a critical study of news discourse: iran’s tenth presidential election of 2009 in keyhan and...

International Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistics World (IJLLALW)

Volume 6 (1), May 2014; 151-169 Ahangar, A. A., et al EISSN: 2289-2737 & ISSN: 2289-3245 www.ijllalw.org

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A CRITICAL STUDY OF NEWS DISCOURSE: IRAN’S TENTH

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2009 (1388) IN KEYHAN AND

ETEMAD NEWSPAPERS

Dr. Abbas Ali Ahangar

Associate Professor in General Linguistics

University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran

[email protected]

Dr. Ali Asghar Sultani

Assistant Professor in General Linguistics

University of Baqir al-Olum, Iran

[email protected]

Alizamen Khoshkhoonejad (Corresponding author)

MA Student in General Linguistics

University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the use of language for the representation of conflicting

ideological positions of two main discourses Eslahtalaban, “the Reformists”, and Osulgarayan,

“the Principlists”, in Keyhan and Etemad Iranian newspapers. To this purpose, 86 headlines (43

headlines from Etemad and 43 headlines from Keyhan newspapers) were selected from 4th

April

2009 to 13th

June 2009 and analyzed based on Holliday and Mathieson’s transitivity (2004)

model. The research findings revealed that Keyhan newspaper’s coverage of Iranian Tenth

Presidential Election tended to highlight semantic roles and processes of Principlists discourse

while Etemad newspaper had a tendency to foreground semantic roles and processes of

reformists discourse. In other words, critical text analyses showed that choices of the processes

and participants enabled writers to manipulate the realizations of agency and power in the

representation of action to produce particular meanings which were not always explicit for all

readers. The research results also provided evidence to support the claim that news media did

not simply reflect the social reality but made dominant ideologies in representing political events

as well.

KEYWORDS: Critical Discourse Analysis, Transitivity System, Principle-ism, Reformism

INTRODUCTION

The year 1997 was an important point in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The 1997

presidential election separated the Islamic political establishment into two groups: the supporters

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of President Khatami, known as the Eslahtalaban the “Reformists”, and the supporters of

Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei, known as the Osulgarayan “the Principlists” (Parsa, 2008: 14).

From the beginning of political conflicts in Iran, two major groups have competed in different

names. Although political groups have various names in different times, the main competition

has always stood between the two major groups. One of these groups is rooted in Islamic

traditions and the other one has modern tendencies (Bashiriyeh, 2002).

Four candidates (Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, Mohsen Rezaei and Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad) competed with each other in Iran‟s tenth presidential election in 2009, but the

main competition was between these two old groups. Incumbent President, Mahmmoud

Ahmadinejad was the representative of Principlist discourse and Mir Hussein Musavi was the

candidate of the Reformist discourse.

From the advent of these two discourses, there were conflicts between nodal points”People” and

“Vilayat al Faqih” Principlists believed that Vali-e Faqih is the representative of God and he is

only responsible to God, but the Reformists emphasized that he was responsible to the People;

therefore he should be elected by the people for a period of time. According to Parsa (2008) the

structure of Vali-e Faqih and his absolute power, which is above the law, was one of the most

complex problems within the Islamic Republic. Vali-e Faqih could enforce his power that was

above the law, according to Article 110 of the Constitution. On the other hand, the Reformists

rejected the idea that a religious state was something that prevented the power of People.

The media, especially newspapers play an important role in representing Principlist and

Reformist discourses during this election; because media, including newspapers, carried

ideologies many times implicitly. From a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) view, every

discourse is political, and thus invested with ideology. The present research applies the principles

of CDA, as suggested by Fairclough (1995), by means of a Systemic Functional Analysis

(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). Hence, the critical discourse analysis of research data indicated

how a single news item was differently presented in different newspapers based on the

ideological perspectives of their editors‟ trends. To this end, therefore, the headlines of news

story of Keyhan and Etemad were examined to see if any ideology is applied in the languages of

these newspapers.

The present study will provide help in developing an explicit understanding of the hidden

ideologies in apparently seeming simple text for the newspaper readers. The study will help

future researchers to examine the significance of newspaper headlines in order to discover how it

affects the ideologies of media and constructs reality in social and political context.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE As the present study is aimed to focus on the use of transitivity model in newspapers, this section

provides a review of the relevant literature.



