Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic

University of Toronto

viktoria.jovanovic.krstic@utoronto.ca

Framing the War on Terrorism? Linguistics Variation, Perspective and Iraq

October 7, 2002, President George Bush delivered his Address to the Nation on Iraq stating quite firmly:

America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights - to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor, self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. (October 7 2002 whitehouse.gov).

Shortly after President Bush's Address, the "war on terror" was expanded to include Iraq. In the press, perspective is everything, and nowhere has this been more apparent in recent history than in the much publicized war on terrorism. Ideally, the fundamental function of press journalism is to inform the reader; therefore, a journalist's interpersonal positioning must enable or facilitate negotiation not only with readers but also with the institutions directly implicated by the stories being produced (Martin and White 2005). Spinning and framing is therefore at once both linguistic manipulation and variation, as well as strategic packaging, including but not limited to, the physical placement of the story and the exposure of key terms and ideas, such as `war on terrorism.' When journalists frame news stories, they express and strategically manipulate rhetoric, sources, positioning, tone, and headlines with the purpose of representing and presenting a particular perspective on `reality;' it is the classic case of same news, different views.

This paper will demonstrate that the press frames and varies the perspective of news stories in order to achieve a particular ideological goal. The focus is a comparative account of the third year anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, examining Guy Gugliotta's (March 19 2006) assessment of America's military effort in the war on terror in Iraq (washingtonpost.com) and a similar article written by Nedra Pickler (March 20 2006, boston.com article). Using Appraisal Theory's systems of Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation the focus will be on how writers use rhetoric to pass judgment, appreciate situations, and express attitude and emotion towards the events in question. Since attribution of external sources effects the framing of information in news stories, the paper will also compare aspects of intertextual positioning within the two texts.

Framing: a rhetoric

According to J. Herbert Alstschull (1984), information in the press is a direct result of the ideology of the times. The news is framed to present the content of the day (Borchers 2005). Hence, framing is a product not only of the institution of the press, but also of those who finance the press and those who control politics (Hicks 2006). Frames resemble topics or central themes, in that they organize the news story to make it accessible and interesting to the reader. Frames are also metaphorical in nature; they present the something-is-like-something else relationship to readers and this helps readers make connections, often between things they would never consider connecting on their own. From a placement perspective, frames are usually grouped together in a logical manner; hence, combatitive, consensus and conjecture frames are the typical frames found in war reporting. Metaphorically, these three typical frames tend to reflect the America-as-Hero, the State-as-Person System, and particularly in the current war on terrorism, the Fairy-Tale of the Just War (Lakoff, 1991, 2003). Taking each of these typical frames In turn, combative frames are usually centered around very specific themes or topics. Since the beginning of the war on terror, the combative frames characterizing many newspaper articles have revolved around playing out a number of very popular metaphorical scenarios, specifically War-as-Violent-Crime, where there are clear winners and losers. According to Lakoff, (1991: 4) this metaphor "highlights strategic thinking, team work, preparedness, the spectators in the world arena, the glory of winning and the shame of defeat". Another common metaphorical frame is that of the Irrational Villain. In the current war on terror, Saddam Hussein was presented as above all cunning, strategic and evil. Hence, it was clear from the beginning that as well as being amoral, vicious, and a villain, he was also irrational - the key ingredient to convince a reading public that war alone would improve the situation in present day Iraq and rid the world of weapons of mass destruction. Finally, in order for the metaphorical frame of the Fairy Tale of the Just War to be believable, it must contain a hero who survives a treacherous terrain and an evil monster whom the hero must engage in battle and conquer. Victory can only be achieved in the Fairy-Tale of the Just War when the villain is defeated and the victim or victims are rescued (Lakoff 1991: 2).

Appraisal Theory and the rhetoric of framing

As a method of analyzing discourse, Appraisal Theory (AT) concerns itself with how writers express and negotiate ideological positions. The-se beliefs usually take the position of binary opposites: good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate behaviour, and they tend to illustrate what should or should not happen in the world, thereby setting one society or culture apart from another. Appraisal Theory is a functional theory which views language from a social perspective as a theory of choice. Hence, it stems from the notion that writers make choices and that these choices are subjective not objective. Thus, writers choose to present the news in one way as opposed to another; they choose to represent information strategically by avoiding certain issues and concentrating on others.

Like many theories, AT is ideologically laden, but it chooses to examine ideology lexicogrammatically by defining and describing how writers use language to examine, negotiate and maintain their ideology. Appraisal Theory examines negotiation in action based on three very specific systems: the system of Attitude, the system of Engagement and the system of Graduation.

Attitude - the system of Evaluation: Affect, Judgment, Appreciation

As a method of analyzing discourse, AT concerns itself with how writers express and negotiate ideological positions in discourse. Attitude is the system which examines the rhetoric of evaluation, attitude, and emotion based on the sub-systems of Affect, Judgment and Appreciation.

Attitude: Affect

Affect is concerned with how writers construe emotion. In the press, emotion can be represented either Authorially, using the first person, or Non-Authorially, where the writer is the source of the emotion by which evaluation is conveyed or where what is being described is not the writer's emotions but those of other people or groups (Iedema et al. 1994). Writers who construe emotion in their articles put solidarity between themselves and the readers at risk, since solidarity can only be maintained if the reader agrees with the writer's position and the evaluation of the phenomena in question (Iedema et al., 1994).

Attitude: Judgment

The subsystem Judgment is concerned with how writers evaluate people based on socially accepted norms. Appraisal Theory recognizes two mutually exclusive perspectives: Social Esteem and Social Sanction.

Social Esteem is based on evaluations in which the person or group being judged is raised or lowered in the esteem of his, her or their community; social esteem has no legal or moral implications. It is concerned with evaluations of Normality, Capacity, and Tenacity (White 2006) measured on a cline of positive and negative.

Social Sanction is based on evaluations in which the person or group is being judged on the basis of legality or morality. Social Sanction is concerned with evaluations of Veracity (truth) and Propriety (ethics). Like Social Esteem, Social Sanction is measured on a cline of positive and negative.

Writers may indicate Judgment in one of two ways: explicitly or implicitly. Explicit Judgment is clearly indicated with a lexical marker which shows a positive or negative evaluation, for example: "What a monster!" Implicit Judgment may be less clear-cut. The system of Attitude: Judgment recognizes two types of implicit judgment: Evoked Judgment and Provoked Judgment.

Evoked: Judgment has no evaluative language present in the proposition; nevertheless, although it appears factual, the information which is presented still manages to imply either positive or negative evaluation because it stands out from what can be considered normal/abnormal or good/bad behaviour, for example: "Bush marks Iraq date, omits using `war' word" (Judgment: evoked: negative: veracity - target Bush) (Pickler, headline, Associated Press, Boston Globe, boston.com March 20, 2006) and "For some, the temptation to retreat and abandon our commitments is strong," (Gugliotta, quoting Bush, clause 4, Washington Post, March 19, 2006). (Judgment: evoked: negative: social esteem: tenacity: resolve. Target: those who wish to abandon the efforts of the government).

