REVEALING POWER AND IDEOLOGY THROUGH MODALITY EXPRESSIONS IN AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER REPORTING JIS’S PEDOPHILIA

Abstract

This research is aimed at identifying the manifestation of power and ideologies through modality choices used by SMH. This is qualitative research in which to answer the research questions Fairclough’s CDA, Bybee’s, et al (1994) and Frawley’s (1992) concept of modality were used. From the 98 total data from SMH, this Australian newspaper, expresses both epistemic and deontic modal meaning in the same frequency which is 0,32% for the deontic meanings and 0,31 for epistemic meaning. In terms of lexical verbs expressing SMH employed 0,03% for deontic meaning and 0,72% for epistemic meaning. In terms of adverb, this Australian newspaper employed 0,01% for epistemic meanings but non for deontic meaning. In terms of adjective, this newspaper employed 0,02% for epistemic meaning but none for deontic meaning and the last category is multi word units, this newspaper employed 0,04 % multi word units from the total 98 data. These use of modality expressions represents SMH’s interests in exposing the inferiority of the Jakarta International School and its staffs, and the “quality” of the legal process in Indonesia.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), modality choices, Sydney Morning Herald, Ideology.