Loaded Language in Current Events

     Anyone who has seen newspaper headlines in the past few weeks knows that Brazil is a mess right now. The Summer Olympics are only a few months away, and a number of scandals involving President Dilma Rousseff and national oil company Petrobras have recently been uncovered, leading to the lower house's decision to start the impeachment process. The country is now divided between Dilma's supporters and her opponents, leaving the nation with a severe lack of leadership.

     The language used by various news outlets reporting Dilma's impeachment is loaded in different ways, depending on the outlet. In this post, I'll compare the loaded language found in The Guardian's article Rousseff Should Be Impeached, Brazil Congressional Report Recommends and an editorial from Forbes, Why Impeaching Brazil's President Dilma Is a Bad Idea.
     In The Guardian's article, the author uses words with negative connotations to subtly project a negative image of Dilma. For instance, the charges against Dilma are summarized as committing acts of "unconstitutionality, illegality, and fiscal irresponsibility." These words are somewhat vague, but convey heavy negative connotations. The author could have used more moderate language like something as simple as "Dilma broke some laws." However, the language used adds more severity to Dilma's situation by connoting reckless law-breaking. Similarly, the article says that Rousseff has been accused of "manipulating" budget records. A neutral word like "change" could have been used, but "manipulate" holds a more devious connotation. The author also uses the phrase, "Rousseff's chances of surviving," referring to Dilma's odds of remaining in office. This puts Dilma's situation into a "life or death" context. If she gets impeached, she will not "survive," as the author writes, which contributes to the severity of her situation. This type of extreme, negatively loaded language portrays Dilma in a negative light.
     Similarly, Kenneth Rapoza uses loaded language in his article for Forbes to project a negative image of others who would become more powerful if Brazil were to vote to impeach Dilma. By doing so, he argues that Dilma shouldn't be impeached (unless she's proven to have been involved in the Petrobras scandal) because the alternatives are worse. Rapoza explains that some of the politicians who would become more powerful are on a list of legislators being investigated in the same scandal as Dilma. One of his quotes is that "the foxes are guarding the chicken coop." This analogy uses the negative connotation of "fox" to project these politicians as sly and untrustworthy. When referring to the effect Dilma's impeachment would have on foreign investment, Rapoza uses negative words like "cut" and "lose" to convey the negative consequences of impeaching Dilma. Finally, Rapoza concludes by deeming Brazil's situation a "nightmare." While "problem" or "bad situation" would suffice, "nightmare" carries a strong negative connotation, helping to emphasize his point. Even though this article doesn't necessarily disagree with the other article, it uses more extreme examples of negative language to argue a different point.
     These are only two examples of how loaded language is used by news outlets. If you were to watch the same news story on both Fox News and MSNBC, you'd see tons of loaded language used to support or criticize political ideologies. This discussion of language reminds me of our discussion of Nigerian Oil and MEND last quarter. Some see MEND as a terrorist organization. Others see them as revolutionaries. The two words have roughly the same denotation, but very different connotations. When it comes down to it, language is a reflection of opinion, and one person's "terrorist" can be another's "revolutionary."