الفهرس 
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Abstract
Summary
This study seeks to investigate the function of language as a powerful social practice in newspaper discourse. It tackles a critical analysis of media discourse particularly of newspaper articles that represent the swine flu issue. The practical objective is to analyze the linguistic features contained in the structure of selected news articles for the purpose of making clear the representation of the swine flu crisis.
By examining the selected articles, an attempt is made to piece together a coherent and comprehensive picture of this global pandemic as depicted by the journalists. Regarded as a global severe disease, people around the world get scared lest they should catch the virus. In this sense, the study comes to elucidate how fears are addressed and represented through the language of newspapers. An attempt is also to show how journalists’ linguistic choices help creating a specific ideological point of view in their treatment of the issue; that is to say, how language is used in these articles to constitute particular perspectives and beliefs concerning such crisis.
Various research questions are raised in an attempt to uncover the primary objectives behind conducting this study:
How is the swine flu crisis pictured in the US newspapers?
What is the ideological role of language in the representation of the swine flu crisis?
To what extent does the language of the media affect the readers?
How do the language choices made by the journalists influence the audience?
The data chosen for this study consist of a corpus of nearly twenty five newspaper full articles that widely report the crisis of the swine flu pandemic. The articles are extracted from two well-known and widely circulated American newspapers, namely the Washington Post (WP) and the New York Times (NYT). Such articles are dating from 24 March 2009 to 20 August 2009, the period during which SF issue underwent a full cycle from sudden rising to slow falling. The following diagram represents the time frame for the present study.
Data analysis is carried out adopting the CDA method. It depends mainly on Richardson’s (2007) model of analyzing newspaper reports, which proves its applicability to the analysis of the selected articles. Certain linguistic tools in this model are focused upon and tackled throughout the study. They are specifically selected according to their frequency and occurrence in the articles. They are namely words and meanings, naming and reference; transitivity, modality, presupposition, metaphor, neologism and narrative.
The thesis is divided into two volumes. Vol. 1 contains five chapters organized in the following manner:
Chapter one (Introduction) is an introductory chapter, where an overview concerning the swine flu issue is provided. The objectives of research, rationale behind the research as well as organization of the research are also included.
In chapter two (Review of Literature), the theoretical background is presented. It sheds light upon the different linguistic approaches utilized for the purpose of conducting studies on media discourse. Similar previous studies on media discourse of health crises are also introduced.
Chapter three (Theoretical Framework) provides a detailed and illustrated account of the theoretical and analytical framework as well as the research methodology adopted in the present study. It investigates CDA as both theory and method. A full account of the chosen material, in addition to a detailed description of the chosen linguistic features used for the analysis of the study is made along the way.
Chapter four (Analysis & Discussion) is the most important chapter of the study. It is the application part where the linguistic tools explained in chapter three are applied to the selected newspaper articles. Such application is made, based on Richardson’s (2007) model of analysis.
Finally, chapter five (Conclusions) summarizes the most important results that have emerged from the investigation. It also provides suggestions for how the present thesis may motivate further studies within the field under investigation or other fields.
Vol. 2 of the thesis contains the Appendices. It represents the news articles that the study makes use of for the application section. It is divided into two sections: section one (Appendix One) includes the NYT articles, while section two (Appendix Two) includes the WP articles.