The “Unseen Engineer”

Linguistic Patterning in War Discourse

Authors

  • Annabelle Lukin Centre for Language in Social Life, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v2i1.59

Keywords:

Systemic Functional Linguistics, War Discourse, Discourse Analysis, Iraq War

Abstract

A number of linguistic studies in recent decades have sought to explain the nature of war discourses, and a number of recurring features have been identified (van Leeuwen, in press). Taking a corpus of press briefings by Coalition military spokesman from the beginning of the Iraq invasion, this paper combines detailed grammatical analysis (based on four days of briefings), with an excursus into prosodic motifs created through certain lexical tendencies (based on seven days of briefings), in order to explore the kind of ‘existential fabric’ (Butt, 1988) this discourse creates in its particular representation of the phenomenal realm of war. The grammatical method involves the analysis of the experiential function of language, using systemic functional grammar. An additional resource drawn on is Roget’s Thesaurus, against which particular elements of the discourse – such as the lexical verbs which construe material action – are mapped. The analysis reveals the lexical and grammatical patterns which function as resources for muting the intensely violent nature of war.

Author Biography

  • Annabelle Lukin, Centre for Language in Social Life, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University

    Dr. Annabelle Lukin is a research fellow and lecturer in the Centre for Language in Social Life, Dept of Linguistics, Macquarie University.

References

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Published

2008-01-09

Issue

Section

Editorial

How to Cite

Lukin, A. (2008). The “Unseen Engineer”: Linguistic Patterning in War Discourse. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 2(1), 59-87. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v2i1.59