Ideology is so powerful it makes us believe that war is rational, despite both its brutal means and its devastating ends. The power of ideology comes from its intimate relation to language: ideology recruits all semiotic modalities, but language is its engine-room. Drawing on Halliday's linguistic theory - in particular, his account of the "semiotic big-bang" - this book explains the latent semiotic machinery of language on which ideology depends. The book illustrates the ideological power of language through a study of perhaps the most significant and consequential of our ideologies: those that enable us to legitimate, celebrate, even venerate war, at the same time that we abhor, denounce and proscribe violence. To do so, it makes use of large multi-register corpora (including the British National Corpus), and the reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Australian, US, European, and Asian news sources. Combining detailed text analysis with corpus linguistic methods, it provides an empirical analysis showing the astonishing reach of our ideologies of war and their profoundly covert and coercive power.

Auteur
Annabelle Lukin is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Macquarie University. She teaches grammar and meaning, as well as general linguistic theory. She has lectured in China and Latin America, and is a regular commentator on language matters in the Australian media.

Contenu
Table of Contents1. Language, Linguistics and Ideology1.1. Introduction: Ideology, War, and Violence 1.2. A Sociological Account of War and Violence1.3. The Problem of Language in Sociology/Critical Theory1.4. The Problem of Ideology in Linguistics1.5. Three Models of the Relationship between Language and Ideology1.5.1. Model 1: Ideology and Language as Distinct Phenomena1.5.2. Model 2: Partial Overlap between Language and Ideology1.5.3. Model 3: Language and Ideology Inextricably Intertwined1.6. The Case Study: Data and Method1.7. A Linguistic Approach to the Problem of Ideology1.8. References2. The Quest for Meaning in 20th Century Linguistics2.1. Introduction: Out of the Buzz and Hum ...2.2. Valentin N. Voloinov (1895-1936)2.3. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)2.4. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)2.5. John Rupert Firth (1890-1960) 2.6. Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) 2.7. Basil Bernstein (1924-2000)2.8. Conclusion2.9. References3. Ideology in a Socio-Semiotic Linguistic Theory3.1. Introduction3.2. Language: Matter and Meaning Intertwined3.3. Ideology in the Architecture of Human Language3.4. Ideology in Langue and in Parole3.5. Ideology in the Act of Meaning: Register and Semantic Variation3.6. Conclusion3.7. References4. War and Violence: Etymology, Definitions, Frequencies, Collocations4.1. Introduction4.2. War in the Dictionary and Thesaurus4.3. Violence in the Dictionary and Thesaurus4.4. War and Violence: Word Frequencies and Dispersion4.5. War and Violence: Collocational Patterns4.6. Conclusion4.7. References5. Ideology in the Act of Meaning5.1. Introduction: Text-in-Context5.2. Tenor, Field and Mode in ABC Text5.3. The Textual Function5.3.1. Patterns in Theme5.3.2. The System of DETERMINATION5.3.3. Cohesion5.3.4. The system of INFORMATION5.4. The Ideational Function5.5. The Interpersonal Function5.6. Conclusion5.7. References6. A Counter-ideology: War as Violence6.1. Introduction: When War is Violence6.2. The Textual Function6.2.1. Patterns in Theme6.2.2. Cohesion6.3. The Ideational Function6.4. The Interpersonal Function6.5. Conclusion6.6. References7. Configurative Rapport: The "Existential Fabric" of War7.1. Introduction: Never the Twain shall Meet7.2. The Dissociation of War from Violence7.3. ABC v Robert Fisk: Keyword Analysis7.4. The Grammatical Characteristics of War7.5. How are Perpetrators of the Violence Construed?7.6. Processes of War: Assault, Strike, Invade, Attack, Bomb and Kill7.7. Conclusion7.8. References8. Language in the Legitimation of War8.1. References9. Appendices9.1. Appendix 1: Collocations of War and Violence in British National Corpus 9.2. Appendix 2: ABC Text (T1)9.2.1. The Textual Function9.2.2. The Ideational Function9.2.3. The Interpersonal Function9.3. Appendix 3: News article by Robert Fisk (T2)9.3.1. The Textual Function9.3.2. The Ideational Function9.3.3. The Interpersonal Function9.4. Appendix 4: Additional tables for Chapter 710. Index