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2 Behind the plumes of smoke, George Bush, the US president, promised the world
that he was pursuing regime change to unseat the dictator Saddam Hussein who
had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda. 3 The US president also promised Iraqis a new era of peace, prosperity, liberty and
freedom. Whereas Article number five used more judgement than appreciation, since the topic
deals with people. It can be seen in the following excerpts. 4 We demand that religious and political leaders intervene to stop the attacks on
poor people, a statement read by Hazam al-Aaraji, an al-Sadr representative,
said. 5 The US military says it is targeting only rogue members who have broken the
ceasefire, and has cited the truce as a main factor in a significant drop in violence across the country.
6 Al-Mahdi Army is not a military army, as some believe. The general findings above are then analyzed from viewpoint of each type of attitudes
is utilized in each article. In more detail, these attitudes are divided into their sub types to see them in a deeper understanding. Orderly, the result of the analysis is presented here
starting from affect, judgement, and finally appreciation.
4.1.1 The Affect Used in the Articles
In the following table Table 4.3, there are deeper explanations of the findings of the affect analysis. See the table below for the sources of attitude of affect. Notice that APA
means Authorial Positive affect, ANA means Authorial Negative affect, NAPA means Non-authorial Positive affect, and NANA means Non-authorial Negative affect.
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Table 4.3 Sources of Affect per Article
Article No. APA
ANA NAPA
NANA Total
1. - 5 2 6 13 2. 9 19 2 4 34
3. 11 6 7 20 44 4. 3 13 5 14 35
5. 6 8 3 20 37 6. 8 10 11 9 38
Total 37 61 30 73 201 98
48,75 103
51,24 18,41
30,34 14,90
36,32 100
Table 4.2 gives the relative proportion or percentage of each of the three sources of affect employed by the writer in the articles. The table shows that non-authorial negative
affect dominate in the articles 36.32 followed by authorial negative affect 30.34, authorial positive affect 18.41 and non-authorial affect 14.90. In general, it is clear
that affects are slightly expressed negatively 33.33 positive and 66.67 negative.The affects used in these studied articles are non-authorial. As can be seen in table above non-
authorial affect value is higher than authorial affect non-authorial affect 51.24 and authorial affect 48.75. Non-authorial affect is used since the articles are factual stories
that factual news should not be mixed with the author’s attitudes. In expressing their feelings, the authors just put other’s word in their writings, since the journalists must limit
their involvement into the content of the news. Moreover, the purpose of this action is to show the object of the articles.
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As stated above, most of affects are expressed negatively. It is reasonable since the articles are about the war. There is a conflict between America George Bush and Iraq
Saddam Hussein. See the following excerpts: 7
Behind the plumes of smoke, George Bush, the US president, promised the
world that he was pursuing regime change to unseat the dictator Saddam
Hussein who had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda. 8
Five years later, with no weapons of mass destruction found and claims of al-Qaeda links unsubstantiated,
9 In 2005, he concluded that Iraq was not in possession of such weaponry at
the time of the invasion. 10
They would endure 12 years of punitive sanctions which the UN estimates killed nearly 1.7 million Iraqis.
11 And as evidence revealed that Iraq never had ties with al-Qaeda - its
ideological enemy – 12
the notion that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the West also
crumbled.
From the above excerpts, people can easily see George Bush, the US president, claimed that Saddam Hussein who had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-
Qaeda. But successive investigations into pre-war intelligence claims had revealed that Iraq had neither the capacity nor the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. David
Kay, a US weapons expert and chief of the team searching for the illicit weapons, found no such activities. In 2005, he concluded that Iraq was not in possession of such weaponry at
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the time of the invasion. And as evidence revealed that Iraq never had ties with al-Qaeda - its ideological enemy - the notion that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the
West also crumbled.
4.1.2 The Judgement Used in the Articles
