The Death of Monarchs: Front-Page Reporting of Queen Elizabeth II’s Death
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1407.11Keywords:
euphemism, death, Queen Elizabeth II, semiotics, front pagesAbstract
This is a linguistic and semiotic study of the newspaper front pages that reported the death of Queen Elizabeth II. A sample of 61 front pages was collected from various British and non-British newspapers on Friday 9 September, 2022. The headlines reporting the death of the Queen were linguistically analysed focusing on euphemistic means. The pictures accompanying the headlines were semiotically investigated to see how the Queen was visually mourned and if there were any subtle semiotic euphemisms. Reporting the death of the Queen, linguistic and semiotic polarities can be observed on the newspaper front pages under investigation: direct versus indirect reporting. The findings reveal that 70.5% of the headlines reported the tragic news indirectly avoiding the verb ‘die’, the noun ‘death’ and the adjective ‘dead’. Similarly, the semiotic analysis shows that more newspapers displayed coloured (67%) recent (57%) pictures of the Queen showing her cheerful (56%). Avoiding the words ‘die’, ‘death’ and ‘dead’ and displaying the Queen in coloured cheerful pictures demonstrate that newspapers favoured both subtle linguistic and semiotic euphemisms in reporting the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The findings illustrate how humans, consciously and unconsciously, safeguard themselves against the discourse of death by utilizing both linguistic and semiotic euphemisms.
References
Adams, R. (1985). Soft soap and the nitty-gritty. In D. J. Enright (Ed.), Fair of speech: The uses of euphemism (pp. 44-55). Oxford University Press.
Allan, K., & Burridge, K. (1991). Euphemisms and dysphemisms: Language used as shield and weapon. Oxford University Press.
Allan, K., & Burridge, K. (2006). Forbidden words: Taboo and the censoring of language. Cambridge University Press.
Barthes, R. (1977). Image – music - text. William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.
Brokaw, W. (1932). EC5594 superstitions and their origin. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/extensionhist/2867
Caivano, J. (2021). Black, white and grays: Are they colors, absence of color or the sum of all colors? Color Research and Application, 47(2), 252-270. https://doi.org/10.1002/col.22727
Cebrat, G. (2016). Death notice as a genre: An analysis of the New York Times online edition (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Silesia in Katowice.
Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. Routledge.
Darwish, I., & Abu Ain, N. (2020). Foul language on Arabic television: A case study of the first Jordanian Arabic Netflix series. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 9(1), 83-90. https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2020-0007
Economou, D. (2009). Photos in the news: Appraisal analysis of visual semiosis and verbal-visual intersemiosis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Sydney.
Evans, H. (1974). News headlines. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Fraser, J. (1922). The golden bough: A study in magic and religion. Macmillan.
Garst, R., & Berstein, T. (1963). Headlines and deadlines: A manual for copy editors. Columbia University Press.
Hutchings, J. (2003). Colour in folklore and tradition: The principles. Color Research & Application, 29(1), 57-66. https://doi:10.1002/col.10212
Jamet, D. (2010). Euphemisms for death: Reinventing reality through words. In S. Sandrine (Ed.), Inventive linguistics (pp. 173-187). Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée.
Jobson, R. (2018). Charles at seventy: Thoughts, hopes and dreams. John Blake Publishing Ltd.
Kolln, M., & Gray, L. (2012). Rhetorical grammar (7th ed.). Pearson.
Leszczyński, Z. (1988). Szkice o tabu językowym [Sketches about language taboos]. Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL.
Ljung, M. (2011). Swearing: A cross-cultural linguistic study. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mardh, I. (1980). Headlines: On the grammar of English front page headlines. CWK Gleerup.
Owen, J. (Ed.). (2021). The times Queen Elizabeth II: A portrait of her 70-year reign. Times Books.
Saussure, F. (1983). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). Duckworth (Original work published 1916).
Shakespeare, W. (1982). King Richard II. TMW Media Group (Original work published 1595).
Shariatinia, Z. (2015). Heidegger's ideas about death. Pacific Science Review B: Humanities and Social Sciences, 1(2), 92-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psrb.2016.06.001
