November 2006 Volume 2
Article 2.
PDF File

Article Title
Teaching Language and Research Skills through an International Media Project                  

Authors
Françoise and Roger Nunn

Bio Data
Françoise Nunn has taught various combinations of English and French over the past thirty years. She has an MA in Advanced Language Studies from UWE, Bristol . Her main academic focus is discourse analysis and pragmatics. She is particularly interested in the pragmatic analysis, the translation and the teaching of humour. Where possible, she prefers to teach both French and English, to translate from French into English and from English into French, and to use both as equally as possible.
Roger Nunn has worked in EFL for over 30 years in seven different countries, including more than 22 years in Asia. He is currently working at the Petroleum Institute, a new University in Abu Dhabi, where he teaches communications and research skills. He is also Senior Associate Editor of the Asian EFL Journal. He has a Trinity College TEFL diploma, an MA and Ph.D. in TEFL from the University of Reading, UK. His Ph.D. study was on teaching methodology and curriculum development across cultural boundaries in a Middle East setting. He has published widely on a variety of topics and is particularly interested in international and intercultural perspectives on language teaching. He can be reached at rogercnunn@yahoo.co.uk

Introduction
This paper proposes a framework for teaching research skills using a case-study approach to international news, requiring the extensive use of easily available Internet news sites. In Nunn (2006), a task-based approach to designing instructional EFL units was advocated. The aim of such units was to provide a balance between learning how to engage in a meaningful task or project and improving second language ability. The approach taken here attempts to adopt similar principles in relation to teaching research skills to second language learners using a project-based approach. This paper outlines the pedagogical approach briefly and provides in some detail an example of a research analysis that is used as a pedagogical tool throughout the semester-long instruction period. The sample is exploited pedagogically both as an introduction to the topic and to the skills of research and analysis required by the students to design their own project. The students’ own project starts after the initial skills have been introduced in part one of the course. In part two it runs parallel to the pedagogical exploitation of the sample project for several weeks. Finally, in part three, the students’ own projects take center stage. The example of a research project is presented to students not as a model but in order to introduce the kind of activities and skills that will then be needed independently by students working in small teams on their own independent projects. Extracts from two such projects designed by students will be presented at the end of this paper to indicate that students need not be required to design a carbon copy of the teacher’s project. Indeed, they can be encouraged to develop a fully independent approach.

The example presented as the central part of this article was originally drafted as a research report but is not presented as one finished text to students. Students are asked to engage in the same kinds of skills that the researchers needed, such as text analysis and text comparison using the data selected by the teacher as they work through different stages of the project. Key concepts such as the Hallidayan characterization of “modality” and “transitivity” are presented through activities using the texts from the sample analyses. The approach adopted here frequently uses "task repetition" (Bygate 2001, pp.23-48) to stimulate the development of EAP skills and language acquisition. As in the EFL unit reported in Nunn (2006), the unit designed here also attempts to exploit Ellis's (2005) ten principles of SLA, (p. 14) such as the need to ensure that learners also focus on form when engaged in meaning-based activities (principle 3), the need to provide extensive input (principle 6) and the need to provide opportunities for extensive output (principle 7). This list will not be presented in this paper in full as it can be found online in both Nunn (2006) and Ellis (2005). This twin project approach can therefore be seen as a semester-long project-based unit of instruction that allow all of the ten principles to be considered in the design of activities.

Designing and conducting a case study is a holistic EAP research activity that goes well beyond the field of language learning. Students establish a database, set research objectives, conduct comparative text analyses, present results of a data analysis, discuss the implications of these results. The deliverable outcomes of their research are in the form of spoken group presentations and full written research reports. However, a case study also combines many useful sub-skills for advanced language students that feature in Ellis's principles. These include extensive and intensive reading, detailed text analysis, vocabulary development through identifying and analysing lexical fields, as well as  genre-based text analysis using central systemic tools such as modality and transitivity in relation to purpose and context. Furthermore, an Internet case study provides a clear purpose to web-surfing, confronting students with challenges in critical thinking and providing insights into the way we access and process information across cultures by catching the international news process in the act as it reports world conflicts which have far-reaching global consequences.

An Overview of the Task-based Research Project Unit

During this kind of research project, the teacher can adopt a variety of roles. Teacher-centred stages include:

1. providing a conceptual framework and establishing key concepts;
2. providing a route map in clearly defined research stages;
3. presenting a sample study to illustrate the key concepts and research techniques;
4. leading language activities such as detailed text analyses and comparisons.

Student-centred stages can involve the following items. The list also indicates a possible route map for students to follow:

1. forming and working in small cooperative research teams;
2. establishing research objectives or questions;
3. designing a research proposal and plan;
4. collecting data in the form of media texts for comparison;
5. selecting texts for detailed scrutiny;
6. presenting analyses to the class orally (text and data analysis skills);
7. leading class discussion; (in preparation for the "discussion section" of a research report.
8. consulting with the teacher and evaluating team progress;
9. drafting and proofreading skills in producing a final research report.
10. Self and peer evaluation based on rating scales.

The sample case study presented in this paper will provide more detail than would actually be presented to many classes. What is actually selected to present to each class depends on the teacher’s assessment of the situation, including practical considerations such as the time available, and pedagogical considerations such as the needs and abilities of each group.

Providing a Conceptual Framework: Key Concepts
Many of these concepts are best taught through illustrative examples from the sample case study. They are presented separately here only for the purposes of this paper. Fowler (1991, p. 13) suggests that, “News is not ‘found’ or even ‘gathered’ so much as made. It is a creation of a journalistic process, an artifact, a commodity even.” Before the construction process starts, news has to be selected and assessed for its ‘newsworthiness’. Fowler (1991, p.13) points out that “ ‘news values’ … perform a ‘gate-keeping’ role filtering and restricting news input” adding that “negative events score high on most criteria, so receive massive newspaper and television coverage.” He then adds that “the origins of news values are complex and diverse: they include general values about society such as ‘consensus’ (…)” He explains (op. cit, p. 49) that the ideology of consensus means that, “the interests of the whole population are undivided, held in common.” However, it is clear that even if the readership of a newspaper can be seen as a consensual group (which is far from certain) an Internet website is accessed by a much more diverse readership. A BBC website “audience”, for example, is less easily described as a cohesive consensual group.  In international news stories presented on websites, concepts such as ‘news values’ and ‘consensus’ are complex. A story from another “geographical location”, where different cultural values exist, is expressed in terms of the values of the news reporters and editors but not necessarily for a consensual mono-cultural audience.

Mey (1993, p. 293) points out that news writing can never achieve absolute “neutrality”. A basic presupposition of neutrality is the existence of a non-ideological attitude or position, what Mey calls a “zero point”. Setting the zero point can only be done if we know what the values are; however, those values are precisely what an analysis seeks to determine. This does not mean that we cannot distinguish between attempts to be fair or neutral and deliberately biased one-sided representation, but it does explain why the major challenge of international media analysis is identifying the way ideologies and values are embodied in language. Multiplying the perspectives will clearly be one important technique.