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Sheyholislami (2001) investigated the representation of the Iraqi Kurds through critical discourse

analysis of news on the Iraqi- Kurdish conflict in the Globe and Mail, and the New York Times,

in 1988 and 1991. He concluded that there was a differential representation of the Kurds by these

two newspapers. It was also shown that the determining factor for this differential representation

could have been the difference in the Western‟s power relationships with Iraq in the two time

periods in question.

Koosha and Shams (2005), following Halliday‟s transitivity model (1985), described the

headlines of news story on Iran‟s nuclear program. The data was collected from British

newspapers: Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Times, and The Independent. The

findings of this study indicated that the British newspaper‟s coverage of Iran‟s nuclear tended to

present a negative image of Iran and its nuclear program in the context of “US” and “THEM”.

Yaghoobi (2009) did a research to explore the relation between the news structures in two

selected printed media, namely, Newsweek and the Keyhan International, on the representations

of Hizbullah-Israel war in 2006. The results of this study demonstrated that the representation of

the same news actors, Hizbullah and Israeli forces, by two different and ideologically opponent

printed media opposed each other. By the same token, these printed media presented facts in a

way that will influence the reader's view of these incidents.

Mineshima (2009) investigated how two sample texts of English newspapers textualized

differently. This paper analyzed the texts in terms of various concepts of Halliday‟s Systemic

Functional Grammar (1994). The result not only showed that the writers used various language

resources to achieve their purposes, but also demonstrated that powerful analytical tools of

Systemic Functional Grammar used in analyzing written discourse.

Ayoola, (2010) studied the use of language for the presentation of the conflicting ideological

positions in Niger-Delta discourse in some Nigerian national newspapers. In this study, three

national newspapers (Vanguard, The Punch, and The Guardian) were analyzed based on Critical

Discourse Analysis. The finding of this study shown that the three major categories of

participants in the Niger-Delta conflict, the Federal Government of Nigeria; the transnational oil

companies‟ personnel and their agents; and the Niger-Delta activists and their sympathizers, all

supported the media to present their positions in a manner that could earn them public

compassion and understanding.

Naz, Alavi and Baseer (2012) explored Benazir Bhutto‟s speech “Democratization in Pakistan at

September 25, 2007”. They applied Halliday‟s (1994) model of transitivity. The results indicated

that Benazir Bhutto gave more value to material clauses. It was also shown that she could employ

linguistic choices quiet perfectly according to the situation. She abundantly used spatial and

temporal circumstances to verify her arguments.

Opara (2012) conducted her case study on understanding of speech in the Emecheta‟s texts. This

study applied the components of transitivity to Emecheta‟s narrative discourse to describe events

and experiences. In this study, the data analyzed at the levels of grammar and context. The



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purpose of this study was to determine how meanings are made through Emechet a‟s language

use and how she used language to focus on her gender themes. In general, it showed how

grammatical choices brought out thematic issues in discourse.

Sajjad (2013) analyzed news headlines about Imran Khan‟s peace march towards Waziristan. To

this purpose, he selected twenty news headlines randomly from local English papers, local Urdu

papers and foreign English papers. He used the critical discourse analysis as the theoretical basis.

The most obvious finding to emerge from this study was that news are representation of editor‟s

ideology and it depicted their political, personal and national inclination in spite of their claim to

be unbiased neutral in their approach.

VO (2013) did a research to explore how governments, central banks and people represented in

English and Vietnamese hard news, business reports. The theoretical frameworks of this study

were Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the transitivity system in Systemic Functional

Linguistics (SFL). The results of this study demonstrated that the government and its central bank

in the Vietnamese reports portrayed as more powerful than those in the English reports, and

people in Vietnamese represented as passive and absent while those in English are presented as

active, performing various roles in the experiential world of business.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following questions were thoroughly addressed throughout the study:

1. Is Etemad newspaper highlighting the sings of the Reformist discourse?

2. Is Keyhan newspaper highlighting the sings of the Principlist discourse?

METHODOLOGY

Data Selection

This study is based on the analysis of data from the headlines of news coverage of Iran‟s tenth

presidential elections of 2009 (1388) in Keyhan and Etemad newspapers. The data used for the

study collected from this www.magiran.com. Keyhan is the representative of Principlist discourse

while Etemad is the representative of Reformist discourse.

For the purpose of this investigation, a period of about 3 months, 4th April 2009 to 13th June

2009, was selected. This time frame covers a period of heightened attention by the media to

Iran‟s tenth presidential elections. The archives of the mentioned newspapers were then searched

for relevant headlines. Then, 84 headlines were selected as the corpus of the study.

