Evaluative Insights into Lives - Filologia · (Langacker 1987); 4. axiological potential of the text, i.e. axiological judgements which may be either expressed directly or just implied

Evaluative Insights into Lives:Towards a Cognitive and Axiological Analysis of Obituaries

Scientific Boardof the Committee for Philology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław Branch:

Ines Adornetti (Rome, Italy)Andrei A. Avram (Bucharest, Romania)Piotr Cap (Łódź)Piotr P. Chruszczewski (Wrocław)Camelia M. Cmeciu (Bucharest, Romania)Józef Darski (Poznań)Marta Degani (Verona, Italy)Robin Dunbar (Oxford, UK)Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (Poznań)Francesco Ferretti (Rome, Italy)Jacek Fisiak (Poznań)James A. Fox (Stanford, USA)Stanisław Gajda (Opole)Piotr Gąsiorowski (Poznań)Franciszek Grucza (Warszawa)Philippe Hiligsmann (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)Rafael Jiménez Cataño (Rome, Italy)Henryk Kardela (Lublin)Ewa Kębłowska-Ławniczak (Wrocław)Grzegorz A. Kleparski (Rzeszów)Aleksandra R. Knapik (Wrocław)Tomasz P. Krzeszowski (Warszawa)Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Łódź)Ryszard Lipczuk (Szczecin)Lorenzo Magnani (Pavia, Italy)Witold Mańczak (Kraków)Marek Paryż (Warszawa)Michał Post (Wrocław)Stanisław Prędota (Wrocław)John R. Rickford (Stanford, USA)Hans Sauer (Munich, Germany)Waldemar Skrzypczak (Toruń)Agnieszka Stępkowska (Warszawa)Aleksander Szwedek (Poznań)Elżbieta Tabakowska (Kraków)Marco Tamburelli (Bangor, Wales)Kamila Turewicz (Łódź)Zdzisław Wąsik (Wrocław)Jerzy Wełna (Warszawa)Roland Willemyns (Brussels, Belgium)Donald Winford (Columbus, USA)Tadeusz Zabrocki (Poznań)

Tomasz Włodarski

Evaluative Insights into Lives: Towards a Cognitive and Axiological Analysis of Obituaries

Wrocław – Washington, D.C. 2016

WYDAWNICTWO WYŻSZEJ SZKOŁY FILOLOGICZNEJ WE WROCŁAWIU50-335 Wrocław, ul. Sienkiewicza 32tel. (+48 71) 328 14 14, fax (+48 71) 322 10 06http://www.wsf.edu.pl, e-mail: [email protected]

© Copyright by Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu, Polska Akademia Nauk, Oddział we Wrocławiu & International Communicology Institute, Wrocław 2016

book series: Languages in Contact. Vol. 6

editor-in-chiefPiotr P. Chruszczewski (Wrocław)

honorary editorsRichard L. Lanigan (Washington, D.C., USA)John R. Rickford (Stanford, USA)

editorsKatarzyna Buczek (Poznań)Aleksandra R. Knapik (Wrocław)

reviewerprof. Adam Głaz (Lublin)

proofreading: English Prep – Biuro Językoweeditorial reading: Barbara Woldancover design: Konstancja CzarnyDTP: Dorota Bazan

Komisja Nauk Filologicznych PAN, Oddział we Wrocławiu50-449 Wrocław, ul. Podwale 75www.pan.wroc.pl

978-83-60097-57-1 (paperback)978-83-60097-58-8 (hardback)978-83-60097-59-5 (pdf)

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Publisher’s sheets: 12,7

Th is publication is fi nanced by Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław.

Per aspera ad astraKsiążkę tę dedykuję swoim Rodzicom

Acknowledgments

A lot of people have contributed to the present publication as regards both its content and the editorial shape. I am particularly indebted to Professor Michał Post, the supervisor of my Ph.D. dissertation, for his precious remarks regard-ing the content as well as stylistic shape of the dissertation which gave rise to the present book. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Adam Głaz for his review of the present book manuscript and in particular for his critical remarks of crucial importance for the present publication. Grateful thanks go to Professor Piotr P. Chruszczewski for his review of the aforemen-tioned Ph.D. dissertation, which this book in its major part presents, and his indispensable support in the whole process of publication of the present study. I want to express my thanks to Professor Janusz Malak for his review of my Ph.D. dissertation, which also had a significant impact on the present work. I am also very grateful to Dr Nigel Starck for his email correspondence with me and his helpful remarks regarding the content of the book.

Grateful thanks to the Editing Team of the Philological School of Higher Educa-tion in Wrocław for all their effort to prepare the present work for publication.

Sincere thanks to Biuro Językowe English Prep for the proofreading.

I am also grateful to the syndication offices of The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent for permissions to use selected material from these newspapers in the present study.

Special thanks go to my Parents, Ludwik and Janina Włodarscy, who supported me in my endeavour to write and publish the present work.

I want to express my gratitude to all those who have contributed to the present shape of the book and whose names I have failed to mention in these acknowl-edgements.

Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 13

Chapter 1. Key terms in genre analysis: Discourse, text, genre and value ............................................................................... 17

1. Selected approaches to discourse and text ....................................................... 181.1. Common uses of the term discourse ......................................................... 181.2. Selected scholarly views on discourse and text ........................................ 20

2. Selected views on speech genres ........................................................................ 292.1. Two planes of the genre: Conceptualisation and realisation .................. 292.2. Genres regarded as cognitive categories ................................................... 312.3. Speech genres and their models ................................................................. 432.4. Axiological parameter of speech genres .................................................. 46

3. Parameters of the axiological assessment ......................................................... 503.1. The notion of value and its parameters ..................................................... 503.2. Value judgements and their explications .................................................. 52

Concluding remarks ................................................................................................ 53

Chapter 2. The obituary: A survey of selected approaches ......................... 551. Historical outline of the development of obituaries ...................................... 552. Descriptions of the obituary genre in dictionaries

and research literature ........................................................................................ 592.1. Definitions of the obituary within dictionary entries ............................. 592.2. Selected remarks on contemporary research literature on obituaries ... 62

3. The obituary in the network of other related genres ...................................... 653.1. Correlations between obituaries and news stories .................................. 663.2. Correlations between obituaries and biographies ................................... 683.3. Correlations between obituaries and eulogies ......................................... 70

4. Subcategories of the obituary genre ................................................................. 71

4.1. Stylistic and thematic categories of obituaries ......................................... 724.2. Axiological categories of the obituary genre: negative vs. positive

mode of recollection.................................................................................... 74Concluding remarks ................................................................................................ 77

Chapter 3. The delimitation frame of obituaries .......................................... 791. The notion of delimitation frame and its general features ............................. 792. Headlines and their features .............................................................................. 84

2.1. Structural properties of obituary headlines ............................................. 852.2. Thematic properties of obituary headlines ............................................... 902.3. Axiological properties of obituary headlines ........................................... 91

3. The biobox and its axiological characteristics ................................................1144. Iconographic elements of the delimitation frame of obituaries ..................118Concluding remarks ..............................................................................................119

Chapter 4. The main body of obituaries .......................................................1211. Compositional properties of the main body of obituaries ...........................1212. Thematic properties of the main body of obituaries ...................................128

2.1. Introductory remarks ...............................................................................1292.2. Themes and their cognitive character .....................................................131

3. Stylistic properties of the main body of obituaries .......................................1353.1. Résumé-oriented obituaries .....................................................................1433.2. Elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries ................................................150

4. Axiological properties of the main body of obituaries .................................156Concluding remarks ..............................................................................................167

Chapter 5. The complexity and inter-generic correlations of the obituary genre as a cognitive category..........................171

1. Family resemblance and the prototypical effects of obituaries ...................1722. Editorial models of obituaries .........................................................................180

Differentiation among editorial models of obituaries ..................................1823. Obituaries and other genres of press journalism .........................................186

3.1. Obituaries vs. profiles ................................................................................1873.2. Obituaries vs. news stories about a death ...............................................189

4. Obituaries and genres form discourses other than the domain of press journalism ...........................................................................................1934.1. Obituaries vs. biographies ........................................................................1934.2. Obituaries vs. eulogies ..............................................................................195

Concluding remarks ..............................................................................................202

Conclusion.............................................................................................................205

Appendix ................................................................................................................209

References ..............................................................................................................219

Introduction

After a long period of decline, the art of writing obituaries started regain-ing in quality in the 1980s and, consequently, it regained the interest and appreciation of journalists and readers. The obituary has become one of the most significant genres of contemporary English language journal-ism. The interest of readers and their appreciation for the art of writing modern obituaries results from the noteworthiness and newsworthi-ness of the subject matter and the quality of style. Owing to the use of anecdotes, jokes, attention-winning as well as attention-keeping stories, the obituary as a genre breaks the mould of résumé-based template articles and presents rich portraits of people who lived their lives and made a more or less unique contribution to various spheres of human activity: science, education, politics, economy, charity, religion, art, etc. Moreover, besides providing the reader with noteworthy facts from a person’s life, obituaries also present a valuation of these facts and of the subject (person) whom these facts concern. Thus, the obituary as a genre may be regarded as a kind of valuation-triggering biographi-cal portrait developed within media discourse, especially within press journalism. In such a value-sensitive portraiture, the given judgements may be expressed either directly or somehow implied via linguistic and textual means as well as through their thematic choices.

The issue of the evaluative character of obituaries, though emphasised in various works on this genre, does not seem to have been analysed yet from the perspective of modern theory of speech genres and cognitive linguistics, let alone axiological semantics. Thus, the present study can be regarded as an attempt to fill in this gap, for it describes the obituary as a phenomenon of both a cognitive and axiological nature. This description

Introduction14

draws heavily, though not exclusively, upon selected research on genre studies and axiological semantics which is being conducted at Polish research centres. Thus, the present work may be regarded as an endeav-our to provide English-speaking readers with insight into selected genre studies and research on axiological semantics being conducted in Central Europe: it may be worth mentioning that the present study also refers to papers on axiological semantics by Sager (1982) and Ripfel (1987), which represent a significant German contribution to axiological semantics.

A description of the obituary genre from the perspective of contem-porary genre studies, cognitive linguistics and axiological semantics should be regarded as a pretext in order to clarify and illustrate the ap-plicability of particular methods from the aforementioned fields of linguistic research to the analysis and description of biographical genres, here in particular of biographical genres from the discourse of the press. This means that the main goal of the present study does not consist in solely describing the obituary but rather in clarifying the cognitive and axiological phenomena which may influence the composition, thematic structure and style of this genre. The phenomena in question embrace:

1. conceptualisation of the obituary genre in terms of a cognitive category based on the following principles: prototypicality effects (Rosch 1978; Kleiber [1990] 2003) and family resemblance (Witt-genstein 1953; Kleiber [1990] 2003);

2. conceptualisation of the propositional content of obituaries in terms of the conceptual metaphor, here as the life-course of the obituary subject in terms of the conceptual metaphor: LIFE IS A JOURNEY (Lakoff 1993) and image schemata SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (Johnson 1987);

3. a description of thematic categories of the obituary in terms of cognitive domains, bases and the cognitive process of profiling (Langacker 1987);

4. axiological potential of the text, i.e. axiological judgements which may be either expressed directly or just implied in the text and, consequently, may function as axiologically charged inferences drawn from the text by the reader;

5. causes of and solutions to axiological clashes (Krzeszowski 1997) which might be recognised by the reader within the propositional content of the text fulfilling the genre of obituary.

15Introduction

Moreover, besides the phenomena as listed above, the present study describes a network of correlations of the obituary with other genres which may contribute to its thematic framework, composition and style.

The aforementioned issues were analysed and described on the basis of 531 texts of obituaries, most of them in online form, taken from four main national British newspapers, such as The Guardian, The Indepen-dent, The Times and The Telegraph. Nonetheless, for the sake of a broader picture of the obituary as a genre, some minor references to the online American and Australian press were also made. The texts came mainly from three periods: January–March 2009, September 2009 and June 2010. The first two chapters constitute a methodological and theoretical introduction, an introduction to help readers better understand the con-tent of the next three analytical chapters.

Chapter 1

Key terms in genre analysis: Discourse, text, genre and value

The present study falls within the realm of discourse analyses and, in particular, genre analyses based on the modern theory of speech genres, cognitive linguistics and axiological semantics. The key terms employed in this study in order to analyse and describe the obituary embrace notions such as discourse, genre, text (see Bakhtin [1979] 2000; van Dijk (ed.) 1997; Witosz 2005; Ostaszewska, Cudak (eds.) 2008; Ostaszewska (ed.) 2004; Alba-Juez 2009; Bawarshi, Reiff 2010; Chruszczewski 2011; Post 2013; Gee, Handford (eds.) [2012] 2014), more field-specific notions, i.e. cog-nitive linguistics concepts, e.g. cognitive category, theory of prototype and family resemblance (see Rosch 1978; Kleiber [1990] 2003; Wittgenstein 1953; Tsohatzidis (ed.) 1990), and axiological notions such as the axi-ological domain and its dimensions: axiological scale of two poles (+)/(−) and hierarchy of value, values and axiological judgements as well as axi-ological relations, in particular axiological clashes and their solutions (see Sager 1982; Ripfel 1987; Laskowska 1992; Krzeszowski 1997; Bartmiński 2006). Some of the aforementioned terms have acquired a variety of meanings within different analytical fields and, consequently, various definitions, which in some cases either completely overlap, partly overlap or contradict one another. Some terms, e.g. text and discourse or text and genre, may refer to the same phenomena in the given analyses, whereas in others they denote different levels of linguistic communication.

The present chapter is divided into three parts: the first two specify the terminology worked out within discourse studies and in particular in genre analyses, whereas the third part clarifies the aforementioned axiological terms. Generic and axiological phenomena strongly correlate with one another; hence their presentation in three separate subchapters has been conducted only for the sake of order and clarity.

Key terms in genre analysis: Discourse, text, genre and value18

1. Selected approaches to discourse and text

A variety of meanings of the term discourse, as stated in dictionaries, encyclopaedic and scholarly sources, and the richness of phenomena to which it refers make this term ambiguous. The different nuances of the term discourse result from its usage in everyday communication as well as from “a number of different disciplines and schools of thought, often with different purposes” (Hartley 2002: 73). Such extensive exploi-tation of the term discourse is partly ascribed to the “‘linguistic turn’ in the social and cultural sciences” and partly to “the sociology oriented lin-guistics which emerged simultaneously with the Chomskyan paradigm (Rabinow 1998: 3)” (Wodak, quoted in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 112). Thus, in order to specify the definition of discourse, a critical view of its common as well as scholarly nuances must be presented.

1.1. Common uses of the term discourse

In everyday communication and within dictionary entries, which often reflect the common knowledge of language users, “discourse usually refers to a form of language use, public speeches or more generally to spoken language and ways of speaking” (van Dijk (ed.) 1997: 1). These remarks roughly correspond to the following approaches to discourse which are usually found within dictionary entries: the approaches specified below and presented in general terms as five categories: (1) dis-course as linguistic communication; (2) discourse as a conversation/talk; (3) discourse as a public speech; (4) discourse as a discussion on a particular topic; (5) discourse as a text. The order in which the nuances of the term discourse are enumerated indicates the different ways of the common understanding of discourse, from the most general, i.e. dis-course as verbal communication, to the most specific, i.e. discourse as text. The most general meaning of the term is reflected in definitions provided by, e.g. the BBC English Dictionary (Sinclair (ed.) 1992: 320), in which discourse is defined as “spoken or written communication between people,” and The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on His-torical Principles (Brown (ed.) 1993: 688), which describes discourse as “(an) exchange of words; (a) conversation, talk,” as well as in the Oxford Dictionaries1 online which specifies discourse as:

1 http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/discourse [ED 25.04.2016].

Selected approaches to discourse and text 19

1. “written and spoken communication or debate”; 2. “a formal discussion on a topic in speech or writing”;3. “a connected series of utterances; a text or conversation.”As can be observed, these dictionary entries also refer to a more

specific understanding of the notion of discourse, namely discourse regarded not only as communication but also as a specific form of this communication, i.e. a debate or discussion on particular issues.

A yet more specific view of discourse is presented and exemplified in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary (Pearsall, Trumble (eds.) 1995: 405), in which one of the entries presents discourse in terms of a “dissertation or treatise on an academic subject.” In a more restricted understanding of the term, however, discourse is associated with oral com-munication, i.e. with public speeches and spoken language, as was quoted after van Dijk (ed.) (1997) above. A strong association of the term discourse with oral communication can be noticed in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary (Pearsall, Trumble (eds.) 1995: 405), in which one of the entries refers to discourse in terms of “a lecture or sermon”; similarly, The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Brown (ed.) 1993: 688) exemplifies discourse by using terms such as a treatise and homily, the second of which falls within the forms of public speech.

Besides notions such as written and spoken communication, public speeches, conversation, formal debate and discussion, the concept of discourse in its common usage also embraces the term text. The Oxford English Reference Dictionary (Pearsall, Trumble (eds.) 1995) as well as The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Brown (ed.) 1993), apart from the entries presented above, define dis-course as “a connected series of utterances”: a series which is further specified as a text in the former and a unit for analysis in the latter. Such concise dictionary definitions, though presenting different nuances of the term discourse and shedding some light on its literary, linguistic as well as common usage, constitute a certain oversimplification of its meaning. Thus, the meaning of discourse needs further clarification, which can be found in selected scholarly sources presented in subchapter 1.2.

The dictionary entries as well as common uses of the term discourse reduce it either to multi-generic structures, e.g. public speeches, or to genres themselves, e.g. a formal debate, treatise, homily, as well as to a textual product of verbal interaction, i.e. the text itself. However, one must bear in mind that discourse, though resting upon different levels


of communication, e.g. the generic, textual and linguistic one, cannot be equated with any of them. On the contrary, discourse constitutes a com-plex communicative phenomenon whose characteristics must embrace all levels of communication, which means it can be reduced neither to the text nor to its genre. Nevertheless, such common and oversimplified nuances of the term discourse can still be found in scholarly and popular-science sources, the latter of which cannot be ignored because they also include apt remarks on the nature of discourse; for example, the Rout-ledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 73) as well as the Routledge key guide titled Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts (Hartley 2002: 114) prove the occur-rence of the aforementioned minimalist approaches to discourse, for the former states that “most uncontroversially, it [discourse – T. W.] is used in linguistics to refer to verbal utterances of greater magnitude than the sentence,” whereas the latter source explains that “by discourse, they [discourse analysts – T. W.] mean actual instances of talk, writing or lin-guistic communication in some other medium.” That is to say, such sim-plified definitions equate discourse with structures exceeding syntactic forms, with texts as well as with various other concrete instances of com-munication. In consequence, they blur the boundary between discursive, generic and textual levels of communication. Although discourse draws upon genres, texts and language, its meaning cannot be reduced simply to one such level of communication. The boundaries between these lev-els, though not clear-cut, still exist and bear methodological significance for the analysis of discourse and its genres as well as registers.

Nonetheless, besides providing evidence of an oversimplified and minimalist understanding of the term discourse within the widely un-derstood field of humanities, the two encyclopaedic sources referred to in the previous paragraph also present another more comprehensive understanding of this term. This understanding results from detailed, multidisciplinary discourse analyses whose results are presented within subchapter 1.2.

1.2. Selected scholarly views on discourse and text

Contemporary discourse studies (see van Dijk (ed.) 1997; Krzeszowski 1997; Alba-Juez 2009; Chruszczewski 2011; Post 2013; Gee, Hand-ford (eds.) [2012] 2014) highlight the significance of discourse analyses


and emphasise the complexity of discourse as a multi-faceted and multi-functional phenomenon of a semiotic communicative character. Gee and Handford (eds.) ([2012] 2014: 5) clarify that the key significance of discourse analysis stems from the role that discourse plays in rendering the world meaningful by means of both written and oral communica-tion. “We shape, produce and reproduce the world through language in use” (Gee, Handford (eds.) [2012] 2014: 5) and, as Gee and Handford further explain, the world thus shaped contributes to our formation as human beings. These remarks correspond to Norman Fairclough’s ([2012] 2014: 11) observation that discourses constitute “semiotic ways of construing aspects of the world (physical, social, mental)” and, as he continues, they correlate with differences in viewpoint regarding the various categories of “social actors.” The role of discourse in shap-ing and representing aspects of the world and the correlation of given discourses with different categories of social actors and their viewpoints clearly indicate the cognitive and interactional character of discourse. Post (2013: 15) writes that “discourse is both a form of social interaction and a form of cognition of communication.”

The discourse studies referred to above make it clear that the mean-ing and, consequently, the scope of discourse exceed the sense of such terms as text, register and genre. Chruszczewski (2011: 205) states that the “interdisciplinary paradigm of, as might be said, ‘discourse linguis-tics’ […] finds its quite solid foundation in the conception of discourse as a dynamic socio-cultural phenomenon, which is basically of a com-municative character”2 (translation mine – T. W.). The communicative character of discourse implies its aforementioned components, i.e. texts as well as the repertoire of registers and genres. Registers are regarded as functional situational varieties of the language (Biber, Conrad 2009: 6), whereas genres as dynamic socio-culturally and situationally condi-tioned models of whole utterances, embracing patterns of their creation and interpretation as well as interaction among discourse participants, who apply particular genres to accomplish certain actions and achieve particular goals in the discourse (see Bawarshi, Reiff 2010; Chruszczew-ski 2011; Post 2013).

2 “interdyscyplinarny nurt, można by powiedzieć, ‘językoznawstwa dyskursywnego’ […] osadzony jest na dość silnym fundamencie dyskursu pojmowanego jako dy-namiczne zjawisko społeczno-kulturowe o charakterze z gruntu komunikacyjnym” (Chruszczewski 2011: 205).


Discourse and the repertoire of texts, registers and genres correlate with and must be specified in relation to one another. The first issue to be clari-fied, however, concerns correlations between discourse and text because, as was stated above, these two terms, though strongly interconnected, in fact refer to different phenomena. A strong and necessary correlation between the text and discourse is indicated by Krzeszowski (1997: 236), who specifies the text as “a necessary component of discourse.” Moreover, Chruszczewski (2011: 205) stresses that the text belongs to “the very centre of each discourse, being an individual realisation of a particular discourse”3 (translation mine – T. W.). Such a strong and indispensable correlation between text and discourse might at least partly explain the fact that the two concepts “are not always sufficiently distinguished” (Krzeszowski 1997: 234). Nevertheless, despite the fuzzy boundary be-tween the domain of text and discourse, they constitute phenomena from different levels and dimensions of linguistic communication.

Some authors, e.g. Widdowson (1975) and Brown and Yule (1983), regard the text statically in terms of a product, whereas discourse dynami-cally in terms of a process, as the interaction between the producer and the recipient (Krzeszowski 1997: 234–235). Others define discourse both in terms of a structure and a process, e.g. van Dijk (ed.) (1997: 32) speci-fies discourse as a phenomenon based on three main dimensions, such as “language use, cognition and interaction in their sociocultural contexts.” This means that discourse cannot be restricted simply to meaningful sequences of signs, such as lexemes, phrases, sentences and paragraphs, but, on the contrary, being reflected by a given semiotic system (written and/or spoken language), discourse draws upon the situational, social and cultural context in which the discourse participants come into in-teractions and communicate with one another (see van Dijk (ed.) 1997; Alba-Juez 2009; Chruszczewski 2011). The beginnings of such a broad and multifaceted view of discourse can be noticed in the definition for-mulated by Hausenblas (1966), who specified discourse as:

a set of organised language means used in one single communicative act taking place between the participants under given conditions (in a given environment, as a response to a given stimulus and with a given aim in

3 “tekst, który jest w samym centrum każdego dyskursu, będąc jednostkową realizacją danego dyskursu” (Chruszczewski 2011: 205).


view) by means of a given communicative system (or, possibly, of several such systems). (quoted in Krzeszowski 1997: 234)

However, despite mentioning the contextual aspects of discourse, such as interactional, teleological and, more broadly, situational ones, Hausenblas’ definition seems to highlight mainly its structural as-pect: discourse as a product which is formulated within and results from the interaction between interlocutors. Such a definition seems to draw a line between discourse regarded as “a set of organised language means” (Hausenblas 1966, quoted in Krzeszowski 1997: 234) deployed in a given context and the context itself. In contrast, contemporary discourse studies include both context and language in the structure of discourse, regarding them as tightly interconnected and interdependent facets of discourse, which is schematically presented by Krzeszowski (1997: 242, 243) as follows:

Figure 1. The schematic representation of discourse

Figure 2. The complexity of discourse


The two schemata above illustrate aspects of discourse such as situa-tional, which also implies the socio-cultural context determining a partic-ular situation, interactional, textual as well as linguistic and axiological. Moreover, the schematic approximation illustrated in Figure 2 specifies the one illustrated in Figure 1 because, as Krzeszowski (1997: 243) ex-plains, it more aptly depicts the complexity of discourse as an “onion-like structure,” where the innermost small squares stand for various structures building up the text, e.g. sentences and paragraphs, while the consecutive concentric squares refer to the more general dimensions of discourse, showing the relation of inclusion of one text within the other text and discourse within discourse. Such a schema also illustrates the “onion-like structure of discourse with respect to occurrence of axiological clashes” (Krzeszowski 1997: 243). These clashes, as Krzeszowski further clarifies, can occur within the text: its sentences and between them, within and across different segments into which the text can be decomposed, as well as between texts themselves and discourse participants. The terms PRO-DUCER and RECIPIENT represent discourse participants irrespective of their number and the passive or active character of their participation in communication; the double arrows, in turn, relate to the participants’ potential impact on the shape of the text (Krzeszowski 1997: 243–244).

It can also be noticed that the two schemas presenting the relation between the text and discourse as the relation of inclusion adhere to the most general definition of discourse as “‘the text in context’, i.e. the text together with the whole situation of its usage”4 (Łuczyński, Maćkiewicz 2006: 94, translation mine – T. W.). The expression the whole situation of its usage [usage of the text – T. W.] implies not only the immediate situation of the act of verbal communication but also the broader social and cultural context in which this communication takes place. Chruszczewski (2011: 201) regards discourse as “a dynamic phenomenon whose centre is occupied by individual textual realisations, and in which the three broad [contextual – T. W.] immersions of texts can be distinguished: situational, social and cultural”5 (translation

4 “‘tekst w kontekście’, to znaczy tekst wraz z całą sytuacją jego użycia” (Łuczyński, Maćkiewicz 2006: 94).

5 “Dyskurs rozumiany jest jako dynamiczne zjawisko, w którego centrum znajdują się pojedyncze realizacje tekstowe i w którym wyróżnić można trzy obszerne zanu-rzenia tekstów: sytuacyjne, społeczne i kulturowe” (Chruszczewski 2011: 201).


and emphasis mine – T. W.). Such contextual variables and discourse are realised in a text. In other words, the text can be regarded as a kind of embodiment and manifestation of discourse in all of its constitutive contextual dimensions (Chruszczewski 2011: 205, 211–212).

The text functions as a category characterised by various degree of openness and complexity. Krzeszowski (1997) associates the openness of the text, though not exclusively, with the possibility and degree of active involvement of the discourse participants in the text and, consequently, with their impact upon its shape. The author further juxtaposes “maxi-mally ‘open’” texts, e.g. a chat between friends, with “maximally ‘closed’” texts, e.g. “documents in archives, chronicles, various legal documents, manuscripts, recorded speeches, books and various literary texts” (Krze-szowski 1997: 242). The former Krzeszowski (1997) characterises as “maximally ‘participant (and situation) dependent’” texts because in their case discourse participants can influence more or less directly their shape, whereas the latter, “maximally ‘closed’” texts, are specified as “maximally ‘participant independent,’” for they do not permit the prospective partici-pants of a given discourse to which these texts contribute to co-produce them (Krzeszowski 1997: 241). For the sake of clarity, it must be stressed that Krzeszowski (1997) recognises various degrees of text openness and the degree of being either “participant dependent” or “independent.”

The concept of text openness, however, is not only restricted to the possibility and degree of intervention in the text by the discourse participants but also concerns the correlation between the text itself and the whole context from which it arises and to which it contributes. All texts bear particular traces of the socio-cultural and situational context from which they arise, which proves that they do not constitute hermetic clear-cut categories but rather open categories that are context-influenced and context-influencing. Correlations between the text and its context are indicated by Krzeszowski’s (1997) schemata as presented above as well as are clearly presented by Chruszczewski (2011: 199) when he discusses contextual situational, social and cultural immersions of texts, and when he specifies language in terms of “a domain culturally and communi-catively organised but also organizing culture and communication”6 (translation mine – T. W.). Language as one of the factors shaping culture

6 “Język postrzegany jest jako: domena zorganizowana kulturowo i komunikacyjnie, ale też organizująca kulturę i komunikację” (Chruszczewski 2011: 199).


and communication can be further regarded as one of the factors shap-ing the world, for “we shape, produce and reproduce the world through language in use” (Gee, Handford (eds.) [2012] 2014: 5). This means the text, being a realisation of discourse and, consequently, of its genres, arises out of contextual circumstances; for example, a newspaper article fulfilling the obituary genre occurs in newspaper columns after the death of a person who is worthy of commemoration or, at least, of attention. The form and content of such a text is determined by the situation of the person’s death: the text includes general information regarding his/her death and others who predeceased the person or survived him/her; moreover, its composition and style are determined by the context of mass media, i.e. journalistic discourse typical of obituaries. On the other hand, the text might exert an impact on the context of its creation, at least to a certain degree; for example, newspaper obituaries can either consolidate certain contextual parameters, modify or even subvert them. The process of subverting still a rather positive description of the obituary subject can be illustrated by negative obituaries (Fowler 2007), especially those in which axiological clashes (Krzeszowski 1997) remain unresolved at the global level of the text’s thematic structure.

The issue of the degree to which the genre and text, e.g. the obituary genre and its textual realisation in the press, might be determined by the context and may also determine the context itself is clarified further on within the subsequent chapters. Here this issue is only mentioned to make it clear that a text that fulfils given genres constitutes an open category which interacts with the genres and with the whole context of its creation and reception. However, tight interactions with the con-text, the indispensable openness of the text for both the extra-textual situational and socio-cultural factors in which it is immersed, does not contradict the relevant autonomy of the text, i.e. “the text, despite its openness, retains enough autonomy so that this autonomy allows to establish its identity”7 (Witosz 2005: 105, translation mine – T. W.).

Moreover, the text, similarly to the genre, is in the present study regarded as a cognitive category which, instead of establishing necessary and sufficient conditions for its members, draws upon the prototypical effects and family resemblance of these members (see Rosch 1978;

7 “tekst mimo otwartości zachowuje tyle autonomii, by ta pozwalała określić jego tożsamość” (Witosz 2005: 105).


Kleiber [1990] 2003; Wittgenstein 1953). Such a model enables the cat-egory of text to embrace not only prototypical texts which conform to all or at least the most conventional requirements of textuality, the con-ditions of being a “good” text, but also makes it possible to categorise texts which for some reason seem to be odd: whose identification with the category of texts raises certain doubts. The requirements that are conventionally associated with the concept of a “good,” i.e. prototypical, text embrace the following features as recognised by de Beaugrande and Dressler ([1981] 2002): coherence, cohesion, intentionality, inter-textuality, informativity, acceptability, situationality. These features also clearly imply the conformity of a “good” text with its genre and all the relevant situational and socio-cultural circumstances from which the text arises and which justify its use. The degree of prototypicality of texts overlaps with the extent to which they fulfil the aforementioned requirements. This means that the more they fulfil the requirements of textuality, the more they adhere to the prototype and, conversely, the less they conform to those requirements, i.e. they are less cohesive and/or coherent, less goal-directed, not adjusted to the situational con-text, the less prototypical and more peripheral “regions” of the category they occupy.

A full and exhaustive description of approaches to discourse and text would exceed the limits and purpose of the present chapter. Neverthe-less, the remarks from selected dictionaries and encyclopaedic sources presented in subchapter 1.1 as well as the remarks selected from schol-arly sources referred to in this subchapter make it possible to formulate the following definition of discourse and text: the term discourse can be understood in a two-fold manner:

1. in a broader sense, as a context-dependent, socio-culturally and situationally determined field of verbal communication based on genres of speech;

2. as a particular instantiation of that communication in a concrete situation: an instantiation that cannot be equated with the notion of text but rather with a concrete communicative situation that is socio-culturally determined where the text as a manifestation of discourse and its genres plays the central role.

In the first definition, the notion of field bears particular significance because it implies the whole complex sphere of human socio-culturally


and situationally determined verbal communication and not just one specific instance of communication, as is the case in the second defini-tion. In other words, discourse in such a broader sense consists of a net-work of various acts of verbal communication which are more or less complex and interrelated, representing various genres and registers as well as spheres of human interest, e.g. political, religious, medical, aca-demic and mass media discourse; “The total constellation of mutually relevant discourses in a group or society can be called a UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE (cf. Coseriu 1955–56, Pike 1967: 596, van Dijk 1977: 127)” (de Beaugrande 1980). Discourse viewed in the broadest socio-cultural perspective can be regarded as a point of reference for concrete and specific acts of communication between participants, which is clearly implied by Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) emphasis on the dialectic nature of people’s utterances. This means, as Bakhtin ([1979] 2000) clarifies, that language users create utterances and communicate with one an-other on the basis of their knowledge which draws upon discourse, i.e. communicational situations that have previously been experi-enced and, consequently, expressions having been heard and uttered in those situations as well as their impact on the actions undertaken in such situations.

In the second, more limited sense, discourse is regarded as the afore-mentioned situation-bound concrete act of communication which is immersed within the broader socio-cultural context. That is to say, dis-course understood in a more limited sense as a specific act of com-munication stems from and at the same time contributes to discourse regarded in more general terms as a field of communication that is socio-culturally and, thus, generically determined – every culture and society representing that culture possesses genres of speech which were developed for the sake of effective communication. Such an approach to discourse that embraces its narrower as well as broader understand-ing appears concordant with the schematic onion-like representation of discourse as proposed by Krzeszowski (1997): the schemata illustrating the relations of discourse within discourse as well as text within text.

To conclude the present discussion, it seems reasonable to repeat and stress that discourse as well as the text which reflects the discourse by realising its genres are always culture- and situation-bound; this implies a semiotic interface between communication and culture, on

Selected views on speech genres 29

the one hand, as well as communication and a particular situation on the other. This semiotic interface bears upon speech genres because it is the genre of speech which mediates between culture and the particular situation of communication (see Martin, Rose 2008; Bawarshi, Reiff 2010; Chruszczewski 2011). Thus, it is now necessary to shed some light on speech genres and to specify their relation to discourse and text.

2. Selected views on speech genres

The issue of speech genres belongs to the core of the research agenda of linguistics as well as literary studies, where the notion of literary genre has a well-recognised tradition of usage that is much longer than the one within linguistic studies. Nevertheless, contemporary linguistics, discourse studies, communication and media studies, and in particular sociolinguistics, pragmatics and semiotics, regard the problem of speech genres as one of the phenomena of primary importance for their re-search. Such a stance is justified by the seminal theses on speech genres as put forward by Bakhtin ([1979] 2000), especially his assertion that “we speak only in definite speech genres, that is, all our utterances have definite and relatively stable typical forms of construction of the whole” (Bakhtin 1979, quoted in Duff 2000: 89). Although such a firm statement may evoke certain doubts, particularly in the light of the creative and spontaneous character of verbal expressions, especially within colloquial communication (see Wilkoń 2002), it can be assumed, as Grochowski (2004) writes, that it was such a firm stance on generic determination of all utterances that made it possible to rank genre studies so high within the objectives of contemporary linguistic research.

The term genre is used in a number of different ways within a variety of theories and methodologies, which justifies the present attempt to specify this term with respect to the main tendencies concerning its understanding and application in discourse studies.

2.1. Two planes of the genre: Conceptualisation and realisation

When discussing the theoretical and methodological tendencies of genre analysis, it seems reasonable to start from the following definition of the genre as found in the work titled Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy (Bawarshi, Reiff 2010: 4):


[…] genre has come to be defined less as a means of organizing kinds of texts and more as a powerful, ideologically active, and historically chang-ing shaper of texts, meanings, and social actions. From this perspective, genres are understood as forms of cultural knowledge that conceptually frame and mediate how we understand and typically act within various situations.

By specifying genres as “forms of cultural knowledge,” this definition clearly indicates the ontological status of the genre as a category from the level of conceptualisation rather than an immediate and concrete re-alisation. Contemporary discourse and genre studies (see Bawarshi, Reiff 2010; Chruszczewski 2011; Post 2013; Gee, Handford (eds.) [2012] 2014) tend to differentiate between discourse and its genres, on the one hand, and their concrete textual realisations and representations on the other. That is to say, though in everyday communication various genres are used with reference to concrete texts, within scholarly reflection the term genre tends to be regarded as a theoretical rather than empirical category, as a category from the level of idealisation rather than realisation (see Witosz 2005; Ostaszewska, Cudak (eds.) 2008). The abstract character of genres was already confirmed by Jane Feuer (1992, quoted in Chandler 1997: 1), who noted that “a genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world.”

Nonetheless, it must be noted that the opposition of abstract vs. empirical as applied to the description of the genre and its realisations, however clear and useful it may seem within genre analysis, poses certain theoretical problems. The above-quoted definition of the genre makes it clear that genres constitute structures of knowledge, which might be metaphorically regarded as conceptual lenses8 through which we recog-nise, understand and participate in various communicative situations, lenses which are also shaped by socio-culturally determined situations.

8 Kunda (1999: 542) writes that different comprehensions of the same state of affairs by different people may take place if “they view it through the lenses of differ-ent knowledge structures, goals and feelings.” By referring to this metaphorical view of KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES as LENSES, genres as “forms of cultural knowledge” (Bawarshi, Reiff 2010: 4) can be metaphorically regarded as some of the lenses through which discourse participants perceive, interpret and interact with the world. Regarding knowledge structures in metaphorical terms as lenses logically implies the conceptual nature of such lenses; hence the phrase concep-tual lenses is applied to the present description of genres.


Genres can be described in terms of Lakoff ’s (1987) mental idealised cognitive models (ICMs), which is clearly indicated by Post (2013: 40), who explains that “genre templates came to be viewed as having the in-ternal structure of a natural category.” The ICM of the genre constitutes a configuration of and correlation between the genre properties referred to by Duszak (1998: 218) as semantic, pragmatic-interactional and formal. Duszak (1998: 218–219) specifies that the model of the genre represents “a pattern of semantic, pragmatic-interactional and formal features, which participants of a communicative event identify as representative for a particular type of social and linguistic behaviours”9 (translation mine – T. W.). This means that genres, no matter how abstract they ap-pear to be and how much their conceptualisation might differ among individuals representing a given culture and society, do indeed represent a socially shared, inter-subjective repertoire of such socio-culturally and situationally entrenched “configurations of meanings” (Martin, Rose 2008: 30) as well as communicative goals, formal features of whole utter-ances and conventions of social actions. Thus genres cannot be deprived of a certain empirical value.

The empirical value of speech genres seems to have a different char-acter than the empirical value assigned to their textual manifestations. This problem, however, needs further interdisciplinary investigation, especially within the field of discourse studies, philosophy of language as well as sociology, which goes beyond the scope of the present study. Thus, for the sake of clarity, it seems sufficient to state that the correla-tion between genres and their realisations will be regarded in the present work as a correlation between abstract, mental and schematic models and their concrete textual realisations and manifestations.

2.2. Genres regarded as cognitive categories

Besides distinguishing the level of conceptualisation and actualisa-tion, remarks from the previous subchapter already indicated another theoretical and methodological tendency within genre studies, i.e. re-garding speech genres in terms of the cognitive category, which is often juxtaposed with the classical Aristotelian category (see Witosz

9 “wzorzec cech pojęciowych, pragmatyczno-interakcyjnych i formalnych, który uczestnicy danego zdarzenia komunikacyjnego identyfikują jako reprezentatywny dla określonego typu zachowań społecznych i językowych” (Duszak 1998: 219).


2005: 62–80).10 Unlike the classical approach to categorisation which is based on necessary and sufficient conditions, the cognitive approach does not impose on categories the necessity of setting clear-cut bound-aries and rigid criteria of membership. In fact, the cognitive approach neither requires nor excludes categorisation by means of necessary and sufficient conditions shared by the category members. Being more flex-ible, this approach only stipulates that there are categories which cannot be identified and described by means of any set of features common for all their members, but rather by prototypicality effects (Rosch 1978; Kleiber [1990] 2003) and the resemblance of their members to one another, i.e. their family resemblance (Wittgenstein 1953). Prototype, prototypical effects and family resemblance belong to the fundamental concepts in the cognitive approach to categorisation; thus it appears rea-sonable to clarify them in the present methodological part of the study.

2.2.1. Selected remarks on categorisationIn the course of cognitive studies on categorisation, the notion of pro-totype acquired various meanings which may be determined by and further contribute to what Tsohatzidis (ed.) (1990: 8) calls the “heuristic value of prototypicality” and a certain fuzziness of its “exact theoretical shape.” In the standard semantics of prototype, this notion is defined in a two-fold manner: either as the best and most representative central exemplar(s) of a category, or in more abstract terms as a set of the most salient properties that are more or less shared by category members (see Rosch 1978; Kleiber [1990] 2003). Tsohatzidis (ed.) (1990: 1) clarifies that regarding certain elements as the best exemplars of a category can be either naturally or culturally motivated. Thus, in the standard theory, prototypical effects can be regarded as degrees of typicality of category members, recognised by discourse participants and conceptually mea-sured against the scale of: BETTER – WORSE exemplars of the category, MORE REPRESENTATIVE – LESS REPRESENTATIVE, MORE SA-LIENT – LESS SALIENT.

10 Witosz (2005: 66) explains that it is safer to regard categorisation based on proto-typical effects, family resemblance and fuzzy category boundaries as a complemen-tary rather than opposing model to classical Aristotelian categorisation because, as she further clarifies, the dominant role of the former in today’s studies on semantics does not remove the possibility of classical categorisation.


However, in the extended version of semantics of prototype (Kleiber [1990] 2003), the degree of prototypicality does not necessarily overlap with the degree of representativeness; in this version the prototype can also refer to exemplars which are not felt as better or more representa-tive but as basic for the category: basic does not necessarily mean better in this approach. This is clearly indicated by Kleiber ([1990] 2003: 172, translation mine – T. W.):

[…] prototypical effects are not uniform: the concept of a prototype in the extended version does not only embrace cases of better exemplars, defined as such by language users, but it also extends to usages or types of referents which on the basis of other criteria appear as basic or first, without associating them with any judgement on representativeness.11

It is important to emphasise the expression does not only embrace in the above quotation because it clearly indicates that the extended version does not forbid the prototype from functioning as the best and most representative exemplar(s) or a set of the most representative features of the category. This version of the theory only extends the range of cases which can function as category prototypes: from cases which can be re-garded as the most representative, and in this sense better than others, to cases which are just regarded as basic or first in a sense that they initiate and motivate a chain of similarities, e.g. A similar to B, B to C, C to D, where A functions as a prototype. Kleiber ([1990] 2003: 167–168, 172, 174) illustrates this case when he refers, after Lakoff (1987), to the cat-egory named by the classifier bayi in the language Dyirbal, which is one of the indigenous languages of Australia. This category embraces diverse entities, e.g. men, some spears, most fishes and the moon (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 167). Although these elements are so diverse, they are not arbitrarily classified as bayi but, on the contrary, their classification is motivated by “a chain of connections stemming out of the first elements (or central), in this case men and animals which are associated with other elements, and these in turn are associated with still other elements,

11 “[…] efekty prototypowe nie są już jednorodne: pojęcie prototypu w wersji roz-szerzonej nie obejmuje już tylko przypadków lepszych egzemplarzy, uznanych za takie przez użytkowników języka, ale rozciąga się też na użycia czy typy desygna-tów, które na podstawie innych kryteriów jawią się jako podstawowe albo pierwsze, bez kojarzenia z nimi jakiegokolwiek sądu o reprezentatywności” (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 172).


and so on”12 (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 168, translation mine – T. W.); for example, the moon belongs to the category of bayi together with men because it is presented in the Dyirbal mythology as a husband, and thus through myths it shares with men the feature of manhood; in turn, tools used for fishing appear together with fish, for they both refer to the same domain of experience (Kleiber ([1990] 2003: 168). Although only men-tioned without further detailed clarification, the example of the category of bayi is referred to in this subchapter to stress Kleiber’s ([1990] 2003) remarks that prototypicality effects are not restricted to degrees of simi-larity of category members to the best and most representative cases but, as quoted above, they may also refer to cases which appear as the first elements initiating and motivating the category membership, as more basic for the category yet not necessarily more representative.

The above remarks make it clear that the concept of prototype can be conceived in a number of ways depending on the character of the cat-egory to which it applies. What connects these various conceptions is the role of the prototype, which can be specified as a conceptual refer-ence point to recognise and distinguish categories. This role is indicated, among others, by Ungerer and Schmid (1996: 42), who define the pro-totype “as a mental representation, as some sort of cognitive reference point” and explain that the nature of this mental representation can be further specified in various ways, which “may range from the more con-crete notion of ‘image’ or ‘schema’ to the more abstract ‘representation of a category’ or ‘ideal’ according to the categories to which they are ap-plied (definitions from Rosch and Mervis 1975; Coleman and Kay 1981; Lakoff 1986)” (Ungerer, Schmid 1996: 42). In other words, the notion of prototype can be understood at two levels: at the most general level as the aforementioned cognitive point of reference for the category, and at the more specific level further specified according to the nature of particular categories.