Modality and transitivity are two important categories which help students to identify the values and attitudes of news writers towards their text. Within this view, a project-based approach will be illustrated to raise awareness of and promote the ability to use modality for specific and important academic purposes. A full discussion of "modality" within a systemic linguistic perspective can be found in Halliday and Matthiessen (2004). Thompson (2004, pp. 65-75) provides a highly readable summary of the systemic notion of modality. He points out (p.73) that "one genre where an investigation of modality can be rewarding is news-reporting" explaining that "in newspaper leaders – articles expressing the newspaper's view on a current event – you often find modalization occurring as the writer ponders various aspects of the event and the possible implications…". Thompson (2004, p. 53) links modality directly to academic report writing, characterizing modality as the extent to which a proposition is "valid" and "the degree to which the speaker commits herself to the validity of what she is saying" (p. 69).

 Fowler (1991, p. 85) suggests that, “truth modality varies in strength along a scale from absolute confidence – down through various degrees of lesser certainty.” Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.618) refer to modality in terms of "the area of meaning that lies between yes and no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity". Fowler (1986, pp. 131/132) defines modality as “the grammar of explicit comment, the means by which people express their degree of commitment to the truth of the propositions they utter, and their views on the desirability or otherwise of the states of affairs referred to.” Similarly, Fowler (1991, p. 64) suggests that modal expressions indicate “judgements as to truth, likelihood or desirability". He argues that “writing which strives to give an impression of objectivity e.g.: scientific reporting or certain traditions of ‘realistic’ fiction, tends to minimize modal expressions”. However, Fairclough (1989, p. 129) suggests that sentences with no modal verbs still express modality, showing “one terminal point of expressive modality, a categorical commitment of the producer to the truth of the proposition.”

Fowler (1991, p. 69) points out that in Hallidayan linguistics “language performs simultaneously three functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual.” (See Halliday and  Matthiessen (2004) for a full explanation of systemic functional grammar.) Modality is part of the interpersonal function. In this function, “the speaker is using language as the means of his own intrusion into the speech event, the expression of his comments, his attitudes and evaluations, and also of the relationship that he sets up between himself and his listener, in particular, the communication role that he adopts, of informing, questioning, greeting, persuading, etc.”

Fowler (1991, p. 87) argues that: “traditional linguists had regarded language as primarily a channel for communicating ideas and facts about the world but modern trends emphasize that language is also a practice, a mode of action; as we are saying something we are also doing something through speaking.” Fowler adds that, “this aspect of the interpersonal function of language, relating to speech acts, has been studied particularly by linguistic philosophers, and notably by J.L. Austin and also J.R. Searle (‘illocutionary acts’). Austin in Fowler (1991, p.88) states that “there are verbs naming many thousands of speech acts in English (‘request’, ‘stipulate’, ‘ban’, ‘declare’, ‘announce’, ‘solicit’, etc.” and that there is a high density of speech act verbs in newspapers (‘indicated’, ‘demanded’, ‘published’, ‘accused’, ‘dealing with’, ‘asked’, ‘condemning’). These verbs, according to Fowler, are examples of speech act verbs showing beliefs and values when writers are reporting or commenting on the world. Reporting verbs in a news story are one means of expressing modality. Modality can also include the notion of desirability, through which “the speaker/writer indicates approval or disapproval of the state of affairs communicated by the proposition.” (op. cit., p. 87).

 Linguistic means of expressing modality include (Fowler 1986, pp. 131-132):

1. Modal auxiliaries;
2. Modal adverbs or sentence adverbs: (e.g. ‘probably’, ‘surely’);
3. Evaluative adjectives and adverbs: (e.g. ‘cowardly’ ‘fortunately’,‘regrettably’);
4. Verbs of knowledge, prediction, evaluation: (e.g. ‘seem’, ‘believe’). [For newspapers we must also add reporting verbs/verb phrases such as “claim”, “is reported to have said”, “according to …” “unconfirmed reports suggest that…”.]
5. Generic sentences: universal truths, proverbs, (e.g. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that…” Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the irony here suggesting the writer does not herself acknowledge this.)

News writers use modality to express their degree of commitment to the reliability of the information or evidence that other people utter and that they are “just” reporting. In this sense modality can be one means of indicating a writer’s ideological “point of view”. Ideology for Fowler does not suggest anything derogatory. For him it is “simply the system of beliefs, values and categories by reference to which a person or a society comprehends the world”. (1986, p.130)  Fowler’s categories help us to identify values and beliefs in relation to the representation of information.

In Hallidayan linguistics, “transitivity” is part of the ideational function. Fowler (1991, p. 70) emphasizes the importance of “the facility to analyse the same event in different ways” in Halliday's approach. In the ideational function, “the speaker or writer embodies in language his experience of the phenomena of the real world; this includes his experience of the internal world of his own consciousness, his reactions, cognitions and perceptions, and also his linguistic acts of speaking and understanding.”  Fowler (op. cit., p. 71) underlines that “newspapers provide abundant examples of the ideological significance of transitivity.”  He (1991, p. 71) characterizes “transitivity” as “the foundation of representation”. Transitivity embodies “some basic semantic relations in terms of which the propositions conveyed by the sentences are organised.” (Fowler, 1986, p. 156)  Important concepts of transitivity include: ‘agent’, ‘object’, ‘action’, mental process’ which are (op. cit.) “a small set of presumably universal categories which characterize different kinds of event and process, different types of participants in these events, and the varying circumstances of place and time within which events occur.” In news text, the roles assigned to people in terms of transitivity (deliberate action, passive action or state, accidental action) and the way that actions are characterized as aggressive, friendly, antisocial, will all form part of the ideology, point of view or world view embodied in the text. The roles assigned to participants in events are represented by transitivity. “Actions” are semantically opposed to “states”, but also include considerations of agency and intention, such as whether someone “jumped”, “fell” or “was pushed”. Other important categories are “beneficiary”: A gave B a present; ‘“experiencer”: We saw/watched the match; “instrument”:  He hit him with an axe.

Transitivity provides different options that engage writers in a selection process. Hence, as Mey (1993, p.293) suggests, news writers cannot be neutral in the way they represent an event. There is no zero point to choose and all choices indicate ideology. This point is illustrated in Fowler (1991, p.72) who cites examples of “transitivity variance” between headline and report. The headline “PC shot boy from 9 inches” reports a complex incident as simple categorical truth with regard to agency, with a further implication that the action was deliberate. The report, however, goes on to suggest only that this was something that “was told” to prosecutors (agency has not yet been definitively established) and that the death was “accidental”. Use of the agentless passive in the report which forefronts the “affected participant” or “patient” - “A boy of five was shot”  - further suggests that the headline prejudges the need to establish the facts of a complex event. Related to the way roles are assigned to participants is the way key media figures tend to be provided with a pre-established serialized role independently of the events described. In fiction, a writer might create a character who represents a world view. In newspapers the characters are “real” but the media recreates them to represent an ideology. Osama bin Laden embodies “terror”, Lady Diana the “fairy princess”. The way media icons are represented is rarely based on detailed, intimate, reliable knowledge of the person involved.
   
In the light of the above, we might conclude that the most reliable news reporting will be that in which the levels of modality adopted reflect the real level of the writer’s knowledge in relation to the event. Newsreaders can compare alternative sources on the same event and the same sources over time to determine an appropriate degree of reliability that can be assigned to information. Transitivity is more deeply embedded in the text. Alternative sources are once more essential, as different parties to an event will represent roles of participants in a very different light.

Establishing a Database
Again a much wider range of texts will be provided here than many courses would require. In some cases, only two texts might be used for comparison, but an adequate intercultural comparison normally requires at least three different sources. www.onlinenewspapers.com/ is a useful site for locating a wide variety of international media sources. The case study itself will help determine which sources to use and how many. A difficult compromise is always necessary between the demands of detailed analysis and the need for a broad spectrum of sources. The case study presented below has reasons for referring to the same sources twice rather than drawing on a wider variety of single sources as it is highly significant that the two British news outlets change their versions of the same event considerably over time.