Method of Analysis

Theoretical framework for this study is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Critical discourse

analysis is an Interdisciplinary method to the study of discourse that sees language as a form of

social action and focuses on approaches by which social and political dominance of the text and

speech reproduced (Fairclough, 2001). Van Dijk (1998), being also consistent with the

Fairclough‟s definition of CDA (2001), considers that CDA studies written and oral texts and

http://www.magiran.com/



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reveals sources of power, domination, inequality and discrimination. This approach is derived

from critical linguistics in the 1970s and is created by a group of linguists at the University of

East Anglia (Hodge & Kress, 1993). As stated by Jorgensen & Phillips (2002: 60), “CDA

investigate the relationship between discourse, social and cultural developments in various fields

and provide theories and methods for the empirical study”. There are many various approaches of

CDA. The version of CDA that we apply in this study is that of the so-called „Lancaster School‟.

This is the version that has been developed since the1980s by Norman Fairclough and his

colleagues at Lancaster University in England (Haig, 2012). The major analytical framework

used by CDA for the analysis of linguistic texts is the transitivity. This approach finds its roots in

Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in which linguistic wording and social-

cultural meaning have combined in texts, tries to show hidden ideology behind the texts

(Fairclough, 2001). Transitivity usually refers to how meaning is represented in the clause. It

plays an important role in representing how speakers codify their mental picture of reality in

language and how they account for their experience of the world around them (Fowler,1991).

Linguistically, transitivity is related to the propositional meanings and functions of syntactic

elements. The representations that can be clarified within a transitivity model are said to signal

bias, manipulation and ideology in discourse. Furthermore, a great amount of social effect of

media has to do with how the media selectively represents the states of being, actions, events and

situations concerning a given society (Matu, 2008). According to Fowler (1991: 70) transitivity is

a substantial and vigorous semantic concept in Systemic Functional Grammar and is a part of the

ideational metafunction of language. It is also an essential tool in the analysis of representation

(ibid). Simpson (1993: 96) also states that “transitivity has been employed to uncover how

certain meanings are foregrounded while others are suppressed or obfuscated”.

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) claims that transitivity is the representation of processes, types

of participants and circumstances typically associated with them, but Simpson (1993) asserts that

transitivity refers generally to how meaning is represented in the clause. The transitivity system

looks at the grammar of the clauses as representation and is concerned with three aspects of the

clause: processes, participants, and circumstances (Eggins, 2004). A central issue of Halliday's is

that transitivity is the foundation of representation; it is the way the clause is used to analyze

events and situations as being of certain types. Transitivity also has the facility to analyze the

same event in different ways, a facility which, as Fowler (1991: 70-71) shows, is of great interest

in newspaper analysis.

Halliday (1973) argues that functional and linguistic author‟s choices arising from the social

conditions, which affect the understanding‟s author. Hence, the linguistics‟ choices should be

highlighted in the discourse level. According to SFL, there are three fundamental types of

metafunction: ideational function (the identification and description of people, things and events);

interpersonal function (the expression of social roles and attitudes) and textual function (the

coordination of texts both internally and with respect to their contexts of production and

reception) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).

Three types of meaning within grammatical structures can be identified: ideational or experiential

meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. “Halliday‟s transitivity refers to these

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/encode

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/coincidentally



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meta-functions. Experiential meaning is meaning about phenomena, about things (living and

nonliving, abstract and concrete); about goings on (what the things are or do) and the

circumstances surrounding these happenings and doings. These meanings are realized in

wordings through participant, process, and circumstance” (Gerot and Wignell, 1995: 12)

Interpersonal meaning, according to Gerot and Wignell (ibid), is meaning which expresses a

speaker‟s attitudes and judgments. While look states it has to do with the ways in which we act

upon one another through language-giving and requesting information, getting people to do

things, and offering to do things ourselves and the ways in which we expresses our judgment and

attitudes about such things as likelihood, necessity, and desirability. These meanings are realized

by MOOD and Modality.

Lock (1996: 10) states that “the textual meaning has to do with the ways in which a stretch of

language is organized in relation to its context”. This meaning is realized through patterns of

Theme and Cohesion.

In this case, this research concerns to ideational or experiential meaning. This research works

with linguistic features that realize this meaning. They are process, participant, and circumstance

what so-called “Transitivity”.