As an example, the prototype of obituaries must be specified differ-ently than the prototype of, say, résumés. Although obituaries draw, to a certain extent, on the genre of résumé, especially those which follow

12 “szeregowi powiązań wychodzących od elementów pierwszych (lub centralnych) w tym przypadku mężczyzn i zwierząt, które są powiązane z innymi elementami, a te z kolei są powiązane z jeszcze innymi elementami, i tak dalej” (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 168).


a template of the biographical report, they constitute a much more flex-ible category than résumés, which are restricted by a clear-cut template. Such a template of résumés, be it of American or British style, can be regarded as a prototype of their genre, with reference to which particular textual realisations are judged as good or, in the case of some deviations from the standard, as worse examples of résumés. Obituaries, in turn, belong to genres which have not developed any clear-cut set of definite norms but, on the contrary, are written according to general principles, some of which can be characterised as necessary though not sufficient conditions, whereas others as tendencies that are more or less tentative rather than definite. In this case the notion of prototype as a cognitive point of reference must be treated very loosely in terms of a dynamic set of rather general principles and tendencies which shape obituary articles with regard to their content as well as expression plane. It is suffice to say that these necessary features of obituaries embrace mainly the follow-ing two of the most general factors: (1) the subject matter must concern the deceased and (2) the content presents an appraisal of their life: their deeds, achievements, important events in which they participated, etc. Other more specific factors, e.g. thematic, stylistic, compositional and axiological ones, should be regarded in terms of flexible and open, i.e. subject to change, a set of features characterising textual instantiations of the obituary. Further remarks on prototypical effects in the case of the obituary genre are presented in detail in Chapter 5. The present dis-cussion is only to stress that prototypes as cognitive points of reference used by discourse participants to recognise and operate with various categories do not have a uniform character but represent a wide range of types depending on the categories with which they are associated.

Moreover, remarks on categories and prototypes imply the aforemen-tioned principle of family resemblance as another cognitive mechanism which is involved in the process of categorisation. Family resemblance consists in a network of similarities among members of a category, which also implies various differences between them. The diverse cat-egories referred to above – the one indicated by the classifier bayi as well as categories of speech genres, such as obituaries and résumés – make it clear that similarities among category members may be of a local and/or global type. Local resemblances, however, do not have to lead to global resemblance of all category members to one another. In other words,


some categories draw neither on arbitrary conditions nor features shared by all category members but on local similarities, where each member has at least something in common with another member. Moreover, such similarities do not have to be uniform but, on the contrary, they may be motivated by diverse principles, as in the case of the category of bayi with the mythology-mediated resemblance between the moon and man, and the-same-domain-of-experience resemblance between fish and fishery tools. Nonetheless, it must be stressed that local and global resemblances do not contradict one another, as can be observed in obituaries. Their textual realisations, despite a wide range of editorial, thematic and stylistic differences and similarities, must all share at least the most general common properties that were enumerated in the previ-ous paragraph.

Remarks on global and local resemblances among category members shed light on the correlation between prototypicality and family resem-blance. Although the principle of family resemblance does not presup-pose any prototypical centre but only indicates a network of similarities among members of the category, categorisation which draws on this principle does not contradict categorisation based on the prototype. This is clearly indicated by Kleiber ([1990] 2003: 56, translation mine – T. W.), who clarifies that “structuring based on the family resemblance is not inconsistent with the inner structuring of a category based on the pro-totype – a central exemplar and non-prototypical elements – peripheral exemplars […],”13 yet he further adds that though “prototypical structur-ing can accord with structuring based on the family resemblance, the re-verse situation does not have to hold true.”14 This means that categories based on family resemblance can but do not necessarily need to have any prototypical centre determining judgements on the representativeness of category members. Moreover, the prototype in the extended version, where it does not necessarily have to be associated with any scale of rep-resentativeness, can still be applied to categories which draw only on lo-cal resemblances among their members, such as: A bears similarity to B,

13 “strukturyzacja w oparciu o podobieństwo rodzinne nie jest niezgodna z wewnętrz-ną strukturyzacją kategorii w oparciu o prototyp – okaz centralny i elementy nie-prototypowe – okazy peryferyjne […]” (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 56).

14 “podczas gdy prototypowa strukturyzacja kategorii może odpowiadać strukturyza-cji opartej na podobieństwie rodzinnym, sytuacja odwrotna nie musi być prawdzi-wa” (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 56).


B to C, C to D, D to E (see Givon 1986: 78), and not global resemblance, when B, C, D, and E all bear similarity to A as the most prototypical case. As was explained above, the prototype can be understood as the first and basic element initiating and to a certain extent motivating a chain of similarities among category members.

To sum up, it should be stressed that categorisation by means of fam-ily resemblance does not contradict categorisation based on prototype. Family resemblance neither presupposes nor rejects prototypicality effects; similarly, local resemblance of members of a category does not contradict their global resemblance to the prototype, be it the best exem-plar, a set of best exemplars or a set of the most characteristic features of the category. Both principles of categorisation, i.e. family resemblance and prototypical effects, may contribute to an identification and descrip-tion of categories, e.g. the category of obituaries. The obituary genre can-not be reduced simply to a rigid set of necessary and sufficient criteria which sharply delineate and distinguish this genre from other genres that are more or less related to it. Some criteria can be characterised as necessary but never sufficient to identify and characterise the obitu-ary and its instantiations. What allows to categorise particular texts as obituaries is their resemblance to one another, i.e. resemblance based on a more or less shared set of features which tend to be associated with obituaries. The issue of family resemblance of obituaries is addressed in the analytical chapters of the work.

2.2.2. Genres as conceptual categories that are culturally and socially determined

As flexible and dynamic cognitive categories, ICMs of configuration of and correlation among semantic, pragmatic-interactional and formal (Duszak 1998: 218) properties of whole utterances which are more or less culturally and socially entrenched, genres understood in such terms do not function merely as tools that “first and foremost provide frameworks within which texts are produced and interpreted” (Chandler 1997: 5). The definition quoted at the beginning of subchapter 2.1 makes it clear that genres function as culturally determined categories of knowledge, i.e. conceptual categories “that conceptually frame and mediate how we understand and typically act within various situations” (Bawarshi, Reiff 2010: 4). The function of genres, as the definition referred to implies, is


not restricted to shaping and interpreting a given text in a particular situation but also, to a certain extent, shapes and is shaped by people’s behaviour and actions undertaken in socio-culturally determined situ-ations. Thus genres do not only invoke certain presumptions concern-ing characteristics of texts which are based upon these genres nor do they constitute only a point of reference for the producer of the text to construct a given utterance either by realising the generic model or subverting its rules. Genres function as a point of reference for both the addressor and addressee to act within and to react to various com-municative situations.

The interpretative character of the speech genre was already noticed by Jauss (1982, quoted in Duff 2000: 131), who regarded genres in terms of “a preconstituted horizon of expectations […] to orient the reader’s (public’s) understanding and to enable a qualifying reception.” Similarly, Todorov (1978, quoted in Duff 2000: 199) explains that genres “function as ‘horizons of expectation’ for readers and as ‘models of writing’ for authors.” The definition of the genre as presented by Bawarshi and Reiff (2010) at the outset of subchapter 2.1 makes it clear that the horizon of ex-pectations and the models of writing and/or speaking must be understood as exceeding the technical means to create and respond to particular ut-terances: it must also embrace the situational and socio-cultural context which gives rise to particular utterances which, in turn, correlate with the variety of contextual variables (see Chruszczewski 2011: 110, 217). Such a correlation can be clearly observed in the case of the obituary genre and in its textual representations in the form of press articles, both of which are influenced by the discourse of mass media, in particular press journalism and the broader socio-culturally determined context of commemoration of the deceased. The correlation between discourse of journalism, discourse of commemoration, the obituary genre and its textual manifestations belongs to the main objectives of the subsequent chapters, in particular in the analytical Chapters 3–5.

Regarding genres in terms of categories which function as dynamic structures of knowledge implies their pragmatic character because, being such elements of knowledge, genres enable and facilitate the construction, interpretation and application of utterances in particular socio-culturally determined situations. That is, speech genres within the horizon of expec-tation which they specify with regard to given utterances project both


a situational and cultural context for the creation of utterances which fulfil these genres. In other words, apart from the structural properties of a potential text, the generic model sets forth elements of the pragmatic context within which utterances can be produced and received as well as applied to achieve a set of communicative purposes. The pragmatic set-ting embraces contextual variables specified by Halliday (1985) as field, tenor and mode, which can be roughly characterised as follows:

the field – subject matter, what is happening in a particular situation, what the goal to be achieved by a given action is;

the tenor – potential participants of communication: prospective ad-dressors and addressees, their features as well as the rela-tions among them which are determined by their status and roles played in a given situation;

the mode – manner and mode of communication: spoken or written, direct or indirect, monologue or dialogue, and the se-miotic manifestation and organisation of meanings (see Martin, Rose 2008: 11–16; Biber, Conrad 2009: 22).

These three variables, i.e. field, tenor and mode, constitute aspects of the context of situation (Martin, Rose 2008: 11). The situation, however, is embedded in a more general social and cultural context (Chruszczewski 2011: 110, 216–228). The social context embraces, for example, social roles and interaction between social groups and classes (Chruszczewski 2011: 223–224), whereas the cultural context, as Duranti (1997: 41) ex-plains, embraces both artefacts and networks of conceptual structures. Duranti (1997: 41) also affirms that material products of the culture as well as conceptual structures “such as belief systems and linguistic codes” function as tools “through which humans mediate their relationships with the world.” The mediatory nature of cultural phenomena is reflected in genres, which as “forms of cultural knowledge […] conceptually frame and mediate how we understand and typically act within various situations” (Bawarshi, Reiff 2010: 4).

It should be stressed that instead of a one-directional impact of the sit-uational and socio-cultural context upon characteristics of the genre, there occurs a mutual impact between the context and the genres im-mersed in it. This means that it is not only the context, perceived as situational, social and cultural requirements that give rise to the genre, but also the genre that influences its context either by consolidating or


subverting it: the issue of (partial) subverting cultural and social prereq-uisites by genres can be clearly noticed in the case of negative obituaries, which subvert the “default” appreciative character of commemoration (Fowler 2007: 17).

All of the above-mentioned pragmatic factors, especially the socio-cultural context and the relations among discourse participants deter-mined by this context, indicate the teleological nature of human interac-tions. This means that it is a set of communicative intentions that tends to be regarded as the main factor determining the choice, use and textual realisation of particular genres in communicative situations (Swales 1990; Grochowski 2004). In other words, the goals of communication are re-alised by means of socio-culturally conditioned genres. The significance of the pragmatic setting, and in particular the communicative intention, is emphasised by Grochowski (2004: 27), who puts forth “a hypothesis about superiority of the functional aspect that is associated with com-municative intention, sending-receiving system, and condition of usage of a particular kind of utterance.” Similarly, Witosz (2005: 88) points out that the correlation between the form, content and pragmatic setting of speech genres as well as the number and place of contextual parameters in the model of the genre constitute the main objectives of contem-porary genre analyses. This considerable merit ascribed to pragmatic parameters can be justified by their essential impact upon all other as-pects of the genre, i.e. its thematic, stylistic, compositional as well as axiological properties. The particular emphasis put on the pragmatic and functional aspect of speech/text genres marks the shift of interests within studies on types and patterns of utterances, which was remarked by Duff as follows:

Such is the reorientation of interest signalled by Jauss’s well-known phrase ‘horizon of expectation’, though it might be more precisely described as a shift from a morphology of genre concerned primarily with form to a sociology of genre concerned primarily with function. (2000: 14)

Having taken into account the aforementioned ontological, prag-matic and cognitive aspects of speech genres, it is necessary to remark on their dynamic nature. This dynamism can be recognised in both the historical development of speech genres and in their nature as open categories being subject to creative manipulation. Historical evolution


and creative usage of genres strongly correlate with each other. There-fore, the evolution of genres cannot be explained as a development of clear-cut categories that are independent of one another. On the con-trary, this evolution constitutes a smooth development of one genre into its newer version or even into the other genre – a development which is determined by the correlation of a genre with other genres that are more or less closely related to it. As was clarified above, research on speech genres makes it clear that they do not constitute clear-cut Aristotelian categories but, on the contrary, they interact with one another (Duszak 1998; Witosz 2005; Wojtak 2004a, 2004b). The given genres can perme-ate the structure of others. In other words, genres may be imbued either with certain thematic, stylistic and/or compositional features of various other genres or with the whole genres themselves, which may result in a kind of generic collage. Such a generic hybridisation often results in new genres which cannot merely be reduced to a collection, a kind of assemblage of a number of particular forms, for the embedded genres do not only influence the characteristics of the new form which draws on them, but they themselves undergo some modifications (see Ostaszew-ska (ed.) 2004; Ostaszewska, Cudak (eds.) 2008; Witosz 2005).

The aforementioned main theoretical and methodological tenden-cies of genre analysis can be summarised as follows:

1. differentiation between the genre at the level of conceptualisation and its realisation and manifestation at the textual level, though this actualisation can also draw on other forms that are charac-teristic of particular domains of discourse, e.g. films, radio and/or television broadcast;

2. regarding speech genres in terms of dynamic, cognitive, context-dependant structures, “forms of cultural knowledge” (Bawarshi, Reiff 2010: 4) which enable and facilitate creation, interpretation and application of texts to achieve particular goals; thus they may also be regarded as structures of discourse which mediate human actions within and reaction to communicative situations;

3. the primary importance put upon functional determinants: the cultural, social and situational context as well as the commu-nicative intention(s) which correlate with and justify composi-tional, thematic and stylistic features of speech genres and their application to particular situations;


4. the dynamism of speech genres understood diachronically in terms of their historical development as well as synchronically in terms of their potential active interactions with one another.

Two of these tendencies, enumerated as (2) and (3), can be referred to as the cognitive and pragmatic orientation of discourse studies (Żarski 2008: 76)15 and, consequently, of genre analysis. These two processes also imply the axiological parameter of discourse and, in particular, of genre studies. The significance of the axiological parameter in genre studies is indicated by Post (2013: 149), who stresses the fact that the axiologi-cal level of the genre template correlates with its thematic categories as well as compositional and stylistic properties. The indispensable role of the axiological factor can be noticed, for example, in the literature on the obituary genre, which emphasises the importance of the appraisal factor as a constitutive element of this genre (see, among others, Fowler 2007; Starck 2006).

All of the aforementioned perspectives of genre analysis make it possible to formulate a definition of the speech genre. Drawing upon Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) theory of speech genres and upon other au-thors who elaborated the theory of genres, in particular Swales (1990), Duff (2000), Wojtak (2004a, 2004b), Witosz (2005), Ostaszewska and Cudak (2008), Bawarshi and Reiff (2010), Chruszczewski (2011), and Post (2013), the concept of speech genre is understood in the present work in the following manner: the speech genre constitutes a concep-tual, historically as well as synchronically dynamic, socio-culturally established and entrenched configuration of and correlation between the pattern of whole utterances, i.e. their semantic, pragmatic (teleologi-cal), axiological, compositional and stylistic properties, and elements of the situational, social and cultural context. Such a dynamic, more or less conventionalised, configuration of the textual and contextual factors of whole utterances has the structure of a cognitive category based on

15 Żarski (2008: 76), in his work titled Książka kucharska jako tekst [The Cookery Book as a Text], explicitly states that: “Pragmatywizacji towarzyszy kognitywizacja lingwistyki tekstu” [“The pragmatic orientation is accompanied by the cognitive orientation of text linguistics,” translation mine – T. W.). These analytical orien-tations contribute to the whole complex interdisciplinary domain of discourse studies. The term discourse studies is broader than the term text linguistics and, consequently, the latter constitutes a part of the former, which is implied by the def-initions of text and discourse as mentioned in the present chapter.


the prototypicality effects and family resemblance of its members (see Rosch 1978; Wittgenstein 1953; Kleiber [1990] 2003; Witosz 2005). The genre functions as a conceptual tool to create, understand and use utterances in order to accomplish given actions and to achieve certain goals in socio-culturally conditioned situations.

2.3. Speech genres and their models

The theoretical and methodological orientations of modern analyses of speech genres clearly highlight the major focus of such analyses on the pragmatic and cognitive parameters of utterances. Moreover, cogni-tive and pragmatic analytical tendencies render it possible to describe speech genres in the light of their mutual interactions and to clarify the impact these interactions have on the model of genres, i.e. the cogni-tive gestalt of their features. Inter-generic correlations as well as types and models of the genre, as determined by these correlations, constitute the main objective of the present subchapter.

The distinction between various types of speech genres can draw on their genetic as well as relational aspect. The genetic aspect concerns diachronic relations between genres and, in particular, the direction of their development, i.e. from simple primarily spoken to more complex written forms, whereas the relational aspect concerns synchronic rela-tions between genres representing both spoken and written discourse (Witosz 2005). These two aspects of inter-generic relations underlie Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) distinction between primary (simple) and second-ary (complex) speech genres, where the former stem from an “unmediated speech communion” and the latter develop within more intricate and sophisticated “cultural communication (primarily written)” in which they assimilate different primary genres (Bakhtin 1979, quoted in Duff 2000: 85). In the more complex communicative setting, the primary speech genres that originate mainly from spoken discourse undergo a process of adaptation and alternation; this means that their incorpora-tion in new, more complex generic structures does not only affect these structures but also affects the qualities of genres being incorporated (Bakhtin [1979] 2000; Witosz 2005; Wojtak 2004a, 2004b).

This short account of Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) distinction between primary and secondary speech genres implies the genetic aspect of such a distinction, i.e. the aspect that mainly specifies either the spoken


or written provenience of given genres. However, in Bakhtin’s genre theory the genetic aspect overlaps with the relational aspect, which can be noticed in his examples of primary genres, which in fact do not only embrace spoken forms, e.g. dialogic rejoinders, but also more complex written genres, e.g. letters. That is to say, some written genres, though genetically characterised as secondary (complex), are relationally con-ceived of by Bakhtin as primary because they might enter other even more complex genres, e.g. novels. This crisscrossing of the genetic and relational aspect of genre classification is reflected in the nomenclature used by Bakhtin ([1979] 2000): the terms primary and secondary indicat-ing the genetic aspect coexist with the terms simple and complex, thus pointing at the relational aspect of genre provenience. Witosz (2005: 40, 44) claims that the relational approach to correlations between speech genres bears more significance for contemporary genre analyses than the genetic approach. Such a stance may be justified by the fact that the vast majority of speech genres, both of a spoken and written prove-nience, represent complex structures which make use of various other generic patterns of communication from written and spoken discourse. Thus, a proper analysis and description of such complex genres must first of all clarify the complex network of relations among them: relations which shape genres and shed light on their characteristics.

Correlations between speech genres, however, cannot be limited to distinguishing primary (simple) and secondary (complex) genres and to specifying relations between them. A systematic analysis of these correlations must take under scrutiny various theoretical models of both primary and secondary genres because it is the model of the genre that embraces its most prototypical as well as less common features and allows to compare the genre with other generic patterns of utterances. Thus, generic models, understood as theoretical abstract constructs which make use of both scholarly analysis and generic competence of the speech community, shed light on various interrelations among genres and their textual realisations: interrelations which might result in processes of alternation and/or adaptation and, consequently, in the creation of new independent generic forms (see Wojtak 2004a, 2004b). These different generic alternations and adaptations may result from the speaker’s and/or writer’s creative manipulation with genres, and they may undergo the process of conventionalisation and enter


the repertoire of genres available to and used by the speech community. When conventionalised, such adaptations and alternations may assume either the status of relatively independent genres or variants of a model of an existing genre. Wojtak (2004a, 2004b) distinguishes three variants of the model of speech genres: canon, alternation and adaptation model. Wojtak (2004a: 31–32) further clarifies that the canon model determines the identity of the whole genre by specifying the number of its structural, pragmatic and stylistic parameters; the alternation model, in turn, results from the transformation of particular elements of the canon model, whereas the adaptation model draws upon other relatively independent genres. All of these generic models meet their actualisations in concrete texts which, as Wojtak (2004a, 2004b) explains, constitute either textual realisations of the canon, representations of the alternation and adapta-tion models, or, finally, form individual specimens located on the periph-eries of the genre category.

The above remarks make it clear that speech genres constitute a com-plex network of multi-faceted structures which interact with one another at various levels of their organisation: compositional, thematic, stylistic and pragmatic. They constitute cognitive categories, some of which can be conceptualised as radial structures, to use Lakoff ’s (1987) terminol-ogy, organised around a prototypical centre – the canon model – and less prototypical peripheries occupied by alternation and adaptation models as well as individual specimens (Wojtak 2004b: 19). Such peripheries smoothly lead to other genres within the network of generic structures that are recognised and used by the speech community.

However, the terms adaptation and alternation do not necessarily have to relate to the peripheries of genre, for even the canon model itself, perceived in terms of the prototype, can draw upon certain adaptations and alternations of other genres – this is the remark which seems to be implied by Wojtak (2004b: 20), who states that the heterogeneity of models based on given alternations and adaptations may give rise to independent genres. Such an adaptive character of the canon model of speech genres can be noticed in the case of journalistic obituaries in the British press. The canon model, which may result from conven-tionalised generic adaptations, can be further altered and/or adapted to other genres which may draw on it. That is to say, the model which results from certain adaptations and alternations of different genres


may be used for further generic adaptations and alternations. Thus it is important to stress that the terms adaptation and alternation cannot be restricted in all cases only to a description of peripheries of the genre; on the contrary, they may refer to both peripheries and the prototypical centre, which may itself result from and result in the processes of generic adaptations and alternations.

The theoretical and methodological remarks on primary (simple) and secondary (complex) speech genres as well as on their models justify the present attempt to complement the definition of the term speech genre as presented in subchapter 2.2.2 and, in particular, that part which states that genres constitute a historically as well as synchronically dynamic pat-tern of utterances. The present remarks make it clear that the dynamism of speech genres results from their openness as cognitive categories, which allows for a variety of inter-generic relations based either on whole genres or on some of their aspects, e.g. structural, thematic, stylistic, pragmatic and axiological. The axiological facet of speech genres, though already mentioned in subchapter 2.2.2, requires a further and more de-tailed description, and that is the objective of the next subchapter as well as of the analytical chapters clarifying the place and role of the axiological parameter within the obituary genre.

2.4. Axiological parameter of speech genres

The axiological factor belongs to the core determinants of speech genres, which is clearly indicated by Bakhtin ([1979] 1999: 128), who claims that “there can be no such thing as an absolutely neutral utterance.” Even if a text, realising particular genres, seems to be devoid of any explicit valuations, expressed by primary evaluative and/or descriptive-evaluative utterances, it still has a certain axiological potential which can be recognised at the level of inferences drawn from the text by its addressee. These axiologically charged inferences, i.e. presuppositions and implications, can be recognised by the addressees due to their cultural, linguistic and generic competence: such competence may be regarded as the readers’ and hearers’ horizon of expectations, using Jauss’ ([1982] 2000) term, which allows them proper comprehension of the text. The significance of the axiological charge of speech genres is also pointed out by Witosz (2005: 90), who notices that stylistic studies clearly indicate the impact of the axiological content of genres upon their


characterisation. Consequently, the aforementioned horizon of expecta-tion, projected by genres and recognised by their users, does not only concern the structural, pragmatic and cognitive aspects of genres but also their axiological parameters. That is to say, speech genres as a kind of socio-culturally conditioned and entrenched frameworks for creation, interpretation and usage of utterances to achieve communicative goals are not only associated with the compositional, thematic and stylistic features of utterances as well as with their communicative intentions and cognitive function. Speech genres also evoke expectations with regard to axiological assessments strictly correlated with their thematic categories (Post 2013: 149–169) and expressed in their textual realisations by stylis-tic means (Post 2013: 171–192).

Some genres can be chosen to express both (rather) positive and (rather) negative axiological judgements, whereas others block or con-siderably reduce the possibility of negative or positive valuation. The for-mer can be illustrated by, for example, film and book reviews, which are expected to convey positive as well as negative assessments; the latter, in turn, fall within two subgroups that may be referred to as positive assessment genres, e.g. acknowledgements, congratulation letters and letters of application as subgenres of the letter, laudation or advertise-ment, and negative assessment genres, e.g. a bill of indictment, plaint and denunciation of someone to some authorities, both in its written and spoken form. The subversion of the sign of valuation conventionally associated with and evoked by these genres may result in a comical and/or ironic effect, for instance accusing somebody of committing a good deed in the case of a bill of indictment or congratulating somebody for having destroyed something.

Besides the three groups of genres differentiated on the basis of axiological criteria, a group should also be distinguished that embraces genres which, though conventionally associated with a positive / rather positive valuation, allow negative axiological assessments. This group can be represented by the journalistic obituary genre and its textual representations, especially in the British press. Although in the majority of cases the obituary genre makes readers assume a positive / rather posi-tive valuation of the subject described within obituary columns, in given cases it may also draw on negative assessments at the level of macro- and even global-themes, as in negative obituaries (Fowler 2007).


However, it must be clearly stated that dividing genres into axiologi-cal groups, which might be roughly characterised as positive assessment genres, negative assessment genres and positive-and-negative assess-ment genres, is justified mainly by valuation expressed by the whole genre, i.e. at the level of its global theme and not necessarily at levels of its micro- and macro-themes. Particular textual manifestations of genres may express and/or imply negative axiological judgements at the micro- and macro-level of the thematic structure but still a positive valuation at the global level, which may resolve axiological clashes (see Krzeszowski 1997). Conversely, it is also possible for a genre to be based on texts which, though expressing mainly positive valuations of the subject mat-ter, introduce the axiological clash at the global level: a clash that remains unresolved and sheds a negative light on issues described in the text. Thus the basic distinction between positive assessment and negative as-sessment genres draws on the global valuation of the subject matter of the texts that represent these genres, i.e. the valuation expressed and/or implied by whole texts manifesting certain genres, which can be speci-fied in relation to the two-pole axiological scale: negative–positive (see Krzeszowski 1997). However, an axiological valuation, both positive and negative, is a matter of degree, which means that between these two extreme poles there is a field of more or less positive or negative assess-ments, and even in the middle of the scale some assessments never seem to be fully neutral: they still oscillate to either the positive or negative pole of the axiological scale.

Besides a positive, rather positive, rather negative or negative sign of valuation, speech genres also reflect the types of values and/or anti-values and their hierarchy correlated with domains of discourse, e.g. reli-gious discourse, academic discourse and feature journalism, with which particular genres tend to be conventionally associated. The scholarly article, for instance, though devoid of emotive valuation is not deprived of the axiological parameter because it must reflect particular values to be accepted as a scholarly article: it must be based upon a high degree of objectivism, professionalism and ethical standards resulting from the anti-plagiarism policy. Similarly, the obituary article, though it can and often does reflect the emotions of the author or of others quoted within the text, belongs to the factual branch of journalism and must address its standards. However, apart from values referring to standards


of text-creation itself, as required by particular genres, the genres tend to be associated with values and/or anti-values which are evoked by their functions and themes (see Post 2013); for example, a scholarly article tends to be conventionally associated with cognitive/epistemological values which result from its function in presenting and clarifying sci-entific achievements. Cognitive values can also be ascribed to obituar-ies which provide the reader with information about the deceased person; however, the cognitive value of obituaries seem to be subordi-nated to its commemorative character, which is illustrated further in the analytical chapters.

The axiological potential of the speech genre may correlate with all levels of its model and, hence, with various aspects of particular utter-ances realising that model. The axiological parameter determines and may be determined by the textual, pragmatic and cognitive factors of the genre (see Post 2013). For the sake of clarity, it seems reasonable to repeat that textual parameters concern the compositional and sty-listic choices offered and allowed by genres, whereas the cognitive and pragmatic factors refer to thematic structures as semantic categories and to the situational as well as socio-cultural context projected by the genre: the communicative intention, relations between the addres-sor and addressee, their status and anticipated social, cultural as well as intellectual capital and the impact of this capital upon the reception and production of utterances. All of these elements of the context may influence the axiological characteristics of the genre, e.g. relations be-tween the addressor and addressee as well as their identical or different purposes can justify, as Witosz (2005: 171) points out, differentiation between agonistic and emphatic genres, the former represented by, for example, polemics, negotiation, a quarrel, whilst the latter can be illus-trated by, say, an informal chat between friends and flirtation/coquetry, which assume conventionalised forms in given cultures.

Correlations between the axiological properties of speech genres and their socio-cultural context imply the subjective and inter-subjective nature of the axiological parameter of genres. This subjectivity and inter-subjectivity of the axiological properties of speech genres result from the observation that it is the addressor who encodes value judgements in the utterance and the addressee who decodes these valuations. However, it must be stressed that expressing and/or implying axiological valuations


and recognising them by the addressee both depend on the common cultural capital of the participants of communication. This capital may be conceived of as a widely shared repertoire of cultural goods which embrace, among others, speech genres as well as the types and hierarchy of values developed within a particular community, e.g. a nation, reli-gious denomination, ethnic group, youth subculture or representatives of given professions. All of these spheres of human affiliation, membership and activity, which are intertwined with one another, develop their own hierarchy of values and means of expressing them, which are recognised and employed by the members of the speech community: hence the in-ter-subjective, social and cultural character of the axiological domain. The tight and indispensable link between the socio-cultural context and the axiological parameter of speech genres also implies cognitive condi-tioning of the axiological factor of genres. This means that the different values and value judgements result from the language users’ perception of reality: a perception that draws on mental schemata which, among others, embrace the models of speech genres.

3. Parameters of the axiological assessment

3.1. The notion of value and its parameters

The notion of value, within widely understood discourse studies, tends to be characterised differently in the following two analytical fields: (1) scholarly analyses of utterances which, though taking into account a common understanding of the notion of value, distance themselves from the common knowledge of language users, and (2) within analyses based on anthropological linguistics which highlight and even favour the common knowledge and experience of the speech community rep-resenting a particular culture, society, ethnic group or other category of people that is socio-culturally and linguistically determined (see Bartmiński 2006: 133). Contrary to the first approach, the second one does not restrict the notion of value just to the quality of the given en-tity that is being evaluated. On the contrary, within the anthropological approach to axiological linguistic studies, the term value is understood and used in a two-fold manner adhering to the common intuition of language users, i.e. (1) value as a property of a given entity which can be recognised and specified with respect to the axiological scale and

Parameters of the axiological assessment 51

the hierarchy of values, and (2) value or anti-value as an object of valu-ation (see Bartmiński 2006: 133). These two concepts of value do not contradict but rather complete each other and, when necessary, both are used within the present study.

The remarks made so far indicate two basic parameters of value: its positive (+) or negative (−) sign as determined in relation to the axi-ological scale (see Krzeszowski 1997: 49, 56, 177) and its aspect specified in relation to the repertoire of types of value, e.g. pragmatic, economic, hedonistic, vital, emotive, social values, value of perfection, aesthetic, cognitive, ethical and sacral, and their hierarchy acknowledged within the speech community (Laskowska 1992: 14).16 These two basic pa-rameters of value, i.e. its sign and aspect, were already pointed out by Sager (1982), who regards the aspectual character of value as its quality: qualitaet, and enumerates three further parameters of value and valu-ation: intensity, scope of validity and the object of assessment. Sager (1982) regards the intensity of value in terms of the quantity of value: quantitaet, and explains that this intensity can be expressed by linguistic means, such as, for instance, adverbs of intensity or comparative and superlative forms of adjectives. The scope of validity, his validitaet (Sager 1982), in turn, refers to various groups of people who recognise and ac-knowledge given values and their hierarchies as well as value judgements concerning particular entities. The last of the aforementioned factors, i.e. the object of valuation, can be understood as an entity, both material or abstract, which is ascribed given value(s) and, consequently, specified with respect to the place it occupies on the axiological scale and within the hierarchy of values.

To sum up, the parameters of value embrace its sign, aspect and intensity as well as the subject and object of valuation. All of these axi-ological parameters are identified and applied to schematic explications

16 The typology of values as proposed by Laskowska (1992: 14, translation mine – T. W.), i.e. pragmatyczne, ekonomiczne, hedonistyczne, witalne, odczuć, społeczne, perfekcjonistyczne, estetyczne, poznawcze, etyczne, sakralne [pragmatic, econom-ic, hedonistic, vital, emotive, social, value of perfection, aesthetic, cognitive, ethical, sacral], partly overlaps with the following types of value as recognised by Puzynina (1992: 40, translation mine – T. W.): transcendentne (inaczej metafizyczne), po-znawcze, estetyczne, moralne, obyczajowe, witalne i odczuciowe (w tym hedoni-styczne) [transcendental (also called metaphysical), cognitive, aesthetic, moral, customary, vital and sensory-emotive (embracing hedonistic)].


of axiological judgements as proposed by Laskowska (1992), which is the main objective of the subsequent subchapter.

3.2. Value judgements and their explications

The term value judgement is understood in the present study as an out-come of the process of ascribing values to a given entity, i.e. values specified with respect to their sign, aspect, intensity as well as subject and object of valuation. The axiological formula reflecting the structure of value judgements is expressed by the following pattern as proposed by Laskowska (1992) and translated here into English as follows: A thinks: X is G/B with respect to V, where A denotes the subject of valuation, X designates the object being evaluated, G/B stands for the positive (good) and negative (bad) sign of valuation and V denotes the aspect of valuation. Such a schematic pattern of the axiological judgement cor-responds to the axiological explication as put forth by Ripfel (1987: 155), who stated that:

A person (subject of valuation SV: bewertende subject BS) evaluates at a particular moment ti an object of valuation (OV: Bewertungsgegenstand BG), in that SV classifies OV on a classification scale with respect to given aspects of valuation, specified within the pre-given basis of comparison (BC: Vergleichsbasis V), and profiles the result of valuation relative to expected result bearing some weight (W: Gewichtung G) [significance – T. W.] within the pre-given basis of comparison (BC).17 (translation mine – T. W.)

Explications of axiological judgements, besides reflecting the aspects of valuation and its sign, should also clarify the manner in which axi-ological judgements are expressed, i.e. whether they function at the level of the text, expressed by evaluative and/or evaluative-and-descriptive linguistic and textual structures, or whether they function at the level of inferences, i.e. as a sort of axiological potential to be recognised by the addressee. Thus, apart from the general explication of the axiological

17 “Eine Person (BS) bewertet zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt ti einen Bewertungs-gegenstand (BG), indem BS BG im Hinblick auf bestimmte durch die Vergleichs-basis (V) vorgegebene Bewertungsaspekte (BA) anhand diesen zugeordneten Ein-ordnungsskalen (ES) einordnet und die Einordnungsergebnisse (EE) relative zu in V vorgegebenen Sollergebnissen (SE) verbunden mit einer Gewichtung (G) aus-zeichnet” (Ripfel 1987: 155).

Concluding remarks 53

proposition: A thinks: X is G/B with respect to V, Laskowska (1992: 26) further specifies it by distinguishing various types of explications of axi-ological propositions, some of which are herein translated into English and adapted to the purpose of the analysis:

1. Notice that Z, i.e. [X did Y] and what X did is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V.

2. Notice that Z, i.e. [X did Y] which implies that X is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V.

3. Notice that X is Y and that implies X is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V.

These three explications illustrate the axiological propositions that function solely as axiologically charged inferences which, though not obligatory, can be recognised in certain utterances by their addressees on the basis of their common knowledge, i.e. widely understood cul-tural, linguistic and generic competence. Utterances with an axiological charge, implied rather than directly and explicitly expressed by them, can be exemplified by a considerable number of obituary headlines, which is clarified in the third chapter.

Concluding remarks

The present chapter sets out the theoretical and methodological prem-ises of the analysis, whose outcome is presented in the present work. The chapter makes it clear that the work falls within the field of genre studies which heavily draw upon Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) theory of genres, cognitive linguistics, anthropological linguistics and axiological seman-tics. Thus the key concept of genre was herein specified as a cognitive category that functions as a socio-culturally entrenched configuration of semantic, pragmatic-interactional and formal (see Duszak 1998: 218) properties of whole utterances. The genre constitutes a framework used for the creation and comprehension of whole utterances as well as for particular goals to be achieved by means of these utterances in com-municative situations. Utterances manifest genres and, to put it in more general terms, discourse immersed in the situational and socio-cultural context. Therefore, in the present study the genre is conceived of as an abstract model distinguished from the level of its textual realisation, i.e. the level of concrete utterances.


The chapter also emphasises the correlations between the cognitive category of the genre, the socio-cultural context and, consequently, the domain of values with its hierarchy and axiological (+)/(−) scale. As one of the structures of knowledge developed within culture and society and used to interpret various utterances, the genre, on the one hand, draws on a system of values recognised by the community and, on the other hand, it creates this system by consolidating it (e.g. obituar-ies written according to the formula de mortuis nil nisi bonum, i.e. one should not speak ill of the dead) or by subverting it (e.g. obituaries that shed a negative light on the deceased person). That is why the chapter highlights the tight link between the category of genre and the socio-culturally determined domain of values.

Chapter 2

The obituary: A survey of selected approaches

The obituary as a genre, despite its relatively long period of negligence in the 20th century, has recently drawn much interest not only of journal-ists who specialise in writing obituaries but also of authors who have conducted research on the obituary genre within sociological, cultural and media studies. Thus, three scholarly works, i.e. Fowler (2007), Starck (2006) and Hume (2000), which represent a systematic study on obitu-aries within the realm of sociology, media studies and cultural studies, respectively, are heavily relied upon in the present chapter: these works bear particular significance for further studies on the art of writing obituaries within discourse studies and the theory of genre analysis.

The present review of research on the obituary genre constitutes an outline rather than the possibly most complete and detailed review of the literature on obituaries. The literature selected for the purpose of the present review was chosen on the basis of its scholarly character, i.e. the methodological approach to the issue of the obituary genre and to the editorial practice shaping the content and form of obituaries in the press, as well as on the basis of the significance of this literature for a further analysis of obituaries. Nevertheless, other works, though rep-resenting rather popular literature on the genres of literary journalism, are not rejected in this review; on the contrary, some of them provide significant information on obituaries.

1. Historical outline of the development of obituaries

The genre of the newspaper obituary as a biographical form bears similarity to its precursors such as “earlier books of short biographies”

The obituary: A survey of selected approaches56

(Fowler 2007: 4), e.g. John Aubrey’s Brief Lives from the period of 1669–1696 (Clark (ed.) 1898), as well as to death notices progressively being accompanied with short accounts of one’s life and career (Starck 2006). Aubrey’s biographies of 17th-century subjects show, as Fowler (2007: 4) affirms, an “uncanny resemblance” to modern obituaries in their choice of actors, especially from the field of “philosophy, the arts, the sciences and political field” and, as Fowler (2007: 4) further states, similarly to contemporary obits, Aubrey’s life accounts mainly relied on the gendered sphere of men, though they also presented a “minority of scholarly women.”

Despite the significance of Aubrey’s biographies as precursors for the obituary genre, Fowler (2007: 4) writes that it was The Gentleman’s Magazine which “under the editorship of John Nichols in 1778 […] ‘estab-lished a standard of necrology for modern times’” (Fergusson 1999: 149). The occurrence of obituaries in the columns of The Gentleman’s Magazine was indicated by the section titled “Obituary of Considerable Persons,” which was introduced in the August 1780 edition of this magazine and further extended in terms of its title and content to “Obituary of Con-siderable Persons with Biographical Anecdotes” (see Starck 2006: 20). The second title of the section illuminates a significant aspect of modern obituaries, namely the depiction as well as assessment of subjects through vivid anecdotes which can enrich and enliven the narrative and help to avoid its CV-like and, as the American editors call it, boilerplate pattern. The use of anecdotes can make the obituary fall within the category of portrayals of a subject which are relatively rich in content rather than in the category of boilerplate, highly stable and predictable résumé-like descriptions, described by Starck (2006) as a snapshot.

Apart from employing anecdotes, obituaries published under the editorship of John Nichols contained features that were innovative for those times, namely “hostile elements of character assessment” (Starck 2006: 20). These adversary elements made those obituaries simi-lar to contemporary obituaries, which are more and more often written according to the tell-all factor which is in tune with the more candid approach to an assessment of the subject’s character and attainments within contemporary obituaries (Starck 2006: 98–102).

If it is claimed that The Gentleman’s Magazine under the influence of John Nichols formulated the standard of modern necrology (Fowler

Historical outline of the development of obituaries 57

2007: 4), it should also be noticed that Harriet Martineau’s literary works established “a model for contemporary obituary practice” (Starck 2006: 98). The anthology of her works, which occurred within the col-umns of The Daily News in the 1860s, reveals Martineau’s significant contribution to the development of obituaries, especially with respect to the employment of anecdotes, which is a significant stylistic property of the modern obituary, as well as some traces of more astringent character assessment of her actors (see Starck 2006: 97–98). Apart from Nichols’ and Martineau’s legacy to the development of the obituary genre, it is necessary to mention the contribution of Delane (1841–1877) because, as Fowler (2007: 6) asserts, it was under his editorship that the modern obituary in fact started off. Delane “expanded the form, making obituar-ies ‘the first drafts of history’ that they are now (Brunskill 2005: xiii)” (Fowler 2007: 6).

The aforementioned accomplishments in obituary developments ini-tiated by John Nichols, Harriet Martineau and Delane can be juxtaposed with contributions to the modern obituary revival made by another three “agents of revival” (Starck 2006: 67), namely Hugh Massingberd, James Fergusson and John Grigg. Hugh Massingberd, The Daily Telegraph obituarist, is claimed to have inaugurated significant changes in obituary writing and, consequently, to have had a major impact on the revival of the genre – a claim that was reinforced by the British writer Tim Heald (quoted in Starck 2001):

Hugh changed everything, and then others such as The Guardian and The Independent, and even the Mail and Express, followed suit in their own particular ways.

Changes introduced by Massingberd embraced a new, more candid and plain style as well as a broader scope of obituary column interests which influenced perception of the genre. He initiated the transition from highly schematic, CV-like obits to a depiction of “what people were really like through informed anecdote, description and character sketch” (Massingberd (ed.) 1996, quoted in Starck 2001). This quotation sheds light on two important properties of obituaries: (1) the use of anecdotes to enrich and enliven the presentation of a given subject and, though indirectly, (2) classifying the obituary as a secondary speech genre. This generic categorisation stems from the fact that the obituary draws on


other primary speech genres, such as, for example, the aforementioned anecdote and character sketch.

The broader scope of obituaries resulted in a new choice of subjects presented within obituary columns. Starck explains that Massingberd’s team was interested in finding subjects whose impact on society, until then, had been overlooked and “in so doing, they encountered colour and eccentricity, rendering those qualities in droll under-statement” (2006: 70). The changes initiated by Massingberd also led to more room and more significance assigned to obituaries within the newspaper col-umns (see Starck 2001, 2006), which can also be regarded as a sign of a new perception of the genre by both editors and readers.

Similarly to Massingberd, another agent of obituary revival, James Fergusson, worked as a newspaper editor, this time, however, he was the editor of The Independent. Fergusson’s contribution to the further de-velopment of the journalistic obituary genre concerns the new pictorial as well as textual policy of obituary columns. Starck (2006: 72–73), when presenting changes made by James Fergusson, explains that the changes in illustrating obituaries consisted in the use of a photograph in a manner that had hitherto been restricted to magazine feature journalism, whereas the textual novelties concerned the introduction of a biobox: a one-paragraph footnote conclusion encompassing the subject’s dates of birth and death, information on his/her spouse and offspring as well as career achievements. Starck (2006) further indicates two consequences of in-troducing the biobox: (1) it facilitates greater creativity of the opening paragraph and (2) it provides the narrative flow with more freedom.

Although Hugh Massingberd and James Fergusson are claimed to be the dominant agents of obituary revival, John Grigg made his considerable contribution to the development and new character of the genre as well. By adopting a candid approach to character appraisal, Grigg published a critical obituary for Sir Robert Helpmann, which marked and speeded up the tendency of modern obituaries to depart from the hagiographic style of posthumous appraisals based on the convention of de mortuis nil nisi bonum (“one should not speak ill of the dead”) and to reflect the premises of the convention of mors omnia solvit (“death dissolves everything”) instead (see Starck 2006: 69). This new convention, though still having a rather limited influence on the obituary, does exert an effect on the whole genre, which is confirmed by contemporary journalistic and editorial practice.

Descriptions of the obituary genre in dictionaries and research literature 59

The changes that occurred within the obituary genre during its his-torical development shed light on the features of contemporary obituar-ies, such as: a more candid approach to character appraisal, generous use of anecdotes, the introduction of a biobox and, though still limited, a sort of democratisation (see Fowler 2007) in the case of obituary subjects. In other words, this historical outline illuminates the categorisation of con-temporary obituaries with respect to their form and content as well as axiological profile, i.e. the appraisal factor which is no longer restricted so much to the aforementioned speak-only-well-of-the-dead principle.

2. Descriptions of the obituary genre in dictionaries and research literature

The term obituary, in different sources, e.g. dictionaries and scholarly works, refers to various speech genres and within them to subgenres which, though interrelated with one another, represent different phe-nomena with respect to their thematic, stylistic as well as compositional features. The complexity of the meaning and, consequently, comprehen-sion of the very term obituary both justify an attempt to disambiguate the term.

