The Representation of Social Actors in Jacinda Ardern’s Parliamentary Speech: A Critical Discourse Analysis of New Zealand Mosque Massacre

On the 15th of March 2019, the world witnessed Christchurch Muslim massacre
in New Zealand which took the lives of 50 Muslims and left many injured. The
study adopts a critical discourse approach to account for such massacre.
Adopting critical discourse analysis as an approach serves to investigate the
interrelationship between language and ideology. Working within the
theoretical framework of van Dijk’s (1997,1998,2006, 2009, 2011) concept of
ideological square and van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic approach as an
analytical framework, the study accounts for the representation of social actors
in addition to the presentation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in the parliamentary speech
of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister. The study also attends to the
representation of the identities of the social actors and the ideology
underpinning Arden’s parliamentary speech. The results of the analysis reveal
that the social actors were differently represented in Ardern’s speech, so as to
suit her ideological stance. The study concludes that Muslims are positively
presented as “other”; the perpetrator is negatively presented as “other”; and
New Zealanders (incorporating Ardern, official bodies, and people) are
positively presented as ‘self’. The ideology underpinning her speech reveals her
rejection of the perpetrator’s racist stance and ideology; acceptance of the
other, and an anti-racist stance against Muslims.