Semantic Prosodies and Frame Semantics in Media Discourse: A Case Study of the Ubiquitous Mayhem in the Iraqi City of Kirkuk

Abstract

The study investigates the semantic prosodies and semantic framing of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk as depicted in the media. This research aims to supplement current critical research by investigating the issue of Kirkuk and the main reasons for its constant mayhem as presented in media discourse, which hitherto has never been investigated. Moreover, this study’s synergy of semantic prosody and semantic framing is novel. The corpus consists of Eastern and Western news articles retrieved from 4 December 2012 to 23 December 2012. The results of the study indicated that Kirkuk is typically associated with negative prosodies that revolve around political unrest, military tension, and bomb attacks. The main reasons for this mayhem, as depicted in the media, are the city’s most prominent features that is, its multi-ethnicity and oil wealth.