantime, high hopes surround Kofi Annan’s, the General Secretary of the United
Nations, visit to Baghdad expected over the next few days. The Deputy of the Iraqi President, Taha
Yasin Ramadhan, said yesterday that any attack led by the United States against his country would
cause damage to her interests in the Middle East.
Ramadhan added “the Iraqi leadership hope that they will not hit Iraq. But if the American
administration and Britain go ahead with the attack, I am certain that the consequences … will not
serve the influence of America in the region”. In Beirut, which witnessed two contemporary visits
by the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Said Al-Sahhaf, and the Kuwaiti Minister for Planning, Fahd Al-
Zomai’a, the Iraqi official announced after meeting his Lebanese counterpart, Faris Bowaiz, that
any country that lends its military bases to America to attack Iraq will ‘face the consequences’ of its
actions.
He added, “whoever currently opens their lands to the Americans to shed the blood of Iraqi
women and children must suffer the consequences of their crime”, clearly indicating Kuwait which
hosts American 117-Stealth warplanes, known as “the phantom”, as well as other heavy fighter
planes that will join the attack on Iraq. Al-Sahhaf also made sure to clarify his statements,
confirming that “Iraq does not threaten anyone”.
On the sphere of diplomatic efforts, it is planned that Al-Sahhaf will meet in Paris today the
French President and then Kofi Annan who will arrive at the French capital tomorrow.
In the meantime, the Iraqi news agency said that President Saddam Hussein received a letter
from the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hammad bin Khalifah Al Thani. The message was delivered by the
Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hammad bin Jasim bin Jabbar Al Thani, who is paying a first visit at
this level to Baghdad since the Gulf War in 1991. The agency also said that the message concerns
“the developments of the situation in the Gulf region”.
The meeting was attended by the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, who received Sheik
Hammad at the time of his arrival in Baghdad.
The Qatari news agency, on its part, said that the message expresses the Qatari perspective on
the crisis between Iraq and the United Nations.
On her part, France pins great hopes on Kofi Annan’s visit to Baghdad, and President Jacque
Chirac considered “the resolution of the crisis is technically close” after that visit has taken place. A
spokeswoman of the French president relayed Chirac’s saying that he thinks that a diplomatic
resolution of the Iraqi crisis is “technically” in hand and that it needs a final push for the sake of
peace.
On the other hand, the Russian Foreign Minister, Yafgini Brimakov, said that any American strike
on Iraqi sites suspected of having chemical or biological weapons could result in a disaster for the
neighbouring countries.
He told journalists in Athens: “I am not a military expert, and it’s hard to tell whether Iraq has a
large supply of chemical and biological weapons. But as our Defence Minister said during the visit
of the American Defence Secretary, [William] Cohen, to Moscow if such weapons do exist launching
an attack will severely affect the neighbouring countries”.
In New York some officials expect that the military attack on Iraq, in case diplomatic efforts fail,
will take place during the four weeks between 23 of this February and 20 of the coming March.
Sources in the Department of Defence say that the best day to launch the air attack is when the
moon is full. When the air attack started against Baghdad in 1991 it was on a night with a full
moon, the reason is that it is hard to detect Stealth planes on radar screens during the day or
illuminated nights.
According to American meteorological calculations the moon will be full in the Middle East on 26 of
this February and on 28 of next March. New York Times mentioned that there are some strange
things taking place in the Pentagon and attributes to a senior Pentagon official his saying “people
are talking about Ramadhan and the Eid, and Christmas before”. He also thinks that the strike will
be put off until the Hajj season is over.

8
The best place to start looking into how quotations were made to function in a news report is,
perhaps, the particular newspaper in which it was published—specifically its ideological position.
From my reading of the reports, as well as the editorials, that were written about the issue, it was
clear that Al-Quds Al-Arabi gave the issue great prominence and the ideological position it took was
strongly against any form of military action against Iraq. Instead it favoured a diplomatic resolution
to the crisis. Such a position is in fact quite consistent with what regular readers of this newspaper
would expect. Why is understanding the policy of the newspaper toward particular issues so
important? Simply, because signs acquire a great part of their meaning from the context in which
they are encountered. Readers would not expect to find any indication of favouring an air strike
against Iraq in any of this paper’s reports even if some quote appears to suggest it. Another
supporting factor is that the pragmatic effect of utterances is partly dependent on the reader’s
extralinguistic knowledge, e.g. knowledge of institutional practices (for more details on this subject
see Gruber, 1993). Arab readers know for a fact that Al-Quds Al-Arabi is one of the very few
newspapers outside the Iraqi borders that express their strong opinions on this issue freely.

