See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243972086

Transitivity: a Discourse Analysis of Selected

American Newspapers towards Iran's Nuclear
Program

ARTICLE JULY 2013

READS

834

1 AUTHOR:

Fatemeh Bagheri
Wuhan University
7 PUBLICATIONS 0 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Available from: Fatemeh Bagheri

Retrieved on: 15 January 2016
Transitivity: a Discourse Analysis of Selected American Newspapers
towards Irans Nuclear Program

1. Introduction
Irans peaceful nuclear program has become one of the very critical issues both for Iran and
the international societies. Due to the Irans purposes for applying the peaceful side of nuclear
power, it is considered as the non-negotiable right of Iran and required to be valued by other
countries. As Mr. Rohani stated, the protection of Iranian nations rights is the criterion, and any
government in any situation is committed to defending them. Iran complies fully with NPT
provisions. Nothing suggests otherwise. Its program is legal and non-military. Washington, other
Western nations and Israel know it. They maliciously claim otherwise.
However, US considers Iranian nuclear program against its own inertest and revealingly
neglect the Irans right. It might be claimed that US is one of the countries that conducts media
manipulation. Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an
image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of
logical fallacies and propaganda techniques. One of the techniques is the use of specific lexical
items and expressions.
The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post were selected for
a number of reasons. All three are considered elite newspapers and are among the largest media
outlets in the United States, ranking second, third, and fifth, respectively, in terms of circulation
size. They are leading newspapers with regard to the coverage of international news and views,
drawing readers from every state and around the world. USA Today ranks first in terms of
circulation but is last among the top five in terms of international news coverage and editorials.
Los Angeles Times ranks fourth in terms of circulation but is considered to be a regional
newspaper and does not have the same effect among policy makers (Izadi, 2007). The
Washington Post is not a national newspaper but is the leading newspaper in the nations capital
(Audit Bureau of Circulation, 2006). In addition, elite newspapers such as The New York Times
serve an intermediate agenda-setting function for other news sources, in particular with regard to
the coverage of international events and issues (Golan, 2006).

1
 2. Theoretical Background

Iran started its nuclear program in the mid-1960s under the authoritarian and pro-American
regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with U.S. support for the program. In 1967, the United
States supplied Iran with a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor to establish the Tehran Nuclear
Research Center (Tarock, 2006). Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), on July 1, 1968, the first day the treaty
was circulated for signatures. Iran subsequently ratified the treaty on March 5, 1970, the same
day that the treaty was ratified by the United States (Sahimi, 2003, cited by Foad Izai). The
objectives of the international treaty are to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons
technology, to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving
general and complete disarmament (International Atomic Energy Agency, n.d., p. 1).
By American, French, and German support, the Shah started an ambitious nuclear program
to build as many as 23 nuclear reactors (Tarock, 2006) that were to be operational in the 1990s
(Howard, 2004). The three supporting countries also made contracts to train Iranian nuclear
scientists (Tarock, 2006). The Shahs government had awarded the contract to Kraftwerk Union
(a subsidiary of Siemens) of West Germany to construct two 1,200-megawatt nuclear reactors at
the site. The construction began in 1974. By the time of the 1979 revolution in Iran, the first
reactor was 90% complete with 60% of its equipment installed. The second reactor was only
50% complete. The program was halted after the revolution as a result of Irans internal turmoil
and Germanys refusal to complete the project (Sahimi, 2003). The partially completed reactors
were severely damaged due to six separate Iraqi attacks launched between 1984 and 1987
(Howard, 2004). Under pressure from the United States, Kraftwerk Union refused to resume the
Bushehr project when Iran restarted its nuclear program after the Iran-Iraq war had ended.
Germany also refused to ship the reactor components and technical documentation that Iran had
paid for. Irans subsequent attempts to acquire technological support for its nuclear program
from other Western companies in Argentina, Spain, Italy, and Czechoslovakia were thwarted as a
result of U.S. pressure (Sahimi, 2003).
After many unsuccessful attempts to find a supplier in the West that could complete Irans
nuclear power plants at Bushehr, Iran turned to Russia (International Crisis Group, 2003). In
1995, Iran signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy to finish the reactors at
Bushehr. Russia also agreed to build a 30- to 50-megawatt thermal light-water research reactor

