THE POWER OF LANGUAGE OF AN INTERNET WEBSITE IN INFLUENCING PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION: A TEXT ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATION

Abstract

In this millennial era the Internet has become a very principal media and therefore, the language used in any text in the Internet can automatically serve as a very powerful tool to influence people’s perception. This paper analyzes the language used in a text of a website and tries to reveal the representation of the Self and Other of the text. The text analyzed was published in a website of a community that called itself The Knights Party, a non-aggressive racist group in the United States of America. The text was written by the director of the party, Thomas Robb. Robb is a pastor and director of this racist group. The analysis will apply Systemic Functional Grammar in unveiling the positive representation of the Self and negative representation of the Other. Transitivity and appraisal will be the focus of the analysis. The findings show that through transitivity and appraisal, it is obvious that the text writer is making a positive representation of the Self and negative representation of the Other. The analysis also results in the fact that the racist issue can be found within the text.