During all stages of the crisis there were two main factions involved: countries in favour of the
military strike, mainly the United States and Britain and, to some extent but not quite so overtly,
some Arab countries; on the other hand, there were mainly three countries against any military
action, i.e. France, Russia and Iraq, naturally, as well as some Arab countries who, although
favouring a diplomatic solution, did not express their position openly. It is quite enlightening to see
whose words the newspaper is taking as given. In double bind situations newspapers tend to
express their ideas without taking responsibility for them by quoting those they align themselves
with. This, however, does not mean that they will not cite the opposition. They do, but not without
manipulation, as I will explain shortly.

Political language, especially public speeches of politicians, i.e. interviews, press conferences, etc.,
usually reflects patterns of power and domination. Politicians often try to convince their audience
that their view of the world is the right one. Thus, political language has a strong performative
component, which may be overt, e.g. appeals or commands, or covert, e.g. descriptive or
declarative statements which aim to convince people of a certain point of view. Additionally, this
performative component implies that political language is evaluative in most cases, as politicians do
not only want to convince people of their point of view, but also want them to believe that their
opinion is of a higher moral standing than that of their rivals (Gruber, 1993: 471). After working on
the analysis of text (news reports particularly) for over two decades, van Dijk (1998: 33) strongly
identifies this polarisation technique of positive ingroup description and negative outgroup
description and calls it the ideological square. Van Dijk gives the ideological square the following
functional moves that emerge clearly during times of conflict between ideological interests:
1. Emphasise our good properties/actions.
2. Emphasise their bad properties/actions.
3. Mitigate our bad properties/actions.
4. Mitigate their good properties/actions.

In what we assume to be a press conference held in Beirut, the Iraqi Foreign Minister
characteristically announces:

"‫"كل من يفتح أراضيه حاليا للمريكيين من اجل إسالة دماء النساء والطفال العراقيين يجب أن يتحمل عواقب جريمته‬
“whoever currently opens their lands to the Americans to shed the blood of Iraqi women and
children must suffer the consequences of their crime”.

This grave view of the attack resulting in shedding the ‘blood of Iraqi women and children’ is in
stark contrast with the ‘surgical attacks’ on the strongholds of the Iraqi army and leadership that
the pro-attack media have outlined. In van Dijk’s terms, the functional move that the Iraqi minister
made was that of emphasising the ‘criminal’ actions of the Americans and whoever allies
themselves with them. It is quite clear that the minister as a news manager is classifying events
according to his ideological views. Al-Quds Al-Arabi confirmed those views and chose not to
transform them or at least not to include the bloody picture of innocent Iraqi civilians that he

9
depicted. Moreover, the newspaper presented the quote as a credible and trustworthy source of
news in many ways. First of all, this was established through the framing clause.

Linda Waugh (1995: 144) calls the speech act verb and the identification of the source of the
quote, e.g. ‘the Iraqi Foreign Minister said’, the ‘framing clause’. I find this naming appropriate as
this introduction to the quote usually plays an important role in forming the readers’ perception of
what they are about to read. First, let us deal with the identification of the source.

Journalists have access to a limited number of typical ways of identifying the speaker. The most
frequently used ones are: identification of the source by social function, e.g. the spokesperson for
the White House; evidential expressions relating to anonymous sources, e.g. a source close to the
Prime Minister, informed, reliable, official reputed sources: in Arabic we have ‫ مصدر مطلع‬and ‫مصدر‬
‫ ;رفيع المستوى‬and the metonymic reference, e.g. Washington, the Iraqi leadership. Additional
information about the source may be given, mainly in the form of relative clauses, e.g. who was on
his way to Paris, or prepositional clauses, e.g. during the visit.