Provoked: Judgment also has no explicit markers of Judgment, but evaluative language is being used to direct the reader towards either a positive or negative evaluation of some person or group of people, for example "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis" (Pickler quoting Rumsfeld, March 20, 2006).

Attitude: Appreciation

Appreciation is concerned with how writers evaluate products and processes based on the subsystems of Reaction, Composition, and Valuation. Hence, under Reaction a product or process is examined from the perspective of its impact (either positive or negative) on the writer; under Composition the makeup of a product or process is evaluated either positively or negatively; finally, under Valuation the evaluation is concerned with the content of the product or process according to popular social convention.

Engagement - the discourse of framing: sourcing and intertextual dialogism

Engagement is the system whereby writers regulate and negotiate the arguability of their utterances, and it is concerned with the resources that writers use to include and adopt a position towards what they typify as the viewpoints, opinions, and words of other writers and/or speakers (Iedema et al., 1994; White 1998, 2007a, 2007b). This notion of objectivity is construed through the use of quoted material and through the belief that, for the most part, journalists have been "taught" to view the world in an objective fashion and to present their findings accordingly. Nevertheless, a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) 2006 have found that the typical narrative frame of the inverted pyramid (the straight news account of a story) accounted for only 16% of front page stories. The remaining stories all revolved around frames which required some level of interpretation from the journalist: a subjective perspective. In short, according to the PEJ journalists are taking a decidedly interpretative role in their presentation of the news. By framing the news around stories of conflict, injustice, irony, winners and losers, journalists are framing an ideological perspective - one which inadvertently dominates how a story may be interpreted and accepted by the reading public. Hence, as White (1998) notes, "even the most ostensibly `factual' report will be the product of numerous value judgments" (White 1994:3). These judgments determine what goes into the article and what stays out, and which sources are quoted directly and those which are presented as reported projections of information that has already been interpreted and, at the very least, analyzed. This next section examines how the system of Engagement: Attribution and Sourcing can be used to analyze framing effectively in text.

Engagement: Attribution and Sourcing

Under the framework for the system of Engagement, a number of options enable a writer to vary the terms by which he or she engages with attributed sources and alternate positions in the news article (White 2007a, 2007b; Iedema et al., 1994). Hence, writers frame how they present a proposition through the sources which they choose to include (or avoid) and through the grammatical resources of the language that allow them to choose how they will represent a proposition to readers. When writers opt to explicitly cite personal names, or to identify groups and/or people as source types, they construct a relationship of trust with the reader based on the belief that they are attempting to provide reliable and truthful information. The opposite is said to be true when generic, unnamed, or collective sources are used; then, writers actively choose to distance themselves from the issue, and therefore risk presenting information which is too general or untrue - information that they choose not to take responsibility for. Hence, by examining not only who is taking responsibility for the utterance, but also how much responsibility is being attributed, as well as whether the writer is purposefully distancing him or herself from the utterance by using disendorsed attribution. Issues such as these are interesting from a rhetorical perspective because they recognize that the utterance invariably affects the rhetorical thrust of the text and solidarity between the reader and the writer.

Endorsement and Disendorsement issues of relevance

This presentation of data must be further evaluated as being either neutral, endorsed, or disendorsed, and then as either closed or open to further dialogic positions according to the implications each choice carries. Neutral utterances are typically set off by the verb `to say.' Neutrality implies that the writer neither believes nor questions the truth validity of the proposition(s), but rather is just presenting the information. Endorsed utterances are those which the author indicates support for or agreement with the proposition either directly or indirectly. Endorsed utterances are therefore represented as being reliable or true and in the very least, convincing and believable, for example: "He also pointed out that Iraqi political leaders themselves called for calm after the Samarra attack" (Hauser, clause 24 NYT, March 19, 2006). White (2007b) also points out that writers may, at once, indicate that they support or endorse a proposition at the same time as they distance themselves: the President finally acknowledged that he had made a mistake¹. Here the lexical item acknowledge carries with it many connotations. First, acknowledge indicates that the President only hesitantly came to offer up the proposition that he had made a mistake. Indeed, (finally) acknowledged carries with the same implications as conceded or admit in that the President was somehow made to admit the truth, that he had made a mistake. Therefore, although the proposition may be true, the positive endorsement is not of the quoted source but of the proposition itself (White 2007b). Disendorsement allows writers to distance themselves from an utterance through quoting verbs such as "to claim" and "to allege." Specific lexical items such as `surprisingly," for example, also serve to indicate disendorsement in a somewhat more indirect manner because the proposition is set up to be read as unexpected, unusual or uncharacteristic. White (2006) also recognizes that disendorsement allows writers to deny or reject the attributed proposition.

The system of Engagement allows a writer to make a choice with respect to endorsement: if he or she choose non-endorsing, he or she agrees to be neutral, but, if the choice is one of endorsement, the writer must choose between the options of endorsement or disendorsement, and ultimately, this puts a strain on reade-writer solidarity by framing the proposition and the text as a whole towards a particular point-of-view.

The function of intertextual dialogism in framing

Writers negotiate the arguability of their utterances in a text by presenting the proposition as either extra-vocalized information (information which has been attributed to another) or as bare assertion (information which has not been attributed and which must therefore belong to the writer).

When a writer chooses to use another to represent information (i.e. a quoted source), he or she must represent that information as either truthful and valid or as problematic. The differences between using said versus show versus claim therefore become more than just a choice of verb; they affect dialogic positioning. Thus, for example, the verb word show presupposes the truth validity of the proposition in question while claim does the opposite (White 1994, 2006). The implications affect whether the proposition is being represented as dialogistically expansive or contractive - as whether they are open or closed to further interpretation and to alternative dialogic positions.

White (2006) and Miller (2004) suggest that there are a number of factors which determine the dialogistic positioning of extra-vocalised information including, but not limited to, the degree of authority indicated by the source and the degree to which the writer endorses (or disendorses) the attributed material. Thus, once a proposition has been observed as Attributed (either acknowledged or distance), it may be further divided into a proposition which is represented as dialogically expansive (open) or dialogically contractive (closed). The categories of dialogically contractive propositions are Proclaim: Pronounce, Concur, Endorse and Disclaim: Deny, Counter, while those of the dialogically expansive or open type are Entertain: Evidence, Likelihood, Hearsay, and Attribute: Acknowledge and Distance. Neutrality is maintained through the use of the attributed reporting words said or told.

