118 Yves Peirsman, Kris Heylen and Dirk Geeraerts
be situated at the crossroads of diachronic linguistics, sociolinguistics and
Critical Discourse Analysis.
The background of this study is probably well-known. Ever since 11
September 2001, there is increased talk of a so-called clash of civilizations,
a cultural opposition between East and West – Islam and Christianity –
which lies at the basis of the September 11 attacks. This clash of civiliza-
tions was first introduced by Samuel Huntington in a 1993 article (Hunting-
ton 1993) and later developed in a number of books (see e.g., Huntington
1996). After 9/11, it is often argued, this view has governed international
news coverage, particularly in the US media (see e.g., Abrahamian 2003,
Seib 2004). Relevant studies, however, are generally of anecdotal nature.
Abrahamian (2003), for instance, merely illustrates his argument with a
number of well-chosen quotes from a variety of newspapers. Chang and
Mehan (2006) analyze speeches by President Bush, including interviews, in
a more systematic manner. They claim the existence of a War on Terror
script, which is dominated by a religious mode of representation.
Such qualitative analyses of the discourse of power are typical products
of Critical Discourse Analysis. “Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type
of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power
abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by
text and talk in the social and political context” (Van Dijk 2001: 352). Of-
ten, CDA tries to uncover power relations through which one group of
people may control another. One such powerful group is that of journalists
or editors of newspapers, who thank their influence to the knowledge and
information they spread through their articles. Through their access to this
media discourse, they may influence the way other people think about cer-
tain issues. This can happen in a number of ways – through the choice for
or against news coverage of specific events, or, at a lower level, through a
choice for specific words rather than others in their articles (Van Dijk
2001). So far, however, CDA analyses of political discourse or media texts
are mainly of a qualitative nature (see e.g., Chilton 2004, Fairclough 1995).
Other fields of linguistics, too, analyze discourse mainly from this qua-
litative perspective. Martin (2004), for instance, discusses one particular
editorial about the consequences of 9/11 in the framework of systemic-
functional linguistics. In highlighting specific words and constructions, he
shows what rhetorical devices the author uses to negotiate solidarity with
his readership, among other elements.
Whereas such detailed analyses of individual texts may indeed bring to
light important patterns and trends, other questions can only be answered