British Newspaper Discourse

Lesson 4: Review and extensionEvaluation & persuasion

A brief quiz…

• What is described as ‘the voice of the newspaper’? What characteristics does it have?

• What does ‘the inverted pyramid’ refer to?

• What information is usually included in the ‘lead’ or ‘intro’ to a news story?

Commenting

• In the editorial, who is evaluated– favourably? (give e.g.s of vocabulary used)– unfavourably? (give e.g.s of vocabulary used)

• Underline example(s) of:– modality– a rhetorical question– first person plural pronouns – who do they

refer to?– a metaphor

• A brave widow and our broken society• 19th January 2008• Brave: Devastated widow Helen Newlove spoke wise words about today's society• Anyone who wants to know how to tackle the tide of drunken, mindless lawbreaking that threatens to

engulf our communities, should read the wise words of Garry Newlove's widow, Helen. • Despite still raw grief for the loss of her husband and the father of her three daughters, Mrs Newlove

set out a clear template for dealing with Britain's social breakdown in her impact statement to the court that this week found three youths guilty of kicking her husband to death.

• The first culprit was the legal system. The ringleader of the gang had been released on bail hours before the attack.

• Mrs Newlove believes that we have a "justice system that does not do enough to protect decent hard working people".

• Yesterday, in a separate case, a judge agreed that our obsession with rights was leaving society "bedevilled by feral youth".

• Then, Mrs Newlove criticised the police. The gang that killed her husband had, along with others, she said, been terrorising the neighbourhood for weeks.

• Local police had done nothing to stop them. What kind of policing is it that allows criminal gangs to make people prisoners in their own homes?

• But Mrs Newlove did not limit her criticism to the authorities. Parents must "take responsibility for their children".

• It's up to parents to teach their children respect for authority and for other people. It's up to parents to set an example about drinking. It's up to parents to ensure that truanting children get the education that will put them on the path to a better life.

• Mrs Newlove and her daughters have suffered a terrible loss, but if we act on what she has learnt, we'll be taking the first steps to making our streets as safe as they ought to be.

A blooming flower

• Pope cancels trip in Rome over security

By Malcolm Moore in Rome, Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/01/2008

• The pope has been forced to cancel a visit to a university in Rome because of fears for his safety.  • Benedict was due to address students at La Sapienza University, but called off his trip at the last minute because

of a sit-in protest. The last papal trip to be cancelled for security reasons was in 1994, when John Paul II was due to visit Sarajevo. However, the pope has never been unable to tour Italy in modern times. Angry students had threatened to blast dance music at the pontiff, and also to dress up as nuns. According to sources close to the Vatican, there had also been "more serious threats". The official newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano, said that "this is a dramatic threat against the papacy, culturally and civilly".

• The controversy began after 67 professors at the university signed a letter saying the pope should not be allowed to give the inauguration speech for the academic year.

• The professors accused Benedict of being opposed to science, and cited a speech he gave two decades ago. They argued that the pope would have supported the Church's 17th century trial against Galileo for claiming the earth revolved around the sun.

• Although there is little evidence in the speech to support their claim, the students lent their support to the cause, and occupied the dean's office, waving banners which said: "The Pope has occupied La Sapienza. Free the Intellectuals!"

• The Italian Bishops' Conference said they were "worried" about the state of the university, which was founded by the Vatican seven centuries ago. "There seems to be part of the secular world which does not argue, but demonises and which does not discuss, but creates monsters," said a spokesman for the bishops.

• Students rejoiced when the Vatican finally conceded and cancelled the trip, shouting "Get the Pope out !" • However, Renato Guarini, the dean of the university, said he was "bitterly upset" at the tension on campus.• Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, also condemned the students' actions, saying that it had been

"unacceptable".

reporting ‘v’ commenting

or

reporting AND commenting?

Evaluation

• ‘Evaluation is the broad cover term for the expression of the speaker or writer’s attitude or stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities or propositions that he or she is talking about. That attitude may relate to certainty or obligation or desirability of any number of variables’

Hunston & Thompson 1999

• Evaluation is a significant element of our lives: as a device for interpreting the world and offering this evaluation to others, it pervades human behaviour: when we interact with the world around us, we perceive, categorize and evaluate what we encounter. Our short term evaluations turn into long term values.

• (Bednarek, M. Evaluation in Media Discourse )

Expressing opinion

• The most obvious function is to tell the reader what the writer thinks or feels about something.

• Every act of evaluation expresses a communal value system and every act of evaluation goes towards building up that value system. This value system is in turn a component of the ideology of the society that has produced the text.

Maintaining relations

• The second function of evaluation is to build and maintain relations between writer and reader

• Evaluation can be used to manipulate the reader, to persuade him or her to see things in a particular way

How to recognise evaluation

• Some lexical items are clearly evaluative with evaluation as their chief function and meaning e.g.

• Adjectives: splendid, terrible, obvious, surprising, important

• Adverbs: happily, unfortunately, plainly, possibly, necessarily

• Nouns: success, failure, tragedy, triumph, likelihood

• Verbs: succeed, fail, win, lose, doubt

Evaluative and non-evaluative

• Jane is a genius : genius is a comparative term, the assessment of genius-ness is highly subjective and to be a genius is socially valued positively

• Jane is a student:

• Objective category? Value free?, purely descriptive?

• Connotations?

Synonyms and evaluation

• Assist Collaborate ColludeEngage

• Help Interfere Join Meddle participate

• All have a meaning of being involved in something or taking part in an activity

• But they have different evaluative values

• Assist and help positive

• Meddle and interfere negative

• Collude evaluates the activity negatively as well as the involvement

• Collaborate, engage, join, participate

• Do not evaluate the participation, it depends on the nature of the activity

Approval and disapproval

• Dewy-eyed and sentimental

• An attitude towards the past + speaker disapproval

• Flag-waving

• The speaker disapproves of this kind of patriotism

• Rebel vs malcontent

• Execution vs killing, murder, slaughter

persuasion

• The choice of lexis provides evaluations which can be built up to form a position or stance to persuade readers of values.

Grammar

• Certain aspects of grammar have been associated with evaluation

• Intensifiers

• Comparators (e.g comparatives and superlatives)

• Hedges (e.g. sort of, about,like)

• Emphatics (for sure, certainly)

• modals

evaluation

• Involves comparison: comparative adjectives and adverbs, adverbs of degree, comparator adverbs such as just, only, at least: expressions of negativity

• Is subjective:markers of subjectivity

• Is value laden: markers of value, including indications of goal-achievemnt or non-achievement)

Evaluation in texts

• See Hunston and Thompson 2000

• Chapter 1 evaluation: an introduction

• Mori poll• January 2007• What population of the UK do you estimate are

immigrants?– Daily Express readers believed that 21% of the

population were immigrants – Daily Mail readers thought that 19% of the population

were immigrants and – Guardian readers thought that 11% of the population

were immigrants.• In reality, approximately 7% of the population

were immigrants

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

flood

pouring waterpouring rain

streaming water

flooded by+

• Britain flooded by cheap heroin from Afghanistan - Independent ...

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers

Baker & Gabrielotos 2006

• What other differences in evaluation would you expect in the newspapers we have looked at?

• The Daily Ex-Princess

• The Torygraph

• The Indescribablyboring

Sources• http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/250/1/Discourses_of_refugees_and_asylum_seekers_in_UK_newspape

rs-CADAAD2006.pdf

• http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/265/1/Representation_of_refugees_and_asylum_seekers_in_UK_newspapers-BAAL2006.pdf