According to Bell (1991, p.14), stories can be divided into ‘hard’ news and ‘soft’ news.  The category we will examine closely in this case study belongs to the former as it deals with war and more specifically an overnight commando raid on Taleban positions near Kandahar, Afghanistan on Friday, October 19, 2001. Boyce et al. (1978) in Fowler (1991, p. 156) suggest that, “(…) war reporting is one of the earliest historical forms of news and a stimulus for the growth of news media.”  American Senator Hiram Johnson’s much cited remark that in war truth is “the first casualty” is very relevant to this study. War or conflict, therefore, is a good locus for examining the media process under pressure. No sources deny that this particular raid took place, but, although the raid was clearly “newsworthy” and extensively covered in the media, what actually took place is very difficult to establish even for the critical reader.  The research aim is hence to determine how far it is possible for a critical reader to establish what actually took place during the Kandahar “raid”. 

We shall firstly refer to a Pentagon Briefing on U.S. Ground Operations in Afghanistan of October 20, 2001, the day after the raid. We shall then refer to a written report from the BBC news website Key sites targeted by US troops (Oct. 20, 2001), followed by a second report also from the BBC news website on the same day, Helicopter crash kills two US soldiers. Thirdly, two short BBC news video extracts also of October 20, 2001, hyperlinked to the same web page, have been transcribed and analysed. These all use the Pentagon briefing as a main source of information.

For comparison, very different retrospective versions of the same story on the same BBC website will be analysed: US special forces ‘botched mission’ (Nov. 5, 2001) and on the GUARDIAN newspaper website: Revealed: how bungled US raid came close to disaster (Nov. 6, 2001). These two reports (Nov. 5 and Nov. 6) reconstruct the story two weeks later. Finally a PAKISTAN TODAY website report Fighters Drove Off US Raid: Taliban, published on the same day as the earlier versions of the BBC story (Oct. 20, 2001) will be discussed. All these sources are still available for the students to access in archives on the relevant sites except the PAKISTAN TODAY, as this source does not maintain an extensive archive, so a print-out of the text had to be provided to students. This is therefore a useful point at which to discuss with students the merits of keeping hard copies of key documents.

Having provided a conceptual framework and established a corpus of texts for a case study various approaches are possible. Students can firstly be challenged to locate alternative source texts that shed new light on the same events. This provides practice in extensive reading techniques. It is time-consuming, but students obtain first-hand practice in web-searching, rapidly scanning text summaries and whole texts to locate the few relevant texts that will shed light on the incidents in question in relation to the media process. Once texts have been established, sample analyses and comparisons can be provided for intensive reading as a basis for discussion. Further texts should be reserved as an exercise in analysis in which specific concepts such as modality or transitivity are highlighted. The analyses below are presented to students only after they have themselves analysed and compared at least some of the texts.

Sample Text Analyses
The Pentagon briefing that followed the first raid on the Taleban on Oct. 20 is revealing at the level of news values and in particular truth modality. Firstly we are told that these are ‘excerpts from the Pentagon briefing’. These selected parts of the briefing have been chosen by the ‘U.S. Department of State’s office of International Information Programs who acknowledge that ‘this site is produced and maintained’ by them. It is difficult to know which parts of the briefing have been omitted as it has not been possible to find the full briefing elsewhere and it is not available on the Pentagon’s own website.

Before the briefing proper begins, six very short one-sentenced paragraphs give the main points about the raid, going from what is considered newsworthy to what is considered less so. Bell (1991, pp. 168/9) points out that, “this [technique] is described by journalists as the ‘inverted pyramid’ style – gathering all the main points at the beginning and progressing through decreasingly important information.” This is a common feature of journalism. We can find an example in the last paragraph of this Pentagon summary, therefore the least prominent position, where we are told that ‘General Myers also noted that air operations are continuing, as well as humanitarian food drops.’

When the questions begin, General Myers avoids the embarrassing ones by saying that ‘what [he] simply can’t do is talk about any of the tactics …’ And shortly after that in response to another question, he says: ‘Again I’m not going to discuss the number of troops’. And much later in the briefing: ‘Again, I’m not going to go into the specific aircraft that supported this operation.’

After these initial questions, as noted above, General Myers uses truth modality in a very significant fashion. Here are a few revealing examples: ‘we had I think it was two people injured in parachute drops…’ ‘I think it’s pretty well established the Taliban lie.’ ‘We think that [‘the significant amount of dust’] had something to do with it.’ [‘the crash of the helicopter’] ‘As you would expect going into Taliban-held territory, you would meet resistance.’ ‘I think you have to be careful with extrapolating this to the future.’ ‘I would not draw any extrapolations that this means anything like you’re trying to impart to this.’ ‘But one of the messages should be that…’ ‘…The other, the airfield was similarly, we thought of intelligence value.’ ‘We were hoping to find intelligence there.’ ‘We did not expect to find significant Taliban leadership (…)’ ‘We of course were hoping we would, but we did not expect it (…)’. The following statement by General Myers about Taleban resistance has been widely quoted in the western media, and in particular in the BBC news reports referred to below: ‘it was, I guess you could characterize it as light.’ Examples of adverbs used for modality include: ‘They are certainly not life threatening.’ ‘In this case, any claims that they shot this helicopter down are absolutely false.’ ‘That’s probably easy for us to say here in this room. For those experiencing it, of course, it was probably not light.’  

Here are a few examples (the text contains many) of what Fowler (1991, p. 86) calls “straightforward truth claim”. He also points out that “a straightforward truth claim does not, in fact, need any explicit modal verb; this is not to say that there is no modality, but that in the normal case, it does not need to be expressed.” ‘I have several video clips of yesterday’s action to show you.’ ‘In the first clip you’ll see (…)’ ‘The next clip is (…)’ ‘Next you’ll see troops (…)’ ‘Next you will see actions (…)’ (His description of the video clips is important because of the controversy regarding the content of the video footage, as we shall see below.) The two paragraphs that follow this, where General Myers gives his ‘quick recap’ of ‘yesterday’s air operations’ – prior to the raid – are also very indicative of the wish of the military to be positive about their various actions. Therefore, the briefing contains a significant number of “straightforward truth claims”, providing much rather detailed information, particularly involving numbers. It is interesting to note that sometimes General Myers is prepared to give a lot of information and sometimes he is not, as seen above: ‘On Friday we struck in 15 planned target areas.’ And in the following paragraph: ‘Also yesterday we again flew four C-17 missions (…)’, ‘(…) delivering approximately 68,000 rations (…)’, etc.  The attempt to justify and provide a positive tone continues later on in the briefing: ‘They are doing fine’. ‘There was a significant amount of dust.’ ‘The rotor wash brings up the dust and makes landing very very difficult.’ ‘It was another Taliban command and control facility.’ ‘The mission overall was successful’; this has later been quoted in the press, (together with other quotes), although not always in this same ‘positive’ light. As mentioned above, this statement by General Myers was meant to reassure a certain consensual group.