It is important to know who are the sources that the report is quoting, what exactly are the
cited words and how the quote was framed, to gain insight into the ideological stance of the
newspaper. As I said earlier, Al-Quds Al-Arabi was in favour of a diplomatic resolution. A look at the
three parameters of source, quote and framing might help us reveal this stance:

 The Deputy of the Iraqi President, Taha Yasin Ramadhan, said yesterday that
any attack led by the United States against his country would cause damage to her interests in
the Middle East.

 Ramadhan added
“the Iraqi leadership hope that they will not hit Iraq. But if the American administration and
Britain go ahead with the attack, I am certain that the consequences…will not serve the
influence of America in the region”

 The Iraqi official [Iraqi Foreign Minister, Al-Sahhaf] announced after meeting his Lebanese
counterpart…that
the country that lends its military bases to America to attack Iraq will “face the consequences”
of her actions.

 He added
“whoever currently opens their lands to the Americans to shed the blood of Iraqi women and
children must suffer the consequences of their crime”.

 Al-Sahhaf also made sure to clarify his statements, confirming that

“Iraq does not threaten anyone”

 The Iraqi news agency said that

President Saddam Hussein received a letter from the Emir of Qatar

 The agency also said that

the message concerns “the developments of the situation in the Gulf region”

 President Jacque Chirac considered

“the resolution of the crisis technically close”

 A spokeswoman of the French president reported Chirac as saying that

he thinks that a diplomatic resolution of the Iraqi crisis is “technically” in hand and that it needs
a final push for the sake of peace.

 The Russian Foreign Minister, Yafgini Bimakov, said that

10
 any American strike on Iraqi sites suspected of having chemical or biological weapons could
result in a disaster for the neighbouring countries.

 He told journalists in Athens

“I am not a military expert, and it’s hard to tell whether Iraq has a large supply of chemical or
biological weapons. But as our Defence Minister said during the visit of the American Defence
Secretary, [William] Cohen, to Moscow if such weapons do exist launching an attack will severely
affect the neighbouring countries”.

 In New York some officials expect that

the military attack on Iraq, in case diplomatic efforts fail, will take place during the four weeks
between 23 of the current February and 20 of the coming March.

 Sources in the Department of Defense say that

the best day to launch the air attack is when the moon becomes full.

 According to American meteorological calculations

the moon will be full in the Middle East on 26 of this February and 28 of the coming March.

 New York Times mentioned that

There are some strange things taking place in the Pentagon

 and [New York Times] attributes to a senior Pentagon official his saying
“people are talking about Ramadhan and the Eid, and Christmas before”.

 He also thinks that

The strike will be put off until the Hajj season is over.

The sources referred to here are mostly of the section of the world sympathetising with Iraq: senior
Iraqi officials, the Iraqi news agency, the French President, a spokeswoman of the French
President, and the Russian Foreign Minister. The Iraqi officials are quoted as warning against the
dire consequences on the humanitarian side and as reminding their opponents that such actions
will affect American interests in the region and inflict some damage on those neighbouring
countries that intend to assist the US. However, conscious of the ‘allegations’ of the pro-attack
party, namely that Iraq poses a threat to its neighbours, the Iraqi officials hasten to make it clear
that Iraq is not ‘threatening’ but is only ‘warning’, and the newspaper makes sure the comment is
reported. Although sceptics at the time thought that the United Nations Secretary-General’s hands
were tied, the report surrounds his planned negotiation visit to Baghdad with ‘high hopes’, quoting
the French President as considering ‘the resolution of the crisis…technically in hand’. The report also
highlights the sign ‘technically’, in Arabic "‫"من الناحية الفنية‬, to show that it is only a matter of
formalities. Then the report cites a very important figure in the crisis, from the point of view of
those against the attack at least, i.e. the Russian Foreign Minister, forewarning of a ‘chemical
disaster’, yet again reminding the other party that any attack on Iraq will have dire consequences
for all. The Iraqi officials, the French President and the Russian Foreign Minister are all mentioned
in the main headline of the report to signal the newsworthiness of what they have to say. Although
their views constitute the larger part of the report, other parties are also cited: the Qatari news
agency, American officials, and New York Times quoting a senior Pentagon official. During his visit
the Qatari Foreign Minister handed a message from the Emir of Qatar to the Iraqi President. The
report attributes two quotes concerning this message, one to the Iraqi news agency saying that the
message concerned ‘the developments of the situation in the Gulf region’, and the other to the
Qatari news agency saying that ‘the message expresses the Qatari perspective on the crisis
between Iraq and the United Nations’. Neither agency has much to say about the nature of the
message. What they said, "‫"تطورات الوضع في منطقة الخليج‬, and "‫الرسالة تعرض وجهة نظر قطر من الزمة بين‬
‫"العراق و المم المتحدة‬, are familiar buzz phrases used by Arab news managers, i.e. the two official

