Critical Analysis Of The Representations Ofhivaids In Ethiopias Policy Documents And Newspapers

HIV/AIDS is one of the worst epidemics in modern history. The language used to portray thisrnpandemic in policies and mass media has been an object of study in many countries. However, inrnEthiopia, the language used to represent this epidemic in policies and newspapers has not beenrnthoroughly investigated using systematic methods of linguistic analysis. The current study aimsrnto partially bridge this gap by deconstructing the representations of this pandemic in Ethiopia’srnpolicy documents and government run newspapers using the interdisciplinary approach ofrnCritical Discourse Analysis (CDA).rnThe current study drew from a number of CDA frameworks. However the major analyticrnmethod used in the study are Van Dijk’s (1988, 1998 and 2001) ideological square and sociocognitivernframeworks which were used for expounding the socio-political implications of therndiscourses. Thus, after the internal structure of the texts were described drawing on theories ofrnSystemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the underlying meanings conveyed by such texts werernexplicated in terms of the wider contexts in light of social theories.rnBasically the current study asked and answered the question: ‘How was HIV/AIDS representedrnin Ethiopia’s HIV/AIDS policy documents and newspapers?’ Specifically, the study addressedrnquestions like: ‘How were identities produced in HIV/AIDS related policy documents andrnnewspapers, how were issued aligned, what sorts of treatments were sought, what metaphorsrnwere used to represent the pandemic and those afflicted?’

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