The Transitivity Processes and Main Participants

The headlines are usually stated in the form of a clause and the best way to analyze these sections

is Transitivity model. Transitivity in SFL refers to the whole system of representational resources

made accessible by a special language at the level of the clause (Haig, 2012). The transitivity

model is composed of six processes in a text and the types of participants and circumstances

typically associated with them (Eggins, 2004). According to Gerot and Wignell (1995: 54)

“processes are central to transitivity. Participants and circumstances are incumbent upon the

doings, happenings, feelings and beings”. In the following sections, the six processes and their

participants are described by using examples from Keyhan and Etemad newspapers. In this study,

the „circumstances‟ of processes will not be analyzed, because „circumstances‟ did not play any

important role in the analysis of data research data.

Material processes

Based on Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) material processes are „process of doing‟ (179), which

are usually believable and tangible (Eggins, 2004). They express the notion that “some entity

physically does something, which may be done to some other entity”. (Gerot and Wignell, 1995:

55) These processes can have two participants: the „Actor‟, which is being obligatory and „Goal‟

whose existence is optional (ibid: 55). Actor is an entity which carries out the actions; and goal is

an entity upon which the actions are performed (Eggins, 2004). Examples (1) to (6) contain some

of the processes under discussion:

.راي هي دذ احوذي ژادن ث اصلگرايبى هتقذ -(1)

کشکر ذف فرايذ هبدی

(1/2/88بى )کی

1. Critical Principlists also vote to Ahmadinejad.



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A MP G

Keyhan (April 21, 2009)

.حوبيت کرددر اتخبثبت بهسدی دکتر احوذی ژادثب صذر ثیبی ای از فراکطیى اقالة اضالهی هجلص -(2)

فرايذ هبدی ذف کشگر

(7/2/88کیبى )

2. Islamic Revolution Fractions of Parliament supported the nomination of doctor

A MP G

Ahmadinejad's selection by issuing a statement.


.راي هي دن احوذي ژادثب افتخبر ث -(3)

ذف فرايذ هبدی

(13/3/88کیبى )

3. I proudly vote for Ahmadinejad.

MP G

Keyhan (June 03, 2009)

In this headline, the actor is implicit pronoun “I”, because Persian is a pro-drop language.

Some examples of material process in Etemad newspaper are given below:

.اعالم کرد هیر حطیي هضی کبذيذاتریحوبيت خد را از هصطفی هعیي -(4)

ذف فرايذ هبدی کشگر

(2/2/88اعتوبد )

4. Mostafa Moin declared his support for the candidacy of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A MP G

Etemad (April 22, 2009)

.رای دیذ اصالح طلجبى ثرای تغییر قایي تجعیض آهیس علی زبى ث -(5)

ذف فرايذ هبدی

(19/3/88اعتوبد )

5. To change laws that discriminate against women, you vote reformists.

A MP G

Etemad (June 09, 2009)

In this headlines, the actor is also the implicit pronoun “you”.

.حوبيت کردذ هیر حطیي هضیاز هذش فر از اعضبی یئت علوی داشگب اهیر کجیر 120 -(6)

ذف فرايذ هبدی کشگر

(10/3/88اعتوبد )

6. 120 faculty members of Amirkabir University supported Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A MP G

Etemad (May 31, 2009)

Mental Processes

While material processes are related to our experience of the physical world, mental processes are

concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness (Halliday & Matthiessen,



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2004). These processes are processes of sensing (Eggins, 2004). Halliday & Matthiessen (2004)

state that “mental processes refer to verbs indicating perception (e.g., hear), cognition (e.g.,

know), affection (e.g., like) and desire like understand, see, thinking, want, hate and decide”

(210). Because the mental processes are very different from material processes, they also have

different meaning participants. In these processes, Halliday & Matthiessen (2004) apply „Sensor‟

and „Phenomenon‟ participants. Sensors must be conscious human participants or active

participants, and phenomena must be non-active participants (Eggins, 2004). Consider the

following examples of mental processes from the research corpus:

فراهظ کذ.را تجرث تلخ تذيذات اقالة در در اصالحبت اصلگرايبى -(7)

فرايذ ری حطگر پذيذ

(29/1/88کیبى )

7. The Principlists don‟t forget the bitter experiences of the Revolution threats in the

S MeP Ph

Reformists’ period.