2
and a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility, to train about 15 Iranian nuclear scientists per
year, and to provide 2,000 tons of natural uranium. In the same year, under U.S. pressure, Russia
cancelled the deal for the construction of both the research reactor and the centrifuge facility
(Sahimi, 2003).
In August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (a front group for the
Mojahedin-e Khalq), which has been on the U.S. State Departments list of foreign terrorist
organizations since 1997, presented evidence that two nuclear facilities had been set up but not
declared to the IAEA. The group argued that the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water production plant were parts of a clandestine nuclear weapons program. The
Iranian government formally admitted the existence of the two plants in February 2003, but it
maintained that they were for peaceful purposes only (Kemp, 2003).
In a 2003 report to Congress, Sharon Squassoni, a specialist in national defense at the
Congressional Research Service, acknowledged that the resistance councils record on providing
accurate information is mixed, but he argued that this information is valuable because it gives
leverage to the IAEA to exert additional pressure on Iran and to probe deeper into its nuclear
program. According to Squassonis report, the Iranian opposition group had made similar claims
in February 1992. Subsequently, with Irans open invitation, the IAEA had made four special
visits between 1992 and 2000 but had found no evidence to confirm the opposition groups
claims (Zak, 2002). In response to the opposition report, the international media focused heavily
on the newly discovered facilities and their impressive sophistication and advanced state
(International Crisis Group, 2003, p. 1). However, only if Iran had signed the NPTs Additional
Protocol would it have violated the NPT by not declaring the construction of the facilities. Under
its original safeguards agreements, Iran was not required to declare new nuclear facilities unless
Iran started processing nuclear material in those facilities. Therefore, the IAEA had to show that
such a violation took place. In its 2004 environmental sampling, the IAEA inspectors found
traces of highly enriched uranium at the Natanz facility and at another nuclear site, which were
enriched to 36% and 54% (El Baradei, 2004). Iran argued that the contamination was not a result
of nuclear activity in Iran but that it had originated from imported used centrifuge parts.
Subsequent IAEA reports indicated that Irans argument was plausible. In a September 1,
2004, report, IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei stated, From the Agencys analysis
to date, it appears plausible that the HEU contamination found at those locations may not have

3
resulted from enrichment of uranium by Iran at the Kalaye Electric Company Workshop or at
Natanz (p. 10). The report continued, Iran maintains its assertion that it has not enriched
uranium to more than 1.2% using centrifuge technology and that such enrichment had occurred
at a centrifuge research and development program in Tehran, not at Natanz (Annex, p. 6). These
findings are significant because they mean that the declaration of the Natanz facility was not
required because no nuclear material was either stored or processed there. Nevertheless, Irans
decision to continue its uranium enrichment program has resulted in an ongoing tugof-war
between the IAEA, Iran, the European trio, namely Germany, France, and Great Britain, and the
United States (Tarock, 2006, p. 92) (extracted from A Discourse Analysis of Elite American
Newspaper Editorials, The Case of Irans Nuclear Program, by Foad Izadi et. al, 2007)
Given the above explanations and as to the USs position toward Irans nuclear program
development, in this study, then, I examine the effect of USs newspapers discourses in the
ideological construction applying discourse analysis. Therefore, I focus on investigating the
relations between selection of certain linguistic forms and the ideologies and power relations that
underlie such forms. Guided by assumptions of critical discourse analysis and drawing on the
analytical framework offered in Hallidays Systemic Functional Grammar, the article examines
one dimension of clause grammar: transitivity, which may be associated with the ideational
function of language.
3. Methodology
The data corpus for this study consists of the selected front-page news articles on Nuclear
Program of Iran that appeared in New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post
during 2005 to 2013. This generates a total 60 articles, with 20 articles from each. As to the
research procedure, the 60 articles first were analyzed by Antconc and then have been analyzed
manually regarding the transitivity.
4. The Analysis and Discussion
Transitivity
Transitivity is a key analytical term of ideational function of language mentioned by
Halliday in his systemic-functional view. Transitivity is a semantic concept and considers how
the meaning is put out in the clause. Actually, it shows how language users encode their mental
picture in the language. It provides a potential for language users to categorize the infinite variety

