Lukin, Annabelle “Reporting War: Grammar as a Covert Operation”. 239- 240
I’ve chosen to write my blog this week on Annabelle Lukin’s article, “Reporting War”, as I think it’s extremely interesting the way she’s analysed texts about the war in Iraq, as well as speeches about it, through a linguistic approach. The main purpose of the article is to disassemble the ‘facts’ that have been reported about the war, and the way journalists have used language to essentially change the meaning of a sentence.
Lukin uses the words “The milk spilt” and “I spilt the milk” to exemplify the first couple of concepts she explains in the reading. The first is called ‘middle voice’, in which “there is no external agent who caused the event to happen” (p239). The latter example demonstrates “active voice”, in which “she is the grammatical agent which caused the even to take place” (p239). A third concept is also explained; the “passive voice”. These three different ways of speaking are not only used in politics and journalism, but also in everyday life. Carefully choosing which to speak in can completely change the way a sentence is construed by someone; by implying ownership to the cause of the event, to making it seem like a natural action.
Considering this is all technically still ‘fact’, it’s surely a journalist’s and politician’s dream to be able to use grammatical language like this to lead readers and citizens! It’s no wonder American politician’s (*ahem* Republicans), “have put billions of dollars” into being able to “frame” words and speeches; they could essentially say whatever they want if they just put it the right way (George Lakoff- linguistics professor). Lukin further explains this idea, of how choosing the right words to say can change the entire meaning of something. She used the quote, “Coalition forces dropped bombs on Baghdad”, as an example of ‘passive voice’, and how differently that sentence would be recieved if it were changed to “F- 117 radar- evading jets dropped bombs on Baghdad”. This was a fairly clever thing to have done, as having gone with the former sentence, they would have somewhat reduced fear amongst the public that perhaps the government wasn’t in control of what was happening in Iraq, as opposed to the technology being in control.
In conclusion, Lukin’s article presented some very good points on how language is manipulated to change the meaning of ‘fact’, and how it can be used to present different versions of ‘fact’, especially by media and politicians.
P.S. The George Lakoff quote was taken from here- <http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml> accessed May 14 2009.