11
news agencies here, when talking about visits and messages in particular as a way of not really
revealing the true purpose of a visit or the contents of a certain message. In fact, one cannot know
what the Qatari position is from these quotes. The quotes, however, are introduced in such a way
as to sound more important than they are, indeed those used to reading Arab newspapers10 may
wonder why such statements, which for an Arab reader are void of content, are used in such a
serious report. The answer is quite clear if you know the background to the crisis. This visit is
highlighted by the journalists of Al-Quds Al-Arabi to indicate that it upset the Kuwaitis and that it is
the first at this level since 1991, thus furthering the newspaper’s own agenda: the Qatari Foreign
Minister’s visit to Baghdad is made to work as a metonym of Arab dissatisfaction with what is
happening.

Furthermore, some American sources are cited as speculating that military attacks will be delayed
until after Hajj, that is after the Muslim religious season has finished. Again, the accountability of
these sources is underscored. They are officials in New York, sources in the American Department
of Defence and a senior Pentagon official. Their professional role indicates that they are in a
position to make decisions or at least to know of such decisions. The outcome of their quotes in this
report is that an air strike on Iraq, ‘should the diplomatic efforts fail’, is not imminent: obviously for
two reasons, the first is of meteorological nature and the second is that America does not want to
provoke Muslim anger against herself in such controversial circumstances.

The second component of a framing clause that Waugh (1995: 144) identifies is ‘the speech act
verb’ that precedes the quote. Geis (1987: 130-134) calls special attention to the verbs
journalists use to introduce quotes. His exploratory study11 uses two dimensions to describe these
verbs; expression of positive/negative affect and high/low volatility. Positive affect puts the quoted
in a good light, e.g. advise, reaffirm, inform, ensure, maintain, acknowledge, offer, suggest.
Negative affect, by contrast, puts the quoted in a negative light, for example, plead, trumpet,
attack, brag, mutter, shrug, claim, insist, accuse. The distinction between high/low volatility, on the
other hand, concerns the degree of involvement on the part of the quoted. Verbs of low volatility
are considered to be neutral, e.g. report, reply, answer, mention, note, say, add, declare, tell,
assure. High volatility verbs, however, are stronger in expressing opinion, e.g. attack, trumpet,
ridicule, assail, reaffirm, stress a commitment to. Clearly, these two dimensions are connected,
since low volatility verbs tend to express neutral or slightly positive affect, whereas high volatility
verbs more often than not express negative affect.

I find it quite useful, for analytical purposes, to extend the concepts of high/low volatility and
positive/negative affect verbs to encompass all word classes: nouns, adjectives, and proverbs.

The verbs that are used by Al-Quds Al-Arabi in this report mostly fall into the category of low
volatility verbs: said, added, announced, told, and mentioned. There is only one high volatility
verb, i.e. confirm, that is used to describe the statement of the Iraqi Foreign Minister that Iraq does
not ‘threaten’ anyone. On the other hand, three positive affect verbs are used here, namely,
‘consider’ when the French President considered the crisis ‘technically’ resolved, ‘expect’ when
some American officials expected the delay of the attack, and ‘think’ when the senior Pentagon
official thought that the strike will be put off. However, no negative affect verbs are used in this
report. Nonetheless, the headline contains two high volatility verbs, i.e. Iraq ‫( يحذر‬lit. ‘warns’) and
Brimakov ‫( ينذر‬lit. ‘forewarns’) a chemical disaster, and a positive affect verb: Chirac ‫( يرى‬lit.
‘expects’) imminent solution. No negative affect verbs are used throughout the report. This is to be
expected, since all the quotes are, one way or the other, against an attack on Iraq, and since this is
in line with the newspaper’s stand on the issue.