 BBC Website Report
This report comes from a page of the BBC news website also from October 20, 2001. The complete date ‘Saturday, 20 October, 2001’ and time ‘21:39 GMT 22:39 UK’ are included; they are written just above the headline. The report appeared on the same day as the briefing, the day after the raid. It is not bylined. This could imply that the nine short, one-sentence paragraphs (for easier reading) were probably gathered from a variety of sources, thus the lack of ownership. The article has a headline, Key sites targeted by US troops, written in a slightly larger font size, in bold letters, with a “distinctive, telegraphic syntax”, according to Bell (1991, p. 186). It also has an abstract, a body copy, in which a single quote in direct speech, by Richard Myers, is included in one separate paragraph in the middle of the page, slightly to the right; the quote is written in a slightly bigger font size for emphasis. The small picture at the top of the article comes from the footage released by the Pentagon. It is not clear what it represents until one has read what is written (in very small font) underneath it, which reads ‘a Pentagon video showed a parachute drop’.

The article is mainly attributed to one authoritative source, namely the Pentagon Briefing cited above, represented by US Officials and US Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, whose name is highlighted in a grey box, also for emphasis. (His “quasi-title” in Bell’s terms (1991, p.195) is rather impressive. Bell (p.196) actually says that such a title implies “that this person belongs to a class as exclusive as heads of state or the nobility. It implies a uniqueness (…). For the media a title embodies a person’s claim to news value.”) 

In this article, Richard Myers is reported directly from the Pentagon briefing as saying that the resistance could be characterized as ‘light’. This quote in direct speech, in a separate paragraph, appeals to the notion of “consensus”, but of course only for those who support the Western view of the conflict. What makes it still more reassuring for one consensual group is that in the body copy, it also says that US troops ‘did not meet significant resistance’, thus reinforcing the point. A fuller quotation of the comment about ‘light’ resistance is also used in Bridget Kendall’s video report (hyperlinked to this article and analysed below). This indicates how news editors have to quote selectively from the same sources (here the above mentioned extended press briefing and interview of Richard Myers which runs into several pages when transcribed.) This point about the apparently ‘light resistance’ becomes one of the sources of controversy, which we shall discuss in more detail below.

General Myers is then reported as saying that ‘two servicemen were lightly injured in the parachute jump but were ‘doing fine’’. It is interesting to note that, even though this is supposed to be what General Myers said, a few words have been slightly changed by the reporter: ‘servicemen’, here, for ‘people’ in General Myers’ briefing, ‘parachute jump’ for ‘parachute drops’ and also ‘lightly injured’ for ‘injured’; these are not very significant as such but they show however how easy it is for news reporters to change what people have said, when reporting. ‘Lightly injured’ and ‘injured’ however, could lead to more speculation as to the degree of injury. The only thing that has been accurately reported here has been the verbal phrase ‘doing fine’. Reported speech, a common device in news reporting – whether written or broadcast – through which the writers express their commitment to the reliability or even to the truth of the evidence (modality), is extensively used in this article. It is introduced by the following verbs: ‘say’, ‘told’, ‘said’ (three times), ‘saying’. It is a way for the writers to distance themselves from what they are reporting.

Towards the end of the article, we can read that General Myers ‘denied a Taleban claim that they had shot down a US helicopter.’ As it seems clear that this incident is to be treated as ‘a mishap’, it may be one of the reasons for it to be mentioned towards the end of the article, almost in passing, as will also be the case in Stephen Sackur’s report below. We may also note that the Taleban claim, in addition to its inferior position, is embedded in the Pentagon refutation. The reporting verb ‘claim’ further weakens its credibility.

This article, Key sites targeted by US troops was written at ‘21:39 GMT 22:39 UK’; it follows another BBC article, written on the same day at ‘10:45 GMT 11:45 UK’, bylined to the BBC’s Susannah Price in Islamabad. Her article, written in the morning is entitled helicopter crash kills two US soldiers (‘in neighbouring Pakistan’). Later on in this report, one can note a rather serious editing mistake, which is likely to be a direct consequence of the speed they have to work at in the editing room; it reads: ‘However, they said, it landed inside Afghanistan’ (bottom p.1). ‘However, they said, it landed inside Pakistan’ (top p.2)! (Our italics in both cases).

The abstract is presented as “straightforward truth” in that no modal auxiliaries, adjectives or adverbs have been used. “Straightforward truth” has only been used once more after that, in the third paragraph: ‘Three Pakistani airfields are being used by the Americans for search and rescue missions.’ Modality expressing lesser certainty has been used significantly in a very large part of her report: ‘The American military said it was an accident’. ‘The Taleban say they shot down the helicopter. A Taleban spokesman also said they had repelled the land forces…’ ‘The Americans said…’ ‘Pakistani sources said…’ ‘But the Taleban now say…’ ‘However, they said…’ All these are linked to the ‘Conflicting reports’. This article by Susannah Price in Islamabad has not attacked the ‘truth’ of the ‘facts’; it has, through modality, merely quoted the sources it has had access to. It has also on two occasions used “straightforward truth” to describe the events.

Hyperlinked Video Reports (See appendix for full transcripts)
In the modern media process, the recipient has more control over the order in which s/he accesses information and is better able to notice inconsistencies. Hyperlinked to the article Key sites targeted by US Troops is a video report using Pentagon footage of the US raid on the Taleban. The reporter was Stephen Sackur, a BBC Foreign Affairs correspondent in Washington in 2001. The first part of this video report is analysed in detail, other parts are only referred to in passing (see appendix for full transcript).

Extraordinary night vision footage of US army rangers parachuting onto a Taleban airfield outside Kandahar. A dramatic opening to special forces combat missions behind enemy lines. On the ground several blinding flashes as US troops moved into the airfield buildings.  The Pentagon says resistance was light. No number put on Taleban casualties. This, one of two raids last night, the other on a house belonging to the Taleban Leader Mullah Omar. At the airfield a small weapons cache was discovered then destroyed.

This short extract is noticeable for its elliptical structure (omitted verb or incomplete verb form, determiners or both). ‘Extraordinary night vision footage’, ‘No number put on Taliban casualties’, ‘This, one of two raids last night, etc. The reason for the elliptical nature of this report and of TV reports in general could be, as Bell (1991, p. 29) suggests, that “television news items average over 60 seconds each.” In television broadcast news, it is easier to identify the large amount of editing that takes place to produce one short report. There are seven sections in the full report, which are in some ways equivalent to paragraphs in written reports. The embedding of the Taleban claim in the last section is, however, more obvious in the video footage than in the webpage article where Sackur’s voice-over comment interrupts the Taleban official in mid-sentence. It is also revealing that in the fourth section of his report, Stephen Sackur mentions the helicopter crash, almost in passing and it could even be taken as a separate incident ‘one went down over Pakistan.’ Is it clear that this ‘one’ was involved in the raid in question? This is yet another example of the embedding of news which one does not wish perhaps, for ideological reasons (the morale of the troops, the viewers), to emphasize. 

According to Bell (1991, p. 148), although news tends to have some of the patterns of narrative, it does not usually follow a chronological order nowadays. Schudson in Fowler (1991, p. 173) says that “reporters moved from being recorders or stenographers to interpreters about the turn of the century.” Readers (or viewers) are often told the outcome of an event at the beginning of an article or news report to keep their interest and make them want to read on. In this report we have elements of a narrative (Labov, 1972), such as when, who, what, where; the complicating action: what happened (then), and the resolution: what finally happened. The event took place at ‘night’, the people involved were the ‘US army rangers’; a little more detail is given about them: ‘special forces combat missions’, placed ‘behind enemy lines’, they were ‘parachuting onto a Taliban airfield outside Kandahar.’ ‘The US troops moved into the airfield buildings.’ We are told of the first resolution: ‘No number put on Taliban casualties’. As for the raid on the second location, it took place ‘on a house belonging to the Taliban Leader Mullah Omar’. No detail is given about what was found or not found, or whether there were casualties.