4
of events and occurrences into a finite set of process type. It shows who does what to whom
(Juan Li, 2010)
Transitivity analysis can reflect how text and discourse choices can bring the bias and
manipulation into the representations.
Halliday (1994) suggests that the semantic processes represented in the clause potentially
have three components: the process itself, which is expressed by the verb phrase in the clause;
the participants involved in the process, which are typically realized by noun phrases in the
clause; and the circumstances associated with the process, usually expressed by adverbial and
prepositional phrases. Halliday further suggests that processes can be classified according to
whether they represent actions, events, states of mind or states of being. Material, mental and
relational are the three main process types in the English transitivity system, referring
respectively to actions or events in the external world, the inner experience of consciousness, and
the processes of classifying and identifying. Located at the borderlines between the three
processes are three less clearly set apart, yet distinguishable, processes: behavioral (those that
represent outer manifestations of inner workings), verbal (symbolic relationships constructed in
human consciousness and physiological states), and existential (processes concerned with
existence) (Juan Li, 2010). In the systemic-functional view of language, therefore, the transitive
structure can include the following process types as summarized in the below table.
Table 1 - Process type in systemic-functional grammar
Process types Examples
Mental Elbaradei felt US-led was in Iraq unjust
Relational China and Russia both are permanent members of the UN security
Material Tehran struck with France, Germany and Britain by violating the agreement
Behavioral It could threaten oil shipments through the Strait of Hormoz
Existential Nuclear program which Iran maintains, is for civilian purposes only
Verbal This was never mentioned in public
Transitivity analysis is particularly revealing how agency and process are attributed to the
various participants in the text by the writer, offering a useful tool to explore the ways in which
language constructs reality in terms of how primary and dominant social agents, actors, or groups
are categorized, characterized, represented and polarized in discourse (Juan Li, 2010).
To investigate the existence of social actors in each newspaper using the transitivity
analysis, I first look at the transitivity patterns in the three newspapers selected front-page

5
 headlines on the relevant issued of Nuclear Program of Iran. Since headlines generally
summarize the contents of news articles and orient readers to interpret the texts from a particular
perspective, they are often the first opportunities for news writers to communicate specific
ideologies to the readers (Van Dijk, 1989; Bell 1991, cited by Juan Li, 2010).

Transitivity structures in the headlines

To analyze the transitivity patterns in the headlines of the news texts, I selected the
headlines of the front-page news on nuclear issue of Iran that appeared in each newspaper.
Tables 2, 3 and 4 summarize the participants/actors represented in the headlines and the
processes attributed to them in the three newspapers, using the categories of the semantic roles of
participants/actors and the process types developed by Halliday.
Table 2 - Transitivity patters in the headline of the New York Times
H Date Participant Process Participant
1 04/13 U.S. {actor} imposes sanctions on {material} those aiding Iran
2 12/06 Security Council {actor} approves sanctions against {material} Iran over nuclear program
3 12/07 Israel {sensor} unconvinced {mental} Iran has dropped nuclear program
4 02/10 U.S. {behaver} eyes new sanctions over {behavioral} Iran nuclear program
5 06/10 E.U. {actor} Signals New sanctions against {material} Iran over its nuclear program
6 12/11 West {actor} to act on {material} Iranian nuclear program
7 02/12 U.S. Agencies {sensor} see no move by {mental} Iran to build a bomb

Table 3- Transitivity patters in the headline of the Wall Street Journal

H Date Participant Process Participant
1 09/12 Ahmadinejad {actor} suggests progress on nuclear talks after {material} U.S. election
2 05/09 Sanctions {goal/target} won't work against {material} Iran
3 10/09 U.S. {actor} considers a new assessment {material} of Iran threat
4 04/10 U.S. {actor} tries to buy time {material} for its Iran strategy
5 12/09 West {actor} Decries {material} Iran's latest nuclear offer
6 09/09 We {sayer} have been talking {verbal} to Iran for 30 years
7 10/09 Iran {actor} agrees to transfer uranium {material} abroad

6
 Table 4 - Transitivity patters in the headline of the Washington Post
H Date Participant Process Participant
1 02/05 Briton {sayer} indicted for {verbal} violation of Iranian embargo
2 03/05 IAEA {actor} waits to issue {material} head Iran verdict
3 03/07 U.S., Allies {actor} agree to drop{material} proposed Iran travel ban
4 03/05 U.S. {sayer} wants guarantees on {verbal} Iran effort
5 02/05 Russia {actor} to provide fuel {material} for Iranian reactor
6 06/05 Lawmaker's Book {sayer} warns of {verbal} Iran
7 01/07 Rice's strategies {behaver} Reset {behavioral} (on Iran)