The present subchapter provides the outcome of the analysis of vari-ous definitions of obituary as found in sources such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries as well as works within the scope of media studies, cultural studies, sociology and narrative theory. Although such definitions clarify the notion of obituary and complete one another, none of them consti-tutes the all-including description of the obituary genre, which partly results from their nature as a kind of generalisation that enables one to identify a given speech genre by referring to its most conspicuous properties. Subchapter 2.1 presents definitions provided by dictionary entries, whereas subchapter 2.2 presents and comments remarks on obituaries found in the relevant research literature.

2.1. Definitions of the obituary within dictionary entries

Definitions of the obituary as provided by dictionary entries bear crucial significance for an analysis of this genre because they reflect the popu-lar awareness and comprehension of obituaries, i.e. a kind of common knowledge. The common knowledge of speech genres, as shared by


a given speech community, must be taken under scrutiny in any schol-arly endeavour to disambiguate and describe speech genres, as such knowledge, stored for example in dictionaries, contributes to scholarly analyses of discourse and can never be utterly separated from them.

Dictionaries define the term obituary by referring it to different genres of journalism, which means that the notion of obituary, in popu-lar awareness, can function as a polysemous term. Moreover, some of the definitions may also include ambiguities and inconsistencies which make the meaning of the term obituary even more blurred and fuzzy. One such definition which needs further clarification can be found in the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (Summers (ed.) 1992: 936), which states that the “Obituary is a formal report, esp. in a newspaper, that someone has died usually with an account of the dead person’s life.” This definition, in fact, merges two speech genres together, i.e. the obituary understood as a short death notice and the obituary regarded as an account of the life of the deceased person. Furthermore, by using the notion of a formal report, the present definition seems to refer only to one subgenre, i.e. to professional obituaries in contrast to the so-called homespun obituaries (see Starck 2001, 2006). That is why one needs to search for other more precise definitions which can com-plete and disambiguate the information on the obituary genre. However, before providing such definitions, first the etymology of the term obitu-ary should be explained, for this explanation can illuminate some aspects of this genre.

The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins (Ayto 1990: 369) states that the term obituary stems from the compound intransitive verb obire – the “Latin euphemism for ‘die’, meaning literally ‘go down, make an exit.’” Such a meaning results from the morphological and semantic structure of this term: the prefix ob- means ‘down’ and the root ire means ‘go’ (Ayto 1990: 369). The aforementioned dictionary further clarifies that the Latin compound verb obire gave rise to the noun obitus, ‘death,’ which, in turn, “formed the basis of the medieval Latin adjective obituar-ies ‘of death’, source [the immediate source] of English obituary.”

The Latin etymology sheds some light on the modern obituary as a speech genre which in the form of a concise biography depicts the lives of people who passed away. Nonetheless, as was mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the term obituary is defined in various, often


ambiguous, ways, which justifies its further clarification. Such a disam-biguation, e.g. of the definition quoted above after the Longman Diction-ary of English Language and Culture, can be found in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary (Pearsall, Trumble (eds.) 1995: 1002), which, unlike the former source, highlights the fact that the term obituary covers two different genres, namely:

1. “a notice of a death or deaths, esp. in a newspaper”;2. “an account of the life of a deceased person.”

The first of the definitions refers the notion of obituary to the so-called death notices, i.e. short texts whose main purpose is to notify the reader about someone’s death as well as about the details of the funeral cer-emony. The second definition, in turn, relates to a sort of short biography of the deceased person. This definition, however, still seems slightly unclear, at least from the perspective of speech genre analysis, since it can refer to various genres, such as concise biographical profiles in en-cyclopaedias or in-depth biographies as longer pieces of literature, and not necessarily to the obituary genre itself. The same overgeneralisation can be noticed in the definition of obituary taken from the BBC English Dictionary (Sinclair (ed.) 1992: 791), which states that “an obituary is a piece of writing about someone who has just died.” The term piece of writing could, in fact, cover any speech genres. Although incomplete and oversimplified, these definitions imply two very significant features of texts which represent the obituary genre, such as: (1) the scope of non-fictional writing as well as (2) the relation to biographical genres that focus on reporting facts from one’s life, here of the deceased person.

Besides the features listed above, one can still distinguish other characteristics of the obituary genre, such as those mentioned in the fol-lowing fragment of the definition of obituary as provided by The Oxford English Dictionary Online18: “[…] an appreciation appearing in a news-paper or news broadcast of an eminent or well-known person who has recently died, typically including a brief biography.” This definition, just as the aforementioned ones, confirms that the obituary covers a non-fictional piece of writing which usually includes a sort of account of one’s life. However, contrary to the other descriptions of the obituary genre mentioned so far, it also clearly highlights the journalistic character of the genre as one appearing in a newspaper or news broadcast, as well

18 http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/129612 [ED 14.02.2011].


as its axiological rather positive treatment of the subjects, usually some highly regarded figures, i.e. an appreciation of an eminent or well-known person who has recently died. This definition also highlights the instant character of the obituary which deals with subjects who have recently died. The presence of value judgements implied, presupposed or explic-itly expressed in the texts of obituaries justifies the following statement as proposed by Starck (2006: 9): “It [obituary – T. W.] is an instant biog-raphy, the first verdict of society.”

2.2. Selected remarks on contemporary research literature on obituaries

The contemporary academic reflection on the obituary genre mainly concerns the field of sociology (Fowler 2007), media studies (Starck 2006, 2008) as well as biographical (Bytheway, Johnson 1996) and cul-tural studies (Hume 2000). All such realms of interest correlate with one another and illuminate the various aspects of the obituary genre and its development. However, before any further discussion on comprehen-sion of the obituary genre within the aforementioned paradigms takes place, remarks on obituaries, as found in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (Herman et al. (eds.) 2005), require some comments. This encyclopaedia, edited by scholars representing different universi-ties, constitutes more than a mere collection of concise encyclopaedic entries; thus it is mentioned in the present subchapter as a source of the following description of the obituary genre to be referred to:

The obituary offers an appraisal of a life in the form of a brief biography – published in the print media, on the worldwide web and on television. It is important to note the appraisal factor, for it is this element which distinguishes an obituary from a standard news story about death. […] the obituary provides an assessment of its subject’s character, achieve-ments, and effect on society. This is frequently demonstrated through the use of anecdote. […] Obituary practice shifted towards publication of a more candid review […] The aim is to capture life with all its flaws, rather than death. (Starck, quoted in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 407)

This definition, in comparison to the other concise descriptions of the obituary genre that were presented in the previous subchapter, profiles this genre more accurately by referring to its most conspicuous features, such as:


1. content concerning the character and life course of the deceased person: the main focus is put on attainments often linked with the person’s career;

2. adherence of the obituary to the genre of biography;3. the appraisal factor, i.e. providing implicit and/or explicit value

judgements resulting from the propositional content; 4. frequent employment of anecdotes as rhetorical means of illus-

tration and evaluation of the deceased person and his/her accom-plishments;

5. focus of the contemporary obituary on the life-course, with its various peculiarities rather than meticulous details of death;

6. media provenience of the obituary genre: obituaries are found not only in print media such as newspapers, magazines or jour-nals but also in their online versions as well as on television.

The present definition also puts an emphasis on the obligatory pres-ence of an appraisal factor as the axiological facet of characterisa-tion of the obituary genre: the factor which differentiates this genre from the news story. Such a description recapitulates and completes the genre-characteristic features of obituaries, as presented in the other more concise definitions in dictionaries mentioned in the previous sub-chapter. It is also worth noticing that, though the present description of the obituary genre does not offer any comparison with the death notice, it clearly implies the different character of these two genres by empha-sising the distinct aim of the contemporary obituary, i.e. to present life as it is rather than death.

The significance of the definition of obituary as offered by the Rout-ledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (Herman et al. (eds.) 2005) results not only from its concise recapitulation of characteristics of obituaries but also that it points to the main tendencies of the modern obituary. These tendencies, which constitute the major issues raised and analysed within sociological, culture as well as media studies, embrace in par-ticular: the appraisal factor regarded as a crucial feature of the obituary genre, adherence to the biography and, thus, the factual character of the obituary genre, as well as a more candid approach to profiling the life course and character of the subject.

The appraisal factor as an obligatory feature of the obituary is emphasised, among others, by Hume (2000), Starck (2006) as well as


Fowler (2007). The first of them, in her work titled Obituaries in Ameri-can Culture (2000), states that the obituary constitutes both “a com-memoration as well as a life chronicle” and, thus, “it reflects what society values and wants to remember about that person’s history” (Hume 2000: 12). This means that the appraisal factor of the obituary genre cor-relates with the social values which are reflected in texts realising this genre. Hume (2000: 150–151) further clarifies that “obituaries reflect the worth of a life” and they constitute “powerful commemorations that focus on social values.” These values can be reflected in the text of obituaries by linguistic, i.e. systemic, as well as textual rhetorical means of expressing value judgements. However, the issue of expressing and/or implying value judgements in texts representing the obituary genre still lacks proper scholarly reflection, especially from the perspective of the linguistic methodology of genre analysis; hence this issue belongs to the main objectives of the present study.

The appraisal factor as one of the core characteristics of the obituary does not only draw on a positive evaluation of the subject within obitu-ary columns – the portrait of the deceased person within the obituary is not confined to a positive valuation. Some obituaries express an ex-plicitly and/or implicitly negative valuation of the subject, i.e. they may incline and enable the reader to draw negative inferences from the text. The shift of the obituary genre towards a more candid presentation of the life-course, career, death and character of the deceased person partly abolished the role of obituaries as public accolades of the deceased person and their accomplishments. Moreover, this shift even further distanced the obituary genre from eulogies, though some obituaries are still partly eulogistic, especially those written by members of the family. Despite these changes, the prevalent “‘default’ model” of the contemporary obituary still refers to “the traditionally positive or neutral form, close to the eulogy” (Fowler 2007: 17).

Taking into consideration all of the descriptions of the obituary men-tioned so far, both in dictionaries and in research literature selected for the purpose of this introductory part of the work, it is now necessary to locate the obituary genre within the complex network and hierarchy of other genres and subgenres which share some features with the obituary and influence its distinctive shape.

The obituary in the network of other related genres 65

3. The obituary in the network of other related genres

The obituary represents a form of creative non-fiction and can be fur-ther narrowed down as a genre of literary journalism. The autonomy of the obituary as a distinctive genre is also confirmed by Bytheway and John-son (1996: 219), who in their article titled “Valuing Lives? Obituaries and the Life Course” claim that “they [obituaries – T. W.] are now recognized as a distinctive genre in literary journalism.” The journalistic character of the obituary is noted, among others, by Corona Marzol (2006: 119), who regards the obituary as “a very specific type of media discourse”, as well as by Moses and Marelli (2003), who employ the term journalistic genre of obituaries – the notion that is also used in the present study.

However, despite recognising its distinctive status as a genre of journal-ism, the obituary still lacks proper linguistic reflection upon its features, especially reflection within the theory of speech genres as initiated by Bakhtin ([1979] 2000) which could further specify and justify its distinc-tive character. Although the scholarly as well as quasi-scholarly literature on obituaries indicates their adherence to other genres, e.g. the biography, eulogy and death notice, these descriptions do not draw on the method-ology offered by the theory of speech genres, i.e. the theory taken under scrutiny and further described, specified and/or developed by, among others, Duff (2000), Furdal ([1982] 2008), Wierzbicka (1983), Swales (1990), Wilkoń (2002), Witosz (2005) and Wojtak (2004a, 2004b). Thus, describing obituaries in the light of the theory of speech genres consti-tutes the main objective of the analytical part of the present study. This chapter, however, is restricted to the findings of contemporary analyses of the obituary genre which were carried out mainly within the scope of media studies, sociology and cultural studies. These analyses, though not purely linguistic, shed light on the most conspicuous features of the obituary genre and, consequently, cannot be ignored in the analysis of this genre within the scope of linguistics and, in particular, within the axiological approach to broadly understood speech genres.

The remarks presented in the paragraphs above indicate the auton-omy, importance and daily press provenance of the obituary – a speech genre with a various extent of internal complexity. The complexity of the obituary results from its drawing on a kind of synthesis of various other genres, which is clarified by Fowler (2007: 43) in the following way: “Thus the obituary appears as a form with certain internal tensions,


derived from its synthesis of spiritual biography, epitaph, testament and heraldic certificate.” However, among genres which contribute to the ge-neric pattern of the obituary it is the biography which seems to make the greatest impact on the characteristics of the obituary genre. Starck (2006: XI) clarifies that the evolution of the obituary makes it acquire the status of the “authoritative biographical portrait enlivened by anec-dote,” and he further states that obituaries function as “instant biography, the first verdict of society” (2006: 9). In a similar vein, Fowler (2007: 8) regards the obituary in terms of “a biographical form” as well as in axi-ological terms as “an overall verdict on a life” (2007: 11). By describing obituaries as a sort of verdict, Starck (2006) and Fowler (2007) clearly indicate the axiological profile of this genre. However, as was mentioned above, the issue of the axiological profile of obituaries, though raised within the domain of sociology and media studies, has been thoroughly examined and clarified neither from the perspective of the modern theory of genre analysis nor of the holistic approach (Bartmiński 2006) to axiological semantics.

Despite the strong link with biography as well as with elements of other genres such as the news story, essay, death notice, epitaph and eu-logy, the genre of the journalistic obituary developed its own specificity and, as Starck (2006: 46) affirms, it “has distanced itself from a number of literary conventions.” First, however, the difference between the news story and the obituary needs some clarification, as the boundary between them seems to bear crucial importance for defining the journalistic obituary genre and indicating its distinction.

3.1. Correlations between obituaries and news stories

The main difference between the standard news story about a person’s death and the obituary, as Starck (2006) explains, lies in the focus: the for-mer is primarily concerned with the details of someone’s death whereas the latter is focused more on the subject’s life-course and its appraisal rather than on the circumstances of one’s death. The primary focus of obituaries on one’s life-course is clearly indicated not only by researchers such as Starck (2006) and Corona Marzol (2006), the second of whom wrote that: “The very obituary, headline included, is not about death. It is about life” (Corona Marzol 2006: 119), but also by newspaper editors, e.g. the former chief editor of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper,


David Bowman (1997, quoted in Starck 2001), who “argued that the best obituaries […] ‘capture life’” rather than death.

The different focus of obituaries and standard news stories about a person’s death marks the differences in the pragmatic character of these two genres of journalism. This character refers to the pragmatic func-tion understood in the present study as a realisation of the rhetorical aim of the genre, i.e. its communicative intention. Such an intention is regarded, e.g. by Grochowski (2004), as the main factor of genre distinc-tion: the communicative intention determines and justifies the composi-tional, thematic, stylistic as well as axiological features of speech genres.

Despite this different focus of news stories and obituaries, the latter still draw on “a set of news imperatives which can best be considered within these six domains: fame, association with fame, single acts of no-toriety, heroism, villainy and eccentricity” (Starck 2006: 107), and this has turned out to be a strong tendency shaping the content of modern obitu-aries (Starck 2006: 120). However, Bytheway and Johnson (1996: 223) emphasise that, in contrast to many other articles in the newspapers, obituaries, in general, do not function as news from yesterday. This fuzzi-ness of the boundary between news stories and obituaries results from the fact that in some cases an obituary text, as Starck (2004: 22) explains, may represent “an amalgam of the obituary and the news story in style,” where the “angle” sometimes highlights the circumstances of the death of the subject and sometimes emphasises that subject’s life. Nevertheless, despite the lack of a clear-cut boundary, the distinction between obituar-ies and news stories still seems to be taken into account by the editors of broadsheet national daily newspapers, e.g. The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent as well as The Times, which results in putting news stories of one’s death within news columns and obituaries within a separate section devoted to obituaries, tributes and death notices. This means that editorial practice in many cases acknowledges a different status of the obituary and of the news-story about someone’s death.

The boundary between obituaries and news stories can be illustrated with examples, taken after Starck (2004: 23), from American and British press, respectively. The first pair of accounts to be presented here concern William E. Colby, the former director of the CIA, whereas the second pair of accounts refer to Professor Phil Williams, a solar terrestrial physicist. After the body of William Colby was discovered, the New York Times


published two articles within the obituary columns: the first, classified as a news story, related the circumstances of his death and, thus, carried the headlines “Body of William Colby is found on riverbank”; the sec-ond, in turn categorised as an obituary, showed up with the headlines “William E. Colby, 76, head of CIA in a time of upheaval,” which high-lighted a focus on the subject’s career. The same approach can be noticed in the case of Professor Phil Williams, whose death was accounted for in The Times within the news section under the headlines “Politician dies of heart attack in massage parlour,” whereas his career was described in the newspaper’s obituary columns under the headlines “Politician devoted to the wellbeing of Wales who also had a wider scientific vision.”

The above-mentioned examples make it clear that the boundary between death-focused news stories and career-focused obituaries can be indicated by their headlines, which draw the readers’ attention either to the circumstances of one’s death or to the intricacy of the subject’s life, in particular that person’s career. The different accentuation of the life/death parameter can result not only in different thematic choices but also in stylistic differences between the news-story about the death and the obituary which is to encapsulate that person’s life. Using Starck’s (2006: 8) expressions, it may be stated that despite the more candid approach to recounting the subject’s life, as postulated by obituarists, i.e. journalists specialising in writing obituaries, the obituary is still more likely to present the deceased person with a measure of digni-fied euphemism, whereas the style of the news story tends to be rather blunt, describing one’s death in rather unsparing terms, i.e. in a factual, plain manner (Starck 2006: 7–8). The differences of focus put either on the details of someone’s life or on the circumstances of his/her death, which, in turn, affects the thematic as well as stylistic choices, can be said to constitute the staple of differentiation between these two genres. Consequently, obituaries cannot be described just as news stories about one’s death because, despite being driven by the news value, they still bear their own autonomy and differ from news stories with regard to stylistic as well as thematic tendencies.

3.2. Correlations between obituaries and biographies

After addressing the thematic and stylistic tendencies of news stories and obituaries, the correlation between biographies and obituaries now


requires some illumination. A biography can be regarded as a staple ele-ment within the obituary genre, which is defined as an instant biography, an authoritative biographical portrait (see Starck 2006), or a biographical form (Fowler 2007). The biographical character of the obituary is also confirmed by Bytheway and Johnson (1996: 219), who wrote that “obitu-aries are a kind of biography, providing both objective factual informa-tion (e.g. date of death) and a narrative which presents the subjective view of the obituarist.” The obituary genre, however, is distanced from the genre biography in that it is “– by its newspaper manifestation – more urgent in demeanour than the biography” (Starck 2006: 46). This quota-tion may imply that the obituary heavily relies on properties of the bi-ography and, at the same time, retains its own specificity which results, at least partly, from editorial practice as determined by the deadline and space limit imposed upon the text within obituary columns; this, in turn, may result in its form being more concise than that of a full biography presented elsewhere.

The place of the obituary genre within media discourse and, conse-quently, the set of news story imperatives which still influence the choice of the subject and content of obituary pages lead to a more general and selective portrayal of the subject’s life within obituaries than the one found in detailed biographies. Even if the obituary contains all the sig-nificant milestones of one’s career, or manages to present particular facets of one’s life in detail, the overall picture still bears a more selec-tive and general character in comparison to biographies published, for instance, in the form of a diary or in-depth study of one’s life and career. The character of the obituary is implied by the term miniature biography (Starck 2006), where the adjective miniature indicates such a general and selective depiction of the subject’s life-trajectory. Moreover, the thematic structure of texts realising the obituary genre, i.e. the linear and hierar-chical order of the so-called categories of obituary information (Hume 2000), draws on news story imperatives and fulfils the informative function of the text rather than the aesthetic function characteristic of literary biographies or the expressive function typical of various diaries.

The present discussion on the correlation between the obituary and biography contains rather general remarks which will be further elaborated in Chapter 5, subchapter 4.1. This discussion is only to stress the indispensable link between obituaries and biographies as a staple


element of the former as well as the relative autonomy of obituaries as a genre of feature journalism.

3.3. Correlations between obituaries and eulogies

The obituary as a genre of commemoration-focused journalism bears significant resemblance to the eulogy: a genre which constitutes an ex-pression of grief as well as a positive evaluation of the deceased, usually in the form of an oration presented at a memorial service and/or funeral ceremony. The expression of positive judgements about the dead belongs to the core definition of the genre eulogy, which is implied by its very name because the term eulogy comes from the Greek notion of: “eulogia ‘praise’, from eu- ‘well’ + -logia ‘speaking’, from logos ‘discourse, word’, from legein ‘speak’. Eu legein meant to ‘speak well of.’”19 Thus the ety-mology itself indicates the prevailing axiological character of eulogies, i.e. a positive presentation of the deceased. Such an axiological tendency makes eulogies and obituaries similar to one another, especially when considering the fact that the “default” mode of commemoration in obituaries, as was mentioned in subchapter 2.2, is still a positive one or at least a neutral one. This similarity is very clearly seen between eulogies and eulogy-like obituaries, which Starck (2001) calls folksy eulogies and which tend to be written by members of the family or acquaintances of the deceased and, consequently, tend to draw upon positive emotional language and personal reminiscences of the deceased person.

Another similarity to be noticed between the genres of eulogy and obituary concerns their occurrence in two kinds of public discourse: offi-cial and (rather) unofficial, (rather) private. This differentiation in the case of the eulogy genre concerns two factors: (1) reference to highly official, public discourse, e.g. memorial services of famous scientists, political and/or religious leaders, services attended by representatives of the govern-ment, local authorities, etc., and (2) reference to public though rather fa-miliar discourse as limited to a memorial service and/or funeral ceremony attended by the relatives, friends and/or acquaintances who knew the de-ceased person. Such a differentiation implies a scale with various degrees of formality and/or informality of texts realising the genre of eulogy.

Similarly, the obituary, despite its occurrence within media discourse, also refers to the two different poles of the scale of formality/informality.

19 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eulogies [ED 27.11.2013].

Subcategories of the obituary genre 71

Referring to these two poles, i.e. formal vs. informal, can be justified at least partly by the authorship and degree of subjectivity and/or objectiv-ity of presenting the content. Obituaries may be written by professional obituarists as well as by family, friends or just acquaintances of the de-ceased. Consequently, the propositional content concerning the subject can be presented in a more objective, rather neutral tone, as in the case of professional obituaries, or in a subjective emotional manner, which can be clearly seen in the case of homespun obituaries (see Starck 2001). Thus the different extents of formality and informality which go on a par with the parameter of objectivity/subjectivity characterise both genres, i.e. obituaries as well as eulogies. However, in the case of eulogies it is not only a matter of authorship but also the various extent of (in)formality of the communicative event itself which shapes and is shaped by the me-morial service dedicated to the subject.

Among the common features of texts realising the genres: the obitu-ary and eulogy, respectively, it can also be noticed that they both draw on the subject’s life account and can present milestones of the person’s career, such as various achievements, accomplishments, granted rewards, char-ity initiatives, etc. However, eulogies and obituaries cannot be equated with each other because of the following core differences:

1. the obituary reflects daily press provenience whereas the eulogy concerns mainly an oral presentation at a funeral or memorial service;

2. the difference mentioned in the first point results in further dif-ferences of the style and composition of the two genres;

3. the subjective, emotional tone of presenting the deceased person appears to be much stronger and frequent in the case of eulogies than in the case of obituaries.

These general remarks, however, are to be further clarified because here they only indicate the problem of the adherence of the obituary to the genre of eulogy, which still lacks an analysis from the perspective of the linguistic theory of genre studies.

4. Subcategories of the obituary genre

The obituary, which the previous subchapters clarified by pointing to its adherence to other genres such as the news story, biography and


eulogy, appears to be even more complex when the variety of its textual realisations is taken into account. It is significant to notice that although the journalistic obituary genre shows its own specificity, it is not confined to one textual realisation restricted by a clear-cut set of compositional, thematic as well as stylistic principles subordinated to a given rhetorical aim. On the contrary, scholars, e.g. Starck (2006), and Moses and Marelli (2003), emphasise the erratic character of the style of obituaries. This means the obituary genre can be realised by texts of a different infor-mative, stylistic and literary value, with stronger or weaker adherence to other genres, e.g. news-story-focused vs. eulogised type. The inner differentiation of the obituary genre also concerns the appraisal factor determining the axiological facet of the genre. However, before ad-dressing the axiological profile of obituaries, their stylistic and thematic categorisation needs to be clarified.

4.1. Stylistic and thematic categories of obituaries

The various types of obituary texts justify attempts to distinguish the subgenres of the obituary, which can be juxtaposed with one another as follows:

1. snapshot obituaries vs. in-depth portraits of character study (see Starck 2006);

2. standard news obituary vs. feature obituary (see Harrower 2009); 3. professional journalistic obituaries vs. family authored eulogistic

obituaries (see Starck 2006; Moses, Marelli 2003). Although these juxtapositions correlate with one another, they highlight different aspects of textual realisations of the obituary genre in the press.

The first of the juxtapositions as enumerated above draws on a differ-ent degree of schematism and originality in the writing of an obituary. Starck (2006) describes boilerplate-type obituaries in terms of snapshots because of their highly formulaic and predictable construction pat-tern. Obituaries adhering to the snapshot formula constitute a sort of “informed biography in brief ” (Starck 2006: 226) which is characterised by strong adherence to the template, i.e. a predictable set of themes such as, for example, personal identification, the formative years (education and/or military service), occupation, a list of achievements, the date of death and surviving family members presented in a pre-given order. More creative obituaries, in turn, are what Starck (2006: 228–229) calls


the portrait and are juxtaposed with the laundry list of life representing the snapshot type (Starck 2006: 224–228). Instead of offering a sort of extended curriculum vitae, the portrait-like obituaries offer a character study often by applying rhetorical means such as anecdotes, quotations, first-person reminiscences and, as Hume (2000), Fowler (2007) and Starck (2006) clarify, juxtapositions and comparisons with celebrities and national icons. Thus obituaries falling under the rubric of in-depth character appraisals represent a higher news value and a higher standard of literary journalism. The axiological potential of such obituaries also appears much more substantial and clearer to recognise than in the case of their snapshot-like pattern.

In contrast to Starck’s juxtaposition of highly formulaic CV-like snap-shot obituaries and more creative portraitures enriched with anecdotes, the second of the aforementioned differentiations between the standard news obituary and feature obituary, as found in Harrower (2009: 93), does not only draw on the different extents of template adherence, details of character study and rhetorical means of their presentation, but first of all on the category of the subject to whom an obituary is dedicated. The standard news obituary is more likely to cover celebrities and promi-nent people in order to highlight their prominence and significant impact upon society, whereas feature obituaries cover stories of the Everyman and, thus, are referred to as a “‘common man (or woman)’ feature obit” (Harrower 2009: 93). The choice of the subject to be described within the obituary bears stylistic as well as thematic consequences, which can be clearly seen in feature obituaries whose style, in contrast to standard news obituaries covering eminent and/or famous figures, “is looser, friendlier, and full of curiously engaging details:

Ruby Anderson was a tomboy […]. She used onion tops for straws, scared off lynxes while bringing home the cows and made tepees out of birch bark.” (Harrower 2009: 93)

This also means more candour and intimacy in the feature common-man obituary than in the standard celebrity-type obituary (see Harrower 2009: 93). The differentiation between news and feature obituaries over-laps, at least partly, with the third type of differentiation: professional journalistic vs. family authored obituaries. Although this classification also implies the category of the subject to be presented within the obituary


columns of the newspaper, it mainly refers to the category of the author of an obituary. Both categories, i.e. the author – the professional obituarist, member of the family or simply an acquaintance of the deceased person, as well as the category of the subject correlate with each other and determine the communicative intention and mode of commemoration in particular textual realisations of the obituary. The communicative intention, re-garded as a rhetorical aim, exerts an impact on the compositional, stylistic and thematic profile of obituaries as well as their axiological properties.

However, apart from general remarks on style and thematic choices, the obituary genre and its different categories still lack a proper linguistic description from the perspective of genre analysis. The differentiation of obituaries, made on the basis of subject category, author category as well as adherence to the template and/or creativity factor, must be based not only on sociological findings and analyses within media stud-ies. Such a differentiation must also draw on further analyses by means of the methodology of speech genre analysis, which can shed light on the correlation between linguistic, textual, compositional as well as the-matic choices made by an obituary writer. That is why the present study is to fill in, at least partly, the gap in genre description of the obituary and to further clarify the issue of the variety of obituary realisations, in particular from the axiological perspective.

4.2. Axiological categories of the obituary genre: negative vs. positive mode of recollection

The axiological aspect of the obituary genre concerns the appraisal factor and, consequently, constitutes this genre’s crucial feature because an ap-praisal, be it positive, negative or rather neutral, is regarded as one of the most conspicuous and crucial characteristics defining the obituary. The axiological profile of the modern obituary refers mainly to such is-sues as:

1. evaluations of the deceased person and his/her various accom-plishments;

2. ways of expressing such evaluations, i.e. whether the axiological judgements are expressed explicitly or rather implied by the text, which means that the text realising the obituary genre can incline readers to create and assign given value judgements to various entities, processes and actions concerning the deceased person;


3. linguistic, i.e. systemic, and textual means of axiological assess-ments expressed in the text of the obituary.

The axiological profile of the obituary, however, has not been given proper attention yet. The various works mentioned in the present chapter which have the obituary genre as their focus, though referring to the ap-praisal factor as one of the constitutive elements of this genre, provide only general remarks on the factor, i.e. remarks resulting from editorial practice and/or scholarly research within the field of sociology or media studies, but not linguistics and, in particular, speech genre analysis.

Contemporary obituaries can realise a positive as well as negative appraisal of the deceased. They are not confined to a sort of accolade written in the form of a newspaper article but realise and at the same time are realised by critical discourse through offering a more candid narrative and description of the subjects’ lives, in particular their career. Such a candour in referring to both the positive features and attainments of the subjects as well as to their frailties and flaws results from subversion of the traditional premise de mortuis nil nisi bonum which roughly means “one should not speak ill of the dead” (see Starck 2006: 69). The obituary genre substitutes the traditional rhetoric based on the aforementioned principle for a new, more candid approach based “on the premise that if people were not saints when alive, neither should they so be judged when dead” (Whitman 1980: xiv, quoted in Starck 2005: 407). Such a frank approach to the depiction of obituary subjects is also confirmed by the editors of obituary columns: Miller (2001), for example, said: “We must speak well of the dead, we must speak ill of them too,” and Bowman (1997) expressed this premise in less sparing terms: “[…] no ungenerous tone, but no amnesty for obvious sins either, no stuffy reverence” (both quoted in Starck 2001).

Subversion of the premise “not to speak ill of the dead” is often detected at the level of undertones: “understated subtexts […] subtly transforming a celebratory recollection into an indictment” (Fowler 2007: 17). However, as Fowler further asserts, the most common mode of commemoration that is offered by obituaries, their “‘default’ model,” still constitutes “the traditionally positive or neutral form, close to the eulogy” (Fowler 2007: 17); nonetheless, she further claims that there is a second, negative mode of recollection that proves to be indispensable for a proper comprehension of certain obituaries. It is also Hume (2000)


who in her work titled Obituaries in American Culture writes that “obitu-aries might include character traits both good and bad, the ideal as well as the negative model” (2000: 109).

Fowler (2007: 19) highlights the inclination of the obituary genre towards “celebration than defamation,” the positive appreciative type, and states that it can be best noticed in case “its ‘rules’ are flouted.” De-fying the traditional positive mode of commemoration can be noticed in three classes of obituaries referred to by Fowler (2007) as negative, tragic and ironic, respectively. Negative obituaries constitute “the con-verse of the appreciative mode” (Fowler 2007: 19) because they undercut “the obits ostensible objective: to praise” (Fowler 2007: 18). Subversion of the prevalent mode of commemoration appears to be in tune with editorial premises yet not necessarily with practice: premises stating that obituaries should draw on a genuine critical assessment which sometimes sheds an unfavourable light on the subject’s career or even whole life-course. The subject of negative obituaries can be perceived as “the fallen or ‘the other’” (Fowler 2007: 18), i.e. the one who subverts the social, political and/or ethical order; in contrast, the subject of tragic obituaries is not classified as a villain or demagogue but rather as a victim of tragic circumstances, some misunderstandings and mistakes (Fowler 2007: 20).

The choice of the subject as well as the character of the recollection of the deceased person: the positive, negative, ironic or tragic mode, both result in thematic, compositional and stylistic consequences, for the mode of commemoration makes a significant impact on the choice of thematic content of particular texts realising the obituary genre as well as on ways of expressing this content within the text by linguistic, i.e. systemic, textual as well as compositional means. Hence the axi-ological charge and content of the text correlate with each other because, on the one hand, value judgements presupposed by the obituarist can substantially influence his/her stylistic, thematic as well as particular compositional choices and, on the other hand, the choice of the thematic content and ways of its expression in the text may induce readers to recognise and create their own valuations of phenomena presented in the text. Thus there are two perspectives to distinguish:

1. the perspective of obituary writers: their knowledge of the sub-ject chosen to be commemorated in the obituary as well as


the axiological assumptions concerning a positive, negative or rather neutral type of the subject’s depiction;

2. the perspective of readers who can be induced by the text, i.e. its topic framework, style and composition, to recognise particular value judgements referring to the subject, his/her career and all other phenomena presented in the text.

The assessments made by the reader do not have to comply with the axiological judgements of the obituary writer, who might have tried to express them explicitly or imply them within the text. The axiological potential of the text never depends only on the writer or reader – it results from the cultural, linguistic and textual competence of both of them, embracing, among others, a repertoire of genres. Writers embody in the text their thematic, stylistic, compositional and axiological premises, and readers decipher the propositional content of the text by means of their general knowledge of the world and, in particular, of the language and culture they represent. Such a semantic axiological encoding on the part of the obituary writer and decoding on the part of the reader require a detailed analysis of editorial practice and sociological analysis of the reception of obituary art.

The present study, however, though relying on findings from other fields of the humanities, mainly media studies and sociology, is primarily concerned with linguistic and textual phenomena which can clarify and justify the axiological potential of contemporary obituaries, i.e. axiologi-cal tendencies marked by their thematic, compositional, linguistic and textual properties. All of these properties correlate with the semantic and pragmatic facet of the text, i.e. its communicative intention. Thus the present study is of both a practical and theoretical nature, for it draws on a number of samples of obituaries published in British newspapers and presents a theoretical reflection on the axiological tendencies of the obituary genre, i.e. tendencies reflected in particular texts. The axi-ological issue of the obituary, herein only indicated, is to be illuminated in the subsequent analytical Chapters 3–5.

Concluding remarks

After taking into consideration all of the definitions and categorisations of the obituary as presented in this chapter, the following description


comprising possibly all significant features of the obituary genre can be suggested: the obituary represents a creative, non-fictional and retrospective piece of writing which falls within the genres of literary journalism. This genre constitutes a kind of appraisal, usually a posi-tive one, of the person who lived and his/her accomplishments and achievements. The obituary genre tends to draw mainly on conventions of the news story, biography, eulogy as well as death notice. Research on the obituary genre as represented by the present work as well as by works by authors such as, for example, Starck (2006) and Corona Marzol (2006), emphasises the main focus of obituaries on the life lived rather than on the death: in other words, texts realising the obituary genre pres-ent someone who lived rather than someone who died.

The creative character of obituaries stems from compositional, thematic, stylistic, i.e. linguistic as well as textual and pragmatic choices made in order to express or imply propositions and axiological judge-ments. The obituary genre can be realised either as a report-like profes-sional journalistic piece of writing or as the so-called homespun obitu-aries (Starck 2001). Report-like obituaries constitute a kind of generic and axiological opposition to homespun obituaries, which Starck (2001) calls folksy eulogies, for they are not written by professional writers but by the family members or acquaintances of the deceased and, conse-quently, they tend to draw more on the affective function rather than on the informative function of the text. Some of these various realisations of the obituary genre and their definitions are elaborated further on in the present work.

Chapter 3

The delimitation frame of obituaries

The delimitation frame of obituaries is likely to embrace the following structures: headlines, biobox and photos with sub-photo lines. Headlines form a sort of concise announcement of and introduction to the main textual body of the article, whereas the biobox constitutes a concise, epitaph-like piece of information on the subject’s profession and life-span, i.e. the dates of his/her birth and death. Photos with sub-photo lines, in turn, illustrate as well as complement the propositional content of the main textual body of obituaries and thereby may influence se-mantic decoding of their text. The structural and thematic properties of obituary headlines are herein regarded in terms of their correlation with pragmatic and axiological factors: a correlation understood as the mu-tual impact of the formal and functional properties shaping the text of headlines as well as the text in general.

The most general goal of the present chapter is to clarify and exemplify on the basis of newspaper obituaries the fact that elements of the delimi-tation frame can be regarded as textual means of expressing axiological judgements. They do not only accompany the main body of the text to attract readers’ attention and to provide them with a sort of insight into the content, but they also impact the process of text interpretation; thus, structures of the delimitation frame may influence the readers’ attitude to phenomena presented within the text as well as to the text itself.

1. The notion of delimitation frame and its general features

The notion of delimitation frame denotes all signals which mark the bound-ary of the text and enable readers to decode the text as a coherent whole.

The delimitation frame of obituaries80

Therefore, the delimitation frame can be regarded as the initial and final structures of the text (see Lotman [1970] 1977) which make it possible for the reader to recognise the text as a macro-sign20 as well as to recon-struct its content and global sense, i.e. the global semantic interpretation of the text regarded as a macro-sign strongly correlates with recognising its structural integrity, which to a considerable extent is determined by the delimitation framework. This strong link between the delimitation frame and the structural and semantic integrity of the text is clarified by Dobrzyńska ([1971] 2004), whose remarks, though concerning works of literature, can be applied to an analysis of texts from other registers of language. She states that:

The structural description of a literary work is not possible without at least subconscious recognition of the signals of the beginning and the end [of that work – T. W.]. Awareness of the semiotic function of delimitation elements is also significant with regard to the fact that it [this function – T. W.] complements the semantic interpretation of dif-ferent levels of the literary work as a semiotic structure.21 (Dobrzyńska [1971] 2004: 53, translation mine – T. W.)

When regarding the text as a coherent whole with a global sense, it can be stated that the delimitation frame, owing to its meta-textual char-acter, offers insight into the propositional content of the text as well as, in given cases, clues to its generic classification. In other words, various genres have developed and/or adopted particular conventions of their delimitation, which means that the “delimitation devices of a particular shape contribute to the characteristics of a given genre and participate in the evolution of the genre”22 (Dobrzyńska [1971] 2004: 53, transla-tion mine – T. W.). The role and significance of delimitation categories

20 Bartmiński (1998) regards the text as a linguistic macro-sign exceeding the level of a sentence and functioning as an integral, structured, semantic and communicative whole; the macro-sign which represents a certain genre and style.

21 “Opis strukturalny utworu jest niemożliwy bez podświadomego choćby odebrania znaków początku i końca. Świadomość znakowej funkcji elementów delimitują-cych jest istotna także z tego względu, że dopełnia semantyczną interpretację róż-nych płaszczyzn utworu literackiego jako struktury znakowej” (Dobrzyńska [1971] 2004: 53).

22 “Delimitatory o określonej postaci wchodzą do charakterystyki danego gatunku i uczestniczą w ewolucji tego gatunku” (Dobrzyńska [1971] 2004: 53).

81The notion of delimitation frame and its general features

in the description as well as categorisation of speech/text genres is also highlighted by Żarski (2008), who states:

In the description of genres and their categorisation, particular sig-nificance is assigned to categories of the delimitation frame as well as to meta-linguistic expressions that control the process of text reception and facilitate generic identification.23 (Żarski 2008: 71, translation mine – T. W.)

The remarks mentioned so far indicate at least four basic functions of delimitation categories, i.e. the structural, semantic, pragmatic and generic function. Using cognitive terminology (Langacker 1987), it can be stated that the structural function of the delimitation frame consists in profiling the text as a more or less coherent region, a macro-sign, in a cognitive domain and its subdomain(s): the cognitive domain of texts is understood here as the whole textual universum, and the subdomain of such a universum in relation to which obituaries are recognised con-cerns the domain of the press. The semantic function, in turn, consists in conveying a kind of insight into the thematic content of the text, whereas the pragmatic function is to draw the readers’ attention and to encourage them to read the main body of the article as well as to facili-tate the process of text-decoding by providing insight into the text and clues for the identification of its genre. Hence, the pragmatic function of the delimitation frame is tightly connected with its semantic and generic function, the latter of which concerns the conventionality of structures delineating the text as a whole and the generic competence of the addres-sors and addressees who produce and decode texts according to certain conventions. Thus, the greater the degree of conventionality the delimi-tation frame of a given class of texts represents, the easier and faster it is to identify that class and to recognise its genre and/or genres. The four functions of the delimitation framework of the text are tightly intercon-nected, which justifies their clarification with respect to one another.

The significance of the delimitation frame to characterise the genre and to recognise it among other generic models of utterances can be clearly noticed in the case of texts realising the obituary genre in the press: the frame of these texts constitutes one of the most salient features of 23 “W opisie gatunków i ich kategoryzacji szczególnego znaczenia nabierają kategorie

ramy delimitacyjnej oraz wyrażenia metajęzykowe sterujące procesem recepcji tek-stu i ułatwiające gatunkową identyfikację” (Żarski 2008: 71).


their genre. However, the generic specificity of the delimitation frame of obituaries does not lie in the exclusive uniqueness of structures and their properties within such a frame but rather in their combination, cognitive salience and the extent to which they are conventionally linked with the genre and contribute to its description and recognition. That is to say, various genres may even share the same features and, at the same time, differ from one another with respect to the way in which those features contribute to their distinctiveness, both at the global level as well as at particular sub-levels such as, for example, the one discussed here, i.e. the delimitation frame of the obituary. Hence, for the sake of empha-sis, the following remark from the first chapter needs to be recalled: it does not have to be the unique character of the features themselves characterising given aspects of the genre and its structures but rather the “relative prominence, combination and function [of these features – T. W.] which are distinctive” for particular structures within the genre and the whole genre itself (Neale 1980, quoted in Chandler 1997: 2).

Hence, the distinctive character of the delimitation frame of obituar-ies does not result only from the unique combination of formal structural properties, such as double-deck or one-deck headlines, sub-photo lines and the biobox (a term described by Starck (2006)), regarded as the final segment of the delimitation frame, nor does it result from simply seman-tic and pragmatic properties, i.e. propositional content and its function. On the contrary, the distinctiveness of the delimitation frame of obituar-ies draws upon a characteristic combination of all of the aforementioned structures and properties representing various aspects of genre organisa-tion. Nonetheless, it must be noticed that properties specifying a given aspect of the genre, e.g. its structure, can be regarded as more significant for distinguishing this genre than properties from other levels, e.g. the-matic or stylistic, which, however, does not contradict the contribution of all levels of genre organisation to its characterisation and identification.

At the end of this theoretical and methodological introduction to the present chapter it appears necessary to specify the status of delimita-tion categories in relation to the main textual body they delineate. This status and correlation with the main textual body can be described in terms of the paratext and metatext (Loewe 2007). The paratext comes from Genette’s ([1987] 1997) terminology, whereas the term metatext was applied by Wierzbicka ([1971] 2004) and fulfils a similar function in

83The notion of delimitation frame and its general features

the textual analysis as the notion of meta-language in linguistic systemic descriptions. According to Genette ([1987] 1997), paratexts embrace all textual material which accompanies the main body of a given text as a sort of textual escort. Such a textual escort makes the main text more available to the general public and influences reception of the text by giv-ing the gist of the story and direct/indirect remarks on its interpretation. Paratexts are further divided by Genette ([1987] 1997) into peritexts and epitexts, the former of which denote “paratextual material adjacent to a text,” whilst the latter point at the paratextual material “subsequent to it” (Gorman, quoted in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 419). Peritexts can be illustrated by, for example, titles, mottos and a foreword, whereas epitexts can be exemplified by reviews, summaries, interviews with the writer, etc.

The remarks on paratexts make it clear that the textual structures constituting the delimitation frame of obituaries would belong, in Ge-nette’s ([1987] 1997) terminology, to the category of peritexts because they appear simultaneously with the main text of obituaries and, thus, fulfil the condition of being adjacent to the main textual body. The term adjacent denotes the relation: X next to Y, in the neighbourhood of Y, which means that a peritext X being adjacent to a text Y does not belong to the main body of that text but rather to its metatextual surrounding. However, it must be stressed that in the case of newspaper obituaries this surrounding, i.e. the frame, constitutes an integral part of the whole news-paper article perceived as a multi-code entity. It is the whole article that constitutes a textual realisation of the obituary genre, and not just the main textual body of the article. Obituaries find their textual manifestation in whole newspaper articles, which can be regarded as multi-code complex macro-signs consisting of the main textual body with its peritextual and metatextual escort: the headlines, biographical summary called the biobox or summary endpiece and iconographic elements, i.e. photos of the subject to whom the obituary is dedicated or other photos accompanied by sub-photo lines which somehow complement the main text of the obituary.

To sum up, the delimitation frame is understood in the present study in terms of peritextual and metatextual structures which delin-eate a given text and enable its interpretation as a more or less coherent whole. Moreover, owing to its metatextual character and conventional-ity, the frame tends to provide insight into the thematic content of a text and to indicate its generic qualifications, which may also embrace


the axiological tendencies of texts realising a given genre. The signifi-cance of the delimitation frame for generic characterisation of a given class of texts can be clearly noticed in the case of headlines of obituaries, which are thoroughly described in subsequent subchapters.

