A corpus based study of representation of foreign countries in the South Korean Press

Bang, Minhee (2003). A corpus based study of representation of foreign countries in the South Korean Press. University of Birmingham. M.Phil.

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Abstract

This dissertation investigates how the South Korean press represents a number of foreign countries, particularly North Korea and the United States. Corpus investigation techniques are used with a corpus comprising articles from the on-line English versions of three Korean newspapers: the Korea Herald, the Korea Times, and the Chosun Ilbo. The corpus is half a million words and Wordsmith Tools has been used as a main analysis tool. Main findings from the analysis include: (i) Lexical items referring to North Korea indicate that its stereotypical image is largely maintained despite the policy change; (ii) North Korea is represented as a beneficiary of foreign aid; (iii) As an actor, North Korea is represented as an uncooperative partner for talks and an initiator of military activities; (iv) The US presidents performs a wider variety of verbal actions than other state leaders; (v) The US military presence in South Korea is represented as both a necessity and a threat; (vi) There are subtle lexical clues that the US is represented as more powerful than other states. The study is a demonstration of how corpus linguistics can be incorporated as a methodology in critical discourse analysis. It is argued, following Stubbs (1996, 1997), that corpus linguistics can provide a viable solution to some of the problems of CDA; using corpora makes it possible for researchers to handle quantitative data and to produce an analysis which can be replicated, checked and challenged by other analysts.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Phil.)

Award Type:

Masters by Research > M.Phil.

Supervisor(s):