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Diplomatic condolences: ideological positioning in the death of Yasser Arafat

KANDA UNIVERSITY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, JAPAN, benfento{at}gmail.com

Yasser Arafat wasakey figure in the political life ofthelate20th and early 21st centuries. As Palestinian president, he was a central player in negotiations over the most contentious issue of the time: Middle East peace. But although his significance is unquestioned, his status is ambiguous: for some he was a freedom fighter, for others a terrorist. It is interesting, therefore, to observe the ways in which different world governments marked the death of Arafat in November 2004, in their official condolence messages. Using the tools of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this article treats the diplomatic condolence message as a recognizable text type that has much to tell us about how governments signal and construct ideological positions and in doing so `enact' the international community.

Key Words: appraisal • Arafat • condolence • critical discourse analysis • ideology • Israel • Palestine • political discourse • systemic functional linguistics

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Discourse & Society, Vol. 18, No. 6, 697-718 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926507082192


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Fenton-Smith, B. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?