گراى کذ.هردم را حرف بی خالف اقعثب بهسد ب -(8)

پذيذ فرايذ ری حطگر

(23/2/88کیبى )

8. Candidates don‟t make people worried with untrue words.

S MeP Ph

(May 13, 2009) Keyhan

ین.وی ثرا هثل ايراى تب یچ کشری -(9)

فرايذ ری پذيذ

(23/2/88اعتوبد )

9. I don‟t see any country like Iran alone.

S MeP P


In the headline (9), the „Sensor‟ is the implicit pronoun “we” which has been dropped.

Relational Processes

The third category of main processes is relational processes. Relational processes are concerned

with the process of being in the world of abstract relations (Halliday, 1994). The broad category

of relational process types includes all those processes concerned with the expression of „being‟.

The interpretation of relational processes is not very clear (Haig, 2012). Halliday & Matthiessen

(2004) state that „more than any other process types, the relational processes have a rich potential

for ambiguity‟ (247). They divided these processes into two categories: „Attribute‟ process and

„Identifying‟ process. Attribute processes ascribe properties to someone or something. „Carrier‟

and „Attribute‟ are the participants of these processes. But in identifying processes, a thing is

used to identify the other thing and main participants of these processes are „Identifier‟ and

„identified‟ (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004). The main feature of attribute process is that an

attribute clause is not reversible, which means the subject is always a carrier and can never be an

attribute (Simpson & Mayer, 2009). The following examples contain relational process:

اضت. کبذيذاي بيي اصلگرايبى احوذي ژاد -(10)



159

فرايذ رثطی شبضبيیشبضذ شبخت شذ

(26/1/88کیبى )

10. Ahmadinejad is the final candidate of Principlists.

IR IP ID


.اضتثراي اضتورار گفتوبى اهبم)ر( هبضت تريي گسي احوذي ژاد -(11)

فرايذ رثطی اضبدی حبهل هطذ

(15/2/88کیبى )

11. Ahmadinejad is the most appropriate option for the continuation of the

C AP AT

Imam‟s discourse.

Keyhan (May 05, 2009)

.اضت هصیجت دلت ثعذی ضبم عذالت هطکي هر -(12)

فرايذ رثطی شبضبيی شبخت شذ شبضذ

(8/2/88اعتوبد )

12. Mehr housing and equity shares are the curse of the next government.

IR IP ID


.اضت قض حقق شرذی اطالعبت غیر شفبف دلت -(13)

رثطی شبضبيیشبضذ شبخت شذ فرايذ

(22/2/88اعتوبد )

13. Government’s non-transparent data are the violation of civil rights.

IR IP ID


In the selected headlines of Etemad, all the relational processes were identified type, but in

Keyhan there were two types of relational process.

Subsidiary Process Types

There are three subsidiary processes along with the main processes. These processes are

behavioral, verbal and existential. These three subsidiary processes are discussed as follow.

Behavioral Processes

According to Halliday & Matthiessen (2004) behavioral processes are “processes of (typically

human) physiological and psychological behavior, like breathing, coughing, smiling, dreaming

and staring” (248). They are the least distinct of all the six process types because they have no

clearly defined characteristics of their own; rather, they are partly like the material and partly like

the mental (ibid). In these types of processes there is one participant labeled „Behavior‟. Due to

the nature of newspaper articles, behavioral processes were not found in any headlines in the

present research data.



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Verbal Processes

Verbal processes include speech and every type of meaning‟s exchange. Hallidy (1994) stated

that „these are processes of saying‟ (140). „Receiver and Sayer‟ and „Verbiage‟ are the

participants of these processes (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004). „Sayer‟ is the entity which

expresses the processes, and they typically are conscious participants. „Receiver‟ is the entity to

whom the verbal process is directed, and verbiage is the statement of the verbal process (ibid).

As claimed by Fowler (1991) many political activities are the result of speech and verbal

exchange. Dialogues, negotiations, statements and trials come from discursive practices.

Furthermore, printed media in Iran are like to use direct and indirect quotations. Main verbs of a

verbal process are usually „say‟ or any other verbs that have such a meaning. “Verbal processes

are expressed by verbs like speaking, reporting, asking, ordering and so on” (Halliday &

Matthiessen, 2004: 252-256). In news reporting, „verbal‟ clauses allow the reporter to attribute

information to sources, including officials, experts and eye witnesses, as in the following extract

from the headlines of Keyhan and Etemad newspapers. In many main clauses, the main verb

„Say‟ is omitted and instead there are two dots (:) .Look at the examples below:

: ث دجبل پیشرفت تعبلی کشرين.احوذی ژاد -(14)