Like all other components of a report, speech act verbs are multi-thematic and intertextually
connected to the rest of the report. For instance, the headline and the lead contain the highly
10
Julia Ashtianey (1993: 36-50) calls such news and expressions frames and fillings.
11
Geis (1987) studied bias in news reporting in the three major American news magazines Newsweek, Time and USN&WR.
The study concentrated on the coverage of the presidential race between former Vice President Mondale and President
Reagan, during the 10-week-period from 18/6/84 through 27/8/84.

12
volatile verb ‘warn’, in the Arabic original "‫ "ينذر‬and "‫( "وجه إنذارا‬lit. issued a warning). Its
occurrence at the beginning of the report makes this verb work as a ‘pre-sequence’ (Levinson,
1983) encouraging the reader to interpret the statements of the Iraqi officials as warnings and the
two low volatility verbs of ‘say’ and ‘add’ that preceded them as the high volatility verb ‘warn’.

I would also like here to add a third component to the framing clause as a means of influencing the
readers’ reception of a quote. It was explained earlier that the buzz phrase, "‫الرسالة تتعلق بتطورات‬
‫ "الوضع في منطقة الخليج‬was made to work as a metonym of Arab solidarity with Iraq. However, another
example will explain further why the ‘introduction’, or the remarks introducing the quote in
question, are to be considered part of its framing clause.

Chirac expects imminent solution [headline]

In the meantime, high hopes surround Kofi Annan’s…visit to Baghdad expected over the next few
days. [lead]

On her part, France pins great hopes on Kofi Annan’s visit to Baghdad, and President Jacque Chirac
considered “the resolution of the crisis is technically close” after that visit has taken place.

The multi-thematic nature of the quote (italicised in the above excerpt) and its recontextualisation
in this report yields the reading desired by the journalists who produced this report. The ‘imminent
solution’ to the crisis expected to take place that is mentioned in the headline, the ‘high hopes’
surrounding Annan’s visit in the lead and France’s pinning ‘great hopes’ on the visit in the
statement that preceded the quote, will all help in framing the readers’ perception of the quote.
‘The resolution of the crisis is technically close’ is taken out of context and its quality to signify
more than one meaning is made use of by virtue of the remarks that preceded it, to make it look
like a statement of ‘great hope’ by the French authorities.

4.3 The report surroundings

The simultaneous display of signifiers on a page of a print medium, newspapers in particular, plays
a major part in shaping the reader’s reading experience and thus the reader’s interpretation of
these signifiers. Unlike broadcast media in which signifiers are presented sequentially, according to
the news editor’s choice, print media, by being presented all at once, offer more freedom to the
reader to choose the sequence in which he/she wants his/her reading to proceed.

In fact, some signifiers, i.e. the visual signs and the headlines, have more impact on the reader
than mere words and are likely to be read earlier, hence their importance as intertexts that can
influence the reader’s decoding of a particular news report.

The front page of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas on 5 February 1998 provides a good example as
to how the co-occurrence of signifiers on the printed page can influence their reading. Excluding
items on other issues, there are 6 items concerning the early 1998 Iraqi-Unscom standoff on the
page in hand. The first four are the main report of the day, and there are further three small
reports appearing in the same visual space allocated to the main report. They are headlined:

1. The main report:

((‫تراجع ))الدبلوماسية‬ ‫اللمسات الخيرة للمواجهة مع‬

‫ صـاروخـيـة‬-‫))عـاصـفة صحـراء(( جـوية‬

‫رفض امريكي للصيغة العراقية الروسية للتفتيش‬
‫واشنطن تقلل من اهمية كلم يلتسن عن ))الحرب العالمية‬
((

The final touches on the confrontation with the retreat of “diplomacy”

Air-missile “Desert storm”

13
US refusal of the Iraqi-Russian inspection outline
Washington plays down the importance of Yeltsin’s talk about “World War”

2. The first short report:

:‫كوك يزور البلد اليوم‬
‫صـدام يـخـطيء الحـسـاب‬
Cook visits the country today:
Saddam miscalculates

3. The second short report:

‫زايد و حمد تسلما رسالتي المير‬

Zaid and Hamad received the to letters of the Emir

4. The third short report:

‫ الجهاز على المقربين من صدام‬:‫تقرير أمريكي‬
A US report: the killing of those close to Saddam

Adjacent to the main report, on the right hand side, is the editorial of Al-Qabas which is headlined
‫( الوحدة الوطنية‬lit. National Unity) and comes under the heading ‫( قضية اليوم‬lit. today’s issue). The
editorial is condemnatory of the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, and urges the Kuwaitis to remain
united in the face of the adversity he inflected on them.