2. Headlines and their features

Headlines constitute a kind of introduction to the whole newspaper article for they provide readers with “the gist of the story” and, by at-tracting the readers’ attention, encourage them to read the main text (Corona Marzol 2006). This double function of headlines makes it clear why they occupy a strategic position in the newspaper article. Moreover, besides this double function, headlines may also enable readers to iden-tify the genre that is realised by the text to which these headlines refer. In other words, the properties of headlines can be genre-characteristic and, thus, they can contribute to the identification of genres.

The contribution of headlines to the generic categorisation of obituaries is confirmed by Corona Marzol (2006: 124), who asserts that: “It has also become clear that headline writing practice in obituaries differs substantially from other forms of print media.” Hence the char-acteristics of obituary headlines contribute to distinguishing obituaries from other genres of the print media. Corona Marzol (2006) further clarifies that the specificity of obituary headlines lies in their composi-tional features which correlate with their linguistic realisation. Corona Marzol (2006: 124) makes it clear that obituary headlines are determined by what she calls their brevity and communicative functionality: (1) to present the gist of the story and (2) to attract readers’ attention and to encourage them to read on. However, it must be stated that besides these two widely recognised functions, headlines can also set the axiological perspective, i.e. either a positive or negative outlook for the subject mat-ter presented within the text. This means that the headlines of obituaries do not only identify individuals by their names and describe them in terms of their profession, social roles and/or personal attributes, but also explicitly or implicitly shed either a positive or negative light on the sub-jects and their life-story described within the main body of the article. The headlines of obituaries may bias readers for or against the subject as well as the facts from his/her life as presented in the main text that is escorted by these headlines.

Headlines and their features 85

Summing up, it must be stressed that the headlines of obituaries fulfil the following functions: informative, pragmatic, axiological and generic. The informative function consists in the fact that headlines con-stitute a sort of insight into the content of the text and enable readers to form preliminary premises about the content. The axiological function results from the fact that headlines also present the individual to whom an obituary is dedicated either in a positive, rather positive, rather nega-tive or negative light, which induces readers to form some axiological premises concerning the subject matter of the main text. The generic function, in turn, means that the headlines can enable and facilitate the reader to identify the genre of the text to which they refer. The three functions, informative, axiological and generic, justify the pragmatic function which consists in drawing the readers’ attention and inducing them to read the main text. All of these functions determine, to a certain extent, the structure and graphic pattern as well as thematic categories of obituary headlines: the issues of the first two are addressed below.

2.1. Structural properties of obituary headlines

The claim that the compositional and linguistic features of obituary headlines can be regarded as characteristic of the genre is justified by the high frequency of occurrence of particular syntactic structures used to represent thematic categories within the headlines as well as the graphic arrangement of these structures which fulfils a significant role in attracting readers’ attention.

The structure of obituary headlines, as Corona Marzol (2006: 120) clarifies, is based on two “decks”: the main headline and the small headline – the former identifies the subject by his/her name(s), some-times nickname and/or title, whereas the latter elaborates on the main headline by describing the subject with regard to his/her profession, social and political role and various attainments – pieces of informa-tion which justify the presence of the subject within obituary columns. However, it must be noticed that the headlines of obituaries do not have to necessarily represent a double-deck type, i.e. they may also rep-resent a one-deck type, as can be seen, for example, in The Independent. Nonetheless, even if based on the one-deck structure, they still consist of two sections formally distinguished from each other by the colon. The function of these two sections overlaps with the function of


Tabl

e 1.

Exa

mpl

es o

f the

obi

tuar

y he

adlin

es fr

om th

e Br

itish

pre

ss

The I

ndep

ende

ntTh

e Gua

rdia

nTh

e Tel

egra

phTh

e Tim

esR

icar

do M

onta

lban

: M

r Roa

rke

of ‘F

anta

sy Is

land

’ w

ho ch

ampi

oned

Lat

inos

in

the

film

and

tele

visio

n in

dust

ry(T

om V

alla

nce,

Thur

sday

, 5

Febr

uary

200

9)

Susa

nna

Fost

erH

olly

woo

d so

pran

o be

st

know

n fo

r her

star

ring

role

in

Phan

tom

of t

he O

pera

(Ron

ald

Berg

an, Th

ursd

ay

22 Ja

nuar

y 20

09)

John

Mar

tyn

Sing

er-s

ongw

riter

who

pla

yed

with

and

influ

ence

d a

gene

ra-

tion

of m

usic

ians

(29

Jan

2009

)

Eva

Han

agan

: lat

e-flo

wer

ing

nove

list o

f soc

ial s

atire

s(M

ay 8

, 200

9)

Bill

Frin

dall:

Lon

g-se

rvin

g sc

orer

on

‘Tes

t Mat

ch S

peci

al’

(Ang

us F

rase

r, Tu

esda

y,

3 Fe

brua

ry 2

009)

Sir M

icha

el Q

uinl

anLe

adin

g st

rate

gist

in th

e M

oD

durin

g th

e C

old

War

, and

de-

fend

er o

f nuc

lear

det

erre

nce

(Ric

hard

Mot

tram

, Mon

day

2 M

arch

200

9 )

Inge

r Chr

iste

nsen

Prol

ific p

oet w

ho e

xper

imen

t-ed

with

num

ber s

eque

nces

as

wel

l as w

ords

(26

Jan

2009

)

Pete

r Ped

die:

law

yer w

ho

secu

red

rele

ase

of U

S ho

stag

es

in Ir

an(M

arch

18,

200

9)

Nor

a K

ovac

h: P

rodi

giou

s H

unga

rian

balle

rina

who

de-

fect

ed to

the

Wes

t in

1953

(Mia

Nad

asi,

Wed

nesd

ay,

18 F

ebru

ary

2009

)

Noa

h Lu

cas

Polit

ics a

nd h

istor

y le

ctur

er

who

wro

te a

sem

inal

boo

k on

Is

rael

(Geo

rge

Man

del,

Frid

ay

6 M

arch

200

9)

Tony

Har

tA

rtist

who

crea

ted

the

Blue

Pe

ter l

ogo

and

wen

t on

to

insp

ire m

illio

ns o

f chi

ldre

n th

roug

h hi

s ow

n te

levi

sion

prog

ram

mes

(18

Jan

2009

)

Aud

rey

Roc

he: W

ren

of-

ficer

dec

orat

ed fo

r res

cuin

g a

drow

ning

seam

an(M

arch

16,

200

9)


the aforementioned main headline and small headline within double-deck obituary headlines.

Structures which dominate within obituary small headlines or their equivalents within one-deck headlines embrace elaborate noun phrases, where the nominal head can be pre-modified by adjectives, nouns fulfill-ing an adjectival function as well as participles; the nominal head can also be post-modified by prepositional phrases and participle clauses or relative clauses introduced by the relative pronouns who/whose, which is exemplified in Table 1.

The most elaborate nominal group within the small headlines of the obituary can realise the following schema as put forward by Corona Marzol (2006: 121) in the following way: Epithet/s + Classifier/s + Thing/s + Qualifiers [minor or/and major processes], where the qualifiers, as the author states, may refer to embedded clauses as well as prepositional phrases. The large number of such extended nominal structures within obituary headlines results from their communicative functionality. Co-rona Marzol (2006: 123) asserts that small, not elaborate headlines “fail to fulfill headlines’ double function of attracting the reader’s attention and giving the gist of the story. Short headlines are hardly informing and definitely not tempting or intriguing.”

This high frequency of elaborate nominal structures within obituary headlines does not mean that these headlines constitute a homogeneous category which, besides noun phrases, blocks all other structures. On the contrary, obituary headlines can also realise other structural patterns, though less prototypical for their characterisation, such as, for example, noun phrases followed by simple non-embedded clauses, which can be illustrated by the headlines in the obituaries of Barry Letts and Henry Gibson: “Barry Letts obituary: Actor, director and producer, he secured his place in TV history with Doctor Who” (The Guardian, 12.10.2009) and “Henry Gibson: A versatile character actor, he excelled as a singer in Robert Altman’s Nashville” (The Guardian, 24.09.2009). In these two examples, though not post-modified by relative clauses, the noun phrases are still elaborated by non-embedded simple clauses which provide further details about the subject presented within the nominal phrase. A more prototypical form of these two headlines, however, would look as follows: “Actor, director and producer who secured …” and “A versatile character actor who excelled as …” or: “A versatile character actor excelling as …”


Some headlines of obituaries, instead of making use of either more or less elaborate noun phrases with embedded relative and/or participle clauses, or noun phrases followed by non-embedded clauses, may also function just as simple clauses which do not follow any nominal phrase. Structures which may shape the global composition of headlines of obituaries and the number of headlines based on such structures in the samples analysed for the purpose of the present study is presented in the table and diagram below:

Table 2. Structural patterns of the obituary headlines

Types of headlines of obituaries

Number of obituary headlines divided according to their structural types

and the newspapers they representThe Independent The Guardian The Telegraph The Times

Headlines in the form of noun phrases with nominal heads modified by relative clauses

96 25 61 86

Headlines in the form of noun phrases with nominal heads modified by participial clauses

13 11 9 1

Headlines in the form of noun phrases with nominal heads modified by prepositional phrases

26 31 4 6

Headlines in the form of noun phrases with nominal heads only premodified

0 5 1 1

Headlines in the form of finite clauses

2 20 8 0

Total no. of headlines from a particular newspaper

137 92 83 94

The data from the table above is presented in the following diagram to show the structural potential of obituary headlines as analysed for the purpose of the present work:


Figure 3. Structural patterns within obituary headlines (analysed for the purpose of the present study)24

A reader who is familiar with the genres of print media as well as with the various editorial practices used by newspapers can recognise, on the basis of the characteristics of headlines, not only the genre that is realised by the text to which these headlines refer but also, in many cases, the newspaper from which these headlines come. Th is means that a de-scription of the metatextual frame of obituaries draws upon two interre-lated fi elds: the fi eld of generic properties and the fi eld of editorial practices as applied by newspapers. Th e fi eld of generic properties refers to such phenomena as: rhetorical aim and compositional, stylistic, thematic as well as axiological tendencies, whereas the fi eld of editorial practices refers to variants of textual realisations of obituaries and their graphic pattern.

It is also worth mentioning that obituary articles in the American newspapers, Th e New York Times and Th e Philadelphia Inquirer, herein referred to for the sake of emphasising the diversity of structural patterns of headlines of obituaries, realise obituary headlines as relatively short, not elaborate noun phrases which, besides the name and surname of the deceased person and his/her occupation, also state the age of the de-ceased person. Th e Sydney Morning Herald, in turn, diff ers from all of the above-mentioned British and American newspapers in that it fi rst

24 Th e data presented in this diagram and in the table preceding it shall be regarded as the outcome of the case study analysis whose main objective is to illustrate the main structural properties of obituary headlines in major British national newspapers. Th us this implies the necessity to carry out further, more detailed analyses of a larg-er sample of headlines of obituaries from the international perspective.


puts in its obituaries a headline informing about the reason for the per-son’s fame and then the name of the deceased person and the years of his/her birth and death.

Table 3. Examples of the obituary headlines from the American and Australian press

The New York Times The Philadelphia Inquirer The Sydney Morning Herald

Marie Knight, Rich-Voiced Gospel Singer, Dies at 89By WILLIAM GRIMES(September 2, 2009)

Harold B. Pough, 100; owned camera shopsBy Walter F. Naedele (Oct. 26, 2009)

A selfless heart that stood up for the disabledSeptember 10, 2009Nicky Chapman, 1961–2009

Robert Spinrad, a Pio-neer in Computing, Dies at 77By JOHN MARKOFF (September 6, 2009)

Soupy Sales, 83; slappy, sticky comic of kiddie TVBy David N. Goodman (Oct. 24, 2009)

Wagnerian great’s voice was a weapon of mass delightAugust 22, 2009 Hildegard Behrens, 1937–2009

Kathryn Kennedy, a Cali-fornia Winemaker, Dies at 82By BRUCE WEBER (September 4, 2009)

Joseph A. Fluehr Jr., 90; owned interior-design firmBy Walter F. Naedele (Oct. 28, 2009)

Paradise and pain both figured in his poetrySeptember 2, 2009 Alistair Te Ariki Camp-bell, 1925–2009

2.2. Thematic properties of obituary headlines

The propositional content of the headlines of obituaries tends to be deter-mined mainly by the following two factors: (1) by their commemorative and evaluative character and (2) by the addressor–addressee relations specified by mass media discourse which newspaper obituaries represent. The first factor means that the thematic choices shaping the propositional content of headlines within obituary articles are made not only to pres-ent but also to evaluate a given subject more or less explicitly/implicitly. The second factor indicates that this presentation and appraisal occur within mass media discourse and must appeal to the general public. As was mentioned in the previous subchapters, the content of headlines must win readers’ interest, which, in turn, justifies the news value pa-rameter that influences the thematic choices within the headlines as well


as in the text proper. That is why the headlines of obituaries do not only announce the subject via thematic categories such as the subject’s name, surname and, in some cases, title or military rank that had been granted, but they also tend to present some of the most newsworthy elements in one’s biography which may justify the subject’s fame, in some cases even his/her infamy, and/or significance by mentioning the subject’s note-worthy attainments within a given domain, e.g. science, art, medicine, education, social matters, politics, military affairs, etc.

Although the thematic categories which fulfil the aforementioned function within obituary headlines mainly embrace one’s occupation as well as accomplishments connected with that occupation, in some cases the headlines present the subjects’ function/role which does not directly indicate their profession but rather prominence and/or attitude toward some issues, e.g. political and social, which can be illustrated by nouns such as: pioneer, founder, champion, patron, mogul, activist, campaign-er, etc. Such tendencies for propositional content in obituary headlines also indicate cognitive domains and the domain of value with respect to which the subjects tend to be assessed on a bi-polar (+)–(−) axiological scale, which constitutes the horizontal dimension of each axiological domain. The cognitive domain frequently evoked within obituary head-lines concerns the sphere of human activity, which embraces all possible trades and professions as well as the activities and accomplishments somehow connected with particular occupations. Such a cognitive do-main tends to overlap with the axiological domain, i.e. with valuations assigned more or less conventionally to a variety of human activities and their outcomes, especially those specifying one’s profession/occupation. Axiological assessments within obituary headlines mainly concern such features as: usefulness, perfection, originality, fame, significance and prominence, which are conventionally assigned to occupations and/or particular activities concerning these occupations. Value judgements specify the appraisal factor of obituaries and their headlines, which is further explained in subchapter 2.3.

2.3. Axiological properties of obituary headlines

The axiological parameter of obituary headlines can be specified in terms of their news value and the appraisal factor: the former justifies dedicat-ing an obituary to a noteworthy subject and presenting the subject in


an interesting and “catchy” way, the latter concerns the presentation of the subject in a more or less favourable, or even unfavourable, light. These two parameters, i.e. the news value and the appraisal factor, correlate with each other because, as was already mentioned, a particular appraisal of the subject and his/her accomplishments relies on the thematic choices that are determined by the news value.

The news value of the headlines of obituaries should be regarded in a different way than the news value assigned to headlines in standard news stories. The headlines of obituaries, unlike those of news stories, do not have to present the most recent newsworthy facts, e.g. the tragic death of a celebrity, but rather facts selected from the subject’s biography: facts that are newsworthy with respect to the legacy left behind by the subject to posterity: his/her achievements, accomplishments, intellectual and/or spiritual workload, etc. Thus, this newsworthiness of headlines of obituaries relies upon the selection and presentation of facts from one’s life-course that might appeal to the general public because of their sig-nificance and/or at least interesting character that might attract readers’ attention. That is why, for the sake of emphasis, it should be repeated that although both the character and impact of the news value of obituary headlines differ from the news value of headlines within standard news stories, this value still underpins the stylistic and thematic choices which express and/or imply axiological judgements. It can be stated that obitu-ary headlines constitute axiologically charged and attention-drawing mini-profiles of individuals described within obituary columns.

The appraisal factor of obituaries can be regarded in terms of the axi-ological charge which is conditioned by the news value of the proposi-tional content that must attract the interest of the general public. Thus the appraisal within the headlines of obituaries results from the thematic choices that draw on such values as those already mentioned, i.e. the use-fulness, perfection, originality, fame, significance and prominence of someone’s attainments, deeds and attitudes to given phenomena. These general values can be further specified with respect to more particular assessments, e.g. X (the obituary subject and his/her legacy) is useful, significant, popular, original and/or professional with respect to the aes-thetic, cognitive, social value, etc. Nonetheless, the aforementioned list of such general values tends to constitute the axiological base which results from and at the same time impacts the thematic and stylistic choices within the headlines of obituaries.


Axiological judgements, besides being characterised with respect to the type of value and the sign of valuation, can also be specified with re-gard to the way in which they are expressed. They can be expressed either explicitly / rather explicitly by linguistic systemic means of expressing value judgements or implicitly / rather implicitly by the propositional content itself, i.e. a particular selection of facts which constitute that content. In the case of such an implicit valuation the value judgements, though not expressed by linguistic means, result from inferences that can be drawn from the text by readers owing to their cultural competence as well as general knowledge of the world.

Of the 401 headlines that were taken into account here, 164 head-lines can be classified as those whose axiological potential is conveyed implicitly / rather implicitly just by the thematic choices within their propositional content. Such a valuation is primarily pragmatic because its recognition requires knowledge that is broader than just a linguistic one, i.e. cultural competence and general knowledge of the world which enable one to draw proper inferences from the text, i.e. conclusions which might be axiologically charged. The present remarks also make it clear that of the 401 headlines used in the analysis, 237 can be regarded as representing an explicit / rather explicit type of valuation, i.e. one which tends to be expressed within obituary headlines by linguistic means, primarily such as adjectives, participial adjectives, participles within non-finite clauses post-modifying the nominal heads as well as axiologically charged nouns and verbs.

Figure 4. Axiological potential of obituary headlines (analysed for the purpose of the study)


Figure 4 shows the percentage of both classes of headlines differ-entiated with respect to the character of their axiological potential, i.e. headlines with a predominant implicit valuation of the subjects and/or their attainments as well as those where an implicit valuation somehow co-occurs with the explicit/rather explicit axiological assessment.

2.3.1. Explicit valuation within obituary headlinesThe explicit valuation within the headlines of obituaries as analysed for the purpose of the present study relies mainly on lexical means which tend to occur within the noun phrases as premodifiers and postmodi-fiers of their nominal heads. Nonetheless, in given cases the axiological assessment can be expressed by the nominal head itself rather than by its modifiers. As was mentioned in subchapter 2.3, linguistic systemic means of expressing axiological judgements which tend to occur within the headlines of obituaries embrace adjectives, participial adjectives, participles within participial clauses as well as axiologically loaded nouns and verbs, i.e. verbs which often occur within relative clauses modifying their nominal antecedent which often refers to the subject to whom the obituary is dedicated.

The aforementioned linguistic means can fall within various seman-tic and functional categories which are distinguished on the basis of the cognitive salience of descriptive and evaluative aspects of the mean-ings conveyed by these means. In other words, linguistic means can be differentiated with respect to their primary function and described either as primarily descriptive, primarily evaluative or descriptive-and-evaluative (compare with Puzynina 1983). The present study makes use of the notion of primarily evaluative linguistic means instead of purely evaluative means and, similarly, instead of purely descriptive the notion of primarily descriptive linguistic means, for the evaluative and descriptive elements of the semantic structure are always somehow interconnected with one another, though in given cases either the former or the latter are primarily raised to the level of cognitive salience. The aforementioned means of expressing valuation within the headlines of obituaries are il-lustrated by examples in Table 4.

The examples presented in Table 4 illustrate axiological assessments conveyed by primarily evaluative as well as evaluative-and-descriptive lexical items. The primarily evaluative linguistic means indicate a sign

Headlines and their features 95Ta

ble

4. E

xam

ples

of t

he o

bitu

ary

head

lines

with

the

pred

omin

ant e

xplic

it va

luat

ion

of th

e ob

ituar

y su

bjec

t

The G

uard

ian

The I

ndep

ende

ntTh

e Tel

egra

phTh

e Tim

esA

ldo

Cro

mm

elyn

ckPr

e-em

inen

t lat

e 20

th ce

ntur

y pr

intm

aker

, he

mad

e hi

s nam

e w

orki

ng w

ith P

icas

so (S

atur

-da

y 31

Janu

ary

2009

)

Ian

Gre

aves

: Bus

by B

abe

who

be

cam

e a

resp

ecte

d m

anag

er(S

atur

day,

10 Ja

nuar

y 20

09)

Bill

Frin

dall

Scor

er fo

r Tes

t Mat

ch S

peci

al

reno

wne

d fo

r his

accu

racy

an

d pr

odig

ious

reca

ll of

cric

ket

fact

s and

figu

res (

01 F

eb 2

009)

Prof

esso

r Aag

e Bo

hrEm

inen

t Dan

ish p

hysic

ist

who

, lik

e hi

s fat

her N

iels

Bohr

, w

on th

e N

obel

Priz

e fo

r his

rese

arch

into

the

stru

ctur

e of

th

e at

om (S

epte

mbe

r 11,

200

9)Jo

hn U

pdik

e, 1

932-

2009

Acc

laim

ed w

riter

with

an

un-

errin

g fe

el fo

r the

poe

try

of

ordi

nary

Am

eric

an li

fe(T

uesd

ay 2

7 Ja

nuar

y 20

09)

Ala

in B

ashu

ng: R

ever

ed

singe

r and

act

or d

escr

ibed

as

‘the

gen

tlem

an ro

cker

of

Fren

ch ch

anso

n’(W

edne

sday

, 18

Mar

ch 2

009)

Jam

es L

ock

Soun

d en

gine

er lo

ved

by cl

as-

sical

mus

icia

ns fo

r his

acou

stic

kn

ow-h

ow(1

5 M

ar 2

009)

Serg

ei M

ikha

lkov

Cel

ebra

ted

poet

, pla

ywrig

ht

and

auth

or w

ho w

as a

dmir

ed

by S

talin

and

wro

te th

e So

viet

an

d Ru

ssia

n na

tiona

l ant

hem

s(S

epte

mbe

r 10,

200

9)Pa

t Hin

gle

US

char

acte

r act

or w

ith a

dis

-tin

guis

hed

care

er o

n st

age

and

scre

en(T

uesd

ay 2

7 Ja

nuar

y 20

09)

Nor

a K

ovac

h: P

rodi

giou

s H

unga

rian

balle

rina

who

de-

fect

ed to

the

Wes

t in

1953

(Wed

nesd

ay, 1

8 Fe

brua

ry

2009

)

Cla

ude

Berr

iPr

oduc

er a

nd d

irect

or w

ho

brill

iant

ly ap

plie

d H

olly

woo

d m

etho

ds to

reso

lute

ly F

renc

h th

emes

(2

3 Ja

n 20

09)

Jean

Rey

nold

sG

ifted

tenn

is pl

ayer

and

all-

roun

d sp

orts

wom

an w

ho b

e-ca

me

a le

adin

g sp

orts

adm

in-

istra

tor a

nd cr

eate

d a

beau

tiful

ga

rden

(Sep

tem

ber 1

4, 2

009)


The G

uard

ian

The I

ndep

ende

ntTh

e Tel

egra

phTh

e Tim

esO

lga

Lepe

shin

skay

aEx

uber

ant R

ussia

n ba

llerin

a an

d st

alw

art o

f the

Bol

shoi

no

ted

for h

er fa

bulo

us le

aps

(Sat

urda

y 24

Janu

ary

2009

)

Mic

k Im

lah:

Poe

t acc

laim

ed

for t

he th

emat

ic ra

nge

and

exub

eran

ce o

f his

wor

k(M

onda

y, 19

Janu

ary

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of valuation, i.e. either the positive (+) or negative (−) pole of the axi-ological scale with respect to which given entities are evaluated, but they do not explicitly specify the aspect of evaluation, e.g. hedonistic, vital, social, economic, cognitive, ethical or spiritual (see Laskowska 1992), or at least it can be said that specifying the aspect of valuation does not con-cern their primary function. Such means of axiological assessment are represented by the following adjectives from the examples in the table above: pre-eminent, eminent, genial, respected, acclaimed, distinguished, celebrated, revered. All of them describe the given individuals in positive terms, though the aspect of valuation must be deduced from the context, which can be clearly noticed in the headlines in the obituary for Profes-sor Aage Bohr: “Eminent Danish physicist who, like his father Niels Bohr, won the Nobel Prize for his research into the structure of the atom” (The Times, 11.09.2009). In these headlines the primarily evaluative adjective eminent together with the descriptive adjective Danish pre-modifies the nominal head physicist, which is, in turn, post-modified by the relative clause: who, like his father Niels Bohr, won the Nobel Prize for his research into the structure of the atom. The premodifier eminent sheds a positive light on the individual introduced as a physicist; however, it is the relative clause that justifies such a positive evaluation and implies its aspect: here possibly cognitive, pragmatic and the value of perfection.

The positive evaluation that is directly expressed within the afore-mentioned headlines as well as its aspect implied by the context can be explicated in the following axiological formula: X (the physicist) is assessed positively (X is eminent) with respect to values V: cognitive (his research enriches knowledge on the structure of the atom), pragmatic (his research is useful), the value of perfection (his research must have resulted in an excellent outcome as he won a Noble Prize for it). Thus, this example represents the explicit as well as (rather) implicit axiologi-cal valuation: the former expressed by the primarily evaluative adjective eminent, whereas the latter by the relative clause. The explicit evaluation, i.e. the one based on primarily evaluative linguistic means, does not oc-cur within obituary headlines on its own; on the contrary, it co-occurs with the implicit valuation. That is why the issue of explicit valuation cannot be analysed without taking into account an implicit axiological assessment, which may specify the aspect of valuation.


The issue of indicating the positive (+) or negative (−) sign of valu-ation by primarily evaluative lexical items and specifying the aspect of evaluation by the context can also be illustrated by the obituary headlines of Aldo Crommelynck: “Pre-eminent late 20th century printmaker, he made his name working with Picasso” (The Guardian, 31.01.2009) as well as of Alain Bashung: “Revered singer and actor described as ‘the gentle-man rocker of French chanson’” (The Independent, 18.03.2009). The ad-jectives pre-eminent and revered explicitly reflect the positive sign of value judgements which are assigned to the entities being evaluated, i.e. in the former example to the individual presented as a printmaker and in the latter to the individual introduced by means of the co-ordinate nomi-nal phrase singer and actor. The nominal heads of the noun phrases in these two examples do not only denote the occupation of the individuals but, together with their modifiers, they also imply the aspect of valuation, e.g. the nominal phrase pre-eminent printmaker evaluates the individual with respect to his professional skills and, consequently, implies a posi-tive assessment of his work, whereas the expression revered singer and song-writer reflects the positive values assigned to the individual’s artistic activities for which he is revered, i.e. adored and respected, which also cast a positive light on the artist himself, i.e. as a singer and song-writer. The axiological judgements that are possible to detect within these two headlines, the sign of which is explicitly expressed by the lexical means while the aspect is implied by the context, can be explicated as follows:

1. X (printmaker) is assessed positively (X is pre-eminent) with re-spect to values V, e.g.: perfection (the context implies the excel-lence of his professional skills) and social values (he made his name working with Picasso, which implies his fame among people);

2. X (singer and actor) is assessed positively (X is revered) with re-gard to values V, e.g.: perfection (revered singer and songwriter is the one whose work is regarded in terms of artistic excellence) and emotive values (revered singer and songwriter is the one who finds acclaim among the public).

It is significant to notice that though the sign of valuation in the case of these two axiological judgements is obligatory, the types of aspect of valuation seem to be rather facultative. This does not mean that the aspect of evaluation is not implied by the text but only indicates the facultative character of the aspect of valuation, i.e. particular types


of value with regard to which a given entity is judged. Consequently, though readers are not induced by the text to recognise values other than positive in the two headlines described above, they can infer from the text various aspects of this positive evaluation, which depends on their general knowledge of the world and on cultural competence on the basis of which they decode the text.

Apart from adjectives of a primarily evaluative function, the explicit positive evaluation within the obituary headlines can also draw upon adjectival phrases which do not only evaluate given entities in positive or negative terms but also indicate more or less explicitly the aspect of evaluation due to their descriptive character, e.g.:

1. Olga Lepeshinskaya Exuberant Russian ballerina and stalwart of the Bolshoi noted for

her fabulous leaps (The Guardian, 24 January 2009)

2. Keith Floyd Genial and talented chef who lacked a head for business but, usu-

ally with a glass in hand, transformed television cookery shows (The Telegraph, 15 September 2009)

3. The Reverend Canon John Fenton: Gregarious priest, teacher and scholar of the New Testament (The Independent, 6 March 2009)

4. Deborah Riedel: Versatile lyrical soprano admired in Europe and the United States (The Independent, 21 March 2009)

The adjectives exuberant, genial and gregarious, which premodify nominal heads within the aforementioned noun phrases, can be classified as evaluative-and-descriptive lexical items, for they do not only clearly state the positive sign of value judgements referring to particular indi-viduals but also attribute certain features to these individuals: features which together with the sign of valuation constitute the central, most conspicuous elements of their semantic structure. The lexemes exuberant, genial and gregarious evaluate individuals in a positive manner as well as indicate particular features justifying this valuation. The evaluative-and-descriptive semantic character of these lexical items is clarified by their dictionary definitions quoted here after Oxford Dictionaries25 online:

25 http://oxforddictionaries.com/ [ED 17.01.2011].


1. exuberant: “full of energy, excitement, and cheerfulness”;2. genial: “friendly and cheerful”; 3. gregarious: “fond of company; sociable”;4. versatile: “able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions

or activities.”Individuals described by means of these adjectives within the above-

mentioned headlines can be assigned the following axiological judgements:

1. X (Russian ballerina) is assessed in positive terms (X is exuber-ant) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. vital value: her being exuberant means she is lively, full of

energy;b. emotive value: an exuberant person is cheerful, full of positive

feelings/emotions that might exert a positive impact upon the psychological condition of others;

c. social value: these values are implied by remarks in (b): some-one who is exuberant is likely to get on well with others.

2. X (television chief) is assessed in positive terms (genial and tal-ented as well as the one who had no head for business, but, usually with a glass in hand, transformed television cookery shows) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. emotive value evoked by the adjective genial: someone re-

garded as genial is cheerful, kind and amiable; thus, he/she tends to exert a positive impact on the emotions and feelings of others;

b. social value evoked by the adjective genial: someone perceived as genial is regarded as the one who tends to get on well with people;

c. value of perfection referred to by the adjective talented: being talented/gifted means having great skills and often knowledge to do something very well;

d. cognitive value: it is implied in (c), being talented within a par-ticular domain of interest can mean having excellent knowl-edge of or at least intellectual potential in this particular field of interest.

3. X (priest, teacher and scholar) is assessed positively (X is gregari-ous) with respect to values V, i.e.:


a. social value: him being gregarious means he is sociable, en-joying company;

b. emotive value: one who is perceived as being gregarious tends to be liked by people;

c. cognitive value: this value is herein implied by the series of nouns referring to functions/professions that X fulfils, i.e. someone who works as a priest, teacher and scholar must have outstanding skills as well as knowledge to carry out his duties.

4. X (versatile lyrical soprano) is assessed in positive terms (X is admired) with respect to values V, here at least:a. emotive value: someone who is admired influences admirers’

emotions in a positive way; b. value of perfection: a versatile artist can take up a great variety

of functions and activities, his/her repertoire expresses a wide range of interests and, thus, talents which enable the artist to fulfil those interests.

It is important to notice that in the above-quoted headlines from the obituary dedicated to Deborah Riedel, axiological judgements are expressed not only by means of the adjectives versatile and lyrical, which describe and may to a certain extent evaluate the subject, but also the axi-ological judgements are explicitly triggered by means of a participial clause: admired in Europe and the United States. Participial clauses fall within the so-called shortened constructions (Gethin 1996: 89), which can be substituted with corresponding full relative clauses. Such constructions constitute characteristic elements of media discourse, for they can convey a great deal of information clearly and concisely, which can be illustrated by the following examples of headlines of obituaries taken from Table 4:

1. Mick Imlah: Poet acclaimed for the thematic range and exuberance of his work (The Independent, 19 January 2009)

2. Willy Ronis: Photographer celebrated for his documentary and reportage work of the mid-20th century (The Independent, 15 Sep-tember 2009)

3. Bill Frindall Scorer for Test Match Special renowned for his accuracy and pro-

digious recall of cricket facts and figures (The Telegraph, 1 February 2009)


4. James Lock Sound engineer loved by classical musicians for his acoustic know-

how (The Telegraph, 15 March 2009)

The participles within the participial clauses in the examples above belong to primarily evaluative linguistic means, i.e. means which indi-cate either the positive or negative sign of valuation they express but do not highlight the aspect of valuation, which requires a further context to be recognised. Participles such as acclaimed, celebrated, admired, renowned, loved explicitly and directly indicate a positive valuation of the individual being described within the above-mentioned headlines. The aspect of this valuation, however, is specified by the content of the prepositional phrases which follow the aforementioned participles. Putting this in more specific terms, the propositional content being expressed by the prepositional complement of these phrases provides the reason for valuation, which is here positive.

Moreover, the evaluations present in the five examples mentioned above fall within two categories, i.e. the direct and indirect type. Al-though the distinction between direct and indirect types of evaluation may partly overlap with the distinction between explicit and implicit types, they should be differentiated from one another. The distinction of direct vs. indirect valuation refers to the object of valuation, which can be assigned axiological assessments directly or indirectly, whereas the distinction of explicit vs. implicit valuation refers to the extent of the cognitive “visibility” of axiological judgements present within a text. The direct and indirect as well as explicit and implicit type of evaluation can be clearly noticed in the following explications of the axiological potential of the five above-mentioned examples of obituary headlines:

1. X (a poet) is assessed in positive terms (X acclaimed for …) with respect to values V, e.g.: a. cognitive value: the thematic range of his work regarded as one

of the reasons for the poet’s acclaim implies that these works might be perceived as a rich source of themes and the issues reflected in them; consequently, this justifies the cognitive value assigned to such works, i.e. their epistemic worth. These values, however, are directly assigned to the poet’s works and only indirectly to him at the level of the following


inference: if X is praised for the thematic range of his works, he himself must have been intelligent and curious enough of the world to find and apply such a wide range of themes to his works; the worth of his works for which he is acclaimed also sheds a positive light on him as a poet;

b. emotive value: X is acclaimed for the exuberance of his works, which means they are likely to cheer up or enliven the read-ers; here, as in the case of cognitive values in (a), the valua-tion also directly concerns works which are exuberant and indirectly the poet by virtue of the following inference: if X creates exuberant works, he himself might be an exuberant type of person, i.e. one who enlivens people, and this sheds a positive light on him.

2. X (photographer) is assessed in positive terms (X is celebrated for his reportage work) with respect to values V, e.g.: a. emotive value: if someone is celebrated for his/her work,

the results of the work exert a positive impact on viewers’ emotions, and even their feelings and opinions, for celebrated means greatly admired and renowned, as is stated in Oxford Dictionaries26 online;

b. value of perfection and aesthetics: if someone is celebrated for his/her work, the results of the work must be perceived as excellent, which also sheds a positive light on the author of such works.

3. X (scorer for the test match special) is assessed in positive terms (X is renowned for …) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. value of perfection: his accuracy and prodigious recall of

various facts from the history of cricket justify and in a way confirm his excellent memory and knowledge of this game, which also implies a positive valuation with regard to cogni-tive values;

b. cognitive value: his prodigious recall of cricket intricacies makes him a great source of information on cricket;

c. social value: being renowned means being recognised by a considerable number of people, which implies one’s existing in the social awareness.



4. X (sound engineer) is assessed in positive terms (X is loved by …) with respect to values V, e.g.: a. emotive value: X is loved by his fans, which means he exerts

a positive influence on their feelings, emotions; b. cognitive value: X is regarded as a source of information on

acoustic intricacies, i.e. on acoustic know-how; c. pragmatic value: X’s knowledge on acoustic know-how is

something he is loved for; consequently, such knowledge tends to be perceived as a benefit for others;

d. value of perfection: being loved for one’s abilities by classical musicians implies a high standard of these abilities.

Similarly to primarily evaluative adjectives, the participles from the par-ticipial clauses within the aforementioned headlines require that the con-text specify the aspect of valuation and the reason behind it.

Apart from axiological judgements which are evoked by adjectives premodifying nominal heads within noun phrases, or participial clauses functioning as postmodifiers within elaborate nominal phrases, valua-tions within obituary headlines are also likely to be expressed by nouns themselves. This is illustrated by the following examples taken from Table 4:

1. Graham Stanton An authority on the New Testament, he was a gifted theologian

(The Guardian, 13 September 2009)

2. Beryl Chitty Former deputy high commissioner in Jamaica who was an expert

on Commonwealth issues (The Times, 10 September 2009)

3. Geoffrey Tozer Child piano prodigy who became an artist of brilliance and depth

(The Guardian, 6 September 2009)

4. Robin Potts QC who became one of the leading company law specialists of his

day, in demand in Britain and overseas (The Times, 9 September 2009)

5. Olga Lepeshinskaya Exuberant Russian ballerina and stalwart of the Bolshoi noted for

her fabulous leaps (The Guardian, 24 January 2009)


Nominal heads such as authority, prodigy, expert, specialist and cham-pion represent lexemes which describe as well as evaluate the individuals to whom they refer explicitly and in positive terms. An explication of the semantic and axiological structure of these nouns could include the following formula: If you describe someone as X (e.g. an authority), you approve of him/her with respect to values V. This approval and its aspects, i.e. values on which the approval is based, constitute a pivotal el-ement of the semantic structure of the nouns listed above, which means that the approval factor does not belong to the peripheral elements of the semantic structure of such nouns but, on the contrary, it belongs to the centre of their semantic structure. The semantic structure is regarded here as a cognitive radial category (Lakoff 1987) with a centre defining the most salient features and peripheries including the less salient fea-tures of an entity or entities denoted by the lexical item (compare with Lakoff 1987; Kleiber [1990] 2003). The central position of the approval factor built in the semantic structure of nouns in question is highlighted by their dictionary definitions, quoted here after Oxford Dictionaries27 online – the following entries correspond to the meanings in which these nouns occur in the examples above:

1. authority: “a person with extensive or specialized knowledge about a subject; an expert”;

2. prodigy: “a young person with exceptional qualities or abilities”;3. expert: “a person who is very knowledgeable about or skillful in

a particular area”;4. specialist: “a person highly skilled in a specific and restricted field”;5. stalwart: “a loyal, reliable, and hard-working supporter of or par-

ticipant in an organization or team.”The definitions include adjectives such as exceptional, skillful, knowl-

edgeable, skilled and reliable, which evaluate someone’s abilities, knowl-edge or character explicitly and in positive terms; hence they present the bearers of such gifts in a positive light. In other words, the definitions of nouns listed above justify and confirm the positive sign and aspect of axiological judgements that tend to be evoked by the meaning of such nouns. A positive appraisal of the subject in the five headlines presented above, based on axiologically charged nouns, can be clarified by means of the following explications:



1. X (an authority on the New Testament, a theologian) is assessed positively (X is an authority, X is gifted) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. cognitive value: being an authority means having great

knowledge/expertise;b. social value: an authority has a privileged status within soci-

ety, or at least a given milieu.2. X (former deputy high commissioner in Jamaica, an expert on

Commonwealth issues) is assessed positively (X as an expert) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. cognitive value: X, being an expert, is knowledgeable, skilful;b. value of perfection: being skilful, in turn, means being able to

do something well.3. X (child piano prodigy) is assessed positively with respect to val-

ues V, e.g.:a. value of perfection: being a prodigy means having exceptional

abilities within a certain field of interest – describing the sub-ject as a child piano prodigy implies his excellent skills of play-ing the piano;

b. cognitive value: a prodigy, a child piano prodigy, has outstand-ing knowledge in a particular area, here music.

4. X (QC) is assessed in positive terms (X regarded as one of the leading company law specialists of his day) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. cognitive value: being regarded as a specialist means that X

has great knowledge in a particular domain, here the domain of law/legislation;

b. value of perfection: a specialist is expected to perform tasks connected with his/her domain of expertise in a professional manner.

5. X (a Russian ballerina) is assessed in positive terms (X regarded as a stalwart of the Bolshoi) with respect to values V, e.g.:a. ethical value: regarded as a stalwart, X is considered to be

a loyal supporter/worker, here of the theatre she worked for;b. pragmatic value: X is thought of in terms of a stalwart, i.e.

a hard-working member of a theatrical team, helpful to the team;

c. emotive value: being a stalwart of the Bolshoi, X might be re-garded as a significant and respected member of the team.


The axiological judgements as explicated above represent valua-tions of individuals mainly with regard to their abilities and knowledge concerning various areas of human activities – politics: an expert on Commonwealth issues, the judicial system: a law specialist, the humani-ties: an authority on the New Testament, art: ballerina being a stalwart of the Bolshoi, or a child piano prodigy. In other words, all of these judge-ments draw mainly upon cognitive values emphasising the knowledge of the individuals as well as the value of perfection highlighting the ex-cellence of their expertise. These axiological judgements are expressed rather explicitly because they constitute cognitively and axiologically salient elements of the semantic structure of the nouns which express them. However, as was already mentioned, an explicit or rather explicit axiological valuation conveyed by the nouns as well as other linguistic means such as adjectives and participles does not tend to occur alone but rather co-exists with implicit / rather implicit valuation. The implicit valuation cannot be detected at the linguistic level but only at the level of inferences drawn from the text. It is clearly observed in those headlines where axiologically charged linguistic means specify the sign of valua-tion, whereas the co-text specifies the aspect of valuation; even if some linguistic means specify the sign and also aspect of valuation, the context is still required to confirm and somehow justify this valuation.

The indispensable role of context in specifying axiological valuation expressed within the headlines of obituaries, even in the case of explicit / rather explicit valuation, can be noticed in the following examples:

1. Professor Aage Bohr Eminent Danish physicist who, like his father Niels Bohr, won the No-

bel Prize for his research into the structure of the atom (The Times, 11 September 2009)

2. Ingemar Johansson Swedish world heavyweight boxing champion who beat Floyd Pat-

terson (The Guardian, 3 February 2009)

3. Jill Braithwaite: Archaeologist who advanced the study of Roman face pots (The Independent, 15 January 2009)

4. Patrick McGoohan: Actor who created and starred in the cult 1960s television series ‘The Prisoner’ (The Independent, 16 January 2009)


The axiological potential of the propositional content of these four headlines is expressed by linguistic systemic means, though it also occurs at the level of inferences to be drawn from the text by readers by virtue of their general knowledge, e.g. knowledge regarding the Nobel Prize and its positive connotations, of winning a boxing competition, information on scientific inventions and historical discoveries, the status of a film-star and star-role in the world of cinema and its positive associations, etc. Nonetheless, despite such a co-occurrence of axiological inferences and explicit valuation, the explicit valuation expressed by the linguistic sys-temic means appears salient enough to regard these headlines as textual structures which convey value judgements explicitly / rather explicitly, mainly by means of the following axiologically charged verbs, whose meanings are quoted after Oxford Dictionaries28 online:

1. win: “be successful or victorious in (a contest or conflict),” “ac-quire or secure as a result of a contest, conflict, bet, or other en-deavour”;

2. beat: “defeat (someone) in a game or other competitive situation”; 3. defeat: “win a victory over (someone) in a battle or other contest;

overcome or beat”;4. advance: “make or cause to make progress”;5. star: “(of a film, play, or other show) have (someone) as a princi-

pal performer.”The dictionary entries of these verbs make it clear that they constitute lexical items of a descriptive-and-evaluative character. The context of the headlines in which these verbs appear specify their axiological po-tential with respect to the sign and aspect of valuation. The axiological potential of headlines from The Times obituary for Professor Aage Bohr was already described within the present subchapter on page 97; hence only the axiological potential of the last three of the above-mentioned headlines, i.e. those presenting Ingemar Johansson, Jill Braithwaite and Patrick McGoohan, are further clarified below in the following axiologi-cal explications:

1. Notice that Z [X (Swedish world heavyweight boxing cham-pion Ingemar Johansson) did Y (beat Floyd Patterson)] and this evokes a positive valuation of X with respect to values V, pos-sibly a value of perfection and professionalism: to beat someone



in a competition might mean to be better prepared than the op-ponent, to have better skills and/or to apply better tactics.

2. Notice that Z [X (archaeologist Jill Braithwaite) did Y (advanced the study of Roman face pots)] and that directly means X im-proved studies on Roman face pots, which is explicitly indicated by the verb advanced and evokes a positive valuation with respect to values V, e.g. cognitive: to advance studies means to enrich knowledge, and the value of perfection and professionalism: to advance studies means to overcome impediments and to perfect studies up to a certain point.

3. Notice that Z [X (actor Patrick McGoohan) did Y (starred in the cult 1960s television series ‘The Prisoner’)] and that explicitly means that X (the actor) received the best role in that television series: he starred, which may also imply a positive valuation of his professional skills, i.e. a valuation with respect to perfection and professionalism.

To sum up, all of the axiological explications presented in this subchap-ter make it clear that the explicit and implicit valuations co-occur and correlate with one another in obituary headlines. Moreover, similar to the implicit valuation detected at the level of inferences which can be drawn from the text, the explicit valuation still needs a context which can specify the sign and aspect of value judgements. Even when value judgements are expressed explicitly / rather explicitly by lexical means, the context specifies the sense in which these means are used, especially in the case of polysemous lexical items, and, consequently, it specifies their axiological potential.

