Prosody and ideology

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the role choices in phonological systems (Brazil 1997; Halliday & Greaves 2008) play in the ideological work of a text. Using an instance of news reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, we show how prosodic choices – both those shared with other texts in this register, and those specific to this instance – contribute to the ideological force of the text. The ideological effects of prosodic choices in this text, we argue, include projecting a very particular interpretation of the invasion as if distant and objective, and giving prominence to claims that the invasion was measured and targeted, and by implication in accordance with international law.