Cross-Cultural Representation of ‘Otherness’ in Media Discourse

Abstract

The topic of this chapter is the language of the news. As I finish writing it four days after the 11 September terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reports of the events are being broadcast continuously. People from the four corners of the earth are glued to their television sets or radios following the development of events that surprised us all. Each new hour brings a new state of affairs. The many voices we hear, the many perspectives on the events, will construe different states of affairs. At this sad moment, as Paul Chilton suggests,

what happens next will be the outcome of talk and text (cabinet meetings, public statements, media representations, individual utterances) and the text and talk will be governed by cognitive and interactive habits. Under stress pre-wired patterns of thought come into their own. Policies and the orders to execute them are linguistic acts with psychological, social and ethical underpinnings. These we can’t least try to be aware of as potential impediments to just and effective response. (email message, 12 September 2001)