Moreover, it must be noticed that the genre of the modern obitu-ary does not seem to impose any clear-cut set of axiological prerequi-sites on obituary articles and their headlines; on the contrary, it offers rather than imposes a set of general axiological tendencies such as, for example, a still rather positive presentation of the subject and his/her attainments with respect to the following general values: usefulness, perfection, originality, fame, significance and prominence. As was mentioned at the beginning of subchapter 2.3, these general values can be further specified with respect to more particular axiological assess-ments: the object of valuation, be it the obituary subject and/or his/her particular attainments, may or may not be regarded as useful, perfect,


excellent, original, famous, significant, or prominent with respect to values V, i.e. cognitive, ethical, aesthetic, social, judicial, economic, etc.

However, unlike these general types of value, as listed above in bold, such particular assessments cannot be specified in terms of the more or less stable set of values which predominate within the axiological potential of obituaries and their headlines, but rather as an open set of axiological tendencies. This set of axiological tendencies is subject to change, for the reply to the question as to which valuation, (rather) posi-tive or (rather) negative, and with respect to which specific types of value – social, economic, ethical, judicial, etc. – predominates in the depiction of subjects in obituaries and is highlighted in their headlines does not depend on the model of the genre itself but rather on the broader expectations of the obituary readers and writers that the model of the genre reflects. These expectations concerning what might be called the axiology of presentation of obituary subjects are shaped by the ide-ological conditions of the times in which the obituaries, together with all other genres, are realised; this, in turn, impacts the selection of subjects and facts from their lives to be presented as newsworthy within obituary columns and emphasised in their headlines. This issue, however, requires further diachronic and contrastive analysis of textual realisations of obituaries from the perspective of discourse analysis focused on media and cultural studies as well as further axiologically oriented studies on speech genres.

2.3.2. Implicit valuation within obituary headlinesAfter describing the explicit / rather explicit valuation of subjects and their attainments within obituary headlines, the issue of implicit valu-ation within the headlines of obituaries should further be addressed. The right bar within Figure 4 at the beginning of subchapter 2.3 is speci-fied as referring to the predominant implicit valuation because it stands for all those obituary headlines whose axiological potential tends to be recognised by the reader mainly at the level of axiologically charged in-ferences. The inferences may be drawn from the text owing to the reader’s cultural competence and/or general knowledge that is broader than just knowledge required by basic linguistic competence. Such a pragmatic type of valuation can be illustrated by the following examples:


1. Professor Michael Majerus: Geneticist who defended Darwin in the battle against creationism (The Independent, 13 February 2009)

2. WD Snodgrass American poet whose works lay at the heart of the Confessional

movement (The Guardian, 30 January 2009)

3. Joan Bright Astley: Secretary to Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet (The Independent, 28 January 2009)

4. Nick Terry: Architect who led the redevelopment of the Royal Op-era House and the Royal Albert Hall (The Independent, 27 January 2009)

These four examples of obituary headlines seem to be purely descrip-tive because they identify individuals and report some facts from their life without any explicit commentary. However, these headlines cannot be regarded as deprived of any axiological potential, for even the choice of propositional content might be axiologically charged. In other words, the potential axiological assessment of the subject and his/her attain-ments is not explicitly expressed by linguistic means but is rather implied by the propositional content of the whole headlines. Value judgements are not objectively given in the text of such headlines, but they might be triggered by the text itself, i.e. the propositional content of a text can induce the reader to form value judgements concerning the subject and his/her attainments.

As was mentioned before, valuations and their character, either posi-tive or negative, depend on the readers’ general and specific knowledge and, in particular, on their cultural competence that is broader than just linguistic competence; for instance, possible value judgements concerning the subject and his actions in the above-quoted headlines from the obitu-ary for Professor Michael Majerus depend on the readers’ general knowl-edge and their opinions regarding Darwinism and creationism; only in the light of this general knowledge and personal opinions can readers evaluate the subject and his actions. A similar situation can be noticed in the case of the axiological potential of the above-quoted headlines of the obituary dedicated to the American poet W. D. Snodgrass: the valua-tion of his poetry depends here on readers’ special knowledge of and atti-tude to the Confessional Movement with which Snodgrass is associated.


Such axiologically charged inferences can be explicated according to the following formulae as proposed by Laskowska (1992: 26–27), which are herein slightly modified and translated into English as follows: (1) Notice that Z, i.e. [X did Y] and what X did is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V, and (2) Notice that Z, i.e. [X did Y] which im-plies that X is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V. The first of these formulae concerns an evaluation of the whole event/action [X did Y], whereas the second refers to the very subject of the action. Valuations of various subjects and their deeds can draw upon not only associations of these subjects with particular movements, as for example the association of W. D. Snodgrass with the movement of confessional poetry, and of Professor Michael Majerus with Darwinism, but also such implicit valu-ations can draw upon associating subjects with significant places and/or individuals, for example:

1. Notice that Z [X (Joan Bright Astley) did Y (worked as a secretary to Winston Churchill’s war cabinet)] and that might imply:a. a positive assessment of her job with respect to its significance

and prominence: values which result from the implication based on genius personae, i.e. the significance of a well-known figure, here Winston Churchill: work for such a significant political figure as Winston Churchill might imply the impor-tance and usefulness of the work itself to all of society and the whole country, which might imply positive social and po-litical values as well as the value of perfection of the very X, which is justified below;

b. a positive assessment of X herself based on the implication: X (Joan B. Astley) worked for Y (Winston Churchill) and this might imply a positive valuation of the subject’s skills with re-spect to perfection and usefulness allowing her to work for such a significant figure as Winston Churchill in his war cabinet.

2. Notice that Z [X (Nick Terry: architect) did Y (led the redevelop-ment of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall) and that might imply:a. a positive assessment of his accomplishment (what X did)

based on implications that draw on the genius loci, here the sig-nificance and prominence of the institutions such as the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall: the redevelopment of


such music and entertainment venues tends to be evaluated in positive terms with respect to their prominence, significance and usefulness for artistic performances made by eminent fig-ures as well as for the entertainment of the general public;

b. a positive assessment of the subject’s skills and thus position within the professional milieu which enabled him to lead the aforementioned architectural project of the redevelop-ment of such significant artistic venues as the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall.

These two axiological explications, which draw on the formulae as proposed by Laskowska (1992), do not only illustrate the potential axiological valuation of a particular individual and his/her attainments, a valuation based on inferences drawn from the text, but they also make it clear that such axiologically charged inferences can be recognised by readers only on the basis of their general knowledge of the world, here the knowledge of given institutions – the genius loci, the individuals – the genius personae, as well as knowledge of professions and human rela-tions. Without such extra-linguistic knowledge, the above-mentioned headlines would constitute purely descriptive peritextual and metatex-tual introductions to the main text of the obituary article.

The description of the axiological potential of obituary headlines, as presented in this and the previous subchapter, confirms that headlines occupy strategic positions within obituary articles not only because of their propositional content and pragmatic character, i.e. to attract the readers’ attention and to make them read or at least browse the text. Such headlines may also indicate the global valuation of the obituary subject, a valuation which results from the whole text, and, consequently, they may influence the interpretation of the content, i.e. the various achievements, accomplishments and other actions of the deceased person presented in the obituary. However, headlines do not constitute the only type of structures in the delimitation frame of obituaries, whose propositional content and its axiological potential might exert an impact on the interpretation of the main textual body of obituary articles. The discussion on the axiological potential of the delimitation frame of obituaries cannot be regarded as complete without clarifying the axiological features of two more structures: the summary endpiece, i.e. the so-called biobox, and the sub-photo lines.


3. The biobox and its axiological characteristics

The term biobox was introduced by James Ferguson, an editor of The In-dependent who used this notion to refer to “a concluding one-paragraph summary of its subject’s dates of birth and death, marriage and prog-eny, and career accomplishments” (Starck 2006: 73). That is, the biobox constitutes a kind of summary endpiece, as it is referred to by Chris Maume, the obituaries editor of The Independent, who further asserts in an email interview conducted for the purpose of the present study that “the summary endpiece is sometimes done by the writer, sometimes on the desk, or more often a mixture of the two” (Maume, email interview from 22 September 2009). Susan Cohen, in turn, secretary to The Times Letters, Obituaries & Register Editor, states in an email mini-interview carried out for the purpose of this work on 29 September 2009 that the final biographical summary is written by the editorial staff. Also the team of The Guardian’s obituaries desk, in an email mini-interview from 22 September 2009, confirmed that the biographical details at the end are written by the subeditor. These remarks on the authorship of the biobox indicate that in most cases the textual segments encapsulat-ing the biographical summary are created by the editors/subeditors.

The semantic features of texts representing the summary endpiece vary among the different newspapers, which partly results from the dif-ferences of editorial practices they have adopted. The content of the bio-box may range from a very short one-line statement of one’s name(s), oc-cupation as well as dates of birth and death to more elaborate statements which may also include concise information on the subject’s marriages, divorces, offspring and a list of significant positions occupied in institu-tions, companies, etc. Various realisations of the biobox are illustrated by the examples in Table 5.29

The axiological potential of the biobox appears the most salient in its elaborate version as illustrated in Table 5 by examples from The Inde-pendent. The value judgements which can be inferred from the texts of the obituary biobox in the vast majority of cases result from stereotypes

29 The table lacks examples from The Telegraph because the sample of obituaries from that newspaper, taken from the period 2009–2010 for the purpose of the present work, lacked the biobox as an element of the frame outside the main body of the ar-ticle. However, it must be stressed that currently The Telegraph adds a concise bio-box to its obituaries.

The biobox and its axiological characteristics 115Ta

ble

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obitu

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uard

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ndep

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nglis

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09

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hael

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lish,

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phic

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as

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mbe

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n Se

ptem

ber 2

5, 2

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age

d 68

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klin

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rnal

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nd

broa

dcas

ter,

born

19

Janu

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d 1

Augu

st 2

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omas

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man

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7–68

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mro

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over

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9–70

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6. H

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d 83


that are axiologically charged and conventionally associated with the professions and functions of the subject. They can also draw upon the number of given professions, positions and/or achievements being enumerated within the biobox: X fulfilled a number N of functions, and that implies a GOOD/BAD assessment of X with respect to values V; X received a number of awards/titles and that implies a GOOD/BAD assessment of X with respect to values V, etc. Value judgements “trig-gered” by names and the number of awards granted can be recognised in the summary endpiece of obituaries presenting Norman Ernest Borlaug and Professor Philip A. Poole-Wilson, respectively. As presented in the table above, in the obituary for Norman Ernest Borlaug the biobox lists all the significant rewards he was granted, whereas the biobox in the obituary for Professor Philip A. Poole-Wilson includes the signifi-cant academic degrees and titles he received during his career. Such a list of nouns referring to one’s professions and/or attainments as well as acronyms of titles can be regarded in terms of textual means of valua-tion. The axiological potential of such lists draws upon two factors: ste-reotypes conventionally ascribed to professions, functions, awards and titles mentioned within such lists as well as the number of attainments being listed: the longer the list, the more of a positive/negative valua-tion it may express. Axiological judgements to be inferred from the two aforementioned examples of the biobox as follows:

1. X (Norman Ernest Borlaug, US plant scientist) received Y, i.e. a number of awards (Nobel Peace Prize, 1970; US Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1977; Congressional Gold Medal, 2007) and that implies GOOD assessment of X with respect to values V, e.g.:a. ethical value: the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the US Presiden-

tial Medal of Freedom explicitly refer to conditions of world order, i.e. peace and freedom, and this implies that the person having been granted such awards must have promoted such values; this, in turn, sheds a positive light on that person’s moral stance, for peace and freedom are based on respect for human rights;

b. value of perfection: such highly prestigious awards bestowed upon an individual imply the successfulness and high stan-dard of his/her deeds/actions undertaken for the sake of peace, freedom and prosperity;

The biobox and its axiological characteristics 117

c. social value: by advocating the value of freedom the subject contributed to the well-being of the whole society.

2. X (Professor Philip A Poole-Wilson) received Y, i.e. a number of academic degrees/titles and fulfilled a given number of functions (MA, MD, FRCP, FESC, FACC, FMed Sci), and that implies a pos-itive axiological assessment with respect to values V, e.g.:a. cognitive value: this value can be inferred mostly by readers

who know the meanings of acronyms which refer to the sub-ject’s academic titles, MA, MD, as well as to his member-ship in highly esteemed medical associations. Such titles and membership of prestigious scientific associations cast a posi-tive light on the subject by implying his considerable knowl-edge and intellectual skills in a given field of interest, here medicine;

b. value of perfection: the aforementioned academic degrees and various titles bestowed on the subject imply the high standard of the subject’s scientific activities and, consequently, prove his expertise.

Positive axiological inferences drawn from the lists of the obituary subject’s attainments, professions and functions can also be noticed within the biobox in the obituary for Joseph Haverty. His biobox includes a chronological list of dates and the football clubs in which he played during his career, which may induce the reader to draw axiological infer-ences concerning the perfection of his skills: X played in a number of sports clubs and this means he must have been a good football player, otherwise he would have never been asked to play for those clubs and, in fact, for such a large number of clubs. This axiological inference con-cerning the value of perfection of the subject’s sports skills draws upon the very number of sports clubs. Nevertheless, the axiological potential of this biobox also depends on the names of these sports clubs, i.e. names which refer to places of a specific genius loci, e.g. Arsenal, which is known especially to football fans.

Some remarks concerning the axiological potential of the elaborate biobox also apply to the axiological potential of its much shorter and even more formulaic version. That is to say, even the summary endpiece whose propositional content refers only to the subject’s profession and lifespan can have an axiological potential that results from stereotypes


assigned to particular professions as well as, in some cases, a positive valuation of the subject’s ripe old age.

The examples presented in the table above as well as their descrip-tion make it clear that, in comparison to obituary headlines, the texts of the biobox are less likely to express value judgements, though, as was shown, they are not deprived of the axiological potential. The axiologi-cal potential of the biobox within obituaries is not expressed explicitly and directly but rather functions as axiological inferences which can be drawn from the text by recognising, for example, certain stereotypes concerning the character and number of the subject’s professions, func-tions and/or posts at various institutions, as well as stereotypes concern-ing the subject’s age.

4. Iconographic elements of the delimitation frame of obituaries

Photography constitutes a significant iconographic element of obituary articles, for it does not only illustrate but also complements the axiologi-cal content of the main body of the text. Together with the headlines, photography might be regarded as an introduction to the story presented within the main textual body of the article. Moreover, photography and the headlines constitute the most noticeable elements of newspaper articles, which means that together they fulfil the pragmatic function to attract and keep the readers’ attention. The photography which accom-panies obituary articles often depicts or somehow indicates the subject’s occupational field and, consequently, corresponds to the propositional content of the headlines. It should also be noticed that “there has been a growing predilection, as part of the newspaper obituary revival, for a picture from the subject’s youth” (Starck 2006: 232).

Photographs accompanying obituaries occur with short sub-photo lines whose content either explains the situation presented in the picture, states the fact of the subject’s death or presents features of the character and/or occupation of the subject. Hence, some sub-photo lines repeat, complete and confirm information presented within the headlines as well as in the first paragraph, i.e. the lead. The expression of propositional content of such sub-photo lines, though not restricted to particular structures, tends to embrace noun phrases and short clauses because of their compact character. That is why it might be stated that the general


syntactic, semantic and axiological features of sub-photo lines in many cases overlap to a considerable extent with those of the headlines. Such a similarity results from the strategic position occupied by photos and their sub-photo lines within the article of the obituary – the position where textual structures are to win the reader’s attention – as well as from their concise character, which is also the case in headlines. Thus photographs do not only complement the main textual body but, in particular, the headlines themselves, together with which they constitute a kind of lure to keep the reader’s interest.

Concluding remarks

The present chapter clarified the structural, semantic, pragmatic and axiological features of the metatextual and peritextual frame of press articles realising the obituary genre, mainly within the British press as represented by four national daily newspapers: The Guardian, The In-dependent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. The textual frame of the articles of obituaries consists of structures which occupy strategic positions in the press articles, i.e. the headlines, Ferguson’s biobox (Starck 2006: 73), also called the summary endpiece by Chris Maume, the afore-mentioned editor of obituaries in The Independent (in an email inter-view from 22 September 2009), and photographs with sub-photo lines. The propositional content of all of these structures provides the reader with a sort of introduction to the story presented within the main article as well as might offer a succinct summary of the article, especially in cases where the textual frame contains not only elaborate headlines and/or photos but also an elaborate detailed biobox. Moreover, the content of the textual frame of obituaries, in particular headlines, provides and in a way justifies the reason for the fame and newsworthiness of the subject presented within obituary columns. The frame, thus, justifies the pres-ence of the subject within the columns of obituaries, wins the reader’s attention, i.e. lures the reader to read the text, and introduces the reader to the story in the main textual body of the obituary article.

Chapter 4

The main body of obituaries

Contrary to the metatextual and peritextual delimitation frame of ob-ituaries, the properties of the main textual body of obituary articles, especially the stylistic features, appear much more erratic and, thus, far less predictable. The central aspects of the main textual body of obituar-ies embrace their compositional, thematic and stylistic features as well as the pragmatic, cognitive and axiological factors. These aspects tightly correlate with one another, for the pragmatic, cognitive and axiological factors determine the compositional and thematic structure as well as the linguistic and textual means of expressing the propositional content. The choices of micro- and macro-themes and the way they are presented are determined in particular by the communicative intention or the set of such intentions as well as by the axiological factors correlated with these intentions. Hence, the axiological characterisation of the obituary genre and its textual realisations are not presented in a separate chapter but constitute an integral part of the present chapter, which accounts for the compositional, thematic and stylistic features of the genre and highlights the correlation of these features with the pragmatic and axi-ological factors.

1. Compositional properties of the main body of obituaries

The composition of the main textual body of the obituary can be clarified in terms of its superstructure, i.e. the general textual framework consisting of the main structural and thematic segments of the text (see van Dijk (ed.) 1997). However, though such segments are recognised by obituary writers and applied by them in their editorial practice, there is

The main body of obituaries122

no consistent terminology identifying the structural and thematic seg-ments of obituaries. Contrary to their delimitation frame, the composi-tion of the main textual body of obituaries still lacks a proper linguistic description in the light of modern genre theory, which to a considerable extent draws on Bakhtin’s ([1979] 2000) remarks. Certain remarks on the superstructure of obituaries can be found in the work titled The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (Johnson 2006), in which the author specifies the segments of the rhe-torical structure of obituaries by means of her own nomenclature. This nomenclature, however, does not result from a strictly scientific investi-gation but rather from the author’s rich experience as an obituary writer and reader. Nonetheless, the terms proposed by Johnson (2006), despite their rather metaphorical associative character, aptly indicate the struc-tural and thematic segments of obituary articles; thus they are referred to in the present subchapter, which is to account for the cognitive and textual character of such segments.

Marilyn Johnson (2006) aptly points out that despite claims such as the one by Jim Nicholson, a Philadelphia Daily News journalist (quoted in Johnson 2006: 31) who asserts: “There was never a name for it [the opening paragraph], nor was any format suggested or imposed on me,” there still exists “a format, a template for the obituary that almost every newspaper publication follows” (Johnson 2006: 31). This format constitutes a part of the model of the obituary genre for it contributes to the horizon of expectations (see Jauss [1982] 2000) both for obituary readers as well as writers, as the author proves: “Writers have absorbed it [the format], and readers come to expect it […]” (Johnson 2006: 31).

The analyses of textual realisations of the obituary genre which were conducted for the purpose of the present study as well as the literature on the genre (e.g. Starck 2006; Johnson 2006; Harrower 2009) make it clear that the global structure of obituaries, in van Dijk’s (1997) terms their su-perstructure, tends to consist of the following textual segments: the head-lines, the lead followed by its textual elaboration, the biographical summary, list of surviving family members and biobox. The initial and final segments, i.e. the headlines and biobox, though described within the previous chapter are here referred to again to emphasise that the obituary genre finds its textual realisation in the whole articles, in which the main textual body is delineated by the genre-characteristic

Compositional properties of the main body of obituaries 123

frame as well as to emphasise a strong link between the main body of the article and its frame.

The initial introductory sentence in the lead of an obituary article is referred to by Johnson (2006) as a tombstone: the notion that bears in her work a metaphorical sense and implies some similarity of func-tion between the epitaph found on a tombstone and the introductory sentence within the lead of the obituary. Similarly to the epitaph, at least in functional terms, the lead of the obituary tends to introduce the sub-ject, state his/her death and justify the subject’s commemoration within the obituary columns by a more or less direct/indirect valuation. The is-sue of giving the reason for the subject’s fame in the lead of the obituary is also addressed by Bytheway and Johnson (1996: 222) who, having ana-lysed The Guardian obituaries, observed that “this paragraph [the obitu-ary lead] also includes some implicit but usually clear indication of why the obituary of this particular person is considered worthy of inclusion.” Thus the introductory paragraph of obituaries can be regarded in terms of a descriptive and evaluative lead which replies to the questions WHO died, at WHAT AGE and WHY he/she deserves a place within the obitu-ary columns. The reply to the questions WHO and WHY can also be found within the headlines of obituaries, which means that the lead, though it elaborates the content of the headlines, has to a certain extent a redundant character, at least from the perspective of the readers whose attention is usually first drawn to the headlines which are to encourage them to read or at least browse the main body of the article.

The lead tends to be further elaborated in the section which presents, usually in a sequential order, the details of one’s career. This section can have a very diverse character, ranging from a simple CV-like list of the subject’s attainments with their short descriptions, e.g. the mov-ies one directed, books that one wrote, military actions in which one participated and awards which one was granted for bravery, or political actions in which one took part, etc., to more elaborate accounts. Such more elaborate accounts tend to be enriched by anecdotes revealing the psychological profile of the subject as well as quotations and even longer narratives focused on one particular event or incident which brought fame to the subject described within the obituary.

The career-focused textual segment(s) make(s) it clear that the news-worthiness of obituaries can be measured on a bi-polar scale, one extreme


of which represents the very template and, consequently, the predictable model of résumé-like obituaries, whereas the second extreme stands for very elaborate, stylistically rich and rather erratic portrayal obituaries drawing on anecdotes, detailed narratives and descriptions of events, people, places, etc. The former are specified by Starck (2006) in terms of a snapshot, whereas the latter in terms of a portrait.

In more elaborate portrayal obituaries the lead, understood as the ini-tial, introductory and, together with the headlines, the most strategic section of the newspaper article, is sometimes elaborated by a section that is described by Johnson (2006: 35) as “an expansive section of one or more paragraphs, an anecdote or even a full-blown scene that illustrates the turning point in the story of the subject’s life.” That turning point section may indicate an event, incident or some achievement which may justify the newsworthiness of the life-course and/or career of the subject described within the obituary columns. Johnson (2006: 35) further claims that this section presents “the story in the story obit, the action, the glittering showstopper where the reader expects to be dazzled or transported,” and she describes this section in metaphorical terms as the “song and dance” which might indicate the narrative dynamism of this section.

However, the turning-point passages may also occur further on within the other paragraphs of the obituary, not necessarily within or immediately following the lead, and the reader may distinguish more than just one such turning point in the subject’s life/career. This can be noticed in the obituary for Tony Hart in The Independent (20.01.2009), where the reader may recognise at least two such turning points in his career within the paragraphs presenting the end of his military activities, his starting a new occupation and his employment at BBC:

With low-ranking British officers being replaced by Indian officers after independence, Hart had to decide on a new career, so he trained as a graphic designer at Maidstone College of Art (1947–50).[…] Then, in 1952, he accompanied his drama student brother, Michael – who later became a television producer and director – to a party, where he met a producer of BBC children’s programmes. Invited to an inter-view, Hart was asked to show his ability to draw quickly by doing an il-lustration of a fish blowing bubbles. When a secretary had difficulty find-ing a sheet of paper, Hart drew it on a BBC paper napkin, impressing


the producer, who hired him as the resident artist on Saturday Special (1952–54). (Hayward, The Independent 20.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)

The lead, sometimes with other lead-elaborating segments, tends to be followed by a section which breaks the chronology of description. Marilyn Johnson (2006: 36) calls it the reverse shift, which can be further specified as the reverse order of the narrative flow determining and de-termined by the superstructure of the text. This reverse shift can best be noticed when the peak of one’s career is presented before information on one’s birth and social background, which bears cognitive consequences because it re-directs the reader’s attention back to the beginning of the deceased person’s life-trajectory.

The sudden reverse shift in the narrative flow of obituaries can be clarified by means of one of Mark Johnson’s (1987) image schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL. Evans and Green (2006: 201) explain that: “Image schemas are relatively abstract representations that derive from our everyday interaction with and observation of the world around us.” Although image schemas are grounded in our “sensory-perceptual experiences,” they underlie the structure of various abstract concepts, as argued by Lakoff (1987, 1990, 1993) and Johnson (1987) (see Evans, Green 2006: 46). The cognitive schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (Johnson 1987), for example, underscores the perception and concep-tualisation of various actions, events and procedures which tend to have their beginning: SOURCE, development: PATH and outcome/solution: GOAL. Moreover, it can be claimed that this schema underlies the narrative structure of a variety of biographical genres which may present a life story as a conceptual JOURNEY (see Lakoff 1993), which is another cognitive schema based on the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL model where the SOURCE may schematically refer to the subject’s origin and background, the PATH might be realised by information on the forma-tive years and career, and the GOAL may relate to the peak of that career, as can be seen in the case of life-trajectories of a considerable number of obituary subjects. A conceptualisation of the life-course in terms of the JOURNEY metaphor and, thus, the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema (Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1993) can be proved by linguistic expressions that refer to the life-trajectory of obituary subjects and to the obituaries themselves: “restricted origins and trajectories of the obituary subjects” (Fowler 2007: 105, emphasis – T. W.); “after all people from all walks


of life die” (Baranick et al. 2005, quoted in Starck 2006: 83) or the “pe-destrian chronological approach” (The Independent editor anonymously quoted in Fowler 2007: 125).

The way in which the aforementioned schemata contribute to the tex-tual realisations of given genres may be very diverse and even genre-characteristic. This can be clearly seen in the case of obituaries where the superstructure and thematic framework are determined by the fol-lowing modification of the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema: the GOAL-SOURCE-PATH model according to which textual segments with propositional content presenting the peak of the most creative period of one’s career and the most noteworthy attainments schematically concep-tualised as the GOAL precede the segment describing one’s background/origin and early formative years, and, consequently, elaborating the con-ceptual SOURCE of the life-trajectory. Such a reverse order of the narra-tive flow in obituaries can be justified by the news value of obituary texts, i.e. the reverse pyramid principle that is characteristic of news stories (Harrower 2009) where the most significant and newsworthy elements of the propositional content are presented before less important and less newsworthy pieces of information. The present remark on the news value refers back to the second chapter of this study, where it was clarified that though obituaries differ from news stories about a death with respect to a set of communicative intentions and an emphasis on the given details of propositional content, the news value still applies to the obituary genre and its textual realisations within press columns, though to a different extent.

Moreover, the subverted order of the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema underpinning the superstructure of obituaries can also be justified by axiological concerns such as selecting and putting the main emphasis on those biographical details which present the obituary subject in a more or less positive light with respect to a certain set of values, usually the value of perfection, social values and the range of pragmatic values such as: being useful for / contributing to the well-being of society and/or given groups of people. Such types of value are usually ascribed to one’s actions/work, accomplishments and achievements which tend to be the most newsworthy and, consequently, cognitively salient at the peak of a flourishing career, regarded in cognitive terms as the sche-matic GOAL of a life-course and expressed within the first paragraphs of


obituary articles, particularly within the lead. Hence the opening para-graphs whose propositional content elaborates the GOAL subschema tend to bear much more significance with respect to newsworthiness and the appraisal factor of particular obituaries than textual segments whose propositional content embraces thematic categories such as the background and early formative years of the deceased person, which elaborate the schematic SOURCE of the subject’s life-trajectory within the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL model.

Besides the textual segments presenting thematic categories such as the background, early formative years as well as the peak of one’s career, conceptualised as the schematic SOURCE and GOAL of one’s life-trajectory, respectively, and presented in a reverse order, the superstruc-ture of obituaries also includes textual segments whose propositional content can be conceptualised as the schematic PATH within the image schemata of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL. As was mentioned above, such a cognitive schema makes it clear that the biographical profile presented in the texts of obituaries can be perceived in terms of a conceptual jour-ney, i.e. the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff 1993), though stages of this journey, i.e. its SOURCE and GOAL, tend to be presented in the reverse order and its dynamism, the narrative flow, can be reduced by lengthy descriptions, e.g. of attainments left by the deceased person to posterity.

Textual segments whose propositional content instantiates the PATH subschema embrace those segments of the obituary article which fill in the gap between the aforementioned thematic categories, i.e. the sub-ject’s origin, background and early formative years, the SOURCE and the peak of his/her career, i.e. the GOAL. In other words, these are the textual segments whose thematic categories illustrate the develop-ment of one’s career as well as events and circumstances shedding some light on one’s actions. However, though the superstructure of obituaries can be schematically presented in terms of the modified image schema of GOAL-SOURCE-PATH, finding its realisation in the reverse order of the narrative flow, it does not mean that textual segments instantiating that schema always neatly occur in the text one after another. The PATH subschema can be elaborated not only by textual segments which, accord-ing to the reverse order of the storyline, occur after the segments which thematically realise the conceptual GOAL and SOURCE, but it can also be realised by segments of the text which structurally and thematically


overlap with the aforementioned GOAL- and SOURCE-instantiating segments within the superstructure of obituaries. The same process can occur in the case of a partial overlapping of the conceptual GOAL and SOURCE when the subject’s most noteworthy accomplishments overlap with early stage(s) of his/her life-trajectory.

Despite these structural and thematic complexities and inconsisten-cies, it should be emphasised that the reverse shift (Johnson 2006: 36) in the order of presentation of thematic categories of obituaries occurs and can be regarded as a genre-characteristic feature of the superstructure of obituaries. Moreover, the remarks in this subchapter make it clear that the reverse shift within the narrative flow of obituaries can be regarded in terms of a concrete textual process as well as a more abstract conceptual process: the former resulting in the reverse order of thematic categories and the textual segments presenting them, whereas the latter resulting in a conceptual re-ordering of subschemas within the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL image schema (Johnson 1987) by means of which someone’s life-course may be perceived and conceptualised as the schematic PATH with its SOURCE and GOAL.

Thus, despite the above-mentioned reverse shift within the narrative flow of obituaries as well as the process of the co-occurrence and even overlapping of given thematic categories with one another and the textual segments expressing them, the general image of the biographical profile of the deceased person presented within obituary columns appears as a conceptual JOURNEY (Lakoff 1993), the GOAL of which should not be associated with the obituary subject’s death but rather with the peak of his/her career. The obituary subject’s career tends to constitute the most significant category within the thematic framework of obituaries, which is further clarified within subchapter 2.

2. Thematic properties of the main body of obituaries

The present chapter is tightly related to the previous one, for the thematic and compositional frameworks of the obituary genre closely correlate with each other. The cognitive salience and axiological character of thematic categories influence the arrangement of textual segments that present these categories. This can be clearly seen in the case of the re-verse shift (Johnson 2006: 36) within the narrative flow of obituaries,

Thematic properties of the main body of obituaries 129

i.e. the presentation of the obituary subject’s occupation and accomplish-ments before the textual segments relating to the subject’s background and early formative years. The reverse order of chronology, as was explained in the previous chapter, results from the larger significance assigned within the obituary genre to the thematic category of Career than to the category of Origin / Formative Years. The former subchap-ter already shed some light on the thematic framework of obituaries and its correlation with their textual composition, yet it did not clarify the semantic relations between and within the categories of this frame-work. This gap will be addressed in the present subchapter, which will further illuminate the cognitive and axiological character of the thematic categories of the obituary genre, i.e. not only their linear arrangement within the text but also their hierarchical order, i.e. correlations between the given macro- and micro-themes.

2.1. Introductory remarks

Descriptions of thematic categories of obituaries available within the lit-erature on media and cultural studies aptly identify and name thematic categories typical for the obituary genre (see Starck 2006; Hume 2000; Harrower 2009) and account for their linear as well as hierarchical order (see Moses, Marelli 2003). Yet they do not explain the cognitive factors which determine the occurrence and place of such categories within the thematic framework of the obituary genre. Moreover, there still seems to be a lack of explanation of the thematic framework of obituar-ies from the perspective of the linguistic theory of speech genres and, in particular, axiological semantics. Hence by addressing the thematic categories of obituaries and clarifying them by means of the terminology of cognitive linguistics, axiological semantics and the theory of speech genres, the present subchapter aims to fill in the gap within descriptions of the thematic framework of the obituary genre.

The thematic categories of obituaries can be regarded in terms of obituary information, a term used by Janice Hume in her study on the historical evolution of American obituaries where it covers the fol-lowing “categories of information: the name and occupation of the de-ceased, the attributes of the deceased, the cause of death and funeral arrangements” (2000: 149). Obituary information, however, can be used as a term covering not only the above-mentioned pieces of information


but also all other macro- and micro-themes which constitute the the-matic structure of texts representing the modern obituary genre.

The presentation and order of appearance of various categories of obituary information may depend on the stylistic model that a given obituary realises, e.g. the snapshot- or portrait-like obituary (Starck 2006), as well as on the editorial policy of the newspapers and the in-dividual creativity of the obituary writer, be it a journalist specialising in obituaries, the obituarist, or other contributors, e.g. acquaintances of the deceased. Despite some inconsistencies concerning the choice of content to be presented within obituary columns as well as the way in which it is to be presented, there exist given categories of information that prevail within newspaper obituaries.

The categories of obituary information are genre-characteristic, for they constitute the thematic structure of the textual realisations of the genre. This structure in its linear as well as hierarchical order can be accounted for in terms of Brown and Yule’s (1983) topic framework, which provides the text grammar presented as a “labelled tree diagram” that, in the case of obituaries, “identifies the basic elements found in obituaries, shows what elements are obligatory, which are optional” (Mo-ses, Marelli 2003: 124) and illustrates the general order of the macro- and micro-themes within the text. The linear order of particular nodes of information within such a framework refers to the arrangement of these nodes in the text, whereas their hierarchical order points at the semantic and pragmatic relations between the micro- and macro-themes. These relations encompass the mutual inclusion of given nodes, their scope and goal as well as level of their generality and specificity.

The categories of obituary information, which refer to macro- and micro-themes constituting the thematic structure of the obituary genre, draw on principles of media frames defined by Gitlin (1980, quoted in Hume 2000: 22) as “principles of selection, emphasis and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens and what matters.” In the case of the thematic structure of obituaries, prin-ciples of selection concern the choice of content: they provide a reply to the question which categories of information, e.g. occupation, career and/or family life, should be presented in obituaries and which facts and characters are to elaborate these categories. The aforementioned principles of emphasis and presentation, in turn, refer to the expression


of the propositional content by means of appropriate compositional and stylistic devices.

The thematic structure of texts realising the obituary genre draws, however, not only on principles of media frames and, at least partly, features of the news story but also on alternations of the genre which presuppose certain thematic as well as stylistic choices made by the author. These alternations embrace thematic, stylistic and compo-sitional differentiation between standardised, formulaic obituaries and in-depth, full-length portrayals, and, on the other hand, the distinction between professional, edited texts and family authored obituaries. Thus the thematic framework of the obituary genre results from three fac-tors: the scope and goal of obituary articles, the media framing devices, including news story imperatives (see Gitlin 1980; Hume 2000), and alternative models within the genre. These factors tightly correlate with one another and determine WHAT to present and HOW to present it.

2.2. Themes and their cognitive character

Among the proposals of models of the topic framework of obituaries (see Starck 2006; Hume 2000; Moses, Marelli 2003; Harrower 2009), two general macro-themes which determine the whole thematic structure of this genre can be distinguished: the obituary subject’s life-trajectory and the report on the subject’s death. These two macro-themes constitute the top-most nodes of information within Moses and Marelli’s (2003) tree diagram of the text grammar of obituaries: the nodes are called Life and Death. The subject’s life and death, as the two basic macro-themes of the obituary genre, can be both conceptualised as the two most general cognitive domains that provide propositional content for obituaries and instantiate the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL image schema (Johnson 1987) which underlies the conceptualisation of their narrative flow. In other words, particular micro-themes elaborating the two general macro-themes of Life and Death constitute the propositional content of tex-tual segments within the compositional framework of obituaries. These segments provide information on the subject’s background and early formative years, conceptualised as the schematic SOURCE, the develop-ment of the subject’s career and life-trajectory in general, schematised as the PATH, and the most productive and/or noteworthy peak of that career/life-trajectory, schematically conceptualised as the GOAL.


The death, in turn, can be schematically perceived as the END of the life-trajectory. Thus the macro-theme of Life can be further referred to as the Life-Trajectory, for this second term reflects the common and natural way in which people tend to conceptualise life stories: as a metaphorical journey along a certain trajectory (see Lakoff 1993).

The remarks from the previous paragraph make it clear that the macro-theme of Death does not instantiate the schematic GOAL within the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL image schema when it is applied to a conceptualisation of the content of obituaries; it is rather the peak of one’s career that elaborates this schematic GOAL. Moreover, the term goal implies some conscious effort undertaken to pursue a given goal, e.g. to realise a project, to compose a piece of music, to make a ground-breaking invention/discovery, etc. Consequently, the image schemata of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (Johnson 1987) should here be extended to the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL-END version, where the subschemas of GOAL and END are distinguished from each other – the former refers to the above-mentioned peak of one’s career, whereas the latter denotes one’s death, e.g. the end of one’s career and life-course. Moreover, when considered in terms of media framing, i.e. selecting and highlighting thematic categories, these two top-most general macro-themes, i.e. Life-Trajectory and Death, can be conceptualised as the thematic foreground and background of obituary articles, respectively. This, in turn, evokes FRONT-BACK as well as CENTRE-PERIPHERY image schemata (John-son 1987).

The macro-theme Life-Trajectory encompasses two thematic cate-gories, Formative Years and Career, which are usually presented in the text of obituaries in reverse order, which was also noticed by Mo-ses and Marelli (2003: 125): “Life and career history are recounted in reverse order, that is, from the present back.” Formative Years, then, can entail such categories as the subject’s Origin/Background, Early Formative Years: childhood, early education, etc. and Late Formative Years: higher education, military service, various apprenticeships, etc. The macro-theme of Career can, in turn, embrace the obituary subject’s occupation(s) and all significant accomplishments and achievements which are usually somehow associated with the domain of the subject’s profession and which constitute the reason for the person’s fame. How-ever, it must be stressed that in given cases the propositional content


instantiating the macro-theme of Career can overlap with the theme of Military Service or Higher Education, thus giving rise to a report on the subject’s military and scholarly career, respectively.

The theme of Death constitutes a far less elaborate section of the thematic framework of obituaries because, as was mentioned above, it belongs to the thematic background rather than the foreground of the genre. This category embraces information such as: the fact of the subject’s death, the age of the deceased person, in given cases also the cause of death as well as the list of surviving family members intro-duced in a rather conventional way, e.g.: survived by, predeceased, left, etc. In some obituaries, however, e.g. those from The Philadelphia Inquirer which are referred to in the present work for the sake of comparison with British obituaries, the macro-theme of Death appears to be much more elaborate, for it may also embrace details of the funeral arrangements and paying tribute to the deceased person.

The two most general macro-themes of the obituary genre, i.e. Life-Trajectory and Death, regarded in terms of cognitive domains, can also be described as cognitive bases within which the obituary-writer profiles,30 i.e. selects, presents and highlights, the given entities: phe-nomena constituting the propositional content of these domains. In other words, particular micro-propositions can be regarded as the re-sults of profiling micro-themes within the broader domain of macro-themes. Moreover, it must be emphasised that a cognitive basis regarded as a domain or set of cognitive domains providing the propositional content for speech and text genres can be shared by some of them. Hence it is the process of thematic profiling that differentiates closely related genres, which can be clearly seen when comparing obituaries with news stories about a death. Such news stories profile the details of someone’s death to a much greater extent than obituaries, which profile mainly the thematic category of Life-Trajectory, and in particular of Career, thus pushing the details of the subject’s death to the thematic background (see Starck 2006). In other words, the cognitive process

30 The terms cognitive base, cognitive domain, profile, and profiling belong to the core terminology of cognitive linguistics (see Langacker 1987; Evans, Green 2006). The present analysis makes it clear that the precise sense in which these terms are used depends on the phenomena of the analysis to which they can be applied: in this subchapter these phenomena embrace structures of discourse such as genre, text and its thematic categories.


of profiling, when applied to genre analysis, can be understood as raising given thematic categories to the level of cognitive salience. The notion of level of cognitive salience implies here a scalar character of such salience, which means that elements of the cognitive domain, e.g. of thematic categories within the thematic framework of the genre and, more specifically, micro-themes elaborating macro-themes, can be raised to a different level of cognitive salience, which is further ex-plained below.

Remarks on profiling the thematic categories of the obituary genre make it clear that the domain of the obituary subject’s life-trajectory constitutes the most elaborate and extended part of this genre’s the-matic structure. This thematic domain, as was explained above, presents the milestones of the subject’s life-course, such as, for example, his/her upbringing, education, military service as well as career with all its significant accomplishments and achievements. Nevertheless, not all of the micro-themes within the macro-theme of Life-Trajectory can be as-signed the same cognitive salience, i.e. informative value and emphasis. Some of them, e.g. upbringing, family background or early formative years, tend to be much less emphasised within the thematic framework of obituaries than the theme of Career itself, i.e. the thematic category which constitutes a micro-theme with respect to the macro-theme of Life-Trajectory as well as macro-theme with respect to other more particular micro-propositions instantiating the Career node within the thematic framework. The domain of the obituary subject’s career, then, constitutes the thematic subcategory/subdomain that tends to be elevated to the highest level of cognitive salience when compared to other (sub)categories of the thematic framework of the obituary genre.

Contrary to the thematic category of Career, the report on one’s death constitutes a less salient thematic category of the obituary, for this genre draws upon a kind of instant biography (Starck 2006: 9) and its textual re-alisations are focused mainly on the subject’s life-story rather than on de-tails of his/her death, which is the case for many sensationalism-focused news stories. The macro-theme of Death can be treated as an opportu-nity to look at, describe and evaluate, explicitly or implicitly, the whole life-course of the obituary subject. Thus, the main emphasis is put not on the questions HOW and WHEN one has died but on WHO lived and WHY he/she is worthy of commemoration. The question of WHO

Stylistic properties of the main body of obituaries 135

lived seems to be more appropriate than the question of WHO died, for the former implies the main emphasis of obituary pages: the subject’s life-trajectory and, in particular, the milestones of the subject’s career.

3. Stylistic properties of the main body of obituaries

The previous two chapters clarified the compositional as well as thematic structure of texts realising the obituary genre and, at the same time, they implied some stylistic properties which will now be explained extensively.

Obituaries do not represent a genre which imposes rigid stylistic norms whose subversion might result in undesirable, e.g. comical, effects or even a complete change of the generic paradigm and a major failure in achieving communicative intentions. On the contrary, instead of impos-ing such a clear-cut set of stylistic rules, the model of the obituary genre specifies rather general confines within which the author can choose and/or ignore particular stylistic means from among a wide range of linguistic and textual means of expressing and shaping the propositional content. Such a broad range and erratic character of the stylistic determi-nants of the obituary genre both result from the genre’s complex hybrid nature which is shaped by the following factors:

1. the correlation of obituaries with report-like news stories and more opinionated feature journalism offering a broader range of stylistic options to choose from;

2. the correlation of obituaries with a variety of other genres, both from within the domain of press journalism, e.g. news stories, profiles, death notices, as well as from outside this domain, e.g. lit-erary biographies, narratives, eulogies and even epitaphs;

3. the various authorship of obituary texts, which can be written ei-ther by professional journalists specialising in obituaries, i.e. obit-uarists, as well as by freelance contributors, e.g. acquaintances of the deceased person and/or professionals such as scientists or artists familiar with the milieu to which the deceased person be-longed, etc.;

4. media frames: editorial practices based on procedures of topic se-lection for the article and the way it is presented (see Gitlin 1980), which in the case of obituaries depends on news imperatives and the appraisal factor, hence their opinionated character;


5. the rather general and non-restrictive character of the main mac-ro-theme of the obituary genre, i.e. the obituary subject’s career which is not restricted to any closed set of human occupations but can embrace the whole sphere of human activity: military, economic, scientific, artistic, political, religious, social, etc.

The elaborate network of correlations between the obituary genre and other genres related to it results in various generic interferences and the different character of such interferences within textual realisa-tions of the obituary. Some texts of obituaries can be eulogistic, others present a very dry report-like style of news stories, still other types of texts, though driven by the news value imperative, do not only present a report-like, almost résumé-based description of one’s career but also draw on personal reminiscences which make such textual realisations characteristic of feature journalism. Furthermore, résumé-like obituar-ies can also be contrasted with more elaborate quasi-literary obituaries that may include absorbing narrative passages about some actions of the deceased person as well as descriptions of the political and social background within which these actions took place.