Despite the fact that the BBC is not a tabloid, adjectives are used to create a sense of excitement for viewers. The extract begins with a very powerful adjective, which makes the first line particularly attention catching and encourages the viewer to watch on: ‘Extraordinary night vision footage of US army rangers (…). It is followed by a second sentence almost parallel to the first one in both length (almost the same number of words) and style (apart from the use of the determiner ‘a’): ‘A dramatic opening to special forces combat missions behind enemy lines’. The effect of the two powerful adjectives ‘extraordinary’ and ‘dramatic’ (our italics) is strengthened further with the use of the noun phrase ‘blinding flashes’ – a parallel to ‘extraordinary night vision footage’, a long three-epithet phrase. This stylistic device makes the event appear like fiction, although this is war. It adds to the sensationalizing side of the report. The dramatic, almost ‘entertaining’ style of this commentary represents a form of modality, which could be seen to create an effect of “desirability” in Hallidayan terms. To express “desirability”, “the speaker/writer indicates approval or disapproval of the state of affairs communicated by the proposition.” (Fowler 1991, p. 87)
 
In the middle of Stephen Sackur’s report, the Pentagon is quoted as the main source of information. Bell (1991, p. 192) suggests that “the quality of a story’s sources affects its news value. The more elite the source, the more newsworthy the story.” But he then goes on to say that “it is also clear that readers cannot assess for themselves the credibility of the sources – or of the story.” We might also wonder whether even the specialist reporter can either when the source is the Pentagon. As shown in the transcript, the first part of Stephen Sackur’s report is immediately followed by the Pentagon statement: ‘The mission was overall successful. We accomplished our objectives. To those in uniform who accomplished it they have never let us down and er… (there was hesitation in General Myers’ voice at this point, in Sackur’s report, transcribed with ‘er…’) yesterday was no exception.’ The statement presented here is positive, aiming to convince the viewer belonging to one consensual group that the mission succeeded. Interestingly, the whole middle section of General Myers’ statement in the form of a response to one question, has been cut. It talked about the ‘credibility’ and ‘professionalism’ of the army – including himself ‘Dick Myers’. Although the comment is part of one rapid, spoken response, the editing is not detectable to the viewer.   

There is some confusion in the naming of the locations of the raid: ‘an undisclosed location’ in the Key sites targeted by US troops article, whereas the two video reports give more precision on the name of the location (the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar). Stephen Sackur says: ‘a Taleban airfield outside Kandahar’, and Bridget Kendall talks about ‘an airfield near Kandahar’. The article does not mention ‘a house/compound belonging to the Taleban leader Mullah Omar’ (reported in Sackur/Kendall’s hyperlinked video reports), it refers to a ‘command and control facility’ as well as to a ‘command complex’ at ‘targeted sites’ USED by LEADERS of the Taleban AND al-Qaeda terror network (our capital letters). The word ‘house’ used by Stephen Sackur is interestingly a very neutral one in this context of terror network and terror attacks.

In Sackur’s video report, ‘a small weapons cache was discovered then destroyed.’ Similarly to Fowler’s (1991, p. 86) category of “straightforward truth”, Fairclough (1989, p. 129) suggests that sentences like this with no modal verbs show “one terminal point of expressive modality, a categorical commitment of the producer to the truth of the proposition.” In the article, we are also told that ‘the troops seized intelligence material at the command complex.’ Neither the viewer nor the BBC editor has any independent means of verifying these statements, so the form of categorical modality is inappropriate.
 
In the second hyperlinked video report, London-based BBC reporter Bridget Kendall also reports the day after the raid. The first part of her report cited below is interesting in that she – unlike Stephen Sackur – seems either to have had a little more time or distance to reflect on the raid, or the state of confusion is such that she does not know herself what to make out of the (possibly contradictory) ‘facts’ she was given.

What happened last night was, of course, wrapped in secrecy and still only a few details have emerged. What I have been told is that at least a hundred US special forces including army rangers entered Southern Afghanistan under cover of darkness. Now, where they came from is classified information, but they could have been flown in from warships in the Arabian Sea and then transferred to C130 aircraft at air bases nearer by. There were apparently two targets: (close up on the locations mentioned on the map) an airfield near Kandahar and, some distance away, a compound belonging to the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

Her text, unlike Stephen Sackur’s Washington report, does not quote any official sources and uses more modal auxiliaries, ‘what I have been told’, ‘could have been flown’. She also uses an adverbial ‘apparently’, verbal and noun phrases, all gradually showing that the mission in question has not been that clear-cut, ‘wrapped in secrecy’ (suggesting that what took place is unclear); ‘still only a few details’, ‘classified information’, ‘apparently two targets’. She very much distances herself from what she is reporting through the use of modality. However, at the end of her report (see attached transcript), she inexplicably moves to categorical commitment for what seems less than certain even in the briefing: ‘But these highly trained US commandos weren’t expecting to snatch Taleban leaders. Their main purpose was to gather intelligence.’

In her report, we are given slightly modified pieces of information, an approximate number as well as a more detailed description of the people involved: ‘at least a hundred US special forces including army rangers’. This is quite a common feature of news where details tend to vary even from reporters working for the same agency. This can be misleading for the viewer or reader who watches or reads the news on the same topic. In his report, Stephen Sackur was far more positive as to the ‘truth’ of the ‘facts’: ‘this, one of two raids last night’; therefore, when the viewer hears Bridget Kendall’s report s/he begins to wonder what actually happened.

Another extract from the Pentagon briefing follows her introduction:

As you would expect going into er… Taleban-held territory, you would meet resistance, and we met … we met resistance at both objectives: the airfield and the other objective. It was er… I guess you could characterize it as…as… as light.

This time, as the transcription shows, General Myers sounds rather less convinced about what he is saying; modal auxiliaries and modal expressions are extensively used in his statement: ‘can expect’, ‘would meet’, ‘I guess’, repeated twice with the use of  ‘er…’ in the middle of his utterance, showing hesitation. The transcription of the two reports shows that although in Kendall’s case the quote from General Myers is in full, this is not the case in Sackur’s report as mentioned above. Because it was a verbal report, marks of hesitation were very revealing and have been added. It is very enlightening to read a transcript that does not transcribe hesitation and to read the same transcript that does. It inevitably gives the viewer another ‘reading’ of the statements. This is one of the main differences between watching a TV report and reading a newspaper report.  In this extract, the verb of modality ‘guess’ and the last modal auxiliary ‘could’, followed by ‘characterize it as light’, might make the viewer, who listens carefully to what is being said, wonder what this hides. In the transcription of the Pentagon briefing, some of the hesitation is removed. General Myers shows some hesitation, but in a less obvious way than in the spoken version of it: ‘It was, I guess you could characterize it as light’.          

The Emergence of Contradictory Reports
In a ‘follow-up’ article (Bell 1991, p. 174), on the same BBC website, on Monday, 5 November, 2001, 12:37 GMT, a very different version of the same story starts to emerge, US special forces ‘botched mission’. A detailed analysis of this article will not be provided here. It will be used only for comparative purposes. The way the story opens is very revealing as it makes no reference to the BBC’s own previous representation of the same events: ‘An operation by United States special forces inside Afghanistan launched two weeks ago went badly wrong, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.’ The indefinite article ‘an’ tends to suggest no previous reference by the BBC to these events.