Tables 2, 3 and 4 indicate that of the 21 phrases appearing in the subject positions in the
headline, 18 of them are participants on the U.S side. From the 18 most of them represented as
Actors or Sayers, showing the active role of them in the nuclear program of Iran. On the side
of Iran, the headlines show the secret affairs of Iranian by waiting for USs election or
transferring uranium.
Accordingly, the front-page headlines in the above mentioned journals, present U.S and its
allies as participants who are much more actively engaged in the process of doing (material) and
saying (verbal) and behaving (behavioral). As to the setting a picture of Iran, all of the discourse
instances reveal that Iran is not reliable enough and may threaten the world, so those entities are
responsible to monitor Iran by issuing verdicts, giving warnings, assigning sanctions and so on
and so forth. It may seem that they consider themselves as the owners of the world, trying to
preserve it of being ruined by the barbaric countries like Iran. Actually, as to the second part of
my paper the history reveals that US most of the time force or motivate its allies to follow its
orders or demands.

Transitivity structures in news texts

To investigate how the transitivity structures in the news texts build particular ideologies of
the American newspapers, I focus on news texts reporting the negative picture that the US and
the related authorities are making around Irans Nuclear Program.
I followed the same trend as Juan Li, in analyzing the transitivity structures in the news
articles. Accordingly, I look at the two major types of representational processes used in the
clauses; relational and actional processes. The former establishes a relation between two entities

7
 or between an entity and a quality, signifying the acts of classification and judgment. However,
the latter represents the relationships perceived in the physical world and in the world of
perception and thought to signify situations and events. Actional processes convey the procedure
of saying, doing and sensing which respectively corresponds to verbal, material and mental
processes. Surveying the two process types enable us to realize how the events and participants
are defined, judged and classified.
There are two types of relational processes: identifying and attributive relationals. In the
identifying relationals, the token and value are used to identify each other. This helps to see how
each newspaper establishes particular relationships, especially between the participants and their
activities and goals. Tables 5, 6 and 7 lists the most important identifying relationals used in New
York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

Table 5 Identifying relationals in the New York Times

N Token Process Value
1 Feeding the administrations urgency was the intelligence about Irans missile program
2 Last week is the fourth set of sanctions imposed since 2006
3 Sanctions are not the endgame, Ms. Ashton said
4 Britain, France and Germany are advocates of strong measures, Mr. Hague said
willing to negotiate with the Iranian government but only if it was
5 Ms. Ashton said, adding that she was
willing to discuss the specific issue of Irans nuclear program
6 The Fordo plant is one source of Western concern about Irans ultimate intentions
7 West contends that the programs goal is to produce nuclear weapons
six months from amassing most of the enriched uranium needed for a
8 Iran was
bomb

Table 6 Identifying relationals in the Wall Street Journal

N Token Process Value
its built upon a mountain of non-credible actions, such as such as
1 But the problem of Iran is showing a policy differences with Israel and resistance to tougher
sanctions
It's this third-party role that China's
2 is the most dangerous," said Paul Brannan
playing which

8
 that China repeatedly turned a blind eye to shipments of missile
3 The most serious allegation in the cables is components through Beijing on commercial flights operated by Air Iran,
the Iranian national carrier, and Air Koryo, the North Korean one
aren't
4 Chinese firms producing the sophisticated metals or machinery themselves
capable of
5 My arrest was a political maneuver instigated by the Ahmadinejad administration
To act against Iran, militarily or
6 was the intended goal
otherwise, which perhaps
7 Iran is highly unlikely to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions

8 The other Obama administration ploy is "strong sanctions" imposed by the United States and other countries

Table 7 Identifying relationals in the Washington Post

N Token Process Value
1 Diplomacy is the only way to persuade Iran to give up the nuclear weapons option

2 The United States worries that Tehran's

are a cover for a weapons program
efforts
3 The crisis over Iran's nuclear efforts was at a sensitive stage
4 I think Iran should really bear in mind
is a step in the wrong direction, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
that this step
5 The net result was that Iran's belligerence was answered with more appeasement
6 Highly enriched uranium is suitable for warheads
7 Americans and Europeans are unwilling to run the risk of a temporary rise in oil prices