گيذ

(21/2/88کیبى )

14. Ahmadinejad: we are seeking for country‟s growth and sublimity.

Sy

Keyhan (May 11, 2009)

: احوذي ژاد کبذيذاي بيي اصلگرايبى اضت.فعبالى اصلگرا -(15)

گيذ

(26/1/88)کیبى

15. Principlists’ activists: Ahmadinejad is the final candidate of Principlists.

Sy


:ثب تذثیر اصالح طلجبى پیرز اتخبثبت هی شذ. خبتوی -(16)

گيذ

(22/2/88اعتوبد )

16. Khatami: Reformists won the elections with tact.

Sy


: دلت را ث هبظر دعت هی کن.عاى کرددر ديذار ثب هطؤالى ضتبد اتخبثبتی خد هیر حطیي هضی -(17)

گيذ فرايذ گفتبری

(15/1/88اعتوبد )

17. In a meeting with his campaign officials, Mir Hossein Mousavi said: I invite the

Sy VP

government to debate.




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Existential Processes

According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) “existential processes represent that something

exists or happens” (256). Hancock (2005:240) stated that “existential process is a clause that

presents an entity as existing without predicating anything more about it”. Moreover, Halliday &

Matthiessen (2004) expressed that existential processes have some features of relational process

in the sense that the common verb is BE (is, am, are, was, were, has been, have been, etc.) and

other verbs such as go, come, toil, exist, remain, arise, occur, happen, take place. Existential

processes are simply realized by the existence of some entities, and involve the use of the word

„there‟ (ibid). Like the behavioral process, in this study, there were not found any existential

process in research data.

The other participant introduced in this section is „beneficiary‟. “The Beneficiary is the one to

whom or for whom the process is said to take place. It appears in „material‟ and „verbal‟ clauses,

and occasionally in „relational‟ ones” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 293).

.راي هي دذ احوذي ژادحجت االضالم شجي: اصلگرايبى هتقذ ن ث -(18)

فرايذ هبدی ثر ثر

(1/2/88کیبى )

18. Hujjat al-Islam Shajooni: Critic Principlists will also vote to Ahmadinejad.

MP B


A diagrammatic summary of process types and their participants is given in Figure 1 and 2

respectively.

Fig 1: Types of process (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 172)



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Fig 2: Process types and their participants (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004: 173)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, we will present the results from the analyses. To this end, the verbs that realize the

processes as well as the participants involved in the processes were described and analyzed. The

participants of the process types were categorized to see which entities were included or excluded

from the realizations of the processes.

The absence, presence or frequency of each type of process may have different meanings.

According to Fairclough (2001), choices between process types has an effect on highlighting or

backgrounding agency and such choices are ideological, because manipulation of agency results

in leaving attributions of causality and responsibility unclear.

First we analyzed the Keyhan headlines. Therefore, 43 headlines (82 clauses) from this

newspaper were selected. Most of the selected headlines were compound sentences. As

mentioned earlier, transitivity is the way to analyze events and actions in a clause, therefore;

every clause was examined separately.

By classifying the six processes of Halliday (1994) in 43 selected headlines of Keyhan, which

composed of 43 main clauses and 41 subordinate clauses, it was found that verbal, material,

relational and mental processes were used respectively. The results of the analysis of the process

types of Keyhan are summarized in Table (1) below. The detailed analysis of material and verbal

processes as the two main processes is discussed in the following.



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Table 1: The frequency and percentages of process types used in Keyhan newspaper.

Based on Table 1, we can see that there are 82 processes, among which 29 (35/5%) are material,

2 (2/5%) mental, 17 (20/7%) relational, 34 (41/4%) verbal and none of them belong to the

behavioral and existential. The dominant process in Keyhan newspaper is verbal process with 34

(41.4%). In fact, many political activities and speeches are based on verbal exchanges which are

substantially represented in press (Fowler, 1991). Also, it is shown that there is strong tendency

in Iranian newspapers to use verbal processes. Another remarkable point about the verbal

processes is that a majority of them are quoted directly; that is, headlines, without manipulation,

are quoted directly and only the name of the speaker along with the circumstances of processes

are expressed. It is due to the cautious and Principlist behavior in the Iranian press; and it doesn‟t

allow them to broadcast events clearly (Sultani, 2008).