Graduation - Using rhetoric to focus and force information

The system of Graduation is concerned with locating values in language that scale other meanings (Attitude or Engagement) either by "locating them on a scale of high to low intensity or from core to marginal membership of a category" (White 1998:25) across the Appraisal system. Graduation is concerned with a wide array of lexical and some grammatical resources, with the most prominent being adverbs, nouns and verbs. These lexical and grammatical resources are then scaled along two parameters: Focus and Force. Each will be discussed below.

Scaling: Focus and Force

The virtues of Focus scale other meanings in terms of the softness or sharpness of the relationship represented by the item (White 2007a:31). At the soft end, values are exemplified by hedges or vague language indicating incompleteness: "sort of," "all this stuff," "kind of nerve-wracking," etc. (Eggins and Slade 1997:137, White 2007a:31). At the sharp end of the Focus scales, values of Graduation are represented by core terms which are sharply focused: "true friend," "pure evil," "hooded thugs" etc. (White 2007a:31). Under Focus, scaling operates in contexts that are not gradable in any concrete way. Instead, it is concerned more with a sense that some values in the semantic Focus have been either softened or sharpened through the process of broadening or narrowing.

By raising or lowering the intensity of the semantic categories, the values of Force contrast with those of Focus. Under Force, grading operates with little problem since it is specifically concerned with values which express different degrees of some core meaning (White 2007a). Typically, values of force are realized by adverbials, adjectives, verbs or modals. Force is therefore either implicit (adore versus love versus like) or explicit (slightly, somewhat, really) (White 2007a:32). Implicit values of Force operate across Appraisal categories and are not confined to the system of Graduation. Explicit values of Force, on the other hand, can and do operate within the system of Graduation and are divided into Graders and Amplifiers.

Issues in intensity - grading versus amplification

White (1998, 2007a) divides scales of Force into two broader categories: Graders and Amplifiers. Graders are lexical items such as adverbs and adjectives which specify degrees of intensity from high to low, e.g. completely satisfied, very satisfied, slight fall, severe fall, etc. (White 1998:26-27). Graders are also realized through items of Measure, resources for grading extent or number. Measure is realized both interpersonally and experientially. Interpersonally, Measure is the application of intensity to some mode of counting where the writer's subjectivity is at stake. Experientially, counting is typically realized as a numerative with the noun group thereby having an objective status to some external reality. Thus, the experiential "fourteen protesters screaming" is interpersonalised as "lots of protesters screaming" (White 1998; White 2007a). The broad category of Amplifier is different from those of Grader primarily in that Amplifiers specify solely for maximum degrees of intensity. Amplifiers may be subcategorized along two separate axes: isolating versus fused and experientialised versus interpersonalised.

Isolating Amplifiers are typically realized in one of two ways: colour (bloody awful day) and repetition (he laughed and laughed and laughed) (White 1998; 2007a). Isolating Amplifiers are typically realized by individual lexical items with the sole purpose of raising or lowering intensity. fused Amplifiers are such since they do two things at once: they specify some degree of intensity at the same time as they code a separate semantic value (White 1998:27). There are five major categories of fused Amplifiers: Metaphor (prices skyrocketed), Quality ( the car veered off the road); Evaluatory (desperate bid); Universalise (the talks went on endlessly); and Measure Plus (minuscule, huge, gargantuan) (White 1998, 2007a). fused Amplifiers are then further subdivided into those which are interpersonalised or those which are experientialised. Accordingly, fused Amplifiers of Metaphor and Quality belong to the experientialise subcategory since both Metaphor and Quality amplifiers exhibit material processes (White 1998:29). The remaining three: Evaluatory (intensity entailed by appraisal value), Universalise (intensity entailed by measure or usuality) and Measure Plus (intensity fused with measure) are all examples of the subcategory of interpersonalise fused amplifiers.

Description of methodology and outline of results

Two days were spent searching for appropriate texts for analysis. The two chosen were based on the following criteria: word count, topic, hard news format, date of publication relevant to topic (No earlier than March 19, no later than March 20) and country of printing (American vs Canadian, vs International paper). The texts under consideration appear in the body of this paper. Each has been divided into numbered clauses. Each of the texts was analysed using AT systems of Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. The analysis was done on a clause-by-clause basis. First, the texts were divided into clause complexes, then each clause was individually analysed for delicacy. The findings have been tabulated below in the form following Miller (2004). After an examination of each text from the position of AT, a comparative on the topic of framing is presented; however, as space limits preclude the possibility of an in-depth analysis of all clauses, global results have been provided in sections 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 below.

Global results for text one "Bush marks Iraq date, omits using `war' word,"

by Nedra Pickler, Associated Press, published in the Boston Globe and boston.com March 20, 2006, with the description based on Miller (2004):

Global results for text two: "As Iraq War Heads Into 4 Year, Bush Pledges `Complete Victory,"' by Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post, and washingtonpost.com March 19, 2006, with the description based on Miller (2004):

Text One (566 words)

By Nedra Picker, Associated Press, boston.com. March 19, 2006

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/20/bush_marks_Iraq_dat... Retrieved March 27, 2006 and checked September 29, 2007.

Bush marks Iraq date, omits using `war' word
Washington - President Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war yesterday by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding mention of the daily violence that has raged, three years after he ordered an invasion.
The president did not use the word "war."
"We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq," the president said to a public that is increasingly sceptical that he has a plan to end the fighting after the deaths of more than 2,300 US troops.
Antiwar protests were held throughout the country over the weekend, including a rally in Washington.
Bush said he spoke with US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, who said progress was being made by Iraqi leader to form a government.
Earlier yesterday, former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi said his country was in the midst of a civil war.
Over the weekend, several administration officials repeated the theme that progress continues toward building a unified Iraqi government and nation.
"Now is the time for resolve, not retreat," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in a column for The Washington Post.
"Turing our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."
Yet there were acknowledgments from the top commander of US forces in Iraq that the situation is fragile and that he did not predict the strength of the insurgency.
"I did not think it would be as robust as it has been," General George W. Casey said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"And," he added "it's something that, obviously, with my time here on the ground, my thinking on that has gained much greater clarity and insight."
The third anniversary of the US-led war in Iraq drew tens of thousands of protesters around the globe, from hurricane-ravaged Louisiana to Australia.
About 200 war veterans, hurricane survivors, and demonstrators gathered yesterday at the national cemetery in Chalmette, La., to protest how the military conflict overseas had hurt the country's ability to help the Gulf Coast recover from last year's hurricanes.
About 200 joined a march yesterday down Fifth Avenue in New York.
One slogan was: "We the People Need to do More to End the War."
Seventeen people were arrested for disorderly conduct, police said.
A rally Saturday in Times Square drew more than 1,000.
More than 7,000 people marched through Chicago on Saturday.
Others marched in Boston, in San Francisco, and in Pittsburgh.
Antiwar rallies in Japan yesterday drew about 800 protesters chanting "No war! Stop the war!" and banging drums as they marched through Tokyo toward the US Embassy.
A day earlier, about 2,000 rallied in the city.
Protesters also gathered outside the US Embassy in Malaysia, and at least 1,000 people turned out in Seoul, which has the third-largest contingent of foreign troops in Iraq after the United States and Britain.