The reference to the video footage analysed above in some detail (Stephen Sackur’s report) is also very revealing. Presented by Sackur as something exciting and newsworthy, it is here referred to as ‘grainy footage’, attributed to the United States: ‘The United States released grainy footage showing troops being dropped by parachute behind enemy lines.’ The implication might even be that the BBC would never use such inferior American footage.       

The author of the article, Martin Plaut, commits himself categorically (Fairclough, 1989, p. 129) to the ‘new facts’: ‘The raid left 12 commandos of the elite Delta Force wounded after they ran into stiffer than expected resistance from the Taleban’. This is very different from the ‘light’ resistance presented in the October 20 article Key sites targeted by US troops, citing the authoritative American Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers in an influential early part of the article. Towards the end of this follow-up article (therefore arguably in the least influential location on the reader’s opinion) as pointed out above, ‘the US military has categorically rejected these allegations’. Indeed even the ‘light’ resistance admitted on October 20 by General Myers has now been changed to ‘(…) That’s simply not true. There was no resistance, the Taleban were in complete disarray.’ While General Myers is no longer supported as a reliable source, we might note that this does not mean that the Taleban are now presented as reliable. 

An important contrast between the original October 20, Key sites targeted by US troops report and this follow-up article involves the use of “transitivity”. Through the use of transitivity, the November 5 article now represents the elite troops as the “affected participants” or “the patients” Fowler (1991, p. 75). This can be contrasted with the previous (Oct. 20) article Key sites targeted by US troops: ‘troops attacked and destroyed two targets overnight but did not meet significant resistance’, in which the same troops were first presented as ‘agents’ in Fowler’s terms.

Fowler (1991, p. 84) suggests that “categorization by vocabulary is an integral part of the reproduction of ideology” in media texts. There is a very high density of “lexical reiteration” (Halliday and Hasan 1976, p. 304) related to the topic of armed conflict. It is difficult to identify any lexical fields beyond this topic. Halliday and Hasan (1976, p. 320) refer to “(…) the cohesive effect achieved by the continuity of lexical meaning.” It is interesting to extract items from the lexical fields as they reflect a development through the texts from the early articles and the broadcast reports to the later contrasting reports, which cast doubt on the success of the mission. A close look at the lexical items from the various sources almost reveals a ‘synopsis’ of the initial version of events. When we look at the ‘failed-mission’ lexical field, we notice a marked contrast in connotation. The more neutral military terminology, which dominates early reports, is replaced by more negative connotations related to failure in the follow-up articles. 

Military Action/Armed Forces:

Nouns: ‘troops’, ‘targets’, ‘airfield’, ‘servicemen’, ‘airspace’,
            ‘ground’, casualties’, ‘resistance’, ‘mission’, ‘objectives’,
            ‘uniform’, ‘pressure’, ‘crew’, ‘raid’.

Verbs: ‘targeted’, ‘attacked’, ‘destroyed’, ‘seized’, ‘were injured’, 
            ‘shot down’, ‘parachuting’, ‘discovered’,  ‘pounded’, ‘killed’.

Noun phrases: ‘key sites’, ‘parachute drop’, ‘special forces’, ‘parachute      
                         raid’, ‘Pentagon briefing’, US Joint Chiefs Chairman’,       
                         significant resistance’, ‘Taleban forces’, ‘command and
                         control facility’, ‘Taleban leader’, ‘Air Force General’,
                         ‘intelligence material’, ‘command complex’, ‘US officials’, 
                         ‘parachute jump’, ‘Taleban claim’, ‘US helicopter’,
                         ‘combat operation’, ‘air strikes’, ‘US army rangers’, ‘combat
                         missions’, ‘enemy lines’, ‘airfield building’, weapons
                         cache’, ‘special forces operation’, ‘Taleban stronghold’, 
                         ‘military strategy’.                         

Lexical field of (failed) mission:

Nouns:  ‘crash’, ‘mishap’, ‘allegations’, ‘wounds’, ‘enemy’, ‘claim and
              counter-claim’, ‘disaster’, ‘debacle’, ‘setback’.

Verbs: ‘wounded’, ‘re-assessing’, ‘attempted’, ‘were enraged’, ‘was
             inflicted (by)’. 
      
Noun phrases: ‘furious assault’, ‘no stealth’, ‘military denial’, ‘parachute 
                          injuries’, ‘stiff resistance’, ‘complete disarray’, ‘botched
                          mission’, ‘bungled US raid’, ‘ferocious Taleban ambush’,
                          ‘review of war tactics’, ‘intense fire’, ‘ferocity of the
                          Taleban resistance’, ‘advisability of such missions’, absence
                          of clear intelligence’, ‘heavy resistance’, ‘fierce Taliban
                          response’, ‘a lot of blood’.

Verb phrases:     ‘went badly wrong’, ‘ran into stiffer than expected resistance’,
                           ‘operation went wrong’, ‘simply not true’, ‘caught US commandos
                            unawares’, had failed to break the taliban’s morale’, US switched its
                            military strategy’, (US) ‘soldier’s foot blown off’, ‘found…stripped 
                           off anything that might provide useful intelligence’, ‘forcing them to
                           retreat’, 'had triggered an inquiry’, '2 Delta commandos were wounded'.

 A Non-Western Source
A brief comparison with a newspaper from a non-western source situated closer to the conflict geographically, is revealing. PAKISTAN TODAY’s website, in their October 20 article, therefore just after the raid, Fighters Drove Off US Raid: Taliban, emphasizes the confusion much more clearly in their leading paragraph than the BBC report of the same date. PAKISTAN TODAY gives the Taleban the leading position both in the headline (with its use of transitivity, with the Taleban as “agents”, ‘drove off’) and in the leading paragraph. However, their leading paragraph immediately indicates contradictions even between statements: ‘The ruling Taliban claimed Saturday their fighters drove off US commandos… and shot down the helicopter that US and Pakistani officials say crashed by accident in Pakistan.’ In this first sentence all relevant sources are reported, suggesting a more balanced approach to modality between opposing sides in the conflict.

PAKISTAN TODAY does not at any point disguise the confusion as to what actually happened: ‘the official Taliban news agency in another dispatch claimed no battle had taken place.’ However, PAKISTAN TODAY does make it clear that the shot-down helicopter reported by all sources was actually ‘supporting the operation’, something which is not always clear on the BBC pages, where the helicopter crash could be read as a separate incident. On the BBC pages the helicopter is mentioned only after a section on ‘other developments’, which provides a very incoherent text, if the helicopter crash is intended to be read as part of the same raid.  PAKISTAN TODAY emphasizes the confusion still further with yet another quote from the Taleban reported on Al-JAZEERA TV: ‘I think we hit one of the helicopters, but I am not sure.’ The reader is left with a very unclear image of what happened, but this is an appropriate level of modality, considering the conflicting sources of information.

A co-written article on the GUARDIAN web page (Nov. 6, 2001) even suggests that: ‘A simultaneous raid by army rangers on Kandahar airstrip was carried out only after forward troops had checked that the area was clear. It was mainly for the benefit of the cameras to boost the rangers’ morale.’ This is presented as categorical truth, but as mentioned above, the reader does not have the means to check the reliability of the information any more than in the original articles. And being told in the article that ‘the account given to the Guardian was consistent with an article in the New Yorker magazine yesterday’, does not particularly help as it uses one secondary source to support another.