Moreover, it must be stressed that stylistic choices are tightly inter-twined with thematic categories and the axiological potential of these categories, which means the thematic framework and its axiological potential determine lexical choices from within given lexical fields. Lexical fields together with syntactic and textual structures constitute the expression plane for particular thematic categories and the value judgements evoked by such categories. The number and variety of lexical fields indicating the thematic categories depend on the generality and specificity of these categories. The more specific a thematic category, e.g. funeral arrangements, the more limited and specified the lexical choices must be made to express that category. Conversely, the more general a category, e.g. career, the larger the number and range of lexical choices may be made. In the case of obituaries, for instance, the model of the genre predicts rather general macro-themes, e.g. the obituary subject’s Formative Years and Career, but does not so much restrict the choice of micro-themes elaborating these macro-themes. That is to say, the main thematic category of the obituary genre, i.e. Career, is not restricted just to one set of themes but rather covers the whole range of human activities which might constitute one’s career, e.g. military,


artistic, medical, scientific, political, religious, social/charity and any other sphere of human occupation regarded here as a cognitive domain determining lexical choices. Thus, the lexical fields used to describe, for example, the obituary subject’s military career will substantially differ from lexical fields applied to a description of the subject’s artistic career or the other types of occupations mentioned above.

The category of Career, due to its general character and large capacity to embrace almost all domains of human occupations, justifies a wide range of types of discourse evoked by the lexical choices used to present the subject’s attainments. In other words, the discourse represented by obituaries may be regarded at two different levels: at the more general level as discourse of press journalism and at the more particular level as discourse associated with particular domains of human occupations, which may be referred to as occupational discourse. The former, more general discourse of press journalism embraces, in the case of obituar-ies, both news journalism, owing to the obituaries’ report-like factual character, and feature journalism, owing to the obituaries’ appraisal fac-tor that is present in the axiologically charged commentary of the events and the obituary subject’s actions/attainments as presented in the text. The latter, more particular, level of occupational discourse, in turn, concerns all traces, mainly lexical choices, indicating the profession/occupation(s) of the obituary subject, e.g.:

1. military discourse: its traces can be noticed in military obituar-ies presenting the subject’s military career; traces of the military discourse embrace lexical items such as names of military ranks and decorations, names of military institutions and missions as well as verb phrases indicating the subject’s military duties and various actions and accomplishments; traces of the military dis-course in obituaries can be illustrated by The Times obituary for Group Captain Gerry South, which is presented in the subse-quent subchapter;

2. discourse of arts and humanities: its traces can be found in the commentary of the subject’s artistic and literary attainments, in the names of awards for artistic performances, titles of plays, playwrights, novels, names of institutions associated with cul-tural life: theatres, operas, museums, etc., names of artistic styles the subject represented and/or developed, etc.; traces of discourse


associated with the domain of arts and humanities can be illus-trated by The Times obituary for the Shakespearean actress Patri-cia Kneale, presented in the next subchapter;

3. political discourse: its traces may be evoked by names of politi-cal institutions and the subject’s functions and positions occupied in them, as well as by whole textual passages functioning as a de-scription of the subject’s political activities as well as an implicit/explicit commentary on such activities: the issue of traces of political discourse in obituaries can be illustrated by The Times obituary for Hellen Suzman, fragments of which are presented in subchapters 3.1 and 3.2;

4. scholarly discourse: its traces are evoked in obituaries dedicated to significant and/or well-known scientists; the lexical fields of such obituaries may embrace lexical means such as names of sci-entific institutions associated with one’s career, lists of university degrees, names of scientific projects and inventions/discoveries one made as well as scientific terminology associated with a given branch of science.

As was mentioned above, traces of the aforementioned types of discourse within obituaries can be illustrated by the examples of obituaries pre-sented in the subsequent subchapters. However, the examples in those subchapters are used mainly to illustrate broader stylistic patterns of obituaries rather than just the diversity of their lexical fields. Hence this justifies the present attempt to clarify and illustrate the diversity of lexical fields in the textual realisations of the obituary genre with the following examples: The Guardian (29.01.2009) obituary dedicated to the scientist Sir James Baddiley and The Independent (2.02.2009) obituary of Danish poet Inger Christensen. Fragments of these two obituaries were selected not only to illustrate and emphasise the diversity of lexical fields and traces of the different types of discourse they evoke within obituaries, but also, together with the other examples in the subsequent chapters, to indicate the non-restrictive and rather flexible character of the stylistic norms of obituaries. The two examples are presented in Table 6 below. Particular linguistic and textual structures which considerably contrib-ute to stylistic differences between these two representative fragments of obituaries are marked in bold for the sake of clarity. Clauses which intro-duce typical structural and thematic segments within the composition


of the main textual body of obituaries, i.e. the lead and its elaboration, the reverse-shift-indicating segment, are thoroughly described in sub-chapter 1; the list of surviving family members is underlined. Moreover, structures of the delimitation frame are marked with a larger-sized font.

Table 6. Illustration of the stylistic diversity of the obituary articles

Sir James BaddileyMicrobiologist behind vital research into bacterial cell wallsRon ArchibaldThe Guardian, Thursday 29 January 2009[FRAGMENTS]

The distinguished scientist Sir James Baddiley, who has died aged 90, spent most of his career at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where he estab-lished a vibrant research group that later became the Microbiological Chemis-try Research Laboratory, or MCRL, of which he was director from 1975 until 1983. The MCRL maintained an international reputation for its work on the structure, synthesis and function of bacterial cell walls, particularly in relation to teichoic acids, a group of polymers that form major components of the cell wall and membrane in gram-positive bacteria.[…]Baddiley was born and brought up in Manchester, where his father was director of research at the ICI dyestuffs division. He attended Manchester gram-mar school and Manchester University, where he was accepted as a PhD student by Alexander Todd (later Lord Todd, a Nobel laureate in 1957). Todd’s group had begun the fundamental work on the chemistry of nucleosides, nucleo-tides and nucleic acids […]

Inger Christensen: Experimental poet who used mathematical struc-tures in her workThe Independent, Monday, 2 February 2009[FRAGMENTS]

Inger Christensen was one of Denmark’s most innovative experimental poets. She is perhaps best known for her major poem “Alfabet” (“Alphabet”, 1981), a systematic work which uses the letters from “a” (beginning with apricots) to “n” (nights), coupled with the Fibonacci mathematical sequence (0,1,1,2,3,5,8…), representing growth in nature.Christensen was born in 1935 in Vejle, on the eastern coast of Denmark. Fol-lowing high school and teacher train-ing college she taught for two years at the College for Arts in Holbæk and subsequently chose to take up writing full time, a decision in which she was encouraged by Poul Borum, whom she married in 1959. Her first volumes of poetry, which emerged during this period, Lys (Light, 1962) and Græs (Grass, 1963), examine the relationship between creativity, language, percep-tion and the self. A larger collection of poetry, Det (It), was published in 1969 and reflected an era of upheaval and social change across the West-ern world. A poem from this volume, “The Action: symmetries”, chants in frustration:


In 1944 he moved with Todd to Cam-bridge University and was awarded an ICI research fellowship. Here Bad-diley made a series of contributions to the chemistry of nucleotides… […] He then joined the Wenner-Gren Institute in Stockholm, where he held a fellowship from the Swedish Medical Research Council, in the Lister Insti-tute in London and at Harvard, where he held a Rockefeller fellowship. At the Lister, he established the structure of several nucleotide coenzymes […] He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1961 and to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1962, received honorary degrees from Heriot-Watt and Bath universities, and was knighted in 1977.

He is survived by his son Christopher and two grandchildren.

James Baddiley, microbiologist, born 15 May 1918; died 19 November 2008

Society can be so petrified That it’s all one solid block Inhabitants so ossified That life’s in a state of shock […] In short, Christensen sought in her po-etry the mathematical representation of perfection in the natural world. […] Christensen’s poetry thrives on a play-ful interaction between the formalised structure and the text. After all, she viewed poetry as being just “a game, maybe a tragic game – the game we play with a world that plays its own game with us.”Her last collection of poetry, Sommer-fugledalen (The Butterfly Valley, 1991), is in the form of a sonnet cycle and is concerned with the ideas of death, hope, rebirth and transformation. Christensen also wrote novels, short stories and essays, several of which are collected together in Hemmelighedstil-standen (The State of Secrecy, 2000). Christensen was elected to the Royal Danish Academy in 1978 and was rec-ognised with the Austrian Prize for Lit-erature (1994), the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Prize (1994), the Grand Prix at the International Poetry Biennal (1995) and the Siegfried Unseld award (2006), among others. The British publisher, Bloodaxe Books […] observed that her work had: “… a visionary quality; yet she is a paradoxically down-to-earth vision-ary, focusing on the simple stuff of everyday life and in it discovering the metaphysical as if by chance.”

Marcus Williamson

Inger Christensen, experimental


poet: born Vejle, Denmark, 16 Janu-ary 1935; married Poul Borum 1959 (one son; divorced 1976); died Co-penhagen, Denmark, 2 January 2009.

These two examples can be categorised in cognitive terms as pro-totypical representations of the obituary genre because of their typical composition, thematic framework and positive appraisal factor. Their composition draws on the delimitation frame that is typical of obituaries, i.e. headlines introducing the deceased person and the summary end-piece as well as the reverse shift (Johnson 2006: 36) principle determining the order of textual segments and thematic categories in the main body of the article. Their appraisal factor, in turn, is specified by their positive evaluation of the subject’s contribution to the development of science and literature, respectively.

Nonetheless, despite all of the characteristic features of the obitu-ary genre, these two samples considerably differ from each other with respect to the lexical and textual means of expressing their proposi-tional content. The differences concerning their lexical fields result from the different thematic categories at the level of micro-themes which elaborate more general macro-themes, i.e. Career and Formative Years. In other words, the thematic differences concern here the level of par-ticular micro-themes rather than the general macro-themes, for the lat-ter contribute to the identity of the genre as represented by these two samples and, thus, are shared by them. The micro-themes in the obitu-ary for Sir Baddiley: Scientific Attainments, Institutions of Science and Scientific Fellowships, as well as the micro-themes in the obituary for Inger Christensen: Literary Works, Literary Awards and Metaphysical Remarks on Poetry, indicate traces of different, more specific types of discourse associated with the subject’s profession and evoked by lexical and textual means. In other words, what determines and differentiates the stylistic character of these two obituaries are mainly the lexical fields which indicate the different occupations and the discourse related to them as well as the given textual rather than syntactic means.

The expression plane of the obituary dedicated to Sir James Baddiley draws, to a considerable extent, upon the scientific terminology which directly indicates the discourse of natural science and, consequently, the domain of the subject’s profession, e.g.: work on the structure,


synthesis and function of bacterial cell walls; the fundamental work on the chemistry of nucleosides, nucleotides and nucleic acids; a series of contributions to the chemistry of nucleotides; established the structure of several nucleotide coenzymes, etc. Traces of scholarly discourse are also evoked by the names of scientific institutions, by the positions the subject occupied in them as well as fellowships, e.g.: the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Microbiological Chemistry Research Laboratory, or MCRL; Manchester University, where he was accepted as a PhD student; moved to Cambridge University; was awarded an ICI research fellowship; joined the Wenner-Gren Institute in Stockholm; held a fellowship from the Swedish Medical Research Council in the Lister Institute; at Harvard held a Rockefeller fellowship, etc.

The expression plane of the obituary for Inger Christensen, in turn, rests upon the lexical and textual choices which indicate her career as an experimental poet and, thus, contain traces of the discourse of art and humanities. Traces of such discourse in this obituary can clearly be recognised owing to the lexical categories, such as titles of poems, for example “Alfabet” (“Alphabet”, 1981) and “The Action: symmetries”, and titles of volumes of poetry also given with their English translation and dates of publication: Lys (Light, 1962) and Græs (Grass, 1963), A larger collection of poetry, Det (It) and collection of poetry, Sommerfugledalen (The Butterfly Valley, 1991). Moreover, besides the aforementioned titles, the obituary being described here also contains nominal phrases that indicate other forms of the poetess’ artistic activity, e.g.: the form of a son-net cycle and novels, short stories and essays. Furthermore, the discourse of art and humanities is here indicated by intertextual references and generic adaptations: the former are found in the quotations of a fragment of one of her poems and in her own metaphysical remarks on the rela-tion between the world and poetry, the latter are noticed in the textual passages which can be regarded as a short commentary on her poetry and, thus, “echoes” of the genre literary review.

Despite such a diverse and erratic nature of the lexical fields of obitu-aries, which goes on a par with a wide range of thematic choices, it is still possible to distinguish two broad stylistic categories of obituaries on the basis of their linguistic and textual means. Two of these categories were already distinguished by Starck (2006), i.e. snapshot and portrait, the former refers to highly schematic résumé-like obituaries, whereas


the latter indicates more elaborate, even quasi-literary type, highly opin-ionated feature articles and, thus, ones that are full of anecdotes, quota-tions, detailed descriptions and/or short narratives. That is why these two broad types can be further referred to as résumé-oriented obituaries and elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries, respectively.

Résumé-oriented and elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries, and in particular their most striking examples, may be regarded as two poles of the scale reflecting the presence and intensity of the commentary (evaluative assessments), newsworthiness and potential of catching the readers’ attention. The more elaborate and opinionated an obituary appears, the stronger the potential it has to win the readers’ attention, while the more of a template, solely report-like character of an obitu-ary, the weaker the potential it has to keep the readers’ attention. These two broad stylistic classes of obituaries are further addressed in the two subchapters below.

3.1. Résumé-oriented obituaries

The description of the résumé-type of obituaries is based here on concrete and the most representative examples drawn from the corpus of obituar-ies that were analysed. At the outset, however, it should be stressed that despite the predictable report-like character of résumé-oriented obituar-ies, the linguistic and textual means of such a report can appear erratic and ought to be presented as stylistic tendencies rather than a clear-cut set of norms.

The aforementioned tendencies predominantly concern syntactic means, understood here not only as sets of whole clauses, sentences and their formal connectors but also as sets of other syntactic structures, e.g. prepositional phrases or noun phrases. All of these syntactic means can constitute a sequence of parallel structures, and it is this syntactic paral-lelism in which they appear that tends to constitute one of the most strik-ing stylistic features of résumé-oriented obituaries. Syntactic parallelism in the textual realisations of résumé-oriented obituaries may consist in a sequence of prepositional phrases indicating, say, an individual’s pro-fessions and posts, e.g. X worked as …, as …, as …; X held the position of … and of … In other realisations it can rely on a sequence of noun phrases expressing noteworthy achievements and accomplishments: X did/wrote/directed Y, Z, and A, B, C: the letters might stand for proper


names, such as titles of books, poems, scholarly papers, plays, films, etc. Still in other cases syntactic parallelism does not consist in a sequence of prepositional or noun phrases but rather in a sequence of whole clauses forming elaborate complex sentences – the cohesive ties of such sentences tend to rely on co-ordinate conjunctions or simply on proper punctuation, e.g. commas and semi-colons which enable readers to regard the sequence as a coherent whole. Such a sequence of clauses can present a list of one’s attainments, which can be schematically illustrated as follows: X did Y and he/she did Z and …; he/she also did …, did … and did … It is important to notice that the axiological character of such syntactic sequences does not only depend on the semantic content of the structures in them but also on the number of these structures within the sequence and its length. In other words, the larger the number of one’s achievements and accomplishments, the longer the sequence of structures by means of which these attainments are expressed; this, in turn, intensifies the positive axiological character of the biographical profile that arises from such a presentation, which can be further clari-fied by the following axiological formula which draws upon Laskowka’s (1992) proposal of axiological explications:

Notice that Z, i.e. [X did Y… X did A and did B and C] a. and what X did is G (good) / B (bad) with respect to value(s) V,

e.g. pragmatic, social, cognitive, economic, etc.;b. and that implies that X himself/herself is G (good) / B (bad) with

respect to value(s) V.Syntactic parallelism can be regarded in terms of both linguistic and textual means of axiological assessment, for it does not only shape the syntactic structures, i.e. elaborate phrases, clauses and sentences, but it may also underpin the structure of whole paragraphs and other recognisable and coherent textual passages within paragraphs and/or clusters of textual segments.

Besides syntactic parallelism, another stylistic feature which may considerably contribute to the résumé-like character of some obituar-ies seems to be the relatively high frequency of adverbials, especially time adverbials and conjunct adverbials reflecting the chronology of events: then, next, later, afterwards, thereafter, after, before, etc., as well as the adverbial relative pronouns when and where: this general remark, however, requires further in-depth studies.


The aforementioned stylistic means of expressing the propositional content of résumé-oriented obituaries can be illustrated by two fragments of obituaries taken from The Times which are quoted below in Table 7 and further described. As was in the case of the extensive fragments of obituaries quoted in the former subchapter, the fragments in the Table 7 are also presented with given textual passages in bold or underlined in order to highlight segments that are typical of the superstructure of obituaries and to indicate the stylistic means contributing to the résumé-like character of these obituaries as well as to show them in their broader co-text. Moreover, the structures of the delimitation frame are marked with a larger font.

Table 7. Examples of résumé-oriented obituaries

Patricia Kneale: Shakespearean actressThe Times, January 19, 2009

For over 40 years on the British classical stage Patricia Kneale was an actress who relished the open-air theatre. […] For nearly the whole of her working life, she stuck closely to Shakespeare, but there were some exceptions in plays by Chek-hov, Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco.She came under the influence of the Regent’s Park theatre’s best-known manager, Robert Atkins. Kneale learnt to handle Shakespeare’s verse in a re-freshingly full-throated and audible manner despite threats from overhead passenger aircraft, the low hum of distant street traffic and birdsong. She had a good presence, powerful voice and outspoken manner in one role after another, from Olivia in Twelfth Night to Gertrude in Hamlet. She later became an author, and toured a couple of her own one-act plays in the 1980s – Hes-ter, The Lady of Lebanon and Sarah Siddons.

Group Captain Gerry South The Times, May 27, 2010

Bomber pilot who flew with the Pathfinders over some of the most heavily defended targets

Joining the RAF in 1940, Gerry South flew three tours of operations, first in Halifaxes and then Lancasters, with the Pathfinder Force. In raids against some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany, he was awarded the DFC and the DSO. Gerald John South was born in 1922 and educated at King Edward’s School, Bir-mingham. In 1940 he joined the RAF. After gaining his wings in 1941 he went to a navigation training school, but early in 1943 was posted to 405 Squadron, a Canadian Halifax unit. This became the first RCAF bomber squadron to be selected for the newly formed Pathfinders, with which South spent the rest of his frontline war. In November 1943 he was wounded when his aircraft was hit during a raid on Hanover, but he was able to bring


Kneale’s television credits included Jean-Paul Sartre’s Resistance drama, Men Without Shadows and the outer space serial A for Andromeda. She also played the wife of an idealistic police constable in Roy Clarke’s series Rosie.The daughter of strolling musicians, Patricia Kneale was born in Torquay in 1925, and educated mainly at home by her father. She got a job as a typist on Vogue magazine until she gained the Meggie Albanesi scholarship, and then the Bancroft gold medal at the Roy-al Academy of Dramatic Art.In Regent’s Park in 1947 she first appeared as Olivia in Twelfth Night, as Golden Stream in Lady Precious Stream and as Titania in A Midsum-mer Night’s Dream. In Gordon Daviot’s biblical play The Little Dry Thorn (1948) at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, she won praise from Harold Hobson of The Sunday Times for being “more minx-ish than Hagar really was”. For an actress with “plenty of attack”, Kneale was suited to such parts as Blanch of Spain in King John and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There followed an Arts Council tour before a return to Regent’s Park in 1949 as Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Luciana in The Comedy of Errors, Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Ariel in The Tempest and two parts in Goethe’s Faust. Although a tour with the famous Al-dwych farceur Ralph Lynn fizzled out before The Ex-Mrs Y reached the West End, Kneale found compensation at Nottingham Playhouse as Lady Macbeth.The critic J. C. Trewin referred to her “surprising command” as Lady Macbeth, adding that she not only had “mind and presence” but was “intense, never over-mouthed and showed authority”.

the Halifax and its crew safely home to base. He was awarded the DFC. After two months in hospital he was back on operations with 7 Squadron flying Lan-casters, again in the Pathfinders. He was now involved with marking for raids over some of Germany’s most formi-dably defended targets, notably Berlin, over which he flew eight sorties. On the night of February 24–25, 1944, 7 Squadron was part of a force of 734 aircraft that attacked the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt. It was not an easy target to hit and both the RAF and the US 8th Army Air Force had suffered frightful losses to flak and night fighters while attempting it. […]For his leadership in Pathfinder opera-tions, South was awarded the DSO in October 1944. After finishing his third tour of operations, South was posted to Transport Command, involved in sup-plying forces in the Far East theatre. Postwar, he served during the Malayan Emergency at Advanced Air Headquar-ters in Kuala Lumpur, where from 1953 to 1955 he was on the air staff for joint army/air operations against communist insurgents. He subsequently commanded 115 (Canberra) Squadron, 1955–57, during which period it supported the military operation at Suez. From 1962 to 1964 he commanded an operations wing at Changi, Singapore during President Su-karno of Indonesia’s attempt to subvert the creation of Malaysia through insur-rection in Brunei and military action in Borneo. His final appointment was in 1969 as Group Captain Administration at HQ Near East Air Force, based in Cyprus and responsible for an area stretching


Back in Regent’s Park in 1953 she played Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost; and at the Edinburgh Festival Isabella in Marlowe’s Edward the Second before touring as Gertrude in Hamlet. In 1955 at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, her Lady Coniston in Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime was followed by Madame Arkadina in The Seagull. In Regent’s Park she played Rosalind in As You Like It (1956) and Viola in Twelfth Night. In 1957 Kneale was cast as Pia in the Brit-ish premiere of Ugo Betti’s Crime on Goat’s Island (Oxford Playhouse).[…]After two more spells in provincial rep – Harrogate (1977–78) and Nottingham Playhouse (1981–82) – Kneale turned to dramaturgy in the 1980s.Patricia Kneale, who married twice, leaves a daughter.

Patricia Kneale, actress, was born on October 17, 1925. She died on December 27, 2008, aged 83

from Malta to Oman.He is survived by his wife, Sheila, whom he married 1948, and by a daughter. Their son died in an accident in 1979.

Group Captain Gerry South, DSO, DFC, bomber pilot, was born on Oc-tober 21, 1922. He died on February 28, 2010, aged 87

Although the two samples in the table above illustrate the résumé-oriented type of obituary genre, they differ from each other not only with respect to their propositional content but also with respect to their style. The obituary for Group Captain Gerry South appears to be more narrative and less schematic in character than the obituary for Patricia Kneale. Moreover, the narrative character of the former results from the dynamic description of the subject’s military actions, whereas the rather static character of the latter results from just listing theatrical plays in which the subject acted, though it also includes some quotations which somehow break its schematic “laundry-list” template.

Nonetheless, despite the differences between the two samples, they aptly exemplify the classic résumé template of obituaries, for both are based, to a considerable extent, on a list of the subject’s attainments and may be perceived as a descriptive and/or narrative elaboration on the sub-ject’s curriculum vitae, with the main focus put on that person’s career.


Moreover, besides the elaborate lists of the subject’s accomplishments, these two samples are loaded with a large number of dates as well as place and time adverbial phrases which indicate the chronology of the events and anchor these events in the domain of time and space. This easily rec-ognisable spatial and temporal anchorage by means of various adverbials can be regarded as another factor, besides enumerating one’s attainments, which indicates the (rather) résumé-oriented character of these obituar-ies: the adverb rather indicates here the various degree of adherence to the schematic résumé-oriented template of the obituary genre.

Furthermore, these two obituaries include a considerable number of noun phrases functioning as proper names which indicate the titles of theatrical plays in the first and institutions as well as military posts in the second obituary: this is another factor justifying their resemblance to the elaborate résumé. These nominal phrases are embodied in syn-tactic parallel structures, which in the case of the obituary for Patricia Kneale consists mainly in a series of elaborate prepositional phrases where prepositional complements are expressed by proper names, i.e. ei-ther the titles of plays or names of the main characters she played. In the obituary for Group Captain Gerry South, in turn, this syntactic par-allelism, which is recognised particularly in the second half of the text, consists mainly in a sequence of complex sentences: each of them begins with a clause indicating the subject’s military action/responsibility and in anchoring the action in the domain of time and space by means of adverbial phrases.

These two types of syntactic parallelism, i.e. the one based on a se-quence of prepositional phrases and the other based on whole complex sentences, can be illustrated by the following passages:

1. series of prepositional phrases:

In Regent’s Park in 1947 she first appeared as Olivia in Twelfth Night, as Golden Stream in Lady Precious Stream and as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.[…]Then she spent two seasons with the Welsh National Theatre (1969-70) as Gertrude in Hamlet, Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days and Dona Ana in Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell. (The Times, 19.01.2009)

2. series of complex sentences loaded with time and place adverbi-als and indicating the subject’s military commissions:


Postwar, he served during the Malayan Emergency at Advanced Air Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, where from 1953 to 1955 he was on the air staff for joint army/air operations against communist insurgents. He subsequently commanded 115 (Canberra) Squadron, 1955–57, during which period it supported the military operation at Suez. From 1962 to 1964 he commanded an operations wing at Changi, Singapore during President Sukarno of Indonesia’s attempt to subvert the cre-ation of Malaysia through insurrection in Brunei and military action in Borneo. (The Times, 27.05.2010)

Such sequences of parallel structures that concisely present one’s actions and attainments bear not only a cognitive but also an axiologi-cal value, for they do not only inform readers about the milestones of the obituary subject’s professional career but also might induce read-ers to draw axiological inferences, say: Notice that Z [X performed in a large number of actions: theatrical performances, military actions, etc.] and that may imply a positive assessment of X with respect to values V, e.g. the value of perfection and professionalism. Such axiologically charged inferences are drawn from the text on the basis of the readers’ general knowledge of the world, i.e. knowledge which may include more specific pieces of information such as those concerning particular theat-rical plays and military actions which brought acclaim to the individuals being described in the obituaries quoted above. The axiological infer-ences, however, do not necessarily draw solely on such specific knowl-edge but also on the number of one’s (rather) positive / (rather) negative deeds and accomplishments; for example, in the two obituaries from the table above the number of theatrical plays and military actions may induce readers to form a (rather) positive / (rather) negative opinion of the subject that took part in those plays and actions. Such inferences seem to draw either upon the assumption of the more, the better or the more, the worse, depending on the positive or negative values which can be as-signed to particular actions and accomplishments regarded as the source of one’s fame or infamy. In other words, the larger the number of positive actions and achievements of the subject presented in the text, the clearer and more positive the global valuation of his/her skills, career and even whole life-course can arise from the whole text; similarly, the larger the number of deeds and attainments valued as negative, the more nega-tive a valuation of their subject may arise from the text.


3.2. Elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries

Contrary to the rather concise résumé-oriented obituaries, the elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries break the mould of the sheer résumé-tem-plate by textual means which are characteristic of literary biographies rather than of résumé-focused reports regarding someone’s life and, in particular, career. As was mentioned in subchapter 3, these textual means embrace various anecdotes, catchphrases, quotations, and more or less detailed descriptions and dynamic narratives of events, e.g. military actions, reviews of one’s attainments, e.g. artistic or scientific accomplishments, etc. Such means can be regarded not only as textual means of expressing propositional content but also, more specifically, as textual means of expressing/implying axiological assessments. Some of them, e.g. anecdotes, can also be conceived of as independent genres incorporated in the obituary genre.

It is significant to notice that the extent to which these means are used in obituaries appears very unpredictable because, apart from the general confines of the style of news- as well as feature-journalism, the model of the obituary genre does not impose any specific textual means upon its concrete textual realisations but rather offers a broad field of stylistic means to be applied. Some of these means, though, tend to play a crucial role in differentiating the stylistic models of obituaries: the schematic résumé-oriented and more elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries. One such textual means which considerably influences the style of obituaries, especially elaborate portrayal-oriented obituar-ies, is the anecdote.

According to Bauman (2005), “an anecdote is a short, humorous narrative, purporting to recount a true incident involving real people” (in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 22). This narrative, as he further asserts, constitutes a genre whose formal properties embrace “a focus on a single scene and a tendency to limit attention to two actors” as well as a tendency to draw heavily upon the structure of the dialogue and to be associated with “individuals known for their quick wit and verbal dexterity, often celebrities, intellectuals and local or family characters” (Bauman 2005, in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 22). It is worth stressing that the aforemen-tioned categories of individuals who are likely to appear in anecdotes overlap with the obituary subjects.


The anecdote, regarded as a genre which tends to be used in obituaries as one of the textual stylistic means of expressing the propositional and axiological content, fulfils the function of emphasis and illustration of the subject’s character, actions as well as opinions and attitudes to given issues, e.g. political, social, religious, etc. For example, in the obituary for Helen Suzman (The Times 2.01.2009), the subject’s intellectual skills as well as her strong commitment to the fight against apartheid legislation in South Africa are illustrated and emphasised by the following anecdote, presented here with its co-text:

Suzman was witty and irrepressible in debate, a master of the pungent aside and cutting rejoinder. She often faced roars of disapproval from the government benches as she argued the case against the Nationalist Government’s ideological legislation. In the 1960s, she frequently had to stand her ground in debate amid intense anger and abuse. The three successive prime ministers whom she confronted over a period of 25 years: Hendrik Verwoerd, John Vorster and P. W. Botha, she was sub-sequently to describe as “as nasty a trio as you could encounter in your worst nightmares”. She later admitted that Verwoerd was “the only man who has ever scared me stiff ”. Yet she stood up to him across the floor of the House, nota-bly on one occasion in 1961 when he was at his most aggressive and sarcastic, telling her that “the country has written you off ”. Suzman replied “The world has written you off ”. (Anon., The Times, 2.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)

It can be clearly seen that the text in bold at the end of this fragment, i.e. the anecdote, proves and highlights Suzman’s irrepressible wit, pungent aside and cutting rejoinders and illustrates the hostile conditions for her political activities. Moreover, this anecdote, besides illustrating and jus-tifying the propositional content preceding it, illustrates the Axiological Clash (AC) and its solution, i.e. the Clash Resolving Segment (CREST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251): the clash introduced here via information on the negative impact of Suzman’s adversary upon her emotional state: She later admitted that Verwoerd was “the only man who has ever scared me stiff”, and immediately resolved by the propositional content of the next sentence, in particular the first clause beginning with the adverbial con-junction: Yet she stood up to him across the floor of the House.

Another example of an anecdote incorporated in an obituary that is worth being referred to comes from the obituary for Reg Gutteridge:


His engaging personality made him much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, and many of the stories he told were self-deprecating yarns against himself, and his false leg. There were the jokes about getting his log over, and a tale which might well be apocryphal but one which neither Reg nor Ali was going to deny. Typically, Ali was in full flow about how great he was and how he was the prettiest and most brilliant fighter on the planet. As Reg told it, tiring of the champion’s bombast, he chirped: “Muhammad, you think you’re a tough guy, don’t you? Well, I’ll show you what tough is …”. Whereupon he seized a steak knife and violently stabbed himself in the leg, watched by the disbelieving Ali, who had no idea Reg had a false leg and was reduced to gob-smacked silence. “Now you do that,” said Reg. (Rawling, The Guardian, 27.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)

The present anecdote illustrates and highlights the engaging personality and humour of the obituary subject Reg Gutteridge. However, not only does it exemplify information on his personality and self-deprecating yarns against himself, and his false leg, but also as a story within a story, a concise narrative, it attracts and keeps the readers’ attention. That is why the anecdote as a genre on its own may be perceived in terms of the textual, cognitive, axiological and pragmatic means of shaping the structure and propositional content of the texts of the obituary and of possibly other genres which make use of the anecdote. The cogni-tive character of the anecdote consists in that it profiles, i.e. depicts and highlights particular scenes, incidents and short events, and focuses the reader’s attention on them. The anecdote profiles such moments in relation to the broader context, which can be understood in terms of cog-nitive domains/bases: in the obituary for Reg Gutteridge it is, for example, the domain of the human personality, character, whereas in the case of the obituary for Helen Suzman (The Times 2.01.2009), also the domain of politics and of morality and ethics. The axiological character, in turn, results from the function of an anecdote shedding a (rather) positive / (rather) negative light on the subject whom that anecdote depicts, whilst the pragmatic factor consists in winning the reader’s attention by enrich-ing the story-line of the obituary and making it more newsworthy.

The anecdotes quoted above also exemplify other aforementioned textual means of expressing the propositional content of obituaries, i.e. quotations and the catchphrases within them, as can be noticed in the textual passage on Helen Suzman that relates her famous and


attention-winning reply to one of her political opponents: “The world has written you off ” – this reply highlights her wit and moral stance, especially when considered within the whole context in which it was uttered. However, though anecdotes may draw on other textual means, such as quotations, catchphrases and mini-narratives functioning as sto-ries within stories, all of these textual structures must be distinguished from one another. Not all quotations have the character of interesting, attention-winning and even humorous catchphrases; similarly, not all short narratives, descriptions and/or quoted exchanges of rejoinders in a dialogue can be characterised as anecdotes. Some of them constitute simply a short narrative and/or descriptive depictions of various situa-tions related to the obituary subject; this can be illustrated by the follow-ing passage from the obituary for Helen Suzman:

In later years she paid particular attention to what she believed were deteriorating standards in the South African judicial system and, in particular, the recurring cases in which whites who beat blacks to death in the most brutal fashion were given scandalously light sentences. In 1989 she introduced the first censure motion ever before Parliament on a judge, J. J. Strydom, who had given a five-year suspended jail sentence, and a fine equivalent to a few hundred pounds, to a farmer, Jacobus Vorster, who had beaten a black labourer to death. Vorster was also to pay a small stipend to the widow and five children of the deceased for the next five years. Describing the entire judgment as “a travesty of justice”, Suzman found herself subjected to a barrage of sarcastic remarks from the Minister of Justice, who also saw fit to make the extraordinary observation that in addition to his punishment the convicted man would face humili-ation because he would be known by fellow whites to be working for the next five years to support a black woman. It goes without saying that in an atmosphere of such moral inversions, Suzman’s censure mo-tion was thrown out. Yet, South Africa was on the verge of change. P. W. Botha had given up the leadership of his party in February 1989 after suffering a stroke, though still retaining the State Presidency (the office of Prime Minister had been abolished in 1983). His successor, the Education Minster, F. W. de Klerk, though not previously noted as an advocate of reform, was soon to be calling for a non-racist South Africa and for full-scale, open, negotiations about the country’s future. (Anon., The Times, 2.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)


This passage includes both a description of the case of Jacobus Vor-ster, which illustrates and proves the issue of racism in the then South Africa, and a description of changes within that race-discriminating society. The description of the particular case of Jacobus Vorster does not only exemplify an instance of racism in the then South Africa but also constitutes a textual segment whose propositional content highlights the contrast between the highly unfavourable, negative political and social situation with which the obituary’s subject had to struggle and, on the other hand, the positive efforts undertaken by the subject in order to change the negative reality of racism. This means that the propositional content of the passage in question draws upon the axiological clash (see Krzeszowski 1997) which, although not explicitly expressed, can still be noticed at the level of axiologically charged inferences whose recognition depends on the reader’s general knowledge of the world and, in particu-lar, on general knowledge concerning political and social problems, here racism. The aforementioned inferences can be explicated as follows:

1. Notice that Z [X, Jacobus Vorster, killed Y, the black labourer] and that is BAD with regard to values V, e.g.: moral, social and judicial.

2. Notice that Z [X, the judge, imposed an inadequate sentence on Y, the murderer of the black labourer] and that is BAD with re-gard to values V, e.g.: moral, social and judicial.

3. Notice that Z [X, the human rights activist, Helen Suzman, de-manded a proper sentence for Y, the murderer] and that is GOOD with regard to values V, e.g.: moral, social and judicial.

4. Notice that Z [X, Helen Suzman, struggled with Y racism] and that is GOOD with regard to values V, e.g. moral, social, political and judicial.

In both fragments of the obituary for Helen Suzman as quoted above, although the aforementioned axiological judgements are implied by the text rather than expressed directly, the axiological clash and, in par tic-ular, its solution are linguistically marked by the conjunct adverbial yet. In the second of these quoted passages the conjunct adverbial yet juxta-poses two textual depictions of a political and social situation: the nega-tive phenomena of racism, as illustrated by the description of the case of the scandalously light and unfair sentence imposed by a judge upon a farmer who killed his black labourer, and the positive phenomenon of


slow yet significant changes within society dominated by racism. This second description constitutes the axiological Clash Resolving Segment (CREST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251), for it resolves the negative situation presented in the first segment: it reinstates a kind of axiological balance (Krzeszowski 1997) subverted by phenomena presented within the prop-ositional content of the preceding segment. Moreover, the axiological balance concerns here not only the abolishment of a racism-supporting political system and the re-establishment of the proper ethical order but also concerns the efforts undertaken by the obituary’s subject to fight against racism, i.e. efforts that, despite the difficult and highly unfavour-able situation, did not go in vain, which is illustrated by the following passage quoted here again for the sake of clarity:

It goes without saying that in an atmosphere of such moral inversions, Suzman’s censure motion was thrown out.Yet, South Africa was on the verge of change. (Anon., The Times, 2.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)

This fragment, when considered with its whole co-text as quoted on page 153, implies that the verge of change could not be possible without the efforts of such human rights activists as Helen Suzman: it is an axi-ologically charged implication which sheds a positive light on the obitu-ary subject herself.

The above-quoted fragments of elaborate portrayal-oriented obitu-aries as well as the present commentary on these fragments illustrate the highly opinionated character of such obituaries. The thematic choices and even more so the stylistic choices are very unpredictable here because the obituary genre imposes only very general confines on writers, who can choose various thematic and stylistic solutions from the broad range that is offered and allowed by the genre. Nonetheless, it is still possible to recognise the following textual means used to avoid the mere résumé template of obituaries: informed and axiologically charged anecdotes, quotations of the subject’s interesting utterances, catchphrases and opinionated descriptions of given issues, as is the case of Jacobus Vorster. Such textual means do not only break the mould of the résumé-focused template of obituaries but also emphasise their opinionated, feature-journalism character.


4. Axiological properties of the main body of obituaries

The opinionated feature-journalism character of the obituary genre results from its appraisal factor, which considerably contributes to and shapes particular textual realisations of this genre as well as distinguishes it from the news story about a death, as was emphasised in the defini-tion of the obituary presented in the second chapter and here partially repeated for the sake of clarity:

It is important to note the appraisal factor, for it is this element which distinguishes an obituary from a standard news story about death. While the intent of the latter is to supply an account of a deceased person’s life, often with information also on the circumstances of death, the obituary provides an assessment of its subject’s character, achievements, and effect on society. This is frequently demonstrated through the use of anecdote. (Starck 2005, in Herman et al. (eds.) 2005: 407)

The appraisal factor of the obituary genre may concern both positive / rather positive as well as negative / rather negative axiological judge-ments concerning obituary subjects and their attainments. Nevertheless, obituaries, despite their growing acceptability of a genuine, critical and even negative evaluation, still tend to present a positive / rather positive commemoration of the deceased persons, which was already noticed by Fowler (2007), quoted in the second chapter and here referred to for the sake of emphasis:

Of course, what might be called the ‘default’ model is the traditionally positive or neutral form, close to the eulogy. This signifies the first and most usual mode of commemoration. (Fowler 2007: 17)

This commemoration and its axiological character rest upon axi-ological judgements which may concern what might be called the global valuation as well as local valuation of obituary subjects and their achievements, accomplishments, actions and all of the situations they participated in. Hence, similar to the thematic framework that distin-guishes the global theme, macro-themes and micro-themes, the axiologi-cal judgements may also be conceptualised in terms of a framework which indicates correlations between the top-most general valuation resulting from the whole text, i.e. the global valuation, and more particular value judgements, i.e. the local valuation that results from the propositional

Axiological properties of the main body of obituaries 157

content of more or less thematically coherent segments of the text (see Krzeszowski 1997). These two levels of axiological assessment, i.e. global and local, tightly correlate with the pragmatic and thematic factors of the genre, for the global valuation correlates with the global communica-tive intention and, consequently, the global theme imposed by the genre upon its textual realisations, whereas the local valuation correlates with the more particular, even subsidiary intentions implied by the given micro-themes.

Moreover, the global and local valuation, though interconnected, may remain to a considerable extent independent of each other with respect to both the sign of valuation, i.e. the positive / rather positive (+) or negative / rather negative (−) pole of the axiological scale, and the as-pect of valuation, i.e. the kinds of value with respect to which particular phenomena are assessed, e.g. social, ethical, economic values, the value of perfection, etc. This means that despite the negative / rather negative valuations at the local level, the global valuation resulting from the whole text can still remain positive / rather positive and vice versa. Similarly, the global aspect of valuation, e.g. a positive valuation of the subject with respect to the value of perfection and professionalism, does not have to impose the same aspect upon all the other more local axiological judgements expressed within particular thematic segments of the text. The global and local valuation within obituaries may well be illustrated by examples of the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson (The Independent 4.06.2010) and for Tommy Gosling (The Times 1.01.2009), fragments of which are quoted below and further commented on, whereas their full texts, owing to their length, are presented in the appendix.

In the case of the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson, almost all axiological judgements expressed or implied by the text can be associ-ated with two cognitive domains: the domain of the subject’s Career and the domain of the subject’s Personality; in turn, in the obituary for Tommy Gosling, the axiological valuation predominantly concerns his profes-sional accomplishments within the domain of his Career. The obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson juxtaposes a positive axiological valuation of his career – the career of a highly effective and successful business-man and philanthropist – with a negative valuation of the traits of his character – his rude behaviour towards others. The textual segments pre-senting his career and philanthropy imply, rather than directly express,


a positive valuation, whereas the textual segments illuminating his per-sonality draw upon numerous quotations of expressive and, thus, heavily axiologically charged remarks made by his acquaintances and the other people who got to know him. Both types of valuation are exemplified in the following passage:

Leonard Gordon Wolfson, who has died at the age of 82, took control of a family business which earned huge amounts of money and also distributed huge amounts through a philanthropic foundation. In his decades in charge of both, he made money with remarkable regu-larity as boss of Great Universal Stores, which he built into a powerful retailing empire that reported year-on-year profits for almost half a cen-tury. Meanwhile, The Wolfson Foundation, which he and his parents set up, distributed in excess of a billion pounds to a vast array of causes in education, health, science and the humanities. In this he followed in the footsteps of his father, Isaac […] The descrip-tion applied equally to his son, Leonard. But although his philanthropy was on a prodigious scale, his concern for mankind was not so evident at a personal level. “He was not what you would call user-friendly,” a former director once confided to Management Today magazine. “In fact, he could be appallingly rude. I would say he had more self-confi-dence than anyone I have met.” (McKittrick, The Independent, 4.06.2010, emphasis – T. W.)

The above-quoted fragment includes the most newsworthy textual segments of the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson: the lead realised by the elaborate complex sentence with the embedded relative clause, a further elaboration of the lead and the textual segment shedding some light on the subject’s personality. The lead and its textual elaboration imply a positive valuation of the subject’s occupation and of the institution he co-created and further developed. This valuation has a rather pragmatic character because it rests on axiologically charged inferences which may be recognised and drawn from the text by readers owing to their general knowledge of the world. Such inferences can be presented according to the following axiological formulae based on Laskowska’s (1992) proposal – Notice that Z, [X did Y] and that is GOOD/BAD with respect to values V:

1. Notice that Z [X, Leonard Gordon Wolfson’s family business, did Y, earned huge amounts of money and also distributed huge amounts through a philanthropic foundation] and that is GOOD


with respect to values V, e.g.: economic: high profits of the com-pany, and ethical values: helping people through the philanthropic foundation.

2. Notice that Z [X, Leonard Gordon Wolfson, did Y, made money with remarkable regularity as boss of Great Universal Stores, and he further developed the company into a powerful retailing em-pire that reported year-on-year profits for almost half a century] and that is GOOD with respect to values V, e.g.: economic: regu-lar stable profits, and values of perfection: a professional and well-managed corporation.

These two axiological inferences, though strongly implied rather than directly expressed in the text, rely upon particular linguistic means, such as the adjective huge in the expression huge amounts (of money), indicating a quantitative valuation, and the adjective powerful in the ex-pression powerful retailing company, indicating a qualitative valuation. However, despite the contribution of such descriptive-and-evaluative lexical items to the axiological potential of whole sentences and longer textual passages, the axiological potential of the propositional content of the obituary fragment as quoted above still remains predominantly based on axiologically charged inferences rather than on particular linguistic means; hence its more reader-dependent than just text-dependent char-acter. As was mentioned above, such a valuation does not appear to be evoked so much by the text itself as it appears to be inferred from the text by the reader, which is much more due to his/her cultural competence and general knowledge of the world than simply mere linguistic compe-tence: here it is the reader’s general knowledge about financial matters, business, economy and philanthropic activity.