Discussion of findings - remarks on Attitude and Engagement

According to White (1998, 2007), strictly objective media texts are constructed through the elimination of any authorial input whatsoever. Nevertheless, White also (1998, 2007a, 2007b) recognizes that although the only true measure of subjective authorial insertion is through the use of personal pronouns, implicit subjective markers can be inserted through the use of specific words and evaluations of circumstances² that would not necessarily be considered examples of purely objective reporting but that do not make it an entirely subjective text either.

Pickler's text reveals not only implicit authorial input through the use of bare assertions but also strategic use of frame development and strategic placement of attributed material. Thus, although the article is represented as an objective text --there are no markers of explicit authorial insertion through personal pronoun usage and no explicit linguistic evidence of the author's value judgments - the article does have a strong underlining implicit subjective aspect. Hence, it is an example of how press journalists can combine both subjective and objective representation of an event spinning it in order to break down the current existing frame - here, the "Fairy Tale Just War" - to build up and develop a distinct anti-war frame through the strategic use of attribution and attributed proposition, evaluative language, and repetition of numbers.

Attitudinal and Intertextual Positioning within the text

An analysis of Attitudinal and Intertextual positioning reveals the following patterns: the article commences by presenting the accepted narrative hard-news frame of objective news reporting, beginning with a lead and developing the story of Bush's address to the nation on the third anniversary of the war in Iraq. However, the use of strategically placed evaluative language such as "invasion,"³: provoked: social sanction rather than "war" in reference to America's role in Iraq, as well as "touting" (see: 2) and "marked" (see: 2) to represent Bush's speech serve to position Pickler's ideological perspective on America's involvement in Iraq as other than entirely supportive. Further, use of propositions by sources such as Ayad Allawi⁴ but with an underlining message that disclaims Ambassador Khalilzad's statement that democratic progress is being made. and General George W. Casey's acknowledge that the situation in Iraq is "fragile"⁵ as well as Dialogism: Contraction: Disclaim: Counter and volatile (see: 11-13) In combination, the strategies present Pickler's anti-war perspective. implicitly, but the message is quite clear through specific evaluative markers and high degrees of bare assertion using numbers as markers of force.

Attitudinally, the examples are almost equally divided between the subsystems of Judgment: Provoked⁶ and Judgment: evoked and examples of Appreciation: Composition and Appreciation: Reaction respectfully. Judgment: Provoked and Evoked⁷ and Appreciation: Composition⁸and Reaction⁹ Examples of Judgment have for the most part the negative evaluative target of Bush and/or US occupation.

The use of Attitude: Appreciation to evaluate the function and process of the peace rallies and/or the situation in Iraq make up the remaining examples of Attitudinal evaluation. Appreciation: Reaction (see: 4) reflects the public's growing scepticism of Bush's plan in Iraq. Appreciation: Composition is used once (see 8 Appreciation: positive: composition: Progress) in an extra-vocalised attributed assimilated disendorsed statement by unnamed administration officials quoted as repeating "the theme that progress continues toward building a unified Iraqi government and nation," once, to explicitly Disclaim: Deny the positive state of affairs in Iraq (through the process of Expansion: Attribute: Acknowledge¹⁰ and twice¹¹and 12: Appreciation: composition: negative: robust to evaluate the strength of the insurgency. The remaining examples of Appreciation: Composition reflect the positive participation and resolve of anti-war protestors and marches which extend across the US and outside of the US in Malaysia and Seoul (see 14- 24).

Bare assertions versus sourcing, status and textual integration

According to White (1998), the challenge for the media is to present one version of a story through the use of "selective heteroglossia" without putting solidarity at risk. Obviously, ideological, political and socio-economic factors affect the way news is delivered by the press. More precisely, the media often models the ideal ideological and political perspectives represented by people in power; and, for the most part, it is always in the media's best interest to present war as a set of oppositions: the good and the bad, the villain and the victim, the people and the state. Presented in this way, the reality of any situation is easier to handle, and far more acceptable to readers. However, all is not always black-and-white, and the news, although "reliable," may in fact be biased.

Choosing Bare Assertions over Heteroglossia: what it means to the reader in issues of solidarity

There are direct rhetorical implications to choosing bare assertions (monoglossia) over heteroglossia in any discourse the main implication being solidarity. Solidarity as defined by White (1998) has more to do with the relationship that is maintained by the writer and the reader than with the necessity of the writer and reader agreeing on point of view. As White notes, negotiations of solidarity must leave room for the act of negotiating. This means that although a reader and writer may not see eye-to-eye on an issue, if a degree of empathy or sympathy for a cause can be maintained, then solidarity may still be salvaged (White 1998). Solidarity is always at risk when a writer presents a proposition in an unattributed form: the Bare Assertion.

Of the 24 clause complexes in Pickler's text, 14¹² are Bare Assertions, eight¹³ have been attritubuted to some higher source power such as President Bush, Former Iraqi President Allawi, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and one (see: 8) has been categorized as medium (on a hierarchy of high, medium, and low) and is attributed to various unnamed White House Administration Officials. From the position of textual insertion, five of the propositions are direct quotes¹⁴ and the remainder have been assimilated. That Pickler has chosen to present most of the propositions in her text as a Bare Assertion is important, since the presentation of any information in the form of a Bare Assertion always has consequence.

For White (2007b), bare assertions are not simply facts to be ignored. Rather, bare assertions serve a particular rhetorical function as either examples of power or solidarity. Often, these evaluations are in the form of subjective observations of either the mental states of participants not directly involved in the text or of the physical surroundings of the geographic areas that the subject is occurring in. In either case, power monoglosses put at risk the writer/reader relationship, as these monoglosses tend to assume a certain degree of generality. Solidarity bare assertions are propositions represented as common knowledge.

Graduation: using numbers to propel the message for-ward

In this text, graduation is used to dramatically draw the reader's attention towards the events of March 20, 2006 by using implicit and explicit examples of fused amplifiers and solitary graders to guide the reader towards taking a stand against the war, and more importantly, to outline America's growing antagonism towards its role in Iraq. Numbers, repetition and movement across geographical space are the keys means of achieving this goal.