One version of the ‘resolution’ of this story, in Labov’s terms (1972) can be seen here in the GUARDIAN web page article (Nov. 6), ‘The debacle, which saw US Delta Force soldiers come under intense fire from the Taliban, prompted a review of special forces operations in Afghanistan (…)’. It also ‘sparked a debate in the Pentagon on the advisability of such missions in the absence of clear intelligence’. And it leads to ‘questioning of the leadership of the war’s US commander, General Tommy Franks’, who is ‘too hidebound and too steeped in US military doctrine … to lead a special forces campaign requiring guile and stealth’. This has also lead to a remark from a ‘British defence source that ‘we need proper, joined-up, serious operations’.

All these statements, while contentious, tend to suggest that the raid was not after all the ‘success’ it had been ‘hailed’ to have been. Had it been a success, none of these statements would have needed to be made or else there is a worryingly significant contradiction between American viewpoints on the sequence of events. It is interesting too that, except for one source in Pakistan, these western media organizations seem to need “reliable” western sources to persuade their readers that the mission was unsuccessful.

Conclusion of the Analysis    
This analysis deals with one item of “hard news”, namely the controversial overnight US special forces raid near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, on Friday, October 19, 2001. The inconsistency of the news reporting has been illustrated, underlining the difficulty for the reader/viewer to have a clear picture of what really happens on the world scene. The BBC’s Martin Plaut, even two weeks after the event, suggests that ‘exactly what did take place is, at this stage, impossible to assess.’ He concludes his November 5 article by stating: ‘this kind of claim and counter-claim is likely to become an increasingly familiar aspect of this conflict.’ PAKISTAN TODAY was, however, able to represent the contradictory versions from the first day, with a more balanced use of modality.

This case study has mainly concentrated on the way truth is represented through modality in the media. It has attempted to show that through the different forms of modality (modal auxiliaries, modal verbs, reporting verbs, adjectives and adverbs,), news writers and reporters sometimes even represent contentious news as “straightforward truth”, in Fowler’s terms. Fairclough (1989, p. 129) suggests that “the prevalence of categorical modalities supports a view of the world as transparent – as if it signalled its own meaning to any observer, without the need for interpretation and representation.” This is usually done without any modal auxiliaries or adjectives and adverbs. But the use of modality in news reporting can also be a means for reporters to distance themselves from the ‘facts’ they present.

In his novel Ways of Escape (1999, p. 17), Graham Greene points out “(…) how little I had learned of life and politics during three years in the sub-editors’ room of The Times”. This is a rather revealing statement from a novelist who later sought out all the international trouble spots of his time. It tends to underline the difficulty journalists or sub-editors who stay at home experience in getting a clear picture of the events that take place elsewhere and which they have to deal with. This idea is emphasized in Fairclough (1989, p. 129) who suggests that “ ‘News’ generally disguises the complex and messy processes of information gathering and interpretation which go into its production and the role therein of ideologies embedded in the established practices and assumptions which interpreters bring to the process of interpretation.”              

“Postmodernism” according to Strinati (in Storey 1994, p. 436) “is … an argument about the mass media taking over – a cultural invasion of our senses which knows no boundaries, only surfaces”. Strinati further suggests that in our “post-modern” world “reality is what the media says it is, namely a question of images and surfaces” and that “the world has come to consist of media screens and cultural surfaces.” In this case study, we have observed a highly sophisticated technical process of media production, but a much more primitive ability to report. The possibility of “surfing the web” may increase our ability to diversify information sources. Nevertheless it is still difficult to find sources that provide credible information or sources that truly represent other voices. In terms of so-called postmodern thought, the media is highly polished on the surface. The speed and pressures of modern society oblige most news recipients to remain at this superficial level, but when we take the time to glimpse below the surface a very different picture emerges. 

Pedagogical Conclusions
Having experienced media analysis using a database established by the teacher, students are then challenged to research a different conflict of their own choice, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict either using similar techniques, or, for more advanced students developing their own approach. Students in classes who experienced this material chose a variety of topics. One study was entitled, "How Language is Used by Journalists". This dissertation was based on accounts of British journalist, John Simpson's arrival in Kabul ahead of the "Northern Alliance in 2001. This extract from his conclusion (see appendix 2), demonstrates an ability to use the concept of modality:

Readers/viewers need to be able to work out whether they can believe the information given by media by looking at the language used by journalists.  For example Simpson did not say that he liberated Kabul, however, Hodgson reports that he did it ‘singlehandedly’.  By looking at the use of language carefully, such as “Media monkey” or “Simpson liberated Kabul”, readers/viewers can understand that Hodgson criticizes Simpson. When journalists criticize someone, they often use expressions like these and often do not use modality appropriately. 

The independent project stage can lead to very interesting and original media investigations. Although this was an international study, another student focused on the misreporting of an important local problem on waste disposal on Teshima Island, in Southern Japan. Although it used some linguistic analysis, it was more an investigation of media ethics, which is only indirectly linked to "modality". (See appendix 3). The student in this case conducted her own investigation on the local media coverage of a problem of public interest, including her own interviews with local journalists and environmental campaigners.

The main cause would be that reporters did not turn their eyes on the islanders, just staying at their private press club. The important thing, on the other hand, is that the media turn their eyes on the public, for the public forms a society. Further, an idea of ‘public journalism’ suggests that the local media should present possible solutions to some problems and help citizens participate in solving the problems. In fact, the solutions by the local media, which is subject to the political power of the area they serve, might be biased and the extent to which a person can think of something as his or her own is not so great.

 A detailed case study is a demanding task for students, but can be conducted at different levels of sophistication. For advanced students of international studies, an international media case study has several advantages. It provides practice in a variety of language skills. It gives students a hands-on introduction to research techniques. At the same time it develops an understanding not only of major international conflicts of our time, but also of the often complex intercultural issues that are raised when readers are confronted with the difficulties of evaluating contradictions between media sources on these conflicts. When students decide to apply investigative techniques learnt through international investigations to local problems, this may also paradoxically indicate that they have made the study their own, leading them to the important understanding that "international" does not exclude "local".

References:

Bell, A. (1991) The language of news media Oxford: Blackwell.
Bygate, M. (2001). Effects of task repetition on the structure and control of oral
   interaction. In Bygate, M., Skehan, P., Swain, M. (2001). Researching pedagogic
   tasks second language learning, teaching and testing. Harlow: Longman.
Ellis, R. (2005). Principles of instructed language learning. In P. Robertson, P. Dash and J. Jung (Eds). English language learning in the Asian context (pp. 12-26). Pusan: The 
   Asian EFL Journal Press. http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/September_05_re.php 
Fowler, R. (1986) Linguistic criticism. Oxford: OUP.
Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the news. London: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and power. Harlow: Longman.
Greene, G. (1999) Ways of escape. London: Vintage.
Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan (1976) Cohesion in English London: Longman.
Halliday, M. & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar. (3rd
   revised edition of Halliday's Introduction to functional grammar.) London: Hodder  
   Arnold.
Labov, W. (1972) The Transformation of experience in narrative syntax.     In Labov, W. Language in the Inner City, Philadelphia: University of    Pennsylvania Press, 354-96.
Mey, J. (2000). Pragmatics. An introduction (2nd edition) Oxford: Oxford University
    Press.                                                                          
Nunn, R. (2006)  Designing Holistic Units for Task-Based Learning. Asian EFL Journal
     (Vol. 8, Issue 3) http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/Sept_06_rn.php  
Reah, D. (1998) The Language of Newspapers. London: Routledge.
Strinati, D. (1994) Postmodernism and Popular Culture in Storey, J. (1994) Cultural
theory and popular culture.  A reader. pp. 428-438 Hemel Hempstead: Harvester
    Wheatsheaf.
Thompson, G. (2004) Introducing functional grammar. London: Arnold.

