Contrastive Pragmatic Analysis

Newspapers : CNN and Al-Rai

The March of Return in Gaza

To conduct a contrastive pragmatic analysis for this incident , focus should be put
on how language use reflects the context of the incident , stance , ideology and
. frame of references
Regarding the context , the more newspaper readers know about the context , the
better they can judge the facts of news reports .In the CNN news article , readers
are not well-acquainted with the realities of the historical context of the Israeli –
Palestinian struggle unlike the readers of Al-Rai newspaper , who most of them are
originally Palestinians in addition to being exposed to the Israeli occupation in a
direct or indirect way . The degree of being familiar with the context of a particular
incident is strongly reflected in the language use .For example , in the CNN article ,
the words ( killed , confrontations , Israeli Security Forces , protestors ) are used ,
while in the Arabic article used the words ( ، ‫ جيش اإلحتالل اإلسرائيلي‬، ‫ مسيرة‬، ‫استشهد‬
‫متظاهرين سلميين‬
In addition , the Arabic article starts with mentioning a story of a Palestinian man
who passed away because of his injury in the demonstration , while the CNN article
starts by mentioning the total number of the Killed and injured Palestinians ; this
indicates that the Arabic article is more inclusive for the feelings of patriotism
. regarding the Palestinian issue
Language use is strongly related to ideology and stance , since the journalist always
tries to adopt his language use to the idealized reader by rooting the discourse into
what he believes to be common ground and by creating a shared frame of
. interpretation
Concerning ideology , the CNN article highlights the underlying meaning , frames of
interpretation and world views by stating that Palestinians who went to the
boarders in the March of Return were shooted because they marched towards the
border fence which is considered as the protective line to the so – called the State
of Israel , and they were warned earlier that every attempt to approach the
boarders would been treated severely .However , Al-Rai states that such
demonstrations reflect the determination and will of the Palestinians for the right

1
of return . Another point is that the videos for killing Palestinians are strong
. evidences in proving that Israel has committed crimes against civilians

Furthermore , stance is stated differently in both articles . In the CNN article , the
Palestinians are positioned as the party who intimidates the security of Israel ; so
that the latter has the right to shoot the demonstrators .Yet , in Al- Rai article ,
forms of everyday thinking and interpretation are reflected in positioning the
Palestinians as the party who has the right to break the boarders and to march
.against and have a clash with the occupation
The last point in this analysis is the frame of references .The journalist of the CNN
article used the word ( Israel ) , while the journalist of Al-Rai newspaper used (
‫ ) جيش اإلحتالل‬.This shows the way in which journalists " see , organize and
interpret events in the world to make the text meaningful to the public in the
format of newspaper articles .It involves perceptions , judgments , perspectives and
ways of thinking " ; cf.Silverstein and Urban 1996 .
To sum up , it becomes clear , through contrastive analysis how events are placed
. in a dominant frame of interpretation , while other facets of reality are obscured

2
3
4
5