On the left hand side of the main report there is an index to the main items inside the newspaper.
At the top of the list is ‘an open letter form Major-General Wafiq Samiraee to Saddam’. Major-
General Wafiq Samiraee being the former Head of the Iraqi Military Intelligence is considered by Al-
Qabas as a representative of an oppositional Iraqi voice and consequently is given great space on
the pages of the newspaper early in 1998 (see 5.5). Al-Qabas editors include the following strongly
worded excerpts from his ‘open letter’ to President Saddam in the index to draw the reader’s
attention to it.

‫تجر العراق إلى حرب سيلعنك عليها ال و التاريخ و الناس‬

‫إنه حياتك والشعب يحافظ على حريمك و الطفال‬
‫أو اطلب اللجوء لدى من يذرف عليك دموع التماسيح‬..
‫ أو تنازل للسد و اختم هزائمك‬..

You are plunging Iraq into a war that Allah, history and people will curse you for
End your life and the people will take care of your women and children
..or seek asylum with those who would shed crocodile tears for you
..or abdicate for Asad and conclude your defeats

Bearing in mind that a reader could conceivably start reading any of these items before the rest or
at least have a cursory look at the headlines and bold text before reading any of these items
closely, their intertextual relations are clearly vital for the social semiotic analysis proposed in this
paper, and every item that could influence the interpretation of the report analysed will duly be
looked into, in particular the ideological bias of that item and whether it conforms to what is or is
not communicated in the analysed report.

14
4.4 Editorial multi-thematic manifestations
These are sometimes not as tacitly expressed editorial interventions as the already mentioned
ones.

4.4.1 Bracketing
A quite common editorial technique that plays on the multi-thematicity of signs in newspaper
reports is bracketing. Bracketing is one of the most frequent techniques used by editors and,
indeed, one of the best indications of the inner dialectic quality of signs. It involves hijacking the
words of a source of news and instilling them with an element of value judgement. Mostly, it is
used to vilify the other’s words as untrue or untrustworthy. In some cases, by contrast, bracketing
is used to effect an impression of trustworthiness and authority. The bracketed words are, in the
majority of cases, segments of text shorter than a sentence.

The Daily Telegraph’s report (February 24, 1998) on the deal that was struck by the UN Secretary-
General Kofi Annan and the Iraqi leadership as an alternative diplomatic solution to the more likely
military strike that the US and its allies were about to launch in February 1998 carried the following
headlines and leading paragraph:

Clinton backs UN deal with caution

US forces to stay on alert in the Gulf
PERSEDENT Clinton signalled yesterday that he would “tentatively” accept the new deal brokered
by Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, to resolve the crisis over weapons inspections
in Iraq. But the White House, in a sign of caution mirrored by Tony Blair in London, insisted that it
would keep its military forces battle-ready in the Gulf for at least six months.

The sign “tentatively” was hijacked from the speech of the American President at a press
conference held in the oval office for the occasion. It is singled out to reinforce the idea around
which the whole report revolves, i.e. that the deal is not conclusive. The news editor(s) of The
Daily Telegraph took this sign as it is, bracketed it between double inverted commas and presented
it to the readers, in the course of a report cautious about the deal, as the actual word of the person
in charge: the sign “tentative” is accentuated as authoritative.

It is not only short segments of text that are bracketed in newspaper reports, but longer segments
are also frequently picked out and bracketed. The following extract is taken from the report of The
Guardian (February 24, 1998) commenting on the same deal:

Claiming that his threats of military action had been instrumental in achieving the diplomatic
outcome, he said: “Once again we have seen that diplomacy must be backed by strength and
resolve.”

We have again an instance of bracketing of a sign taken from the speech of the American
president, which was the highlight of the events of the crisis on that day. However, this time his

15
words are not taken as a sign of authority, but quite the opposite: they are being refuted. When
president Clinton uttered these words, they were part of a speech delivered with conviction.
Ascertaining his words as facts, The Guardian singled out this sign and presented it suggestively as
essentially a way of saving face. The comment ‘Claiming that his threats of military action had been
instrumental in achieving the outcome’ constrains our reading of what follows after ‘he said’, by
suggesting that the words that were affirmatively said by the US president are no more than a
claim. The inner dialectic quality of signs allowed this evaluative comment to achieve its desired
effect.