Explicit repetition occurs when a lexical term or terms is repeated with the effect of drawing the reader's attention to some concept or idea. In this text, examples of explicit repetition force: solitary: grade are few; however, Pickler does begin the article by purposefully drawing the reader's attention to what Bush's speech does not do - it omits reference to the word `war' - and as she repeats this proposition explicitly in clause complex 3, implicitly in clause complex 2, and again in clause complex 7 through attribution and classification of "civil war," Pickler's negative appreciation of Bush's war becomes obvious. The use of partial reiteration through substitution is important and occurs in clause complex 2 through the use of the term "invasion," which draws the reader's attention once again to Pickler's anti-war stance and position. Rhetorically, "invasion" may be graded as rhetorically and attitudinally more negative than the term war, as war implies two parties and can be romanticized as in the notion of `just wars'; however, invasion implies forced entry, hostile takeovers and brutality. The stark negative stance that Pickler takes on Bush's role in Iraq is amplified by the bare assertion in clause complex 3: "The President did not use the word "war [.]"" Not only does the repetition implicitly evaluate the honesty of the President, but also the proposition in clause complex 4 - anticipated and alluded to through the use of a bare assertion in clause complex 3 - explicitly classifies the public that Bush is addressing in his speech as "increasingly sceptical," thereby using clause complex 3 to position the upcoming "America against the State" frame.

In fact, Pickler refers explicitly to Bush's role in Iraq only once¹⁵ but in doing so, she strategically creates an anti - `just war' frame by inundating the reader with numbers. Quantification is used throughout the article as a means of implicit and explicit force. Martin and White (2005) and White (1998, 2007a) assert that, although intensification can occur through the use of explicit graders such as `very,' implicit graduation of non-attitudinal lexis can also occur. Thus, in clause complex 8, the quantifier "several" is used to draw the reader's attention to the "administration officials," who are repeating the theme "that progress continues toward building a unified Iraqi government and nation," and thereby furthering the divide between the truth-validity of the source - Bush himself - and Pickler's spin. The problem here stems from the ideology underlining the message of negative truth veracity implied through the use of "several administration officials repeat[ing] the theme..." as repetition of a general idea; this seems to imply spinning of that idea. Further, although she makes reference to the extravocalised source, she disendorses herself from the proposition through the use of "repeated the theme," implying to a degree that she neither supports the truth validity of the proposition nor the nature with which it was intended.

Further, the inclusion of a specific number to a situation, such as anti-war rallies, can be interpreted as offering an attitudinal evaluation of sorts. In the case of Pickler's text, numeration is used extensively to propel the message and the reader forward towards some negative judgment about America's and specifically Bush's role in Iraq. The quantity of the sources provided from clause complex 13 onward offers not only a degree of truth validity to the overall frame that this is not a fairy tale just war that Pickler is creating, but also to the unstated yet clear ideological position that Pickler is adopting. Numeration thus results in grading the phenomenon as amount and, to some degree as extent (White and Martin 2005), and it plays an important role in the text particularly from the position of amplification. In fact, quantification through numeration becomes the central means of focusing the reader's attention on Bush's growing skeptical public and the anti-war movement itself. From clause complex 13 onwards, Pickler uses numbers to evaluate, from the position of either judgment or appreciation, the circumstances surround the third anniversary of the US-led war (clause complex 14). Further, she presents the data cumulatively through repetition of numbers (see "200" repeated in clause complexes 15 and 16) that become progressively larger¹⁶ and geographically vast moving from the US to Asia. Thus, through the resources of graduation: Force, Pickler has succeeded in breaking down the frame of "America as Hero" and installing the frame of "People against the State". This is important, as it represents an ever-growing ideology - one which was not as prevalent, or at least not as published, at the beginning of the war.

Text Two (455 words)

By Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post, March 19, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/18/AR200603
1801256_...
Retrieved March 27, 2006 and checked September 29, 2007.

As Iraq War Heads Into 4 year, Bush Pledges `Complete Victory'
On the eve of the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, President Bush yesterday promised to "finish the mission" with "complete victory," urging the American public to remain steadfast but offering no indication when victory may be achieved.
"More fighting and sacrifice will be required," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
"For some, the temptation to retreat and abandon our commitments is strong.
Yet there is no peace, there's no honour, and there's no security in retreat.
So America will not abandon Iraq to the terrorists who want to attack us again."
Bush's address comes at a time when confidence in the administration's Iraq strategy appears to have reached a new low.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that 65 percent of Americans think that Bush has no plan for victory, while 35 percent - the lowest ever recorded by the poll - think he does.
A White House fact sheet on Iraq noted that casualties from the devices have been halved in the past 18 months and that nearly half of the devices are being found and disabled before they can be detonated.
The fact sheet also buttressed the president's assertion last week that Iraqi security forces are assuming greater battlefield responsibility.
Democrats noted last week, however, that a recent Pentagon report said the number of "Level 1" Iraqi units capable of operating independently of the United States had dropped from one to zero.
For the most part, the fact sheet ignored the missteps and false starts that have dogged the war since the invasion on March 19, 2003, and instead contrasted Iraq under Saddam Hussein with Iraq today.
Three years ago, the fact sheet said, "life in Iraq was marked by brutality, fear and terror," and Iraqis "had no voice in their country or their lives."
Today, it said, "the reign of terror has been replaced by a democratically elected government."
In his address, Bush noted that sectarian violence plagues Iraq, but he urged Iraqis to "reach across political, religious and sectarian lines," to convert December's democratic elections into a "government that can confront the terrorist threat and earn the trust and confidence of all Iraqis."
"These past three years have tested our resolve," he said.
The enemy has proved brutal and relentless...and our troops have shown magnificent courage and tremendous sacrifices" which, along with Iraqi sacrifices, had given Iraq a "historic opportunity" to rebuild itself.
"The security of our country is directly linked to the liberty of the Iraqi people," Bush said, "and we will settle for nothing less than complete victory."

Discussion of findings: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation

The text opens with a rhetorically powerful headline that not only sets the stage for the entire article but also frames it within the two voices of the text: Bush and the writer. The use of "pledges" in the headline is the first example of implicit subjectivity in the 18 clause complexes making up the article. The theme throughout will be to elaborate on the notion of "complete victory," using the phrase to ideologically frame the major conquests gained by Americans in Iraq in the last three years, and to highlight the expectations of Americans in the future. It will also be the means of maintaining solidarity and creating unity with the reader through the use of specific markers of graduation: force and focus, attitude: Judgment: social esteem and strategic use of dialogic positioning.