Material processes with 29 cases (35.5%) and relational processes with 17 cases (20.7%) are in

the following category. Press like to use the material processes, because they are more tangible

and believable (Eggins, 2004). In this study, Keyhan newspaper utilizes the material process to

assign positive attributes to Principlist party or negative attributes to the opposition. Material

processes were used to reproduce participants on the Principlists side with a sense of positively.

By placing the Principlists actors in the subject position, the texts emphasized actions such as

“nomination of doctor Ahmadinejad's selection” as a positive one.

On the other hand, further consequence of the transitivity analysis undertaken here is that the

Keyhan newspaper employs more relational processes, namely identifying and attributive

processes, than the Etemad, 20/7% and 13/5% of the time, respectively. As claimed by Reath

(1998, p.94), “when an idea is expressed by a clause with a relational verb, the writer can

influence the opinion and ideological stance of the reader”. Participant types and their

frequencies in Keyhan are shown in Table (2).

Table 2: Percentages of participants in Keyhan newspaper

Process type Frequency Percentage

Material process 29 35/5%

Mental process 2 2/5%

Relational process 17 20/7%

Behavioral process 0 0%

Verbal process 34 41/4%

Existential

Processes 0 0%

Total process 82 100%



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Functional Roles

Participants

Sayer

Actor

Beneficiary and

Receiver

Principlists 75% 80% 93%

Supreme Leader 15% 0% 0%

People 10% 20. % 7%

Reformist 0% 0% 0%

In accordance with Table 2, there are three types of participants: Supreme leader, People and

Principlists. These three participants have various functional meanings like Sayer and Receiver in

verbal processes and Actor and Beneficiary in material processes. Since, „Beneficiary‟ and

„Receiver‟ have the same meaning; they take place in one cell in Table (2). As seen in Table 2, in

Keyhan headlines 75% of the participants have the role of the Sayer, 80% role of Actor and 93%

role of Beneficiary and Receiver; that is; the role of Principlists is usually foregrounded. The

term Foregrounding is introduced by Garvin (1964) and by this definition foregrounding

“linguistic features can themselves be foregrounded, or „highlighted‟, „made prominent‟, for

specific effects, against the (subordinated) background of the rest of the text” (Wales 1984: 182).

A close look at the types of processes associated with Keyhan‟s participants and their roles in

those processes indicates that the representation of Principlists by Keyhan newspaper is a positive

one. In the following, the headlines of Etemad newspaper analyzed.

Table 3: The frequency and percentages of process types used in Etemad newspaper

As shown in Table (3), the vast majority of processes used to present participants and events

included material and verbal processes. The most frequent process type was the material. Out of

the 82 processes that represent participants, 46/3% of processes belonged to the material type.

Process type Frequency Percentage

Material process 38 46/3%

Mental process 1 1/2%

Relational process 11 13/5%

Behavioral process 0 0%

Verbal process 32 39%

Existential

Processes 0 0%

Total process 82 100%



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The higher percentages of the material processes in comparison with other processes make

visible, the higher focus of the printed media on the tangible and believable (Eggins, 2004),

because the material process expressing the notion that some entity physically does something

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). Verbal process, which constituted 39% of all process types, was

the second most frequent process type. Relational, mental were rarely used as they compromised

13/5% and 1/2% of all process types, respectively. The existential process and behavioral process

were the least frequent process, constituting 0% of all the process. Participant types and their

frequencies in Etemad are shown in Table (4).

Table 4: Percentages of participants in Etemad newspaper

Functional Roles

Participants

Sayer

Actor

Beneficiary and

Receiver

Reformists 88% 58% 61%

Supreme Leader 5% 0% 0%

People 7% 15.7% 0%

Principlists 0% 26.3% 0%

As displayed in table (4), there are four important participants in the headlines of Etemad

newspaper: Reformists, Supreme leader, People and Principlists. In verbal processes Reformists

take part as a Sayer in 88%, which shows a great dominance within a clause. Unlike the Keyhan

newspaper, in Etemad headlines People is given (7%) Sayer‟s role, that is more than Supreme

Leader (5%). This indicates that the People here are presented as more active than Supreme

Leader. It highlights the main conflict between Principlists and Reformists. From the advent of

these two discourses, this conflict existed between nodal points „People‟ and Vilayat al Faqih.

