A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS:

RUTHLESS JOHNSON TAKES HIS REVENGE

Ni Luh Ade Octaviani

[email protected]
Ganesha University of Education
Udayana Street No. 11, Singaraja, Bali, Indonesia

Abstract

Critical Discourse analysis is a type of discourse analytical research in analyzing

in the form of written or oral. Newspaper has been being focuses on critical
discourse analysis. It provides information about what, where, when, why, and
how something happened. Thus, this article is aimed at investigating one of media
discourse which is a newspaper. The method of this research was descriptive
qualitative with the approach of critical discourse analysis by using a theory by
Van Dijk (2001) with consists of three elements; macrostructure, supra-structure,
and microstructure. The findings of this study revealed that in this newspaper
named The Guardian with the news entitled “Ruthless Johnson Takes his
Revenge”, in macrostructure element, several sentences in the texts of the news in
the newspaper were stating theme. Then, in supra-structure, the scheme of the
speech consisted of opening, content and closing. Last in microstructure, it can be
said that in this article doesn’t used daily language and there is no metaphor.
Key words: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Van Dijk’s design, Newspaper

I. Introduction
Critical Discourse Analysis is a type of discourse analytical research in getting the
meaning in the form of text and talk as parts of specific social practices that have political
implications about issues of status, solidarity, and of distribution of social goods and
power (Van Dijk, 2001). It focuses on the relationship between language and power. In
critical discourse analysis, language as a representative of shapes subject and theme. The
way critical discourse analysis sees the language as a key factor in looking at power
imbalance occurring among people. However critical discourse analysis is how the texts
represent reality within a specific ideological system through implicit messages based on
what is said and left unsaid.
Newspaper has recently been the focus of many critical discourse analysts raise the
reader's consciousness of the way language is manipulated. Newspaper is one of the
examples of written media discourse. In this media, people can get information whether
in the economic, politic, education, and social field. It also can provide an information
what is happened, with whom, where, why, and how. Thus, this research is aimed at
analyzing one of the media discourses which a newspaper named The Guardian entitled
“Ruthless Johnson takes his Revenge”.

II. Method
The method of this research was descriptive qualitative with the approach of critical
discourse analysis. Then, to analyze The Guardian newspaper which focuses on the news
entitled “Ruthless Johnson Takes his Revenge”, the researcher used a theory by Van Dijk
(2001) and implemented three elements in analyzing; macrostructure (theme) and supra-
structure (schematic). The primary data was a text in newspapers. In the process of
analyzing the data, the researcher integrated the obtained information with their own idea
to answer the purposes of the study in the finding section as well as drew the conclusion.

III.Findings
Macrostructure
There are three unit elements of the analysis. Those are divided into three parts:
macro-structure, supra-structure, and microstructure (Van Dijk, 2001). Thematic analysis
is analyzing which focuses on the theme or the topic of a discourse or can be said as a
general picture of a text. It is the elements of the text that sequenced and referred to one
general idea. Those elements are supporting each other to describe the general topic.
The theme of this news is more likely to be politic. It can be clearly seen from almost
all paragraphs in the news. It is shown by the subject of this news is a politician who is
Johnson and talk in politics. To make it clearer, here are some paragraphs representing the
general theme of this news;
In the paragraph 9, Johnson said “the time has come to act, to take decisions, to give
strong leadership and to change this country for the better”. Here he mentioned several
points to make the country to be better. Moreover, in this paragraph, Johnson declared his
opinion and his arguments to make his country to be better. It also can be seen in the
paragraph 10, “he promised to recruit another 20,000 police officers, stop people waiting
three weeks to see their GP, launch 20 new hospital upgrades and boost schools spending
per pupil”. In this paragraph shows his promise for his country in several fields. From the
several paragraphs, it can clearly understand that the topic of the sentence is about
politics.
Supra-structure

According to Van Dijk in Kuntoro (2008), supra structure is a frame of a text which
consists of opening, content, closing and conclusion. It observes how elements and
scheme of the news is ordered in a whole form. Starting from the opening of this news, it
can be seen that the opening showed in the first and second paragraphs that gives the
introduction of the news by talking about the election last night. The second one is the
content in this news. The contents in this news can be seen in the paragraph 3 until
paragraph 17. In the contents, it discuss about what happened with Johnson and his
promises. The last part is conclusion. The conclusion can be seen in the last paragraph
which is the paragraph 18. In this paragraph, the closing is discussing Johnson life
especially in his household.

Microstructure
Microstructure is the local meaning of a text which can be understood based on the
word choice, sentence and language style used in a text.
 Lexicon
In this newspaper, the information delivered by using vocabulary which is not
really common for many people especially for foreign people. In the news, the
choice of vocabulary mostly not exist in daily life, perhaps this happened
because of the newspapers is native speaker newspapers or in other word it is
not a newspaper which translated from Bahasa into English. Here is the
example “Boris Johnson signaled his ruthless determination to deliver Brexit
and stoked speculation about an early election last night, when he sacked
more than half of Theresa May’s cabinet and packed his team with Vote Leave
veterans and right wing free marketeers”.
 Syntax
Syntactic is connecting sentences coherently to convey a fact. It divides into
the following elements:
- Pronoun
The used of pronoun is to demonstrate somebody’s position in a discourse
through imaginative languages. Regarding with the use of pronoun, in this
text of news mostly using pronoun “he” and “his”. Here is the example
“But the new prime minister then crossed to his office in the House of
 Commons where he carried out a comprehensive cull of cabinet ministers
who had backed Hunt or criticized his approach or policies. Other victims
of the clear out included the Scotland secretary, David Mundell, the
education secretary, Damian Hinds, and the defence secretary, Penny
Mordaunt”.
- Coherence
Coherence is connecting two different languages to make a connected and
coherent of the sentences. This is very important part for both in spoken
and written language (Madkur, 2013). In this case, coherence can be
indicated from the availability of conjunction. In this text, the used of
conjunction such as and, result, for, but, and or.
 Metaphor
Metaphor is delivered by the writer to give correction toward the information
that already conveyed. In this text of newspapers, it did not use metaphor. it
preferred to use data to empower the information that delivered.

IV. Conclusion
Critical discourse analysis is one of the types in analyzing a discourse which is written
or oral. In this newspaper, the perspective of critical discourse analysis can seen that it
was successful in stating theme in macrostructure element, several sentences in the texts
of the news in the newspaper were stating theme. Then, in supra-structure, the scheme of
the speech consisted of opening, content and closing. Last in microstructure, it can be said
that in this article doesn’t used daily language that make the reader easy to understand
especially for foreign language reader. There is no metaphor that used in this text.
References

Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). Multidisciplinary CDA: A Plea for Diversity. In Methods of Critical
Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publication. Retrieved from http://www.discourse.org

Van Dick, T. A. (2008). Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis. In Language and Peace
(pp. 17–33). Aldershot: Darmouth Publishing.

Madkur, A. (2013). Grammatical Analysis on the Abstract of Scientific Writing. Pedagogy:

Journal of English Language Teaching, 1(1), 52–67.