Chapter One Introduction：Discourse,War Legitimacy and the Iraq War 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 The notion of discourse 3
1.3 Discourse and war 7
1.4 Iraq War discourse studies:an overview 15
1.5 Research objectives 20
1.6 Data 20
1.7 Chapter overview 23
Chapter Two Theoretical Framework and Methodology 25
2.1 Critical discourse analysis 25
2.2 Analyzing war legitimation discourse in an interdisciplinary framework 31
2.3 Corpus-based CDA 43
2.4 Summary 45
Chapter Three Organization and Reorganization of Clusters and Constellations in Iraq War Discourse 47
3.1 Overview 47
3.2 Content-based analysis 47
3.3 Data description 49
3.4 Discussion 75
3.5 Summary 84
Chapter Four Axiological Investigation:Appraisal Analysis 86
4.1 The theoretical foundation of the appraisal framework 86
4.2 Corpus approach to appraisal analysis 89
4.3 Inscribed attitude analysis 95
4.4 Engagement analysis 117
4.5 Summary 123
Chapter Five Epistemic Investigation:Transitivity Analysis 125
5.1 Epistemic relations and ideational meaning 125
5.2 Corpus approach to transitivity analysis 127
5.3 Data description and explanation 131
5.4 Summary 154
Chapter Six A Complementary Perspective:Analyzing Text as It Unfolds 156
6.1 Complementarity of quantitative and qualitative approaches 156
6.2 Samples for analysis 157
6.3 Appraisal analysis 182
6.4 Transitivity analysis 194
6.5 Summary 197
Chapter Seven Conclusion 198
7.1 Summary of the findings 198
7.2 Research significance and implications 200
7.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 204
References 206
Appendix A Corpus of Presidential Speeches 228
Appendix B Keyword Lists 237
Appendix C Claws 4 Tag Set for Verbs 247
Acknowledgements 249