It can be seen from Tables 5, 6 and 7 that the identifying relationals used to address Iranian
efforts toward developing peaceful nuclear program. As it can be drawn from the tables,
discourses classify the activities and construct a world divided into two entities: 1. a democratic
United States and its allies that advocates humanitarian support plans to control Iranian nuclear
program. On the one hand, announcing to the world that Iran has not yet created nuclear
weapons, showing its positive side, and on the other hand claiming that they are the only
authority that are there to establish peace by imposing different sanctions and laws against Iran,
tending to ideologically manipulate minds and justifying their manners against Iran; 2. Iran and
the countries that assisting Iran, as mysterious and unaccountable entities, and not being able to
peacefully use the advanced technology.

9
 As the result, these identifications and categorizations in the system of transitivity, serve to
emphasize the conflict and confrontation between two worlds; the democracy world, which is US
plus its allies, and the authoritarian world, which is Iran and the assisting countries.
Tables 8, 9 and 10 illustrate the main attributive relationals used in the three American
newspapers. As it is observed form the summarized clauses in the tables, they represent
ideological conflicts, with Irans plan for developing further the nuclear program, using negative
attributes to downgrade the government of Iran. The tone that is used in most of the reports
insults the Iranian leaders which seem to mislead the readers from the reality.

Table 8 Attributive relationals in the New York Times

N Carrier Process Attribute
1 Iran is continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations under UN Security Council
2 President Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even, one cable reports
the murky question of the ultimate ambition of the leaders in
3 The debate is
Tehran
4 His government has sometimes provided false information to protect its nuclear program
Development bank of
5 has already been blacklisted
Iran
6 Iran is untrustworthy on the nuclear issue

Table 9 Attributive relationals in the Wall Street Journal

N Carrier
1 Iranian officials
2 Tehrans leaders
3 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
4 Regime
5 Iranian arms affair
6 Mr Ahmadinejad
7 Tehran
Process Attribute
are masters of evasion and obfuscation
are aware of their vulnerability
has consistently voiced an unwillingness to scale back Irans nuclear program
faces the threat of further domestic unrest
was to scuttle any hope of rapprochement.
significantly weakened, both regionally and inside Iran, by
has been
post-election political strife inside his country
was surprised and disappointed at the IAEA's disappointment

10
 Table 10 Attributive relationals in the Washington Post
N Carrier Process Attribute
1 Iran is increasingly hostile to Western initiatives
2 The intention is to punish the Iranians
3 Iran has been using the program as a cover for bomb making
4 Uranium is suitable for warheads
Syrian conflict in fueling across the
5 is largely good for Iran
middle-east
6 A bloody stalemate is still a win for Iran

As to the above explanations and tables 8, 9 and 10, it is clearly noticeable that US
newspapers assign negative attributes in their discourses about Irans nuclear program.
Though the relational processes in the three newspapers have depicted how the participants
and events are defined, judged and classified, the meaning of events are more powerfully
expressed through the actional processes in the three newspapers. Tables 11, 12 and 13 show
some selected examples of the actional processes.

Table 11 Actional processes in New York Times

N Participant process participant
1 Irans leaders to renounce their atomic ambitions
2 Iran will have a bomb sooner or later
abruptly
3 Iran an agreement with the Europeans
abandoned
Fears of an Iranian bomb and
4 - over American inability to block Tehrans progress
exasperation
5 Iran was rooted in the uneasy sectarian division of the Muslim world
on American military installations in nearby countries
6 Iranian missile strikes
like the Emirates
the spring of 2006 that it had successfully accomplished
7 Iran boasting in
low-level uranium enrichment
8,000 centrifuges and was enriching uranium at a rate
8 Iran had installed that, with further processing, would let it produce a
bombs worth of fuel a year

11
9 Irans centrifuges are working day and night
the advanced missiles, or that their North Korean version,
10 Iran has obtained
called the BM-25, even exists
11 Irans true intentions remain a mystery
must be
12 Irans capability to enrich uranium before next spring
stopped
by drawing a
13 To shut down Irans nuclear program through a cartoonish diagram of a bomb
red line
14 Irans progress in achieving the ability to make a nuclear weapon
would have
15 Iran enough medium-enriched uranium to make a bomb
amassed