Contrary to these positive axiological judgements which may be in-ferred from the text by the readers, the axiological potential of the third paragraph in the above-quoted fragment of the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson seems to draw upon an explicit negative valuation. Such a valuation causes an axiological clash with the positive image of the obituary subject in the previous textual segments which present his effective business and philanthropy. This axiological clash is linguistically marked by the adverbial conjunct although and by the whole concessive clause introduced by it: “But although his philanthropy was on a prodi-gious scale, his concern for mankind was not so evident at a personal


level.” This axiological clash is not immediately resolved by the so-called Clash Resolving Segment (CREST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251) but rather further emphasised by the Clash Holding Segment (CHOST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251), which draws upon the quotation of negative remarks concerning the deceased man:

“He was not what you would call user-friendly,” a former director once confided to Management Today magazine. “In fact, he could be appall-ingly rude. I would say he had more self-confidence than anyone I have met.” (McKittrick, The Independent, 4.06.2010)

The negative appraisal is directly expressed within these quota-tions by means of negation in the first sentence, “He was not what you would call user-friendly,” and the primarily evaluative adjective rude modified by the adverb appallingly in the second sentence. The negative evaluation of the subject’s personality is further expressed by quotations including metaphorical expressions uttered by the obituary subject’s acquaintances, e.g.:

“I can’t say his presence was good for the digestion. Everyone froze when he came into the room – the other directors always referred to him as “Sir”. He was the hardest man I have ever met.” A family friend added to this conception of Wolfson’s public face. “I think he prefers books on history and economics to people. He is very difficult to get on with – a man who often acts irrationally and bears grudges.” (McKittrick, The Independent, 4.06.2010)

The metaphorical phrases: can’t say his presence was good for the diges-tion, everyone froze when he came into, as well as the other axiologically charged collocations, such as: bear grudges and to be difficult to get on with, explicitly illustrate negative traits of character. Nevertheless, this negative valuation of the subject’s personality and his personal relations with others does not constitute the most salient thematic and axiologi-cal category of his obituary – it is rather the positive appraisal linked with the thematic categories of the subject’s business and philanthropy which comes to the fore of his axiologically charged image arising from the present obituary. Moreover, the axiological clash caused by the nega-tive appraisal of the subject’s personality seems to be resolved, or at least partially reduced, by the so-called Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251) exemplified below:


The magazine summed him up as heavy-handed, terse and acidic – “a multi-billion-pound enigma, a man feared, loathed and respected in roughly equal measure.” (McKittrick, The Independent, 4.06.2010, emphasis – T. W.).

And further:

Wolfson was oblivious to such carping: he was in the business not of winning friends, but of influencing people and making profits. He was content to preside over what has been described as the longest period of continuous profitability of any company in these islands, reporting year-on-year profits for 48 years. (McKittrick, The Independent, 4.06.2010, emphasis – T. W.)

These fragments and, in particular, their syntactic structures marked in bold somehow reduce the negative valuation of the subject, who was not only feared and loathed but also respected in roughly equal measure, and they justify the autocratic character of the subject’s code of con-duct in business which was not for winning friends but for influencing people and making profits. Such Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251) indicate here the main positive valuation of the subject’s conduct with respect to his business and management skills and, at the same time, they divert the readers’ attention from the nega-tive valuation of his autocratic character and refocus it on positive value judgements concerning his business. Hence, despite these negative value judgements and the axiological clashes they cause, the global valuation still remains positive due to the Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs).

However, the opposition Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs) vs. Clash Holding Segment (CHOST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251) should be further specified because this opposition does not present the only alternatives of dealing with axiological clashes. Besides such Metaaxi-ological Interludes (MAINs), introduced and defined by Krzeszowski (1997: 251) as “any segment in which values are negotiated as a result of a clash, whether successful (CREST) or unsuccessful (CHOST),” one can also distinguish textual segments which do not so much resolve the axiological clashes as they reduce the negative impression of such clashes by introducing/implying some positive axiological judgements. Thus, the two examples from the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson, partially repeated below for the sake of clarity:


The magazine summed him up as heavy-handed, terse and acidic – “a multi-billion-pound enigma, a man feared, loathed and respected in roughly equal measure.”Wolfson was oblivious to such carping: he was in the business not of winning friends, but of influencing people and making profits (McKit-trick, The Independent, 4.06.2010, emphasis – T. W.),

should be reanalysed and characterised more specifically as textual segments which do not resolve the axiological clashes but rather reduce them; for example, the first fragment quoted above does not deny the remarks on negative features of the subject’s personality but, on the contrary, it confirms them by providing information on the negative emotions the subject evoked: this is expressed by the past participles feared and loathed. Yet, at the same time it introduces a positive assess-ment by the past participle respected, which somehow reduces the nega-tive description of the subject as a man feared and loathed, for he is also respected in roughly equal measure.

The case of reducing the negative axiological effects rather than re-solving the axiological clashes is also illustrated by the second of the two fragments quoted above. This fragment neither denies nor corrects the negative information on the subject’s relations with others, which were mentioned earlier in the text, but it somehow justifies the auto-cratic character of his personal conduct by stating that the reason for his presence in business is not of winning friends, but of influencing people and making profits. The expression not of … but of brings the negative valuation of the subject’s autocratic personality to the background of the thematic and axiological framework and, at the same time, it brings a positive valuation of his management skills, i.e. influencing people and making profits, to the foreground of the thematic and axiological frame-work of the obituary. Justifying his autocratic character, this textual segment reduces what might be called a negative impression imposed on the reader by the content of all these textual and systemic structures which shed a negative light on the obituary’s subject.

The aforementioned remarks make it clear that Metaaxiological Inter-ludes (MAINs), besides embracing Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs) as well as Clash Holding Segments (CHOSTs) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251), may also include what is in the present study called a Clash Reducing Seg-ment (CREDST). As was shown above, the Metaaxiological Interludes


(MAINs) might be signalled by juxtaposing two axiologically-contrasted lexical items, e.g. feared, loathed and respected in roughly equal measure, and by juxtaposing syntactic structures as well as broader textual seg-ments presenting contrasting axiological judgements. The contrast between value judgements expressed or simply implied in texts can be signalled by particular linguistic means, such as, for example, conjunct adverbials: nevertheless, nonetheless, though, although, however, yet, as well as conjunctions: but, yet, and prepositions: despite, in spite of, unlike, etc. Further examples of linguistic means used to resolve, reduce or intro-duce axiological clashes can be found in the obituary for Tommy Gosling (The Times 1.01.2009), whose selected fragments are discussed below.

The obituary dedicated to Tommy Gosling was chosen to illustrate a different character of axiological clashes and their solutions within obituary articles, i.e. different from the one discussed above. Contrary to the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson, the axiological valuation in the obituary for Tommy Gosling does not concern two relatively distinct and broad thematic categories such as Career and Personality, which are regarded as cognitive domains, but is chiefly focused only on one thematic category – Career. This also means that, unlike in the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson, axiological clashes within the obituary for Tommy Gosling do not occur between different thematic domains, e.g. a positive valuation concerning management skills and a negative valu-ation concerning personal conduct, but all arise from the propositional content which instantiates the thematic category of Career: the subject’s achievements and accomplishments concerning his occupation.

Moreover, axiological clashes in the obituary for Tommy Gosling appear more frequently and are resolved more instantly than is the case in the obituary for Leonard Gordon Wolfson. These differences are il-lustrated by the following three fragments from The Times’ (1.01.2009) obituary for Gosling:

Of the pair of co-champions, Durr, a natural lightweight, was to remain a jockey until 1978, but weight would eventually restrict Gosling’s rid-ing career in 1963. By that time, however, he was established as one of the country’s senior jockeys, and no horse did more to further his career than the most popular competitor of the post-war years, Colonist II.Gosling never rode an English Classic winner, his best positions being second in the Derby in 1954 on Arabian Night and third in the St Leger


in 1960 on Vienna. However, the 1962 Derby provided him with a less happy experience, as his mount, Changing Times, was involved in a seven-horse pile-up. He did, though, taste Classic glory in 1961, riding Lady Senator to victory in the Irish 1,000 Guineas for the Epsom trainer Peter Ashworth.Three years later, however, Gosling’s battle with increasing weight had been lost and he set up as a trainer at Priam Lodge in Epsom. He was instantly successful. (Anon., The Times, 1.01.2009, emphasis – T. W.)

These fragments illustrate both the issue of introducing axiological clashes (ACs) as well as their resolution and reduction within the Clash Resolving Segment (CREST) (Krzeszowski 1997: 251) and the Clash Reducing Segment (CREDST), respectively. The instance of introduc-ing an axiological clash (AC) can already be observed at the beginning of the first fragment in the sentence: Of the pair of co-champions, Durr, a natural lightweight, was to remain a jockey until 1978, but weight would eventually restrict Gosling’s riding career in 1963. This clash is signalled here by the conjunction but and the verb restrict, which explicitly sheds a negative light on Gosling’s weight as an impediment to his riding career – an obstacle which was not overcome. The negative character of the fact that Gosling’s riding career was impeded by his weight, however, seems to be slightly reduced in the light of the following statement: By that time, however, he was established as one of the country’s senior jockeys, and no horse did more to further his career than the most popular com-petitor of the post-war years, Colonist II. The conjunct adverbial however highlights here the contrast between two states of affairs: an impediment to the development of Gosling’s career, which causes an axiological clash with the potential state of affairs without such an impediment, and his position as one of the country’s senior jockeys that he reached despite the aforementioned hindrance to his riding career. The conjunct adver-bial however signals the Clash Reducing Segment (CREDST), whose axiological character seems to draw upon the following inferences:

1. Notice that Z [Gosling’s career was restricted by his weight] and that is BAD with respect to values V, possibly pragmatic, the value of perfection (unfulfilled ambitions) and even an emotional value (“gaps” in personal fulfilment).

2. Notice that Z [impediment to his riding career does not prevent him from achieving the position of one of the country’s senior


jockeys] and that is GOOD with respect to values V, possibly pragmatic, the value of perfection (fulfilled ambitions) and even an emotional value (personal fulfilment).

The second axiological judgement does not fully resolve the axiological clash triggered by the first one (Gosling’s career still remained restricted by his weight), but it does weaken the negative character of this clash (the impediment to his career appears less serious in the light of his reaching a prestigious position as one of the country’s senior jockeys de-spite that impediment).

It must be stressed that the two above-mentioned axiological infer-ences constitute only some of the possible judgements the text may induce the reader to recognise. Moreover, these judgements do not necessarily refer to the real frame of mind of the subject as described in the obituary: the text does not state that the impediments to the riding career resulted in Tommy Gosling’s “gaps” in his personal fulfilment, or that he had any satisfaction from achieving the position of a senior jockey. Such judgements function as the axiological potential which may be inferred from the text by readers due to their general knowledge of the world and their cultural competence.

In the fragment quoted above the reader might also recognise the sec-ond axiological clash signalled by the adverb never in the sentence: Gos-ling never rode an English Classic winner. This clash consists in contrasting the state of affairs in which he never rode an English Classic winner with the potential state of affairs in which he could have ridden an English Classic winner – a contrast which results in the following potential infer-ence: Notice Z [Gosling never rode an English Classic winner] and that is possibly BAD or at least not as GOOD as the opposite state of affairs in which he would have ridden an English Classic winner, which could have significantly contributed to his career. The axiological clash triggered by this inference is, however, resolved later on in the text in the clause: He did, though, taste Classic glory in 1961, riding Lady Senator to victory in the Irish 1,000 Guineas for the Epsom trainer Peter Ashworth – this clash resolution is signalled by the adverb though that contrasts the previous state of affairs (Gosling never rode an English classic) with the other state (Gosling tasted Classic glory). The axiological-clash-resolving clause: He did, though, taste Classic glory, somehow diverts the reader’s attention from the fact that the subject never rode an English Classic winner and


refocuses it on the subject’s achievement in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, where he did taste Classic glory.

It can be noticed that the conjunct adverbials though, although and however can signal both axiological-clash-resolving/reducing and axiological-clash-triggering segments; for example, in the extracts from the obituary for Tommy Gosling, the conjunct adverbial however appears three times: once it indicates a clash-reducing segment by contrasting the negative state of affairs with the positive one (an impediment to Gosling’s career vs. achievements despite this impediment), and twice it indicates clash-triggering segments, where positive states of affairs are overshadowed with negative ones. It can be noticed in the following sentence: However, the 1962 Derby provided him with a less happy experi-ence, as his mount, Changing Times, was involved in a seven-horse pile-up, where the linking adverbial however juxtaposes the positive experience of winning good positions in a horse-race competition in Derby, which was mentioned earlier in the text, with the negative experience of a seven-horse pile-up in Derby. The axiological imbalance is directly expressed by the noun phrase with a nominal head pre-modified by the adjectival phrase less happy experience.

Summing up, it should be stressed that the examples of obituaries described in the present subchapter make it clear that the tendency for positive commemoration in obituaries concerns mainly what might be called a global valuation of the obituary subject, i.e. a valuation that arises from the whole text and not just its local more or less themati-cally coherent segments. This means that a global valuation results from the most general macro-themes, their number and focus within the the-matic framework rather than only from micro-themes elaborated by micro-propositions.

Such a positive global valuation does not block negative judgements expressed at the local level of the textual organisation of an obituary, i.e. the level of micro-themes. Obituaries which include a genuine and even negative / rather negative appraisal of the subject and/or his/her accomplishments, intentions, etc. can still give rise to a positive / rather positive image of the deceased person owing to the positive character of global valuation. The positive nature of global valuation, despite the negative value judgements implied by particular micro-themes, can be maintained in a two-fold manner: either by a larger number of textual


segments whose propositional content evokes a positive valuation of the subject and his/her attainments, and/or by the so-called Clash Re-solving Segments (CRESTs), i.e. textual segments whose propositional content re-instates an axiological balance by resolving the axiological clashes (Krzeszowski 1997: 247–258), or the Clash Reducing Segments (CREDSTs), proposed in the present work, which were illustrated by selected examples.

It must also be noticed that the most general model of the obituary genre neither predicts nor imposes upon its textual realisations the num-ber and order of appearance of textual segments which either resolve or reduce the axiological clashes. The model only states the axiological ten-dencies, such as a positive / rather positive appraisal of the deceased per-son, mainly with respect to his/her career, achievements and accomplish-ments, and it presupposes the newsworthiness or simply noteworthiness of such attainments. Moreover, the examples of obituaries quoted within this and the previous subchapters make it clear that particular stylistic means of expressing axiological and, in general, propositional content appear very erratic, which is also confirmed by the media studies and editorial practice referred to in the present work. The only confines im-posed upon journalists who write obituaries concern the general features of factual news journalism as well as of more opinionated feature journal-ism, the obligatory appraisal factor and the characteristic textual frame with the headlines and the biobox as well as a presentation of the obituary subject’s life-trajectory according to the reverse shift principle as stated by Johnson (2006: 36). These features, which were already discussed in this subchapter, are further clarified within the following chapter.

Concluding remarks

The present chapter clarifies the main cognitive, semantic, axiological and pragmatic factors which determine the composition and thematic framework as well as stylistic features of textual realisations of the obitu-ary genre in the mainstream press, mainly the British national press as represented by four daily newspapers: The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph and The Times.

As was explained in subchapters 1 and 2, the narrative flow and description of the obituary subject’s life-trajectory can be accounted


for in terms of the cognitive schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (John-son 1987), which correlates with the conceptual metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY (Lakoff 1993). This means that the human life-course tends to be perceived in conceptual terms as a certain trajectory with its source, path and goal, which is reflected in the quoted expressions such as walks of life, origins and trajectories of the subject, etc. However, the correlation between the composition of obituaries and the aforementioned cogni-tive schema as well as the conceptual metaphor emphasises that it is not only the level of lexical means which may prove the conceptualisation of the human life-course as a kind of journey and, thus, a trajectory, but also that it is the level of whole biographical texts and, even more, the gen-eral level of biographical genres which may reflect this conceptualisa-tion. In other words, the thematic segments of such texts, say, realisations of the obituary genre, may be regarded as a concrete elaboration either of the SOURCE subschema due to their presentation of the subject’s origin and early formative years, a PATH subschema due to their propositional content illuminating the development of the subject’s career, or a GOAL subschema owing to their content focused on the reason for the subject’s fame, which tends to be associated with the most creative and flourish-ing period of the life-course.

The subchapters on the compositional and thematic framework of obituaries also clarify that the composition of the textual realisation of biographical genres may result from certain modifications of the cog-nitive schemata of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (Johnson 1987). The com-position and thematic categories of obituaries, for example, tend to draw on the extended version of the standard SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema: the version specified in the study as the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL-END model, where the GOAL is not necessarily associated with the END of one’s career and life-course but rather with the most noteworthy peak of that career, usually marked by certain attainments as the reason for fame.

Moreover, apart from the aforementioned extension of the cognitive schema, the composition and thematic categories of obituaries (the order of presenting these categories) reflect another modification of the stan-dard chronological perception of the subject’s life-trajectory, i.e. a modi-fication which was specified by Johnson (2006) as a reverse shift and was further explained in the study as the reverse order of the narrative flow


determining the superstructure of the text. This reverse order of the nar-rative flow is explained in this chapter in conceptual terms as the reverse shift within the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema, for textual segments introducing the reason for the subject’s fame, usually some noteworthy attainment(s) and, consequently, elaborating the schematic GOAL tend to precede textual segments whose propositional content presents or only mentions the origin/background and/or early formative years of the subject and, thus, elaborates the schematic SOURCE.

Besides the notions of image schemata and conceptual metaphor (Johnson 1987; Lakoff, Johnson 1980), the compositional and thematic structure of obituaries can be described in cognitive semantics terms such as base and profile (Langacker 1987): the base, regarded as a cogni-tive domain, is understood in the study as a thematic category, whereas profile is understood as the propositional content or elements of that content elevated to the level of cognitive salience, i.e. emphasised and brought to the foreground of the thematic framework of obituaries. Describing the thematic categories of obituaries and their presentation in terms of cognitive domains and profiles makes it clear that these terms can be applied not only to an analysis of lexical and syntactic structures but also to entire texts and their thematic categories.

Apart from the compositional and thematic features of obituaries, the chapter also addresses the issue of their stylistic properties. Referring to Starck’s (2006) distinction of the two broad stylistic categories of obitu-aries, i.e. snapshot and portrait, which are further specified in the present work as résumé-oriented and elaborate-portrayal-oriented obituaries, the chapter offers a description of linguistic and textual choices which are characteristic of these two broad categories of obituaries. Résumé-oriented obituaries, as was illustrated by proper examples, tend to draw upon syntactic parallelism, i.e. parallel/semi-parallel structures which resemble an elaborate list of one’s achievements and accomplishments, whereas the portrayal-obituaries are far less predictable in their stylistic features, for they leave considerable room for creativity of the obituary writer. However, the textual means, such as axiologically charged il-lustrative anecdotes, catchphrases, quotations, and more or less detailed descriptions and narrative stories, can still be regarded as means that are characteristic of more opinionated portrayal-oriented obituaries, i.e. more opinionated, newsworthy and thus feature-article-based.


The chapter, besides the concluding remarks, ends with a description of the axiological tendencies of the obituary genre. Although various remarks on the axiological aspect of obituaries occurs in other places in this chapter, subchapter 4 thoroughly illustrates, with numerous exam-ples, the tendency for the obituary genre to distance itself from, if not to reject, the Latin formula of de mortuis nil nisi bonum (“speak only good about the dead”). The examples illustrate the more genuine character of contemporary obituaries, yet they also emphasise that the positive / rather positive mode of commemoration, which is specified by Fowler (2007) as the “default” model, predominates within obituary columns, at least when considering the global valuation of the deceased. This posi-tive / rather positive mode of commemoration tends to be maintained in obituary texts despite the more genuine and even negative value judgements that are expressed at the local level of textual structures by means of the so-called axiological Clash Resolving Segments (CRESTs) (Krzeszowski 1997) as well as, as proposed in the present study, Clash Reducing Segments (CREDSTs).

Chapter 5

The complexity and inter-generic correlations of the obituary genre as a cognitive category

The obituary genre can be specified in terms of a cognitive category which correlates with a network of other genres. Although remarks on inter-generic correlations were preliminarily presented in Chapter 2, subchapter 3 as well as in the other analytical chapters of the present study, they still need to be further clarified with respect to the cogni-tive model of speech genres. Subchapter 3 of Chapter 2 presented rather general yet apt remarks on correlations between the obituary genre and genres such as the news story about a death, a biography and eulogy. These observations, however, resulted from a critical review of the lit-erature on obituaries mainly within the realm of media studies, whereas the present chapter presents the outcome of an analysis of inter-generic correlations within the obituary genre as conducted in the light of the theory of speech genres (Duff 2000; Ostaszewska, Cudak (eds.) 2008; Swales 1990; Witosz 2005; Wojtak 2004a, 2004b) as well as systemic functional linguistics (Halliday 1985; Biber, Conrad 2009).

The terminology of the aforementioned analytical paradigms was selected and applied to the cognitive and axiological analysis of correla-tions between the obituary genre and the other genres related to it. Thus, the similarities as well as differences between the obituary genre and other related genres are further clarified in terms of cognitive domains/bases and the cognitive process of profiling (Langacker 1987; Evans, Green 2006), the communicative purpose of the genre (Grochowski 2004; Swales 1990) as well as other “contextual variables called field, tenor and mode in Systemic Functional Linguistics, which roughly mean topics/actions of the language, participants/relations and mode/organization” (Biber, Conrad 2009: 22).

The complexity and inter-generic correlations of the obituary genre…172

The following three genres, i.e. the news story about a death, biogra-phy and eulogy, seem to constitute the main source of generic adaptations for obituaries; thus the description of correlations between them and the obituary genre constitutes the main objective of the present chapter.

1. Family resemblance and the prototypical effects of obituaries

The obituary as one of the genres of opinionated feature journalism can be regarded in terms of a conceptual category whose membership criteria do not constitute any closed set of rigid norms; on the contrary, these criteria should be regarded as an open and dynamic set of condi-tions that are more or less shared by category members. In other words, membership of the category obituary draws on the principle of fam-ily resemblance (Wittgenstein 1953) and prototypicality effects (Rosch 1978): the former consisting in a network of various similarities among members of a category, whereas the latter in recognising the scalar salience of category members. The concept of prototypicality effects is associated with the idea of a prototype, which in the course of studies on categorisation evolved and acquired various senses. In the standard cognitive theory of categorisation, the prototype is regarded either as “the clearest cases of category membership defined operationally by people’s judgements of goodness of membership in the category” (Rosch 1978: 36), thus the most characteristic exemplars of the category or, in more abstract terms, a set of the most salient properties of the category, i.e. the set which constitutes the point of reference to establish category membership (Kleiber [1990] 2003). In the case of speech genres, this theory implies the existence of the most salient prototypical model of the genre, i.e. its canonical model, which safeguards the identity of the whole category, whereas positions distanced from the centre are oc-cupied by less prototypical models based on adaptations of other genres and/or alternations of given structures within the prototypical model (see Wojtak 2004a, 2004b). Such less prototypical models belong to a category on the grounds of their family resemblance to the prototype and to other members of the category.

However, not all speech genres which are regarded as socio-culturally determined and entrenched categories of discourse, in both forms of spo-ken and written, can be clearly perceived as radial categories (Lakoff 1987)

Family resemblance and the prototypical effects of obituaries 173

with a prototypical centre and less prototypical peripheries. Witosz (2005: 76) clearly states that “it turns out, then, that not every category has a prototype-based structure”31 (translation mine – T. W.), which can be noticed in the case of speech genres which did not develop a clear prototypical centre, i.e. a canonical model with respect to which other less prototypical alternation and adaptation models (see Wojtak 2004a, 2004b) could be specified. On the contrary, the identity of such a cat-egory relies merely upon family resemblance of all its members to one another rather than to a central prototypical model, be it perceived either as the most salient exemplar or an abstract set of the most salient features of the category.

Difficulties arise even more when it is noticed that in the case of obituaries alternations and adaptations of other genres within their model do not necessarily concern less prototypical realisations but permeate the whole category as such. These remarks correspond with observations made by Wojtak (2004b), who carried out an analysis of genres in the Polish press and among which she analysed the genre of sylwetka prasowa, which might be regarded as a rough equivalent of English biographical profiles and obituaries. In her publication titled Gatunki Prasowe (Genres of the Press, 2004b), in a chapter on Polish profiles/obituaries, i.e. sylwetka prasowa, she states that:

Considering a structural aspect, the profile [sylwetka prasowa – T. W.] can be interpreted as a parasite genre. Thus, global characteristics of this genre cannot be accounted for in terms of a model of description based on specifying a canonical model, alternation and adaptation models, for the profile [sylwetka] is basically the adaptation model.32 (Wojtak 2004b: 121, translation and emphasis – T. W.)

She further adds:

The pattern of the genre profile has the character of the usage-based model; it must then be interpreted as a collection of models and their

31 “Okazuje się więc, że nie każda kategoria ma strukturę prototypową” (Witosz 2005: 76).

32 “Biorąc pod uwagę aspekt strukturalny, można interpretować sylwetkę jako gatu-nek pasożytniczy. W globalnej charakterystyce tego gatunku nie da się w związku z tym zastosować modelu opisu opartego na wyodrębnieniu wzorca kanonicznego, wzorców alternacyjnych i adaptacyjnych, gdyż sylwetka jest zasadniczo gatunkiem adaptacyjnym” (Wojtak 2004b: 121).


representations constituting a dynamic structure.33 (Wojtak 2004b: 122, translation and emphasis – T. W.)

This collection of models then constitutes a category on the grounds of the aforementioned family resemblance of such models to one another rather than to a central canonical model. Wojtak’s (2004b) remarks can be applied to a description of English obituaries which draw upon other generic patterns, adopting and adapting them to their own style and com-positional as well as thematic structure. The character of obituaries as a parasite genre of fuzzy boundaries, however, does not contradict the pro-totypicality effects of their category. Nonetheless, these effects should not be regarded as the degrees of similarity of obituaries to one central clear-cut model, i.e. the canonical model in Wojtak’s (2004a, 2004b) terms. The obituary genre embraces a dynamic and open collection of models which can be understood as types for its textual realisations. These types represent stylistic-and-thematic subcategories of the genre and can be presented in the following juxtapositions: rather template résumé-orient-ed vs. elaborate portrayal-oriented obituaries, and eulogised obituaries stressing their emotional subjective character vs. report-like rather objec-tive obituaries. Moreover, the variety of stylistic subcategories of obituaries criss-crosses the variety of their editorial models. Such a variety of types of textual realisations still falls within the one category of obituary due to their sufficient resemblance to one another. This resemblance, however, can hardly be described in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, though, as was mentioned in Chapter 1, subchapter 2.2.1, some proper-ties of obituaries can be described as necessary-yet-not-sufficient.34 These necessary core properties of obituaries embrace the following two factors:

1. commemoration of the deceased; 2. appraisal of obituary subjects and their legacy.

33 “Wzorzec gatunkowy sylwetki ma charakter wzorca uzualnego, trzeba go więc interpretować jako zbiór modeli oraz ich reprezentacji tworzących dynamiczną strukturę” (Wojtak 2004b: 122).

34 In the classical theory of categorisation, necessary and sufficient conditions mean that each of such membership criteria is necessary and, taken all together, they are sufficient (Kleiber [1990] 2003: 23). The term necessary-yet-not-sufficient as used in the present study only indicates and emphasises the fact that in the case of obituar-ies even their core properties do not suffice to distinguish obituaries from the other genres that are related to them. Thus, still other properties and tendencies must be taken into account in order to safeguard the autonomy of the obituary as a genre.


It is hardly possible to think of obituaries as lacking these two properties. The first is already indicated by the etymology of the very term obituary, which clearly points to the situation of one’s death. Although obituar-ies are focused mainly on the subjects’ lives and character, the fact of their death constitutes one of the reasons as well as an occasion to com-memorate and appraise their legacy as left to posterity and to present this commemoration in the media, especially in the case of celebrities, famous politicians, artists, scientists, etc. Moreover, this association of obituaries with post-mortem discourse is indicated by their composi-tional and thematic structures which are applied to notify the public of someone’s death, e.g. an introductory paragraph with explicit informa-tion on the subject’s death and the final segment, the biobox, stating the date of death and often individuals predeceased as well as those who survived the obituary subject; in the case of American newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Los Angeles Times, also the headlines explicitly inform of the subject’s death and age at death. Commemoration and appraisal of the deceased correlate with each other because obituaries commemorate their subjects by a more or less explicit evaluation of their legacy and character. Even the very choice of the biographical details can shed a (rather) positive or (rather) negative light on the obituary subject.

However, commemoration and appraisal of the deceased, though constitutive factors of the obituary genre, do not form sufficient condi-tions to identify and characterise obituaries. These two properties are also shared by other genres, e.g. by biographies, eulogies and letters of condolences. Hence some other properties must be taken into account in order to be able to distinguish obituaries from other genres, especially from those which are heavily relied on and adapted for the writing of obituaries. These other properties can be characterised in terms of the following tendencies:

1. mass media provenance of obituary texts: they mainly function as obituary articles and have their columns in the press; they fall within the domain of opinionated feature journalism;

2. newsworthiness of obituaries: the media provenance imposes a news value on obituaries – they tend to be published in a rela-tively short period after one’s death, mainly in the form of ar-ticles whose composition draws on the principle of an inverted


pyramid, i.e. the headlines and the first paragraph(s) include the most newsworthy content, whereas further textual segments provide less newsworthy information;

3. thematic focus put on the obituary subjects’ noteworthy accom-plishments, achievements and events in which they participated as well as on significant traits of character;

4. composition and thematic structure based on the schema of GOAL-SOURCE-PATH-END, i.e. modification and extension of the image schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL (Johnson 1987);

5. axiological tendencies: the growing tendency to allow negative judgements to enter obituary texts despite their still predomi-nant tendency to offer a rather positive appraisal of the deceased person: rather positive at least at the level of a global general as-sessment resulting from the whole textual body of the obituary article;

6. conventional adaptations of other related genres or some of their salient features: mainly such as the news story article, biography, résumé, death notice, eulogy;

7. stylistic tendencies: distancing from the mere résumé template by means of illustrative anecdotes, quotations, opinionated descrip-tions and narratives.

These seven additional characteristics specify and complement the two most general necessary-yet-not-sufficient properties of obituaries and together with them contribute to the family resemblance of obituaries. These characteristics further facilitate in identifying and distinguish-ing obituaries in the network of other genres from which they more or less draw, e.g. making room in obituaries for a negative appraisal of the deceased person distances them from eulogies, death notices and condolences, which are unlikely to include negative assessments of the deceased, unless some exceptional cases where negative assess-ments can have, for example, a humorous effect. In turn, mass media provenance and the news value factor distance obituaries from literary biographies. Although both obituaries and literary biographies can be influenced and shaped by the news-value factor, the correlations between newsworthiness and the cognitive value of the content, i.e. richness and salience of the information, are stronger and more direct in the case of obituaries than in literary biographies. In other words, unlike in the case


of in-depth biographies of a certain literary value, news-value stressing media discourse as well as other pragmatic factors such as the space of newspaper columns and the deadline of the publication make obituaries function as rather concise and selective biographical profiles which are to win the reader’s attention more by the newsworthiness of the content than by a full biographical account and/or aesthetic value of the style.

The factors listed above correlate with one another. The media provenance of obituaries strongly correlates with the news-value factor, which together with the axiological prerequisites and editorial policy influence the choice of subjects as well as the way in which they are pre-sented within obituary columns. This also implies that the pragmatic and axiological factors strongly correlate with the compositional, thematic and stylistic properties. The newsworthiness of obituaries is reflected in their main focus that is put on noteworthy facts from the subjects’ lives: their accomplishments, achievements and events bearing a signifi-cance that can characterise their legacy and have the potential to catch the readers’ interest. Such a thematic focus determined by the news-value factor is emphasised, in turn, by the compositional structure based on the principle of the inverted pyramid and the cognitive schema of GOAL-SOURCE-PATH-END: it is the schematic GOAL instantiated by the most newsworthy information, e.g. the reason for the fame of the deceased person that overlaps with the peak of the pyramid. The fact that obituaries rely on the superstructure (to use van Dijk’s (1997) ter-minology) of the news story articles does not necessarily result from their function to commemorate the deceased but rather from the type of discourse within which this commemoration takes place, i.e. the mass media, predominantly printed media, which impose upon such a com-memoration a news value imperative.

The considerable reliance of the global structure of obituaries on the superstructure of standard news stories does not blur the boundary between these two genres of journalistic writing. For the sake of clarity, it must be emphasised that the main differences between obituaries and news stories about a death concern their communicative intention and the thematic choices correlated with it: obituaries are to commemorate the deceased, which means their main focus is put on the subject’s life, in particular his/her career, not on the circumstances of the subject’s death as in the case of news stories about a death. Such choices result from


the two most general constitutive properties of obituaries: commemora-tion and appraisal of the deceased. The main focus put on the career and also on the character of the subject as well as the appraisal factor concerning the presentation of these thematic categories justify the ad-aptation of other genres, mainly such as that of the biographical portrait, résumé and eulogy. It can be stated that while the inverted pyramid of the news story considerably contributes to the global structure of obitu-aries, other genres such as the biography, résumé and eulogy, as well as traces of the death notice and epitaph, contribute to the thematic frame-work of obituaries and their style. However, it does not suffice to claim that obituaries constitute the genre of biography or biographical profile in the form of a news story article. The obituary genre distances itself from biographies and news stories alike with respect to the communica-tive intentions and the character of inter-generic correlations – an issue which, although it was already mentioned in the second chapter, will be further clarified in subchapter 2 below.

The core properties as well as salient pragmatic and axiological ten-dencies of obituaries that have been referred to so far may be regarded as their prototypical features. This open and dynamic set of features can be regarded as the basis for family resemblance of various types of texts representing the obituary genre.

That is: a. the more a text functions as a newsworthy commemoration of

the deceased;b. the more it constitutes an appraisal of the deceased, their charac-

ter and legacy;c. the more it is focused on such an appraisal rather than solely

on the emotions and feelings of the author, as, for instance, in the case of eulogies and condolences;

d. the more it fits the discourse of media: it can be published in a newspaper for the general public rather than only for the her-metic circle of relatives and acquaintances of the deceased person;

e. the more typical exemplars of obituaries it can represent. These statements, based on the syntactic structure of the more … the more, make it clear that the typical properties of obituaries have a scalar character. This also means that it is not so much the collection of features but rather the degree to which these features are reflected in


obituaries that makes given examples prototypical; for example, the third of the aforementioned statements, though indicating the main emphasis of obituaries on the appraisal of the deceased person, their character and legacy rather than on mourning them does not make eulogised obituar-ies worse or less representative exemplars of the whole genre. This means that it is not the eulogised character that makes some obituaries less prototypical but rather the degree to which they are eulogised. Eulogistic obituaries can still be regarded as typical obituaries when a fact-based appraisal of the subject is not overshadowed by an appraisal based on the personal emotions and feelings of the obituary writer.

Eulogised obituaries which are well balanced with respect to both a fact-based and what might be called affection-based appraisal can be represented by The Guardian obituary which commemorates Sally Hicks. The eulogistic character of her obituary is indicated by expressions showing the author’s affinity with Sally Hicks: I met Sally when I was …, My friend, Sally Hicks, as well as by highly emotional phrases such as: in awe of her brilliance, was fortunate that we became the greatest of friends, brought a sparkle into any room she entered (The Guardian 10.08.2014). The emotive character of her obituary, however, does not overwhelm nor does it suppress its factual character correlated with the cognitive value of its content: information on biographical details justifying the note-worthiness of her legacy. A further detailed comparison of eulogies and obituaries is presented in the chapter on genres related to obituaries. Here it is only mentioned to highlight the scalar character of the charac-teristic properties of obituaries and the significance of these properties in determining the prototypicality effects of the whole genre.

To sum up, the remarks mentioned in this subchapter make it clear that the prototype of obituaries should be regarded as a dynamic and open set of conditions which embrace both necessary-yet-not-sufficient conditions and the class of other axiological, pragmatic, semantic as well as structural tendencies. These tendencies, though not regarded as nec-essary conditions, are characteristic enough of obituaries to facilitate in recognising and distinguishing them among the other genres from which obituaries draw. Although such conditions and tendencies motivate textual realisations of the obituary genre, they neither fully predict nor restrict the stylistic, compositional and thematic properties of obituary articles; for instance, the news-value factor motivates the composition of


obituary articles according to the inverted pyramid principle, yet it does not impose any rigid compositional and thematic norms. The news-value principle only predicts that strategic positions of obituary articles, head-lines and introductory paragraph(s) will contain the most newsworthy content: the reason for fame and sometimes also information on the date and reason for the subject’s death. Nonetheless, it does not fully predict any particular pieces of information which may count as newsworthy nor does it fully predict what textual structures occupy these strategic positions of the obituary article – whether these are shorter one-deck or more elaborate double-deck headlines, more concise or stylistically and thematically elaborate lead-in paragraphs. The remarks in Chapter 4, subchapter 3 on the rather loose and erratic character of the stylistic properties of obituaries can also be applied to their thematic and com-positional structures. The properties of obituaries do not constitute rigid norms but rather general and loose confines which can be understood in terms of either stronger or weaker tendencies shaping the textual mani-festations of the genre. It is also important to notice that such general and loose compositional, thematic and stylistic confines of obituaries motivate but do not predict the editorial models of this genre.

2. Editorial models of obituaries

A rich variety of stylistic models of textual realisations of obituaries overlaps with the variety of editorial practices applied in different news-papers. These remarks, again, justify the use of Wojtak’s following ob-servation which, though concerning the Polish genre sylwetka prasowa [biographical profile in the press], to a considerable extent holds true in the case of English obituaries:

Adaptations of genres, interferences, the creativity of given writers, these are the most considerable factors favouring differentiation of the types of profile/obituary [sylwetka].35 (Wojtak 2004b: 121, translation mine – T. W.)

It can be stated that this creativity of given writers contributes to and at the same time is shaped by the creativity of editorial boards setting

35 “Genologiczne zapożyczenia, interferencje, kreatywność poszczególnych twór-ców to najważniejsze czynniki sprzyjające różnicowaniu typów sylwetki” (Wojtak 2004b: 121).

Editorial models of obituaries 181

the editorial policy of particular newspapers. This means that different newspapers as well as other forms of the press and mass media in general are governed by their own editorial rules. In other words, the content and layout of the press is not only shaped by genres of press journalism but also by the policy of the editorial board. This can be clearly seen in the case of newspaper obituaries whose texts are shaped by general prerequisites of their genre, as was presented in the previous subchap-ter, and the rules of writing obituaries as set by the editorial boards of particular newspapers. Thus, the obituary genre can be analysed and characterised at least at three levels, such as the most general abstract model of the obituary genre, editorial models of obituaries and the level of their textual realisations. The most general model of obituaries can be understood in terms of a dynamic and open set of properties and ten-dencies that are more or less manifested in obituary articles regardless of the differences in editorial policy among particular newspapers. In contrast, the editorial model of obituaries is understood as a set of rules constituting the editorial policy that is applied to textual realisations of the obituary genre in particular newspapers (see Starck 2008).

The remarks mentioned above imply that in the case of the obitu-ary genre, the distinction between the abstract level of its model and the concrete level of its textual realisations does not suffice. Between these two levels there is another level which can be referred to as the in-termediary level: a kind of interface between the abstract, schematic and complex model of the obituary genre, regarded as a set of tendencies, and concrete textual realisations of this model, i.e. the general abstract model of the obituary genre finds its particular textual realisation in newspaper articles through the mediation of editorial models which constitute the aforementioned interface. It can be graphically presented in the following way:

Figure 5. The levels of the analysis of the obituary genre


The double-pointed arrows indicate that these models and their con-crete textual realisations correlate with one another. This correlation can be perceived from both the down-top and top-down perspective: the for-mer implies the direction of conceptualisation from the most concrete texts representing the obituary genre to its most abstract all-embracing model – a conceptualisation that may be perceived as a conceptual zooming-out – whereas the latter implies what may be called conceptual zooming-in36 from the top-most general model through the intermedi-ary level of editorial models to particular textual realisations. This means that concrete textual realisations reflect the given editorial models which, in turn, contribute to the description of the top-most general model of the genre, conceived of as the complex and most abstract set of properties characterising the genre and its textual manifestations. Similarly, when considering the above-mentioned graphic approximation of hierarchical dimensions of the obituary genre in terms of top-down correlations, it can be noticed that the top-most general model of the genre legitimises editorial practices which, in turn, give rise to particular textual realisa-tions of the genre.

Taking into account all of the above-mentioned remarks, the follow-ing issues require further clarification: the set of properties shared by an assembly of editorial models, the set of differences between them as well as the significance and nature of such similarities and differences. All of these issues are addressed within the subsequent subchapter which together with subchapter 1 indicates the conceptual movement from the top-most general and abstract level of the genre, which is a set of tendencies shared by its various textual manifestations, to the intermedi-ary level of editorial models further specifying these manifestations in particular newspapers.

Differentiation among editorial models of obituaries

The variety of editorial practices in the press results in distinguishing various textual realisations of obituaries. Editorial models functioning

36 The concept of conceptual zooming in / zooming out directly draws upon the con-ceptual metaphor: KNOWING OR UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING (Lakoff, John-son 1980); moreover, this concept belongs to the so-called attention metaphors (see Fernandez-Duque, Johnson 1999) and, though in the present study it is used in a specific sense, it still draws upon the basic premises of the Zoom Lens metaphor (Eriksen, St. James 1986).


as conventional sets of rules of the editorial policy might not be defined as models by the editorial staff of a given newspaper, yet as a conven-tional set of premises they are recognised and applied to the textual realisations of obituaries (see Johnson 2006) as well as to other genres of the press. Editorial models of obituaries can be further understood as sets of editorial policy premises which specify not only the general layout of obituary articles but also the textual properties of the main body of these articles and their frame. That is, in contrast to the top-most general model of the obituary genre, the more particular editorial models do not constitute patterns of the whole genre but rather patterns of typical realisations of this genre in particular newspapers according to their editorial policy. Moreover, the editorial policy is subject to constant changes due to ever-new circumstances in which the mass media must function and to which they try to respond. Hence, the present subchap-ter, far from being exhaustive, is to present some general remarks on the editorial policy applied to obituary columns in selected newspapers, mainly the British national newspapers The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times, from the period 2009–2010. Differ-ences in the editorial policy can be clearly seen when considering their textual frame, i.e. the headlines, biobox, also referred to as the summary endpiece (see Chapter 3), as well as the by-lines.

Among all of these structures, the textual segment biobox can be regarded as one of the most characteristic features of the frame of obituary articles and, consequently, one of the most salient properties of the whole genre. This characteristic segment in the frame of obituaries can take on various shapes with respect to its composition and content. In some cases, as was explained in the previous chapter on the delimitation frame, the biobox constitutes a short phrase stating the names and life-span of the subject, in other cases it is based on noun phrases remaining in appositive relation to one another, where the first noun functions as the proper name of the subject and the second one provides information on the subject’s occupation(s). Such nominal phrases can then be modi-fied by participle phrases providing information on the subject’s dates of birth and death and, in some cases, marriage, e.g.: Joseph Ezekiel Strick, film producer and director, born 6 July 1923; died 2 June 2010 (The Guard-ian, 17 June 2010) and: James White, Second World War veteran and businessman: born London 21 March 1921; married Freda (deceased;


two sons, one daughter); died London 14 March 2010 (The Independent, Monday, 21 June 2010).

The concise nominal character of the biobox, however, does not block a more elaborate composition and the thematic choices of this textual segment in editorial models of obituaries. On the contrary, the obituar-ies may include in their frame a relatively long and content-rich biobox (see the examples in Chapter 3, subchapter 3), which is not restricted only to nominal phrases remaining in appositive relation to one another and briefly stating one’s name, surname, profession and lifespan. Such elaborate bioboxes may also provide a detailed list of all the institutions for which the subject worked together with the positions held and dates of working for these institutions, a list of noteworthy awards offered to the subject as well as concise information on his/her marriages, divorces and/or offspring. The elaborate biobox may, thus, substantially differ from its one-line or two-line concise version with respect to its layout as well as the information value of its content. Hence, within the edito-rial policy applied to textual realisations of the obituary genre one can distinguish models that offer the standard, usually concise, biobox and models offering an extended version of the biobox. Moreover, the biobox is not always required by the newspaper’s editorial policy, e.g. although at present The Telegraph obituaries include a concise biobox in their frame, the ones analysed for the purpose of the work from the period 2009–2010 (mostly in their online version) lacked this element of the textual frame.

Similar to the biobox, an unstable position can be noticed in the case of the by-lines of obituary articles, i.e. “a line at the beginning of an article in a newspaper or magazine that gives the writer’s name.”37 In the case of the editorial policy of the four British national newspapers, two of them, i.e. The Daily Telegraph and The Times, share “an unshakeable commit-ment to anonymous authorship” (Starck 2008: 914), whereas The Guard-ian and The Independent include the author’s credit.

In contrast to the biobox and by-lines, the headlines of obituaries constitute a necessary and stable element of the textual frame of obituary articles. This means all editorial models require headlines to be included within the metatextual and peritextual frame, which is justified not so much by the character of the genre itself as by the nature of the mass media discourse within which the obituary genre functions. As was

37 http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/by-line [ED 12.05.2012].


mentioned in the chapter on the textual frame, the headlines empha-sise the noteworthiness of the subject and belong to the textual tools of winning the readers’ attention, which justifies the indispensable role of headlines within the editorial practices applied to the texts of obituaries.

However, the rather stable position and character of headlines in obituaries does not contradict their differentiation with respect to the content as well as graphic arrangement, which can be noticed from a broader cross-national perspective when comparing obituaries from British national newspapers with some of their Australian and American counterparts. The obituary headlines in The New York Times, for ex-ample, explicitly inform one of the death and age of the subject, which is not likely to happen in the case of headlines in British obituaries within the four national newspapers: The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. Differences in the layout, in turn, can be no-ticed when comparing obituary headlines in the aforementioned British national newspapers with those in The Sydney Morning Herald, where the headlines presenting the reason for fame do not follow but precede the name(s) of the deceased person.

