The linguistic construction of agency and identity in gay vs. mainstream media coverage of same-sex marriage: A critical discourse approach

Language use on social and political issues in the United States often portrays polarization. However, even on highly controversial social issues, such as same-sex marriage, Americans generally have a wide range of opinions. A closer look at the language used to discuss the issue of same-sex marriage indicates a more introspective, conflicted attitude than the language of polarization would imply. This study analyzes language use on the topic of same-sex marriage in order to uncover and explicate some of the complexity of perspective on the topic.; The language use that is analyzed is within media discourse, specifically, in articles on same-sex marriage from The Advocate, Look, and Newsweek. The analysis focuses on how the various people, institutions, and events related to same-sex marriage are represented linguistically, in other words, how the identity of the principal agents is constructed linguistically. Media discourse was chosen for the analysis for two reasons. The discourse of any given media publication or broadcast in a free market economy must necessarily try to reflect the general attitudes, values, and sensitivities of a majority of its audience. Thus, media discourse can serve, to some extent, as a mirror of the attitudes and values of groups in society. Media discourse also influences audiences, and analyzing it can make transparent its potential to influence.; Traditional linguistic approaches to language analysis generally have as their domain of analysis the systems of language or generalized sociocultural systems of language use. Norman Fairclough proposes a critical discourse analysis designed to analyze situated meanings in language use within a context of sociocultural change. Because the research in this study focuses on an issue of sociocultural change, Fairclough's critical discourse analysis is the approach that guides the study.; Primary conclusions of the study include: (1) a wide variety of linguistic features were used across the analyzed articles in the linguistic construction of identity; (2) there is a clear relationship between the construction of identity in the articles and sociocultural practice at the time of the article; and (3) American perspectives on same-sex marriage are in fact more complex than the language of polarization suggests.