Table 12 Actional processes in Wall Street Journal

N Participant process participant
from
1 Preventing Iran nuclear weapons
acquiring
2 Sanctions will bring Iran to her knees
3 North Korea could help Iranian weapons programs.
was trying to gyroscopes and carbon fiber for its ballistic missiles from
4 Iran
buy Chinese companies
5 Iran's multiple breaches - of nonproliferation statutes
in Mr. Ahmadinejad a president whose mind-set on
6 The Iranian leader found
nuclear and foreign policy issues was similar to his own"
Pre-Ahmadinejad era in Iran with the
7 offered by David Crist in "The Twilight War
chronicle
8 Iran has a volatile role on the world stage since the 1970s
began
9 Iran in 1979 the American order in the Middle East
challenging
may be an international deal to ease some of the pressure it faces
10 Iran
seeking at home and abroad

12
 Table 13 Actional processes in Washington Post
N Participant process participant
1 Iran, unlike North Korea denies it has a nuclear weapons program
to have been headed for use in Iranian construction of
2 The material was believed
nuclear weapon centrifuges
more than 300 centrifuges in two uranium enrichment
3 Iran has set up
units
had recently investigators a copy of a 1987 offer from Pakistan for the
4 Iran
provided makings of a weapons program.
5 Iranian officials involved in purchases of nuclear-related equipment
as forgeries documents indicating their engineers were
6 Iranian officials had dismissed
planning a small-scale facility to produce uranium gas
was trying to
7 Iran ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads
modify
technical or financial difficulties completing a heavy-
8 Iranians were having water reactor in the town of Arak and a fuel
manufacturing plant in Isfahan.
9 The IAEA board voted this month to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council

As mentioned in the entire clauses, US and its allies accuse Iran, mentioning Iran is actively
seeking for the nuclear weapon but US government tries to put efforts on forcing Iran for not
pursuing that. However, Iran has repeatedly mentioned that having nuclear weapon is not its
concern and will not demand it.

5. Conclusion
This study has examined how clause-grammar of news texts on the Nuclear Program of
Iran appearing in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post construct
the event and the participants involved. Using Hallidays Systemic Functional Grammar as
the analytical framework, the analysis has focused on one aspect of the clause grammar in the
news articles: transitivity. The transitivity analysis of the participants and processes in the
three newspapers representations of the Irans nuclear program reveals that all of the
newspapers attempt to manipulate the readers minds, trying to draw a negative picture of the

13
nuclear program of Iran to the ambition of having nuclear weapon. My research findings
accord with Foad Izadi, 2007, and Juan Li, 2010, research works analyzing the texts of
selected journal to prove that each country is following its benefits in reporting the news.
My detailed analysis reveals how the systems and structures of grammar bear on
ideological understandings and consequences. With its attention to the processes of selection,
categorization, and ordering of meaning at the clause level, systemic-functional grammar
offers a concrete and powerful methodology for a close examination of the structural aspects
of texts, yielding insights into the relationship between the covert operations of the structure
of grammar and the underlying motivations, intentions, and goals that shape the individual
choices made by the language user (Juan Li, 2010).

6. References
Fowler Roger (1991), Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press, Routledge, London

Li Juan (2010), Transitivity and Lexical Cohesion: Press Representation of a Political Disaster and its Actors,
Journal of Pragmatics, Elsevier

Izadi Foad and Saghaye-Biria Hakimeh (2007), A Discourse Analysis of Elite American Newspaper Editorials
(The Case of Irans Nuclear Program), Journal of Communication Inquiry, Volume 31 Number 2

Halliday M.A.K (1985) , An Introduction to Functional Grammar, P 101 144, Arnold Publishers Ltd, London

Squassoni, S. (2004), Irans nuclear program: Recent developments (Congressional Research Service Report
for Congress). Retrieved February 27, 2006, from http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/64891.pdf

Fowler, R., & Kress, G. (1979), Critical linguistics. In R. Fowler, B. Hodge, G. Kress, & T. Trew (Eds.),
Language and control (pp. 185-213). London: Routledge Keegan Paul

Halliday Michael (1978), Language as Social Semiotics: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning.
University Park Press, Baltimore

McQuail Denis (1983), Mass Communication Theory, Beverly Hills & London: Sage

Fowler Roger et al. (1979), Language and Control, London: Routledge Kegan Paul

14