Analyzing transitivity and modality systems in war reporting in a selected ‘Israeli’ Newspaper report: A Study with Systemic Functional Linguistics’ Perspective

Abstract

Investigating transitivity and modality systems help to understand the connection between the structural organization at the clausal level with the ideologies and political views embedded within the text analyzed. This study examines some clauses in a selected report in an Israeli newspaper. This report talks about an Israeli airstrike on Gaza in 2012 killing one family of ten people. The study highlights the high number of passives in the report, and mainly agentless passives, which indicate that the writer did not have a direct access to the event and was just trying to reflect what he believes in by intensifying the use of adverbial modals and passive constructions.