Framing through Attitude and Engagement

Clause complex 1 "As Iraq War Heads Into 4 Year, Bush Pledges `Complete Victory"' has no markings of Attitude but the use of explicit graduation: focus: sharpen in `Complete Victory' coupled with the insertion of what appears to be an authorial use of the implicit high intensity verb `pledges' sets the tone of the entire article. Clause complex 2 like 1 has no explicit marking of Attitude. However, as in 1, there appears to be an authorial inclusion in the form of `urging the American public to remain steadfast but offering no indication when victory may be achieved.' We may interpret this to be Negative: Judgment: Social Esteem: Capacity/Tenacity where what is at stake is Bush's ability to follow through with the `complete victory' pledged in clause complex 1. The clause itself is therefore more likely categorized as an instance of both extra and intra-vocalisation, where extra-vocalisation is apparent clearly through the partially assimilated proclamation made by President Bush, while intra-vocalisation appears near the end of the clause as a form of assessment, one where the ability of the President to follow through is questioned. This affects solidarity in that those readers who agree with the assessment will read on; on the other hand, the other two effects of the question are to create irony (picked up by the subsequent reference to sacrifice and `minor' failure) and to question the meaning of the term. Hence, those with a vested interest in `complete victory' may not appreciate Gugliotta's authorial insertion and the recognition of this fact.

It is through clause complex 3 - "More fighting and sacrifice will be required..." - that Gugliotta begins framing the main claim of the text: victory will necessitate sacrifice. What is being presented, therefore, is an example of Attitude: Judgment: Evoked: Tenacity, where the target of evaluation becomes the American people who are not, at this point, being offered an opportunity to open the proposition to further consideration or discussion. By presenting the clause complex in the form of engagement: contractive: proclamation, Bush is presenting a situation which, if the American people want to win, they must follow through on. The use of high intensity implicit graduation through the modal verb phrase "will be required" further stresses this obligation.

To further the ideological goal of the text, clause complexes 3, 4, 5, and 6 offer examples of carefully constructed links between ideology and framing and specifically, the role of America in attaining Bush's ultimate goal - complete victory:

In each, the following patterns are obvious: from the perspective of Engagement: Attribution all of the propositions are framed as neutrally attributed meaning that Gugliotta neither entirely endorses nor disagrees with the truth validity of the propositions. From the position of Engagement: Dialogism, the four clause complexes are presented as contractually closed to further discussion in the form of pronouncements and yet, they are addressed to the American people as a type of appeal. Solidarity is constructed through the use of `our' in clause complex 4 and `us' in clause complex six. This inclusion is not only important, but also deliberate, since it enhances the message of the necessary and honourable course of action presented in complexes 4 and 5. Clause complexes 4 and 5 share the pattern of no specific graduation markers; however, the implicit intensity illustrated through the repetition of "retreat" in both clauses, first as a temptation and abandonment and then as an elaboration through isocolon gradiatio where "retreat" represents a lack of peace, honour and security, require examination. Clause complex 4 is an example of Expansion in the form of Entertain: Likelihood with a high degree of negative evoked judgment: social esteem: tenacity: resolve, where the targets are those who wish to abandon America's efforts of victory. Again, the inclusion of this recognition in the piece is rhetorically important particularly when dialogically contracted against clause complex 5 (Contraction: Proclaim: Pronounce) which implicitly criticizes the act of retreat in the form of Appreciation: negative: valuation by assigning it negative value and aiming it at the target audience of those who do not support America's war effort. It becomes an ideological conflict between `us,' the supporters of the war effort, and `them,' the protestors. Clause complex 6 becomes a very important proclamation when through the use of high intensity modalisation: obligation/probability and provoked: Judgment: Social Esteem: Tenacity he makes very clear his position on the war of terror and therefore announces his plan, not only for himself and his country, but also for the integrity and tenacity of the American people as a whole.

Breaking down the Fairy Tale Just War frame through attribution and sourcing and dialogism

Unlike Pickler, Gugliotta presents only three propositions in the form of a bare assertion (see: 7, 10, 12), and each works to further the theme "unstable administration" - which is based to a degree on the premise that in a `just war' everyone is on the same side. The importance of the bare assertion in clause complex 7 is highlighted through the interpretation of the material presented in the Fact Sheet and used by Bush as the basis of his pledge to `complete victory.' Clause complexes 10 and 12 interpret the information in the Fact Sheet, thereby putting it in direct conflict with clause complexes 11, 13, and 14, each of which is rhetorically significant and worthy of examination:

To begin, neither of these clauses attempt to discuss the nature of the situation in Iraq nor to make any reference to the widely rumoured `civil war' occurring. Clause complex 12, points to the major fault of the fact sheet used by Bush as the basis of his `complete victory' speech. Although not a bare assertion in the true meaning of the term, it nevertheless has implications of intra-vocalisation, namely through the use of interpretation. The high level instances of evaluative language through "dogged" and "invasion" in clause complex 12 serve to classify America's role in Iraq as less just and more tyrannical in nature. The weak simple comparison in clause complex 14 presents another dilemma: the notion that simply replacing governments can eradicate fear is not only ridiculous but also hypocritical, since clause complex 11 maintains that "Iraqi units capable of operating independently of the United States had dropped from one to zero," and thus the situation appears less stable than it was in the recent past. Clause complex 13¹⁷ is strategic attribution since although it is a proclamation¹⁸, the main function of clause complex 13 is to highlight the expansive extra-vocalised proposition of 14, namely that "the reign of terror has been replaced by a democratically elected government." Ideologically, the proposition presents a pro-Western notion that once an oppressive government has toppled everything must just naturally fall into place. From the position of solidarity, clause complex 14 can put at risk the relationship fostered in the earlier half of the text and developed in the later half. Essentially, the problems lie in the information presented as clause complex 13 speaks of a quality of life while 14 introduces information of a political and possibly ideological change. Neither, however, mentions the civil war, escalating violence and continued US deaths and so each appears to have been solely employed for the purposes of ideological enhancement.

Clause complexes 15-18 take the reader through the last cycle of the text. Each is presented as Contractive: Proclaim: Pronouncement and this is significant because at the end, Bush leaves no room for discussion. Clause complex 15 is dialogically significant and rhetorically important since it is the first time that sectarian violence in Iraq is addressed. From the position of attribution, the propositions in 15 are both endorsed. Attitudinally, the clause complex is an example of Appreciation: Composition: Balance: Negative: Discordant where what is being evaluated is Iraq as a country. From the position of voicing, the proposition is problematic. Presented as Engagement: Contractive: Disclaim: Counter it is at once a message to the American people as well as the Iraqis. Clause complexes 16 - 18 are in the most basic of terms an appeal to Bush's U.S. citizens. Positive Provoked: Judgment: Social Esteem: Tenacity: Resolve is used to reiterate the need to US commitment, heroism, and bravery. Also important to note is the use of personal pronouns as an obvious strategy to maintain reader/speaker - writer alignment and thus: "our resolve" (16), "our troops," (17) "our country". These are contrasted with reference to "Iraqi sacrifices," (17) and "Iraqi people" who are intended to be seen as part of the group, but who do not fall within the full realm of "our" since the "it" is the security of the US which is directly linked to the "liberty of the Iraqi people". This, in short, is the future dilemma for the war on terrorism, since as Gugliotta notes, quoting Bush, "nothing less than complete victory" will do.

