The role of stylistic features in constructing representations of Muslims and France in English online news about terrorism in France

Abstract

Part of a larger study on style and cultural representation in the online news of three European countries, this article examines a corpus of news articles from the online versions of The Guardian and The Telegraph about the terrorist attack that took place in Nice, France in July 2016. Specifically, modality, use of the term 'jihad', and treatment of 'integration' and of Muslims are analyzed, and instances of alliteration and metaphor observed, to determine how these elements contribute to shaping journalistic representation of the event, Muslims and French society more generally. Preliminary findings suggest that both English news sources sometimes use modality to give suppositions a patina of fact, but that The Telegraph uses 'reportedly' and 'alleged(ly)' more often. In addition, The Guardian journalists sometimes misuse the term 'jihad' and its derivatives, despite the clear indications about this term that are provided in the editorial guidelines, while this does not occur in The Telegraph articles. The news sources also address the topics of integration and Muslims in diverging ways, which in turn lead to distinct portrayals of French society. These differences may be tied to the political affiliations of the sources or to journalist identity, and merit further research.

Stylistic Deceptions in Online News: Journalistic Style and the Translation of Culture

“…In contrast, as already mentioned, according to Moutet in DT7, "Radicalisation came to France … in waves"; that is, external forces, not France, are responsible for it (also see Riggs 2018). Similarly, DT21's water-related metaphor is a dig at what are, to a conservative observer, the downsides of being in the European Union and the Schengen zone:…”

“…Integration is a central issue in Europe and often comes to the fore in political and media discourse when terrorist attacks occur. Despite the fact that the term is used often and as if everyone knows what it means, integration is also a complex notion that has multiple and conflicting definitions (on the thorniness of the concept of "integration, " also see Riggs 2018;Wagman 2006). As Gianni, Giugni, and Michel (2015) explain, policies of integration vary according to country (see discussion of assimilationist vs. multiculturalist policies below).…”

“…Table 10 presents the relevant textual segments. I have discussed DT7 in detail elsewhere (Riggs 2018); among other issues was the question of journalist identity. The above results on alliteration show that while the kinds of positions taken in DT7 are more typical of Telegraph "news analysis" articles, the case is not an isolated one.…”

Online English Teaching Course Score Analysis Based on Decision Tree Mining Algorithm

“…Existing research shows that students' learning processes are usually influenced by learning factors from both the knowledge and student levels. On the one hand, in practical situations, students usually perform more consistently on practice problems containing the same knowledge concepts [18].…”