Ideology and the Language of Human Rights : Language, Text, and Ideology in Amnesty International Appeal Letters

Based on well-established features of ideology, this book demonstrates that the documents of liberational organizations like Amnesty International are ideological. It is essential reading for researchers and students of discourse analysis and pragmatics, as well as those working in related fields within international relations and human rights law.

It is crucial to apply robust analytic methods to the study of discourses deemed 'ideological'. This book applies the Guidelines and Procedures for ideological research, as presented in Verschueren's Ideology in Language Use, to an exciting new area of study; discourses intended to improve humanity. It analyses the discourse of Amnesty International appeal letters, to show (contrary to what the field of critical discourse analysis often assumes) that ideological discourse can sometimes have a positive, rather than a negative, agenda. It explores how Amnesty's choice of words, sentence structures, speech acts, and other discourse elements, enact its ideological meanings, functions, frames of reference and interpretation, as well as the social, interactional, and ideological positioning of discourse participants in its reports, communications, and appeals. These findings have wider implications not only for the field of discourse analysis, but also for theories within pragmatics, such as speech act theory and (im)politeness.