Remarks on graduation patterns of force and focus

In this text, graduation is used to draw the reader's attention to the current situation in Iraq through intensity markers of both the implicit and explicit type. Beginning with clause complex 1 and continuing to 3 graduation sets the tone, namely attaining "complete victory"¹⁹ through the use of the explicit marker of "complete" and an implicit high intensity marker of extra-vocalisation located in the verb "promised" which sets the rhetorical aspect of the text and introduces Bush's requirement of more fighting and sacrifice from the American troops. Rhetorically, the text is at once a pledge of victory to the American people and a call to arms as well.

In both cases, graduation is used to focus the reader's attention to the underlining message of discontent that Bush is attempting to play down but which Gugliotta makes reference to in clause complexes 7 and 8 through low intensity use of scaling with "appears to have reached," (see: 7) and then specific mention through "lowest ever."²⁰ Here, what is important is the gradual shift in meaning. In clause complex 7, the use of "appears" is strategic from a solidarity aspect since the use of "appears" is very different from an assertion such as "it did reach" or "it obviously reached," where the rhetorical implications would put the writer/reader relationship at risk. Clause complex 8 moves from the indecisive "appears" to a quantification of numerical type. The use of numbers - "65 percent" and then later "35 percent" offer information and aspects of authorial inclusion which introduces a subjective reading of the situation into the text; the further use of "lowest ever"²¹ enhances Gugliotta's implicit assessment of Bush's plan by highlighting the negative composition of it through the use of measure to illustrate possible discontent.

The resources of graduation are used tactically to inform the audience of not only the plan Bush has created or is creating but also the information set out in a White House fact sheet on Iraq. Clause complex 12 uses focus and force advantageously. Focus: Soften "For the most part" inserts Gugliotta into the text as the interpreter of the information while "dogged"²²: dogged allows him to comment on that information by pointing out how the plan is flawed. Further, high intensity implicit graduation occurs through the use of value-laden language such as `invasion' and `ignored,' which culminate in the negative evaluation of the information presented. Clause complexes 13 to 15 elaborate. Clause complex 13 exhibits interpersonalised evaluatory markers in the form of adjectives: brutality, fear and terror; clause complex 14 uses the experiential metaphor "reign of terror" to imply that simply changing the government can and will change the situation. Hence the stress on the democratically elected government²³: interpersonalise: evaluatory implies normalcy at the same time as it strategically avoids the claim that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and that violence is escalating. Clause complex 15 repeats the theme of the power of the democratically elected government introduced in 14. Further, in this same clause complex, violence becomes graded as "sectarian," a term affiliated with "lines," while the ideal of a democratically elected government is endowed with power - one which confronts terrorist threats²⁴ and earns "trust" and "confidence."

graduation is employed throughout to highlight the main objective of Bush's speech, which is to convince the American people that the U.S. role in Iraq is not only necessary but also successful. Stress is placed on the degree of responsibility that Iraqi security forces are assuming through the use of "greater" in clause complex 10²⁵ and specific force is used to stress the importance of the new "democratically"²⁶ elected government in clause complex 15. This culminates in Bush's assertion that U.S. and Iraqi sacrifices have led to "historic opportunity"²⁷ hence successfully minimizing the focus on what has gone awry.

Clause complex 18 further sharpens Bush's objective; it contains three examples of graduation: two of force and one of focus. Each builds up on the other to create the message of increasing importance. Rhetorically, this is significant as the proposition advances the security of America via the liberty of Iraq; hence, everything depends on Iraq and the continued support of the American public in a war with no apparent end in sight.

Discussion: Subjectivity in the texts and the role of authorial stance

Objective news reporting is generally viewed as all news reporting not confined to the feelings of the journalist. In other words, the propositions and proposals put forth in the article are those belonging to another source. In this way, news reporting is objective because it does not involve the writer's opinions, feelings, or judgments on a particular matter. On the other hand, subjective news reporting reports an incident from the perspective of the writer. The problem, as White (1998) points out, is that journalists collect the news from sources and present it in the form of either direct or indirect speech, and sometimes a bit of both. Journalists also present to readers what they see, and thus there is therefore no clear-cut way to decide whether the writer is positioning him or herself objectively or subjectively when attributed propositions are used.

Definitions of subjective and objective reporter voice make clear that objective news reporting is based on the theory that news reporting may be viewed as objective as long as all evaluative judgments, arguments, and contentions are confined to the words of external sources. The dilemma with this type of reasoning is that attributed propositions cannot be truly separated into more subjective or less subjective based on whether direct or indirect forms of quoting are used. According to White (1998), the uses of direct quotation is perhaps more objective than the use of indirect quotations which require authorial interpolation. The choice between presenting information in the form of a direct, as opposed to an indirect quotation can have direct implications on reader interpretation. These implications are rhetorical because the words used to convey the meanings may in fact alter the original meanings intended by the attributed source. Essentially, the problem is one of certainty, where what is at stake has everything to do with how certain the reader is that the information presented in the indirect quotation is exactly what was initially said and understood. Of the two texts in question, it is apparent that each is objective in nature, with degrees of subjective insertion built in.

Of the 10 instances of attributed propositions Pickler uses²⁸, two are endorsed,²⁹ one is disendorsed (see: 8) and seven are neutral; the remainder of the propositions are in the form of Bare Assertions. Textually, Pickler inserts five and assimilates the remainder of her attributed propositions. From the position of authorial stance, it may be argued that Pickler is slightly less objective than Gugliotta, particularly since her choice of material pushes the reader towards viewing the war as one which is other than what Bush presents, and specifically since so much of her article is based on bare assertions - the subject matter of which only furthers to create a specific ideological frame different from what Bush presents and from the topic that she is said to be reporting on: Bush's address to the nation.

Gugliotta's text, which is slightly longer than Pickler's, contains seven endorsed³⁰ and nine neutral attributions³¹; he presents three bare assertions³²and uses two³³ to not only interpret information for the reader, but also to present an ideological position, one which casts doubt on the information of success presented by Bush to the readers. Of the attributed material, ten of the propositions have been inserted as direct quotes. By using a large number of direct quotes, Gugliotta maintains objectivity to a greater degree than does Pickler, at least from the perspective of authorial stance. This is based on the assumption that the insertion of quoted speech puts more stress on objective writing than does assimilated reported speech, which assumes, to some degree, that information in the proposition may have been interpreted and perhaps reformulated from its original to suit the needs of not only the journalist, but also the institution (White 1998). Both writers confine their attributions to high status sources, namely President Bush and other White House Representatives; Gugliotta also refers to White House Fact Sheets, based, it is assumed, on various statistical analyses and surveys compiled by various White House representatives and/or government institutions.