It should not be understood from this that all quoted material constitutes examples of bracketing.
Quoted material is often ‘objectively’ reported to the reader without obvious judgemental
overtones. And it should not be understood either that bracketing is limited to direct quotes,
though it is more common where only very few words are singled out and they are, therefore,
more likely to be explicit cases of bracketing.

4.4.2 Definition and additional information

Another technique that news editors resort to by way of making use of the multi-thematic
characteristic of signs is that of definition. Definition is multi-thematicity par excellence. When a
news editor defines a sign he/she accents an aspect of the sign that is relevant to his/her purpose,
ignoring all other, perhaps even more common, definitions. Earlier in 4.1.1 the riots that took place
in the Iraqi city Albasra were introduced as the incident was reported by the Saudi daily Asharq Al-
Awsat (May 21, 1999). In that report we come across quite an interesting case of definition. The
opening lines of the report were:

‫ كصبرى المدن العراقيصة بعصد العاصصمة‬،‫كشفصت مصصادر فصي المعارضصة العراقيصة أن مواجهات مسصلحة واسصعة كانصت قصد اندلعصت فصي البصصرة‬
…‫ في مارس )آذار( الماضي‬،‫بغداد‬
Sources in the Iraqi opposition have revealed that widespread armed confrontations had taken
place in Albasra, the largest Iraqi city after the capital Baghdad, last March…

The sign Albasra is defined here as ‘the largest Iraqi city after the capital Baghdad’. This definition
becomes particularly interesting when we consider the readership to whom it was put forward. The
Iraqi city, its importance in early Arab culture and what it is today, are all too familiar to be defined
for an Arab readership. So, is it a matter of stating the obvious? The answer is simply, no. It is a
matter of exploiting the multi-thematic nature of signs to serve a specific purpose. The whole
report may be said to exaggerate or at least emphasise the significance of the riots. Defining
Albasra in these terms, when it could have been defined in a myriad of other ways, serves specific
ends. To heighten the effect in the mind of the reader, the definition underlines the importance of
the place in which riots took place as ‘the largest Iraqi city’, second only to ‘the capital’ Baghdad.

16
The theme which is accentuated here is the significance of the city as it stands today in the Iraqi
state, which, in turn, communicates the magnitude of the riots.

Definition also entails giving additional information about the sign. Indeed examples of
additional information are more likely to be encountered in newspaper reports than those of full-
fledged definitions. A photo of a certain Iraqi, Abu Ziad, which is included in the report of The
Guardian (February 17, 1998), has the caption: ‘Abu Ziad lost his wife and four children in the
bombing’. ‘Lost his wife and four children’ is given as additional information about a man with
whom The Guardian wants its readers to sympathetise. The theme of loss is accentuated here.
Another theme might not serve the goal of the paper with equal strength. In the previous definition
of Albasra additional information was given about Baghdad, i.e. ‘the capital’. Because the report
was meant to emphasise the scale of the riots, the additional information about Baghdad as ‘the
capital’ was not superfluous.

Bracketing, definition and additional information are the most frequently encountered
manifestations of multi-thematicity in newspaper reports, but they are by no means the only such
manifestations. There is a number of other, less frequent manifestations of the manipulation of
multi-thematicity which newspapers borrow from related printed media. These techniques, like the
headline, generally concern the layout of the report: typeface, splash, singling out of quotes and
paragraphs (i.e. pull-quotes), highlighting, etc. These are subject to the design policy of individual
newspapers, which varies greatly over time, and, by and large, is designed to emphasise what is
highlighted as particularly significant.

4.4.3 Sentence-initial markers

The last of the multi-thematic manifestations that I want to deal with in this paper is that of what
Khalil (2000) calls sentence-initial markers. ). Sentence-initial markers, e.g. ‫( مصن ناحيصة أخرى‬lit. from
another side/aspect) ‫( ممصا يذكصر أن‬lit. among things to be mentioned is that), are grounding devices
heavily used in Arabic news texts. They fulfil a number of functions but most importantly indicate
the relevance and significance of what comes after them. They give the Arabic news text a level of
internal coherence which is rarely available in its English counterpart.