In material processes, 58% of Actor role is also given to Reformists. As the Table (4) illustrates,

People and Principlists were the „actor‟ of material process 15.7% and 26.3% of the time

respectively. The categorization of actors by their properties (Reformists, Supreme leader, People

and Principlists) uncovers who was included or excluded as the active source of actions in the

representation of an event. Also, Reformists are given the „Beneficiary and Receiver‟ role with

the percentage of 61%. This is showing that People and Supreme Leader do work in favor of

Reformists. An important point in the Etemad‟s headline is the role of „actor‟ (26.3%) that

assigns to the Principlists. That the Principlists are represented as actor in these headlines is

almost unusual. Principlists are given the role of „actor‟ in ten clauses. Five clauses have negative

structure and in these clauses, Principlists are wanted not to do anything against Reformists.

Hence, in these headlines Principlists highlighted negatively. The other five clauses have positive

structure, but formed in such a way that they are in favor of Reformists. A close look at the types

of processes associated with Etemad‟s participants and their role in those processes indicate that



166

the representation of Reformists by Etemad newspaper is a positive one while representation of

Principlist is backgrounded.

The close look at the types of processes associated with the Etemad participants and their role in

those processes reveals that representation of Reformists is positive one. The analysis of the data

in tables (2) and (4) indicates that no significant difference is seen between Keyhan (41.5%) and

Etemad (39%) in using verbal processes, while there is a significant difference between the uses

of material processes in these two newspapers. Percentages of material processes in the headlines

of Keyhan and Etemad newspapers are respectively 35.4% and 46.4%. This shows that the

Reformists tend to use material processes more because these processes are tangible and

believable. In figure 3 the process types of two newspapers are compared with each other.

Fig 3: Comparison chart between process types of Keyhan and Etemad newspaper

But the main difference of these headlines is seen between the semantic functions of participants.

As shown in table (3), most of the semantic roles (Sayer, Actor, Receiver, Beneficiary) are given

to the Principlists in Kehan newspaper and hence, there is high dominance in headlines of Kehan

newspaper in the clause. While based on table (5), in Etemad newspaper maximum of semantic

roles (sayer, actor, receiver and beneficiary) are given to Reformists.

CONCLUSION

This study was an attempt to examine the representation of the semantic changes and conflicts in

Keyhan and Etemad headlines. The findings demonstrated the existence of a biased reporting

arising from the particular world-view of the papers .The research corpus included 85 headlines

extracted from Keyhan (43) and Etemad (42) newspapers. The research findings revealed that

these two newspapers (Keyhan and Etemad) belong to two different discourses (Principlist and

Reformist). We have compared these headlines in order to detect the semantic functions of these



167

printed media and see how these two newspapers made their choices of resources for constructing

meaning appropriately. In the various clauses analyzed, Keyhan newspaper tends to describe

Principlists as an Actor, Senser or Sayer, the more powerful participants in a clause, while

Etemad newspaper does this opposite. Each newspaper applied different types of processes which

is an obvious form of biased transitivity use. Generally, the Reformist newspaper, Etemad,

tended to represent reality by using a great number of material processes because these processes

are concrete and tangible. While the Principlist, Keyhan, did so by giving priority to verbal

processes. It is due to the cautious and Principlist behavior in the Iranian press; and it doesn‟t

allow them to broadcast events clearly. At least, it shows significant evidence to suggest that

ideology and judgments play an important role in these newspapers. These findings are specific,

thus further large scale intensive research is needed to substantiate or dispute some of the initial

points and perspectives that have emerged from this project. This study also showed that the

semantic functions of discourse affected by the macro-politics of social media. Thus, the internal

structure of clauses is the polar that represents reality based on differences that exist between „us‟

and „them‟. In Keyhan „us‟ is Principlists and „them is reformists while in Etemad, it is opposite.

Although the study has produced significant findings with respect to the variations between the

Etemad and Keyhan news reporting in terms of the ideologies under which they operate, in the

course of the research, an important issue that requires further explication has been identified.

That is, the analysis is limited to the structure of clauses instead of analyzing discourse structures.

It is suggested that future research on ideology be conducted at discourse level rather than clause

levels, for a semantic analysis.

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Table 1 key for transitivity analysis

A Actor



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MP Material Process

G Goal

MeP Mental Process

S Sensor

Ph Phenomenon

RP Relational Processes

AP Attribute Process

IP Identifying Process

IR Identifier

ID Identified

C Carrier

AT Attribute

BP Behavioral Processes

VP Verbal Processes

Sy Sayer

R Receiver

EP Existential Processes

X Existent

Be Behavior

B Beneficiary

a critical study of news discourse: iran’s tenth presidential election of 2009 in keyhan and...

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