Solidarity and Bare Assertion versus Heteroglossia

When a writer opts to present an argument as given, he or she does so at the risk of the information which has already been presented. In other words, a bare assertion must and will be taken into consideration by the reader from the perspective of where it is coming. Thus, because bare assertions are inextricably socially and interpersonally charged, they do enter into relationships with the information which has been presented before and perhaps with the information which is yet to be uncovered by the reader. Bare assertions appear in both articles and serve particular strategic positions. Of the two texts, Pickler uses bare assertion to present an image of an unsettled America, one which has not given up the struggle to end the war in Iraq. The bare assertion, therefore, serves to not only inform, but also, more subtly, to introduce the frame of People against the State. By including herself into the text, Pickler has the unique ability to present information in an objective fashion using language which, although value-laden is still implicitly attitudinal and not out-rightly condemning. In fact, the interweaving of data represented through the slogans and chants of the protestors helps preserve her relationship of solidarity with the reader because her uses of Bare Assertion are typically confined to subjective observations of the protestors - observations which serve to propel her point forward but still maintain her integrity.

Like Pickler, Gugliotta also uses bare assertion to point out that Americans are discontent and have to a great degree, "lost confidence in the administration's Iraq strategy" (see:7); in clause complex 12, he explicitly includes himself into the text by analyzing what the fact sheet does not mention, and in this way, presents information very much akin to that of Pickler. Hence, although the degree of Bare Assertion used by Pickler may be unsettling to some readers, not only through information and language choice but also through the barrage of numbers that are thrown at the reader through the bare assertions, Gugliotta's quiet interpretation and inclusion into the text also serves a very important role, one which is arguably slightly more subjective and thereby dangerous from the position of solidarity.

In contrast, when a writer uses heteroglossic representation to present a proposition, the heteroglossic representation recognizes the possibility of heteroglossic opposition (White 1998, 2007a, 2007b). Heteroglossia assigns some responsibility for the proposition to an external source. From the perspective of the reader, it is clear that a particular intersubjective stance is being adopted and likewise, depending on the heteroglossic resources being used, the proposition may be either dialogically contractive or expansive. The more dialogically expansive a heteroglossic proposition appears to be, the less at risk solidarity becomes, since this type of representation allows the reader to maintain the possibility of entertaining different dialogic positions and voices (White 1998, 2007b). As White puts it, it is in the best interest of the media to choose heteroglossic representation above that of Bare Assertions, since it is in the form of heteroglossic representation that the greatest number of readers will be influenced and reached (White 1998). Of course, although heteroglossic representation may be the representation of choice, solidarity may still be at risk because content of information is more important that attribution itself.

Conclusion

As the articles under examination demonstrate, the current war on terror is as much about the rhetoric of freedom and victory as it is about the war. Considered in context, both articles represent a rhetoric of war - one where the message is constructed through a value-laden language with specific goals in mind. For the most part, the writers both present information which creates an internal division between groups of Americans: those that are for the war and those against it. Thus, while Pickler focuses on the protestors and uses numbers to enhance the degree of discontent, Gugliotta interprets findings for the reader by including himself into the text, thereby assuring that a level of understanding has been met - even if solidarity is breeched.

The media view any war from the perspective of its position on it: it is either just or unjust. When reporters write about `just' wars, chances are that the ideological and political ramifications are high, as are the reputations of the countries and politicians at stake. Gugliotta opens his article with just a stance noting that "on the eve of the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, President Bush yesterday promised to `finish the mission' with `complete victory" urging the American people to remain steadfast but offering no indication of when victory may be achieved" (2). Since war is a heavily laden word, Gugliotta's use of "invasion" may be interpreted in two ways: he has avoided the use of war, since war is never really just, or, he has chosen to use "invasion" because it represents an ominous quality, far different from `war', which, at the very least requires two parties willing and necessary to participate. Invasion, however, has no such romantic qualities; it does imply, at the very least, forceful takeover of land and resources. On the other hand, Pickler focuses her reiteration of the events by presenting what has not been mentioned - the word war. By focusing on why the President may not have chosen to use the term war, she also introduces the value-laden `invasion' and in this way, she makes invasion more devious, more unjust. Numbers advance the presentation of discontent regarding the war, not only because these numbers reference partisan deaths, but also because they tangibly portray the frame of "People against the State." In each case, therefore, the frame of the "Fairy-Tale Just War" has been replaced with one that has higher- reaching ideological implications. Gugliotta replaces the Fairy-Tale with "A Nation is a Person," and in this way, he shows how unrelenting Bush is when it comes to achieving victory at any cost. Pickler replaces the fairy tale with "People against the State." In either case, the Fairy-Tale Just has been shattered, and America is at war even if the President won't admit it.

References

Footnotes:

¹Based on a hypothetical example

²see clause complex 4: "... to a public that is increasingly skeptical... and clause complex 2: "...touting the efforts to build..." as examples of implicit subjective evaluations - author as observer and interpreter.

³see: 2 Judgment: negative

⁴see: 7 Dialogism: Expansion: Attribute: Acknowledge

⁵see: 11 as an example of Appreciation: negative: composition

⁶see: 2,4, 6, 8, 9, 11,13, 14.

⁷see: 1, 3.

⁸see for example, 8, 11, 14.

⁹see: for example 20, 21.

¹⁰see: 7 Appreciation: Negative: Composition and Extra-vocalised: Expansion: Attribute: Acknowledge functioning to Disclaim: Deny clause complex 6)

¹¹see 11: Appreciation: composition: negative: fragile

¹²see: 1, 2, 3, 5, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

¹³see: 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11,12, 13

¹⁴see 4, 9,10, 12, 13

¹⁵see clause complex 14: "...U.S. led war in Iraq...

¹⁶See clause complex 15 & 16 citing 200 protestors and clause complex 19 citing 1000 and clause complex 20 citing 2000 protestors

¹⁷An example of Appreciation: negative: quality: oppressive

¹⁸An example of Engagement: Contractive: Proclaim: Pronounce

¹⁹An example of +graduation: focus: sharpen

²⁰See 8: +graduation: force: fused: experientialise: measure: grader: lowest ever.

²¹An example of +graduation: force: fused: experientialise: measure: grader

²²An example of +graduation: force: fused: experientialise: metaphor

²³An example of +graduation: force: fused

²⁴An example of +grader: force: implicit value laden

²⁵An example of +graduation: force: solitary: grader: grade: greater

²⁶An example of +graduation: force: fused: interpersonalise: evaluatory

²⁷An example of +graduation: focus: sharpen

²⁸see: 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18

²⁹see 11, 13

³⁰see: 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15

³¹see: 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18

³²see: 7, 10, 12

³³see 10, 12