References from the Internet:

US State Department Website: 20 October 2001
Pentagon Briefing on U.S. Ground Operations in Afghanistan
U.S. Special Forces attack terrorist and Taliban targets
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01102005.htm
First retrieved on Nov. 13, 2001

BBC Website: Saturday, 20 October, 2001, 21:39 GMT 22:39 UK
Key sites targeted by US troops 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1609000/1609762.stm
First retrieved on Nov. 13, 2001

Second video Hyperlink from BBC October 20, 2001 page: Key sites targeted by US troops http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1610000/video/_1611108_forces22_kendall_vi.ram

                 Appendix 1 (Video Hyperlink Transcripts)
Video Hyperlink from BBC October 20, 2001 page: “Key sites targeted by US troops”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1610000/video/_1611108_raids22_sackur_vi.ram

Stephen Sackur (voice over Pentagon video footage described below)

Extraordinary night vision footage of  US army rangers parachuting onto a Taleban airfield outside Kandahar. A dramatic opening to special forces combat missions behind enemy lines. On the ground several blinding flashes as US troops moved into the airfield buildings.  The Pentagon says resistance was light. No number put on Taleban casualties. This, one of two raids last night, the other on a house belonging to the Taleban Leader Mullah Omar. At the airfield a small weapons cache was discovered then destroyed.

(Next comes an extract from a Pentagon press briefing by General Richard Myers, US Joint Chiefs Chairman)

The mission overall was successful. We accomplished our objectives. To those in uniform who accomplished it they have never let us down and er yesterday was no exception.

(Then comes Stephen Sackur, voice over AL-JAZEERA  footage)

This, the view from inside Kandahar last night. The special forces operation so close to this Taleban stronghold designed to put further pressure on a city already pounded by US war planes.

(Voice continues over Pentagon footage of an aircraft carrier)

American combat helicopters now massed on Aircraft carriers within striking distance of Afghan targets. But last night one went down over Pakistan, two crew were killed.

(Next comes statement by President Bush)

These soldiers will not have died in vain. This is a just cause, it’s an important cause.

(Extract of a statement by a Taleban official)

I have initial reports that helicopter was hit…

(Stephen Sackur, voice over, interrupting)

A Taleban official today claiming they shot down the US helicopter, “nonsense” ["nonsense" is stressed by the speaker] according to the Pentagon.

Tonight more US bombing raids, operation “Enduring Freedom” is in a new phase. Air power now being used in conjunction with special forces on the ground. The pressure on the Taleban and Al-Qaeda is mounting.  Stephen Sackur, BBC news, Washington.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Video Hyperlink from BBC October 20, 2001 page: “Key sites targeted by US troops”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1610000/video/_1611108_forces22_kendall_vi.ram

Bridget Kendall (to the left of the screen, with a map of the area round Afghanistan behind her and a large heading in the bottom right hand corner “SPECIAL FORCES” )

What happened last night was, of course, wrapped in secrecy and still only a few details have emerged. What I have been told is that at least a hundred US special forces including army rangers entered Southern Afghanistan under cover of darkness. Now, where they came from is classified information, but they could have been flown in from warships in the Arabian Sea and then transferred to C130 aircraft at air bases nearer by. There were apparently two targets: (close up on the locations mentioned on the map) an airfield near Kandahar and, some distance away, a compound belonging to the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

(Richard Myers, same briefing different excerpt)
 
As you would expect going into er Taleban-held territory, you would meet resistance, and we met … we met resistance at both objectives: the airfield and the other objective. It was er… I guess you could characterize it as…as… as light.

(Back to Bridget Kendall, voice over troop preparation video footage)

Pentagon pictures showed troops preparing gear and loading onto transport planes ahead of the raid. But these highly trained US commandos weren’t expecting to snatch Taleban leaders. Their main purpose was to gather intelligence.

… allied forces on a very steep learning curve and getting some experience of operating on the ground.  What we are almost certainly going to see now over the next few nights is probably a lot more raids like this one ...

(Bridget Kendall voice over winter footage in Afghanistan)

… and they’ll have to hurry. Winter in Afghanistan is round the corner making already hazardous ground operations even more treacherous. Bridget Kendall, BBC news.

Appendix 2
Conclusion of a student's written report of his independent research project: "How Language is Used by Journalists." This is a final draft in a multi-drafting approach which includes peer and teacher feedback on language.

Conclusion

                Readers/viewers need to be able to work out whether they can believe the information given by media by looking at the language used by journalists.  For example Simpson did not say that he liberated Kabul, however, Hodgson reports that he did it ‘singlehandedly’.  By looking at the use of language carefully, such as “Media monkey” or “Simpson liberated Kabul”, readers/viewers can understand that Hodgson criticizes Simpson. When journalists criticize someone, they often use expressions like these and often do not use modality appropriately. 
            When we read quotations, we also have to pay attention to whether they are reliable or not.  News writers/reporters often cut quotations and use just what they think necessary for their reports as we saw in the example in Hodgson’s report.  When we could not find more than one source reporting the same event, we should not trust the information instantly.  For example we have already seen an example of this in Simpson’s comment, “It was only the BBC”.  The BBC was the only organization which entered Kabul before the Northern Alliance, and Simpson could not distance himself from the event.
            In this dissertation, I showed examples of adequate modality used in Simpson’s book in Chapter 1.  Also, I said that some words are inappropriate to use with any modal expressions.  I talked about how categorical modality is used and the situation in which it is not appropriate to use it.  It is not about the use of language, but I could find a typical example in which the Guardian criticizes Simpson of the BBC, and the BBC which supports Simpson.  The BBC does not report what Simpson said at the interview with MacGregor. 
Journalists should use adequate modality to communicate with readers/viewers well.  It is natural that when journalists report something they cannot be sure they need a higher level of modality.  However even when they report what they witness with their own eyes, or events in which journalists are deeply involved, they still need adequate modality.

Appendix 3
Part of the abstract from a student's dissertation: "The Teshima Island Problem".   

This dissertation is an analysis of news reporting on the Teshima Island problem aiming at understanding issues over the local media and considering their ideal state. The Teshima Island problem is an event in which a large amount of industrial waste had been illegally brought into a small island in Kagawa Prefecture from 1978 to 1990. The media, even the local newspaper Shikoku Shimbun, did not report the event until the raid by Police in 1990. The main cause would be that reporters did not turn their eyes on the islanders, just staying at their private press club. The important thing, on the other hand, is that the media turn their eyes on the public, for the public forms a society. Further, an idea of ‘public journalism’ suggests that the local media should present possible solutions to some problems and help citizens participate in solving the problems. In fact, considering that the solutions by the local media, which is subject to the political power of the area they serve, might be biased and that an extent to which a person can think of something as his or her own is not so great, it would not be successful so easily. Anyway, an emergent need for the local news media is to think of  the public's opinion.