Euphemization and Derogation in Political Discourse

This book analyzes representation of ideology and manipulation of realities in news during the Gaza war (2008-2009). It attempts to contribute to the field of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) and examines how the lexical tools, i.e., euphemization and derogation may incorporate and exhibit the ideology and the images of the self and the other created by discourse producer (manipulator) in political context. To achieve this goal, van Dijk’s (2000a) "ideological square" is implemented to the lexical choices of the newspaper discourse to uncover manipulatory function of such tools. It follows quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis to determine the prevalence of one X- phemistic type over the other and evaluating effectiveness of such dichotomous word selection in enhancing and mitigating realities. Findings revealed that Euphemization and derogation are two discursive strategies at disposal of media manipulators to reshape the reality and therefore shape the taste of society.