‫ مما يذكر أن‬and ‫من المعروف أن‬, literally, among things to be mentioned is that and it is known that,
respectively, in particular, usually indicates that the following is relevant background information
that special attention has to be paid to it.

5. Conclusions
Hard news reporting in the press is one genre which has received much attention in fields of
research like Critical Discourse Analysis and, to a lesser extent, social semiotics. However, this work
has not had much impact on translation studies so far, in spite of the fact that news reports are
translated into all languages on a regular basis, Arabic particularly being one of the languages in
which foreign media texts are translated.

Right at the beginning of this paper I gave an example of the kind of dilemma many news media
translators are regularly confronted with: should I or should I not translate a direct quote into an

17
indirect quote? To answer such a question and to assist professional translators to take informed
decisions when faced with such problems, I proposed in this study a model for the analysis of the
genre of hard news reporting, which is the most widely consumed of news media genres.

Paying particular attention to the multi-thematic manifestations of the hard news report has
important applications in training translators and informing the work of professional translators,
insofar as the translator is a privileged reader who can only transfer a text from one
language/world view into another on the strength of his/her own interpretation, which is hopefully
better informed and more sensitive to textual and meaning nuances than the casual interpretation
of an ordinary reader.

There is also the social dimension. This paper treats newspapers as social institutions with
distinctive ideologies. Ideology is not defined here along the lines of class struggle but as codes of
conduct of work motivated by, among many other factors, the interest of the social group that
holds it. This view caters for the incompatible and, at times, conflicting ideologies that are held
within the same society. As we have seen, two newspapers from the same society, such as The
Guardian and The Times, demonstrate different ideological bias towards the issue of military action
against Iraq. Here is an example of the importance of understanding the ideological bias of each
news institution in decoding the message of the text. The photograph in question appeared in two
of the newspapers studied in this paper, i.e. Al-Quds Al-Arabi and The Times. What we are most
concerned with are the captions written by each newspaper commenting on what the photograph
shows. The interplay between the verbal and the visual is shown in its strongest form between the
photograph and the caption; the caption could greatly influence the way we look at photographs.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi (p. 4, 2 February 1998) printed the photograph in question with the following
caption underneath it:

‫متطوعون عراقيون يهتفون ضد السياسة المريكية في بغداد امس‬

Iraqi volunteers shout condemnations of the American policy in Baghdad yesterday

The Times (p. 12, 5 February 1998), on the other hand, commented on the photograph with the
following caption: ‘An Iraqi soldier brandishes his rifle in front of university students’. The choice of
caption in each case can be understood by reference to the ideological bias of the relevant
newspaper towards the issue: Al-Quds Al-Arabi follows an antagonistic line towards the US policies
in the region while The Times reported the Iraqi regime as oppressive, enlisting students as
‘volunteers’ in anticipation of the strike.

The dynamism of meaning which necessitates that the analyst goes beyond the analysed text to
see how the surrounding texts may play a role in influencing its interpretation. How do these texts
interact on the page? Do they seem to be communicating the same or contradictory messages?
Does one mode of communication dominate over the other, or invite the reader to interpret one in
the light of the other? In newspapers the final shape in which the page appears, the front page in
particular, will have gone through many phases before it is finally decided by a team of senior
editors known as the backbenchers.

References:

Al-Amri, W. (Ph.D. Thesis) (2002) Social Semiotics for Translation: Applications of a Proposed
Social Semiotic Model in the Analysis of a Corpus of Hard News Reports in Arab and British
Newspapers. Manchester: UMIST.

Bell, A. (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.

Geis, M. (1987) The Language of Politics. New York: Springer-Verlag.

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Glass, D. (2001) “The Global Flow of Information: A Critical Appraisal from the Perspective of Arab-
Islamic information Sciences”, in H. Kai (ed.), Mass Media, Politics and Society in the Middle East.
pp. 217-240.

Gruber, H. (1993) “Evaluation devices in newspaper reports”. Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 19.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.
Jacobs, G. (1999) “Hegemony in the news”, in J. Vershueren (ed.), Language and Ideology.
Antwep: International Pragmatics Association.

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