Differences in the textual frame of the obituaries might result in a further differentiation of their main textual body, which was observed by Starck (2006: 73), who affirmed that the biobox “allows writers an opportunity for greater creativity in the opening paragraph” because the standard pieces of information such as the subject’s name(s), list of occupations and dates of birth and death are found in the “one-paragraph footnote”, i.e. the biobox. This can be clearly observed when the edito-rial model of obituaries in The Telegraph is juxtaposed with models in other newspapers, e.g. The Independent. As was mentioned above, The Telegraph obituaries that were analysed for the purpose of the pres-ent work lack a biobox understood as a summary endpiece outside the main body of the article, whereas The Independent obituaries include it, often in its extended version. The lack of a biobox may explain at least partially the rather “standardized opening paragraph” which besides the “story line summary” includes information which in other cases is typically contained within the summary endpiece, i.e. the subject’s name, “report of death and age at death” (Starck 2008: 914). The addition of the biobox to the frame of the obituaries potentially leaves more room in their main textual body for attention-winning pieces of information


such as anecdotes, the subject’s catchphrases, newsworthy narratives, reviews, etc.

Moreover, from the cross-national perspective when the American model of obituaries is taken into account, differences between editorial models of the obituary genre must also include the various extent of adaptations of death notice conventions. In the case of the American model of obituaries, traces of the death notice genre appear to be more direct and conspicuous than in the case of British obituaries. This can be observed, in particular, when considering obituary headlines from, say, The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer which, unlike the obituary headlines in British national newspapers, include informa-tion of the subject’s death and/or age at death (see Chapter 3, subchap-ter 2.1). Moreover, some American obituaries, e.g. from The Philadelphia Inquirer, include textual segments whose content refers to the funeral ceremony and the possibility to pay tributes. In turn, within the obituar-ies from British national newspapers, traces of the death notice tend to be merely evoked by the textual segment presenting a list of surviving fam-ily members: survived by, predeceased, left … etc. as well as by the biobox (see Chapter 3, subchapter 3) and pieces of information on the cause of death and/or age at death found in the main text: all of these traces might be regarded as a partial adaptation of the death notice convention.

The remarks in this subchapter outline the issue of editorial models of obituaries and their impact on the textual realisations of obituary articles in the press. The editorial policy does not constitute stable sets of rules for journalists but, on the contrary, it is likely to change and adapt to new conditions imposed by the discourse of the mass media. Thus, this issue requires a further detailed analysis in the light of media studies, cultural studies as well as discourse analysis. The remarks in this and the subse-quent subchapter are only to stress and at least partially explain two fac-tors which considerably shape obituary articles in the press: the editorial policy and correlations with other genres from within and from without the domain of journalism.

3. Obituaries and other genres of press journalism

The various definitions of the obituary genre, as presented within the second chapter, stress the correlations of this genre with mass media

Obituaries and other genres of press journalism 187

discourse, in particular with the press. This is justified by the fact that the obituary genre stems from and contributes to the art of journalism in both of its main branches: news and feature journalism (Harrower 2009; Steensen 2009). The correlation of obituaries with news journal-ism can be noticed when considering their report-like factual character and the news-value imperative determining the properties of obituary articles: their layout, composition, thematic choices and style. Traces of feature journalism, in turn, can be noticed especially in more or less opinionated obituaries which, besides a report on the subject’s life and circumstances of death, also present informative, axiologically charged and attention-winning anecdotes, narratives as well as intertextual references. Such references may embrace fragments of literature, as can be noticed in the case of an obituary dedicated to Inger Christensen in The Independent. The opinionated character of obituaries can also result from quotations presenting others’ opinions on the deceased person as well as some interesting sayings/catchphrases associated with the de-ceased person.

Traces of news and feature journalism tend to co-occur in obituary articles, which also implies correlations of obituaries with other genres highlighting the news and feature character of their textual realisations. The feature character of obituaries makes them correlate with the genre of profile, whereas traces of the news character make them correlate with the news story and death notice.

3.1. Obituaries vs. profiles

When considering correlations between obituaries and other genres within the discourse of mass media, especially the daily press, a strik-ing similarity of obituaries to biographical profiles can be noticed. At first sight the main difference between the two genres might concern their choice of subjects, i.e. obituaries commemorate the life-course and personality traits of the deceased person whereas profiles, which are not restricted to commemoration of the deceased, also recount the life-courses and personalities of living people. Nonetheless, this seemingly trivial difference results in additional features of obituaries when com-pared with profiles, i.e. the thematic category of Death within the the-matic framework of the obituary accounts for structures that are typical for this genre, e.g. the biobox as an element of the delimitation frame,


informing mainly of the subject’s lifespan and occupation, and a textual segment which might be called the list of surviving family members and the predeceased, informing about the subject’s relatives who survived or predeceased him/her. Moreover, the textual realisations of the obituary genre in some newspapers, e.g. The Telegraph, contain a standardised introductory paragraph, the lead, which does not only present the rea-son for commemoration of the deceased person but also explicitly states the fact of one’s death, his/her age at death and sometimes the cause of death. Furthermore, some obituaries, e.g. from the American newspaper The Philadelphia Inquirer, contain textual segments whose content noti-fies the readers of funeral arrangements and/or the possibility of paying tribute. To put the aforementioned remarks in cognitive terms, the major difference between obituaries and profiles lies in the fact that the former, unlike the profile, obligatorily contain and/or imply propositions which contribute to and result from the thematic category of Death, regarded here as a cognitive domain.

However, despite all of these thematic and structural differences between the genres of obituary and profile, the boundary between them seems to be rather blurred. The fuzzy rather than clear-cut boundary between these two genres, which are described in two different chapters devoted to them in Harrower’s (2009) book on the art of journalism, can be noticed especially in British obituaries. Unlike their American counterparts, obituaries from the national British press are not likely to include textual segments which may inform about funeral service ar-rangements and the possibility to pay tribute to the deceased. Moreover, some of the textual realisations of the obituary genre do not even men-tion in the first paragraph the fact of the subject’s death: the information is left in such cases for the final segment(s) of the main body of the article and for the biobox. All of these features make the thematic category of Death fade away and, consequently, focus the readers’ attention mostly on the categories of Life-Course and Personality of the obituary subject. This means that the models of the genres obituary and profile merge.

Modern obituaries can be regarded as a subgenre of the profile, i.e. as a posthumous, appraisal-focused profile which provides information and sheds some light, be it (rather) positive or (rather) negative, on the deceased person and his/her legacy left to posterity. Chris Maume, the obituaries editor at The Independent, states: “I often regard them as


being like the profiles of notable people that most papers regularly carry, except they’re profiles of dead people rather than living people” (Maume, in an email interview from 22 September 2009). When considering the appraisal factor he also confirms that the purpose of obituaries is “to provide a summation of a person’s life, achievements and significance” (Maume, email interview from 22 September 2009). This appraisal is, to a considerable extent, determined by the factor of newsworthiness which, in turn, can be justified by the mass media provenience of obitu-aries and, thus, their appeal to the general public.

3.2. Obituaries vs. news stories about a death

As was mentioned in Chapter 2, subchapter 3.1, the news story about a death is focused on the details and newsworthiness of someone’s death, whereas the obituary brings into focus the newsworthiness of someone’s life. This difference can be clarified in terms of cognitive profil-ing (Langacker 1987), which can be understood as elevating particular thematic categories to the level of cognitive salience and highlighting them as the thematic foreground of the genre. This means that what constitutes the thematic foreground of obituaries seems to belong to the thematic background of news stories about a death, or at least it is not put at the very forefront of their thematic framework. Such thematic differences, in turn, entail compositional and stylistic differentiation between genres. The main focus of obituaries on the subject’s career and life-course in general ensues lexical choices indicating the domain of the subject’s profession/occupation and various accomplishments, whereas news stories about a death make ample use of lexical means stressing the circumstances of one’s death, describing the scene of death as well as, in given cases, the police investigation to clarify the cause of death, e.g.: died in an accident, was found dead, was murdered by, X ac-cused of murdering Y, etc.

The differences between obituaries and news stories about a death can clearly be noticed when comparing The Guardian news article on the death of the Irish broadcaster Gerry Ryan with the obituary dedicated to him in the same newspaper. The difference in focus can be noticed at the very beginning of these articles: in the case of the news article the main emphasis is put on the subject’s death, while in the case of the obituary the main focus is placed on the subject’s life-course, in particular his


career. This difference can be seen in the following fragments of these two articles from The Guardian (22.11.2010) – the linguistic means indicating the predominant lexical fields of these two articles are marked in bold:

Table 8. Fragments of the news article and the obituary dedicated to Gerry Ryan

The Guardian (22.11.2010)The news-article by Henry McDonald

The introductory fragment

The Guardian (22.11.2010)The obituary by Richard Pine

The introductory fragmentIrish broadcaster Gerry Ryan found dead at homeInvestigation under way but nothing suspicious, say gardaí, after body of RTÉ radio presenter is found at Dublin apartmentGerry Ryan, one of Ireland’s best known broadcasters, has been found dead in his Dublin apartment.A friend discovered Ryan’s body after the RTÉ radio presenter failed to show up to present his 2FM radio show this morning. Gardaí said foul play was not suspected but an investigation was under way

Gerry Ryan obituaryIrish TV and radio broadcaster who liked to shockThe Irish radio and television broadcast-er Gerry Ryan, who has died suddenly at the age of 53, was a larger-than-life figure. For more than 20 years he had occupied a three-hour morning slot on 2FM, the pop music channel of the national broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). His controversial personality dominated the airwaves with a mix-ture of chat, bravado, provocation and, almost invariably, downright vulgar talk-radio. As a shock-jock, Ryan remained an enfant terrible, bringing about a change in the style of popular broadcasting that reflected the develop-ing values and lifestyle of the public.

These two extracts of newspaper articles represent their headlines and leads, i.e. structures which occupy a strategic position in press articles. As can be noticed, the main headline of the news-article states the fact of death of the Irish broadcaster Gerry Ryan and its subsidiary head-lines elaborate on this issue by stating: “Investigation under way but nothing suspicious, say gardaí, after body of RTÉ radio presenter is found at Dublin apartment.” Moreover, the introductory paragraphs of this news article still emphasise the thematic category of Death by partially repeating the content of the headlines. The introductory frag-ment of the above-quoted obituary, in turn, highlights the reason for the fame and noteworthiness of the subject rather than the fact of his


death: “Gerry Ryan: Irish TV and radio broadcaster who liked to shock.” The introductory paragraph includes only short information about the fact of Gerry Ryan’s sudden death and his age at death, which is expressed in one short embedded relative clause: “The Irish radio and television broadcaster Gerry Ryan, who has died suddenly at the age of 53, was a larger-than-life figure.” It should be noticed that, contrary to the first sentence of the lead in this obituary, the first sentence within the introductory paragraph of the news-story on Gerry Ryan includes in its main part information regarding his death, whereas its embedded nominal phrase includes information regarding his occupation. That is, what is expressed in the subordinate clause within the first sentence of the obituary and, consequently, what constitutes the subsidiary piece of information there forms the main topic of the first sentence within the lead of the news story on the death of Gerry Ryan. In cognitive terms, it may be stated that what was elevated to the level of cognitive salience in the introductory sentence of the obituary constitutes the less salient category of the propositional content in the introductory sentence of the news story, and vice versa, what constitutes the topical foreground of the introductory sentence of the news story belongs to the topical background of the introductory sentence of the obituary.

The main focus placed on different thematic categories of the genres of news story about a death and obituary also ensues stylistic differences. The expression plane of the news-article about Gerry Ryan relies mainly on the lexical choices which directly indicate and emphasise his death, e.g.: found dead at home; body of RTÉ radio presenter is found; has been found dead; tributes to the 53-year-old presenter; paid tribute to Ryan; Ryan’s sudden death; Gerry Ryan died today. Other lexical means empha-sising the death of the subject can be seen in the quotations of emotional utterances by family members and acquaintances of the deceased man:

His family issued a statement this afternoon saying: “Gerry Ryan died today. Morah and his children are in complete shock. Please respect their privacy at this time”.RTÉ said it learned of Ryan’s sudden death “with profound sadness”. It added: “The thoughts and prayers of all RTÉ staff are with Gerry Ryan’s family and his friends” […] “He lived life to the full, he was full of fun and hilarity and pure bloody devilment. That is how I will remember him.” (McDonald, The Guardian, 22.11.2010)


Contrary to the news-article on the death of Gerry Ryan, the expres-sion plane of his obituary draws upon lexical choices which, besides his origin/background and private life, indicate mainly his career as a radio broadcaster as well as his personality and attitude to his profession. Such lexical choices are illustrated in the following fragment, which includes the text already quoted in the table above and which is here repeated for the sake of clarity and convenience:

The Irish radio and television broadcaster Gerry Ryan, who has died suddenly at the age of 53, was a larger-than-life figure. For more than 20 years he had occupied a three-hour morning slot on 2FM, the pop mu-sic channel of the national broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). His controversial personality dominated the airwaves with a mixture of chat, bravado, provocation and, almost invariably, downright vulgar talk-radio. As a shock-jock, Ryan remained an enfant terrible, bringing about a change in the style of popular broadcasting that reflected the developing values and lifestyle of the public. […] Ryan studied law at Trinity College, but was drawn away from a career as a solicitor once pirate radio had given him the chance of getting in front of a micro-phone. He joined RTÉ in 1979, first presenting evening pop music shows and then moving on to late-night slots. […] From the beginning, he swept away microphone conventions, embracing a new listenership whose tolerance for his more staid contemporaries would yield to his alluring, if at times offensive, style of address. (Pine, The Guardian, 22.11.2010, emphasis – T. W.)

Phrases and lexical means in bold indicate Gerry Ryan’s profession, whereas the text in regular font contains lexical items such as adjectives and nouns indicating features of his character, e.g. larger than life figure; his controversial personality; a mixture of chat, bravado, provocation and, almost invariably, downright vulgar talk-radio; his alluring, if at times of-fensive, style of address. Despite the negative character of such phrases, the co-text in which they appear imposes upon them a rather positive interpretation, even a comical one, due to the following axiological infer-ence which might be drawn from the text:

Notice that Z [X, Gerry Ryan, did Y, swept away microphone con-ventions owing to his controversial personality which attracted a new listenership] and that is GOOD with regard to values V, possibly eco-nomic: profit for the broadcasting company; pragmatic and social: at-tracting and keeping the listeners’ attention, etc.

Obituaries and genres form discourses other than the domain of press journalism 193

To sum up the present remarks, it should be emphasised that the dif-ferences between news stories about a death and obituaries do not con-cern so much the different thematic categories predicted by the models of these genres but rather the cognitive salience of these categories, i.e. bringing particular themes to the textual foreground and leaving others in the textual background, which is also the matter of degree that might differ in particular textual realisations of the genres news story about a death and obituary. In other words, what is elevated to the level of cognitive salience, i.e. profiled, within the textual realisations of one genre, say the obituary, can be less emphasised or even left in the back-ground of the thematic framework of another genre, say news story about a death. Moreover, as was illustrated above, the cognitive salience of thematic categories determines the lexical choices which together with other linguistic and textual means shape the expression of the content.

4. Obituaries and genres form discourses other than the domain of press journalism

The network of correlations between the obituary genre and other genres from which it draws extends beyond the discourse of press journalism and embraces genres from the discourse of literature, in particular the literary biography, as well as from the discourse of a funeral service represented, for example, by the eulogy. Hence correlations between obituaries and these two genres from different domains of discourse constitute the main objective of the present discussion.

4.1. Obituaries vs. biographies

Biography as a genre can be regarded as the main source of generic adaptations for obituaries, which is implied by terms describing obitu-aries as instant biographies, authoritative biographical portraits (see Starck 2006), and biographical forms (Fowler 2007). However, despite this easily recognisable similarity between obituaries and biographies, these genres distance themselves from each other mainly on account of their different hierarchy of communicative intentions as determined by their different provenience, i.e. the discourse from which they result and to which they contribute. The modern obituary genre was developed and functions within the mass media discourse, in particular within


press journalism. Consequently, it is shaped to a considerable extent by media framing (using Gitlin’s (1980) term) and news imperatives (see Starck 2006). The biography, in turn, tends to belong to the domain of non-fiction prose literature, be it pop-literature or a more sophisticated masterpiece: a provenance which does not impose so much of a news-value imperative on the text as rather aesthetic factors and the factual character determining the cognitive value of the text.

Although the genre of biography neither restricts nor blocks the newsworthiness of subjects and facts being presented in its tex-tual realisations, it does not appear to impose that newsworthiness on the content of particular texts. The obituary genre, in turn, does impose such newsworthiness upon the content of its textual realisations, though not to the same extent in every case. The newsworthiness of particular obituaries is a matter of degree, e.g. mainstream obituaries as edited pieces concerning public figures tend to have a stronger news value than eulogised obituaries of less-known individuals, which have been written by their family members. Nonetheless, even such family authored obits reflect to some extent and highlight the noteworthiness of their subjects and their attainments.

Moreover, contrary to biographies, the main objective of obituar-ies does not consist in recounting the life of a given subject but rather in presenting the reason for his/her fame and/or the newsworthiness of the subject by means of selected biographical facts. In other words, the genre of biography and its adaptation to and alternation within the obituary genre does not constitute the ultimate aim for the obitu-ary but rather its main textual tool to commemorate obituary subjects and to emphasise the significance and newsworthiness of their career and/or particular actions. Furthermore, although textual realisations of the obituary genre are thematically and stylistically very diverse and erratic, which is highlighted by Starck (2006) and also illustrated in the present work with proper examples, they tend to have a rather stable and predictable composition shaped by the news-value imperative. That is to say, the composition of obituaries tends to rely on the subverted pyramid principle of news-stories, with the most significant informa-tion, the news, at the beginning within the headlines and lead, and with the least newsworthy information put at the end of the text.


4.2. Obituaries vs. eulogies

Differences concerning the discursive provenance of genres and their hi-erarchy of communicative purposes can also be noticed when comparing obituaries with eulogies. The prototypical enunciatory context (Todorov [1978] 2000) for eulogies, i.e. the pragmatic setting of their production and reception, refers to the situation of the funeral ceremony or other commemorative services, whereas the pragmatic setting for obituaries refers to the mass media, in particular press journalism. Consequently, the different pragmatic settings of these two genres embrace the dif-ferent contextual variables which give rise to these genres and shape their textual realisations. These textual variables concern the channel of communication, the mode, the participants and relations between them, the tenor, and the topic of communication, i.e. the field (Halliday 1985; Biber, Conrad 2009: 22).

In the case of eulogies, the first variable mentioned above, the mode, refers to a commemorative speech made in public at the funeral ser-vice, which implies direct communication with a collective addressee, i.e. the audience present at the funeral service/ceremony. However, this audience, though described as the collective addressee, can also be re-garded in given cases and to a considerable extent as a specified addressee, for it is not just the general public but people somehow associated with the deceased person. Obituaries, in turn, are shaped by the discourse of the press, which requires the written mode of communication, the tenor embracing the general public as the collective addressee and, in the case of signed obituaries, the journalist as the addressor of obituary articles, or the editorial board of a newspaper in the case of unsigned obituaries.

The different mode and tenor result in further differences concern-ing the appraisal factor in obituaries and eulogies – a factor that is particularly emphasised in Starck’s (2005) description of the obituary genre. Although both genres considerably draw upon commemoration of the deceased person in (rather) positive terms, obituaries are much more likely to allow for a genuine, even negative, appraisal of the de-ceased person than eulogies do. This weak acceptability of a genuine negative / rather negative appraisal in the case of eulogies is determined by pragmatic contextual variables, such as direct spoken communication between the author of the eulogy and the audience at the funeral service, and the relationship between the author and the audience. The author of


the eulogy and the audience to be consoled usually belong to the fam-ily and acquaintances of the deceased person. Such a mode and tenor of communication as well as its main intention to commemorate and mourn for the deceased person and to console his/her family/friends considerably block the negative / rather negative appraisal of the eulogy subject. Henceforth, the eulogy rests upon texts whose content and style emphasise the positive / rather positive commemoration and grief felt over the deceased person.

The remarks from the paragraph above also imply that eulogies mainly fulfil the expressive and impressive rather than mere informative function. Sheer information on the deceased person should be perceived as a tool of commemoration and expression of grief over that person’s death. Regarding information on the deceased person in terms of a tool rather than an ultimate goal, i.e. a tool to express the reason for fame, noteworthiness and in general appraisal of the deceased, constitutes a feature which is shared by both genres, i.e. the eulogy and the obituary. Yet the hierarchy of the textual functions of these genres appears slightly different. Unlike eulogies, whose textual functions from the most to the least salient tend to follow the order of expressive, impressive and informative, mainstream obituaries tend to realise first the impressive, then the informative and finally the expressive function. Giving prior-ity to the impressive function of obituary articles can be justified by the news value imposed upon obituaries by media framing, i.e. the policy to present facts in such a way as to impress and, consequently, to win and keep the potential reader’s attention as well as to stress the significance of the subject. This is a significance that justifies his/her presence within the obituary columns of the press.

Moreover, the above-mentioned functions of eulogies and obituaries make it clear that the informative function, although it has a rather sub-ordinate status with respect to the expressive and impressive functions in these genres, respectively, still appears more salient for obituaries than eulogies, which is again justified by the news value of the press and, in particular, the daily press. The textual functions as well as communica-tive intentions of obituary articles and eulogies belong to prerequisites set forth by their genres, and together with the thematic and stylistic properties they are conditioned by the discourse which gives rise to these genres. As was stated earlier, in the case of obituaries this is mass


media discourse, in particular the press, shaping the obituary articles according to the media framing policy, while in the case of the eulogy it is the commemorative discourse of funeral services.

Despite the differences in pragmatic setting, as determined by the contextual variables of mode, tenor and field (Halliday 1985; Biber, Conrad 2009: 22), and the different hierarchy of communicative inten-tions, obituaries and eulogies can still be regarded as genres correlated with each other: the model of the former makes it possible to adopt the thematic and stylistic properties of the latter, which can be seen in eulogy-like obituaries. Such eulogistic obituaries might be described in terms of the generic interface between main-stream obituaries, be they of the résumé-type or elaborate-portrayal, and eulogies because they reflect the features of both genres, though the prototypical characteristics of the obituary genre still dominate in them over those of the genre eulogy, hence the notion of eulogy-like obituaries and not obituary-like eulogies.

The differences and similarities between eulogies and eulogistic obit-uaries can be clearly observed when comparing Gordon Brown’s eulogy to John MacDougall, quoted in extenso in The Guardian (19.08.2008), with the eulogistic obituary for Bashir Ahmad written by Alex Salmond in The Independent (14.02.2009). Both texts, though representing two different genres, bear considerable stylistic and pragmatic similarities which can be noticed in their fragments quoted further in this subchap-ter. In other words, at the more general and abstract level the similarities indicate that the genres which these texts represent are related to each other, which appears even clearer when considering the eulogistic char-acter of Bashir Ahmad’s obituary. The term eulogistic obituaries implies the direction of genre adaptation: it is an adaptation of features that are characteristic of eulogies into the obituary genre. This adaptation, how-ever, is of a limited character, for it does not consist in adapting the whole model of the genre eulogy to be used within the obituary genre but rather consists in adopting some cognitively salient features of eulogies for the purpose of obituaries. These salient features predominantly concern the stylistic characteristics of eulogies adopted in the textual realisations of eulogistic obituaries, i.e. expressive and emotional language, an often conversational informal style as well as first-person utterances revealing a personal relationship between the deceased person and the author of that person’s obituary (see Schaeffer 1998).


The expressive and emotional character of language can be noticed in Gordon Brown’s eulogy to John MacDougall and in Alex Salmond’s eulo-gistic obituary for Bashir Ahmad. Such language is particularly reflected in utterances expressing the feeling of loss after the subject’s death. In the case of the eulogy to John MacDougal, the mournful tone of the lan-guage can be recognised at the very beginning, where it is expressed explicitly by the verb mourn in the clause: “we mourn with Cathy […] and his son Scott and daughter Julie,” as well as in the sequence of clauses which present a case of syntactic and lexical parallelism:

[…] we have lost in John a tireless fighter for social justice, we have lost an endlessly loyal champion of decent values, we have lost a great family man […] We have lost a man of selfless dedication to the people of Fife […] and most of all we have lost a friend. (Brown, The Guardian, 19.08.2008)

This syntactic and lexical parallelism bears axiological consequences, for it emphasises the feeling of loss after the death of the subject. Similarly, in the obituary for Bashir Ahmad, a mournful tone of linguistic expres-sion can be noticed from the very beginning within the introductory paragraph:

The Scottish Parliament, in which he served all too briefly as its first Asian and first Muslim member, is much the poorer for his passing. And the genuine warmth with which members of all parties paid tribute to him at Holyrood is testament to that. (Salmond, The Inde-pendent, 14.02.2009)

Moreover, both texts are sprinkled with adverbial and adjectival ex-pressions, e.g.: all too briefly and much the poorer in the fragment just quoted, as well as expressions from the eulogy to John MacDougal such as even greater: “Even greater was his sensitivity to the needs of people” and all the greater: “our loss is all the greater when we think of how much more, given more years, you might have done.” All such phrases bear axiological consequences for they emphasise the mournful character of commemoration and the positive assessment of the subject and his deeds.

The expressive character of the axiologically charged language of both texts also draws upon descriptive-and-evaluative noun phrases, e.g.: a tireless fighter for social justice, an endlessly loyal champion of decent values, a great family man, a true servant of the people, which occur in


the above-quoted fragment of the eulogy to John MacDougall, as well as axiologically loaded noun phrases in the obituary for Bashir Ahmad, as illustrated with the following fragments from The Independent:

Bashir Ahmad was a man of extraordinary grace, kindness and decency […] And the genuine warmth with which members of all parties paid tribute to him at Holyrood is testament to that. Through hard work and dedication, he worked his way through a career on the buses to become a successful businessman and owner of shops, restaurants and a hotel. Bashir, of course, had enormous pride in his adopted country. He was probably the most patriotic Scot that I have ever met.He brought the dignity of his faith to the very centre of our democratic process and his lasting legacy will be one of hope, decency and inclu-sion. (Salmond, The Independent, 14.02.2009)

The evaluative character of such elaborate nominal phrases stems from the semantic axiological potential of the nominal heads as well as from their possible modifiers. The nominal heads may embrace concrete nouns, e.g.: fighter, champion, servant, or more abstract nouns, e.g.: warmth, legacy, privilege, as well as co-ordinate nominal phrases, such as, for example, grace, kindness and decency and hope, decency and inclusion. The modifiers of such nominal heads, in turn, can embrace adjectival descriptive-and-evaluative pre-modifiers, e.g.: tireless, end-lessly loyal, great, true, genuine, the most patriotic, extraordinary, lasting, as well as post-modifiers, e.g. propositional phrases: (a fighter) for social justice, (a champion) of decent values, (servant) of the people, (a man) of extraordinary grace, kindness and decency, etc.

Furthermore, besides such axiologically charged expressive language, eulogies and eulogistic obituaries tend to share traces of first-person ut-terances, which can be illustrated by the following passages:

In the Islamic funeral rites it is common for the Imam to ask forgiveness on behalf of the deceased […] I have never known anyone less in need of it than he. For the 15 years it was my privilege to know Bashir […] (Salmond, The Independent, 14.02.2009)

I remember the first day of the miners’ strike in 1984 when Bert Gough, Henry McLeish and John MacDougall came to tell a packed meeting of miners and their families that no boy or girl of a miner, no son or


daughter, no family would go without […] [A]nd I remember too John’s dedication to fighting the greatest challenge that faced Fife throughout three long decades - 70s, 80s and 90s - unemployment and the campaigns for jobs. (Brown, The Guardian, 19.08.2008)

Apart from the first-person utterances, eulogy-like obituaries, simi-larly to eulogies, might also be sprinkled with lexical items indicating the author’s affiliation and/or affinity with society and/or the milieu to which the deceased person belonged. Such lexical items embrace personal pronouns in the first-person plural, i.e. we and us, as well as the posses-sive pronoun our, as can be seen in the following expressions: our first Asian MSP; all of us in entering Parliament; we would be a great nation indeed (Salmond, The Independent, 14.02.2009).

Despite all of these similarities between eulogies and eulogy-like obituaries, both genres retain their separate generic identity because of the noticeable differences of their conventions, i.e. mainly stylistic and compositional. The stylistic conventions constitute the source of simi-larities as well as differences between these genres, thus they are further addressed below.

Although eulogies and eulogy-like obituaries share expressive language as well as, in given cases, the first-person narrative, i.e. both the first-person singular and plural, they still seem to differ from one another with respect to the frequency of occurrence of such first-person utterances and also with respect to the use of deictic expressions; for example, the eulogy to John MacDougall as referred to in this chapter includes: eight clauses whose subject is expressed by the pronoun we, two clauses with the pronoun I, five expressions with the pronoun us and one noun phrase where the nominal head is pre-modified by the pos-sessive pronoun our: our loss. Hence this eulogy includes 16 lexical means which directly indicate its pragmatic setting and, consequently, character as a speech made in public and addressed to the mourners who gathered at the funeral service: it is a speech in which the addressor affiliates himself with the audience and participates in their mourning for the deceased person. The pronouns of the first-person plural together with the deictic expressions, such as here and today, e.g. in the expres-sions we are here today, many people will remember here and on behalf of all of us here, indicate the direct and oral mode of communication between the addressor and the audience.


The eulogistic obituary for Bashir Ahmad, in turn, includes more clauses whose grammatical subjects are expressed with the personal pronoun in the first-person singular, i.e. the pronoun I which appears five times, and only two clauses with the pronoun we as well as three expressions with the possessive pronoun our and one with the phrase all of us. This smaller number of lexical means indicating the author’s direct address and affinity with readers is justified mainly by two differ-ent pragmatic variables: mode and tenor. Unlike eulogies representing public commemorative speeches acknowledging the immediate audi-ence at the funeral / memorial service, obituaries represent the indirect written mode of communication between the author, usually a journalist or the editorial board in the case of unsigned articles, sometimes also a family member or friend, and the collective addressee, i.e. the general public. Furthermore, obituaries, even those that are eulogistic, differ from proper eulogies with respect to their composition, which is determined to a certain extent by media-framing principles and the news value of the press. The composition of obituaries draws upon the structure of news articles, as indicated by their frame – the headlines, often double-deck, and in given cases the summary endpiece, i.e. biobox, as described and exemplified within the third chapter – and by the main body of the obituary article organised according to the well-known principle of the inverted pyramid with the lead presenting the most significant attention-grasping information and the final segment including the least newsworthy pieces of information.

The comparison between obituaries, in particular eulogy-like obitu-aries, and eulogies makes it clear that these two genres, though related to one another, belong to different domains of discourse. The obituary belongs to the discourse of the mass media, mainly the press, whereas the eulogy usually belongs to discourse represented by speeches ad-dressed to the participants of the funeral service, though they may also be published in the press, as is the case in Gordon Brown’s eulogy to John MacDougall in The Guardian (19.08.2008). However, at the still more general level, both genres, i.e. the eulogy and obituary, may be regarded in terms of structures belonging to the most general discourse, which might be referred to as commemoration of the deceased person – a com-memoration which is always culture- and situation-bound.


Concluding remarks

The obituary genre has been described in the present chapter in terms of a cognitive category based on the theory of prototype and family resem-blance (Kleiber [1990] 2003; Rosch 1978). This genre is also specified in the light of its correlations with other genres representing the discourse of news and feature journalism as well as the discourses of literature and funeral speeches.

The remarks in the present chapter make it clear that the obituary genre should be regarded as a category whose prototypical centre does not constitute any clear-cut set of rigid norms but should rather be re-garded as a flexible and open set of features. Some of the features should be regarded as necessary-yet-not-sufficient characteristics of obituaries, whereas others as rather loose tendencies. Moreover, the description of the obituary genre as presented in subchapter 1 explains that the distinc-tion between the abstract top-most general model of the whole obituary genre and its textual realisations does not suffice. Between such a top-most general model of obituaries embracing their typical tendencies and their textual realisations in the press there also occurs an intermediary level of editorial practices which reflect the editorial policy of given news-papers, i.e. a policy which affects the textual realisations of the obituary genre in particular newspapers.

Furthermore, the present chapter illustrated the network of correla-tions between the obituary genre and other genres, in particular the news story, profile, biography and eulogy. Correlations of the obituary with the news story can be noticed in the structure of obituary articles based, to a considerable extent, on the inverted pyramid principle. The strong adherence to the profile and the biography can be observed when con-sidering the thematic and stylistic choices, which might express and/or imply an axiological commentary, i.e. value judgements concerning the various issues presented in the text. The correlation of obituary with the eulogy, in turn, can be clearly seen in the case of its subgenre, the eu-logy-like obituary, which tends to share personal expressive language and the first-person narrative with eulogies.

The obituary genre constitutes a complex category which, by main-taining its own identity, considerably draws upon the structural, thematic and stylistic conventions of the other genres mentioned above. The com-plexity of this category consists not only in the network of correlations


with other genres representing the discourse of press journalism as well as of funeral speeches and even of literary art, but it also consists in vari-ous levels of conceptualisation of its model. As was proved, the obituary genre cannot be regarded only as an abstract, general model for its textual realisations, but it must also be described with respect to the intermedi-ary level of editorial models.

Conclusion

The present study illustrates, with the example of the obituary genre and its textual realisations in the press, the possibility of deploying particular notions of cognitive linguistics and axiological semantics to analyses of biographical genres. The notions in question embrace the follow-ing: cognitive domain/base, profile and the process of conceptual profiling, cognitive image schemata, and conceptual metaphor (see Evans, Green 2006), while the axiological semantics notions encompass mainly: global valuation, local valuation, axiological clashes, METAAXIOLOGICAL IN-TERLUDES, CLASH RESOLVING SEGMENTS (see Krzeszowski 1997), CLASH REDUCING SEGMENTS (the notion as proposed in the present study), axiological inferences, axiological judgement and its explication (Laskowska 1992; Ripfel 1987).

The outcome of the analysis, conducted by means of the methodol-ogy of cognitive linguistics, axiological semantics and modern genre studies, makes it clear that the obituary genre may be regarded as a com-plex cognitive category whose membership criteria constitute an open and rather flexible set of tendencies shared by different particular textual realisations of the genre. These tendencies embrace compositional, the-matic, stylistic as well as pragmatic and axiological properties. Moreover, the results of the analysis presented within the present study indicate that the category of the obituary genre ought to be described at three different levels of conceptualisation, i.e. besides the level of its top-most general and abstract model, embracing the aforementioned tendencies, and the level of concrete textual realisations which reflect these tenden-cies to a different extent, there occurs also an intermediary level of editorial practices which embrace prerequisites of the editorial policy

Conclusion206

of particular newspapers. Together with the general model of the genre, the editorial policy shapes the textual realisations of obituary articles in newspapers.

Furthermore, the work proves the highly adaptive character of the obituary, which means that this genre draws upon the conventions of other genres from the realm of journalism, i.e. both news and feature journalism, as well as from other domains of discourse such as literature and public funeral speeches. The journalistic genres which strongly cor-relate with obituaries mainly embrace the profile and news-story article, in particular the news story about a death, as well as the death notice; in turn, genres representing domains other than the discourse of press journalism embrace mainly the literary biography and eulogy.

The study also presents the axiological tendencies of obituaries. These tendencies were explained and illustrated by analyses of representative examples of obituaries selected from the corpus of over 500 obituary articles from the British press. Although the outcome of the analysis con-firms the growing openness of obituary texts for a genuine, even nega-tive, appraisal and subversion of the Latin principle of de mortuis nil nisi bonum (“one should not speak ill of the dead”), it also confirms the still rather positive mode of recollection in the obituary genre. Although at the level of particular micro- and macro-propositions negative axiologi-cal judgements may occur concerning the obituary subjects and/or their various deeds and attainments, at the global level of text organisation the axiological assessment still tends to be positive / rather positive. This global positive appraisal is maintained by the axiological CLASH RESOLVING SEGMENTS (CRESTs) (Krzeszowski 1997) as well as, as has been proposed within the present study, the CLASH REDUCING SEGMENTS (CREDSTs) which re-instate the axiological balance or at least reduce the negative character of the valuations.

The present work fills in the gap, at least partially, of the cognitive and axiological description of obituaries and it contributes to descriptions of biographical genres within the mass media. However, some issues raised in this work require further analyses in the domain of linguistics, genre studies as well as sociology and in particular anthropology, for the axi-ological parameter of the genre correlates with the hierarchy of values acknowledged by particular discourse communities. Some issues which need further analyses embrace the following: editorial models and their

Conclusion 207

cognitive and axiological properties as well as the stylistic patterns of obituaries. In the present study it was only indicated that such edito-rial models contribute to the characteristics of the genre and constitute a level of genre conceptualisation that is different from both the level of its textual realisation and the level of its top-most abstract pattern. Such editorial models need to be further analysed with regard to the impact that the target readership may exert on the textual layout of obituaries, and, considering this issue at a more general level, the impact it may ex-ert on the editorial policy which shapes the textual realisations of genres within the mass media in general.

Moreover, further analyses of obituaries should also embrace the im-pact of the particular target readership on the stylistic patterns of ob-ituaries. Distinguishing, after Starck (2006), two broad categories of ob ituaries: the snapshot and portrait type, which here are referred to as ré-sumé-oriented and portrayal-oriented obituaries, respectively, the present work describes them in cognitive and axiological terms as the two major stylistic types of obituaries. Although these two broad stylistic categories have been described and illustrated with proper examples, they still need to be analysed with regard to the social factor, i.e. how readers perceive and conceptualise particular textual realisations of the obituary genre.

Henceforth, the present work offers a proposal of a cognitive and axiological analysis of obituaries and indicates particular problems to be further analysed: problems which may not only concern obituaries but also other genres of press journalism and genres of the mass media in general.

Appendix

The present appendix presents full texts of some of the obituary articles whose fragments were quoted in the chapters of the dissertation. The ap-pendix, then, constitutes a kind of illustration and complement to these chapters, which, by referring to given fragments of obituaries, clarified their thematic, compositional, stylistic and axiological properties. Moreover, these textual passages of obituaries, presented within chapters of the present work, can be here observed in their full textual context, i.e. their co-text. The obituaries being herein presented in extenso em-brace the following articles: the obituary of Helen Suzman (The Times 2.01.2009), Leonard Gordon Wolfson (The Independent 4.06.2010) and Tommy Gosling (The Times 1.01.2009).

Appendix210

The TimesJanuary 2, 2009

Helen Suzman: anti-apartheid campaigner and politician

The most celebrated white champion of the anti-apartheid movement, Helen Suzman was the South African MP who, over a period of 36 years, consistently denounced the iniquities of racial segregation.

Often, she was the sole politician in South Africa’s parliament to campaign vo-ciferously against apartheid leglisation and highlight the frequent instances she discovered of institutional racial abuse. For six years, she was also the only woman among 165 MPs, enduring the contempt of male parliamentarians who viewed white supremacy as a birthright, and to whom “liberal” was a dirty word.

Undeterred, Suzman used her privileges as an MP to gain access to areas for-bidden to the general public: prisons, black townships and “resettlement areas” in the tribal homelands. At every step she highlighted the evils of the system. She disseminated her findings and presented alternative policies to the out-side world through the parliamentary press gallery.

Suzman began her parliamentary career as a United Party MP in 1953, but left in 1959 to co-found the Progressive Party after the UP split on the question of allocation of land to blacks. Thereafter hers was often the lone voice of dissent on the parliamentary benches. For 13 years she was the only representative in Parliament of the Progressive Party. But she persevered, using the paradoxi-cal circumstance of the authoritarian Government’s respect for the parliamen-tary system to challenge it and its policies at every turn.

Her most relentless campaign was against the notorious pass laws, which re-stricted the movement of blacks and prevented them from selling their labour in the open market. The repeal of these odious laws towards the end of the life of apartheid government in South Africa owed much to her obduracy.

Slight of build though she was, Suzman had great reserves of courage and stamina. She readily held the attention of the House, particularly in her clashes with successive prime ministers and ministers of justice. She used question time to good effect, drawing attention to abuses in the police force and other departments of state and ensuring that these gained the widest publicity.

Helen Suzman was born in Germiston, a small mining town outside Johan-nesburg, in 1917. She was the daughter of Samuel Gavronsky, a Jewish im-migrant who had come to the Transvaal from Lithuania with, as she used to say, “a bundle on his back”. She was educated at Parktown Convent in Johan-nesburg and at the University of the Witwatersrand where she read commerce

Appendix 211

and economics. She married in 1937 before graduating, and dropped out of university to give birth to her first child. She returned to her studies and com-pleted her degree with first class honours.

After the Second World War Suzman taught economic history at Witwa-tersrand for eight years before going into politics. She entered Parliament with the United Party representing the Houghton constituency of Johannesburg in 1953. At that time Dr D. F. Malan’s Nationalists had completed five years in of-fice and were enforcing the first apartheid legislation. Elected as a member of the old United Party of General Smuts, Suzman was one of a group of liberal-minded MPs who broke away from the UP to form the Progressive Party in 1959. In the general election of 1961 this new party was all but wiped out at the polls: Suzman was the only survivor. It was a situation to be repeated at the elections of 1966 and 1970.

In the 1960s, with the Vorster Government introducing the first legislation providing for detention without trial, hers was frequently the only dissenting voice on the opposition benches. It was this legislation, later supplemented by the Terrorism Act and consolidated in the Internal Security Act, which gave the State powers to hold detainees incommunicado and in solitary confine-ment. It also gave rise to abuses such as torture during interrogation – and a spate of deaths in detention.

Suzman was witty and irrepressible in debate, a master of the pungent aside and cutting rejoinder. She often faced roars of disapproval from the govern-ment benches as she argued the case against the Nationalist Government’s ideological legislation. In the 1960s, she frequently had to stand her ground in debate amid intense anger and abuse. The three successive prime ministers whom she confronted over a period of 25 years: Hendrik Verwoerd, John Vor-ster and P. W. Botha, she was subsequently to describe as “as nasty a trio as you could encounter in your worst nightmares”.

She later admitted that Verwoerd was “the only man who has ever scared me stiff”. Yet she stood up to him across the floor of the House, notably on one oc-casion in 1961 when he was at his most aggressive and sarcastic, telling her that “the country has written you off”. Suzman replied “The world has written you off”.

Her spell as the only Progressive MP came to an end in 1974 when the party won five more seats. Indeed, as the United Party continued to lose ground at the polls, the Progressive Party gradually became the official Opposition, and Suzman’s onslaughts on apartheid policies gained welcome reinforcement from a new breed of vigorous parliamentarians.

From the outset Suzman had taken a special interest in conditions in South African prisons. She visited Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in the early 1960s, continuing to do so in later years. She was one of the first MPs to visit the squatter camps such as Crossroads and bring them to the attention of Par-liament. In latter years she paid particular attention to what she believed were

Appendix212

deteriorating standards in the South African judicial system and, in particular, the recurring cases in which whites who beat blacks to death in the most brutal fashion were given scandalously light sentences.

In 1989 she introduced the first censure motion ever before Parliament on a judge, J. J. Strydom, who had given a five-year suspended jail sentence, and a fine equivalent to a few hundred pounds, to a farmer, Jacobus Vorster, who had beaten a black labourer to death. Vorster was also to pay a small stipend to the widow and five children of the deceased for the next five years.

Describing the entire judgment as “a travesty of justice”, Suzman found herself subjected to a barrage of sarcastic remarks from the Minister of Justice, who also saw fit to make the extraordinary observation that in addition to his punish-ment the convicted man would face humiliation because he would be known by fellow whites to be working for the next five years to support a black woman. It goes without saying that in an atmosphere of such moral inversions, Suzman’s censure motion was thrown out.

Yet, South Africa was on the verge of change. P. W. Botha had given up the leadership of his party in February 1989 after suffering a stroke, though still retaining the State Presidency (the office of Prime Minister had been abolished in 1983). His successor, the Education Minister, F. W. de Klerk, though not pre-viously noted as an advocate of reform, was soon to be calling for a non-racist South Africa and for full-scale, open, negotiations about the country’s future.

But 1989 was also the year in which Suzman decided to retire from politics. She had reached the age of 70 and felt that much of what she had striven for was about to be achieved. In October that year she came to London and was appointed an honorary DBE. She also received prizes and honorary degrees from institutions and universities all over the world.

Back in South Africa she then watched from the political sidelines the heady events leading to the release of Mandela and the transition to majority rule, with a mixture of apprehension and hope. Her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms, was published in 1993. She was appointed to the Order of Merit of South Africa in 1997. The Helen Suzman Foundation, an independent think-tank dedicated to the promotion of liberal values in post-apartheid South Af-rica, was founded in her honour, and Suzman acted as patron.

Helen Suzman’s husband, Dr M. M. Suzman, died in 1994. She is survived by their two daughters.

Helen Suzman, South African parliamentarian and civil rights campaign-er, was born in November 7, 1917. She died on January 1, 2009, aged 91

Appendix 213

The IndependentFriday, 4 June 2010

Leonard Wolfson: Businessman and philanthropist

Leonard Gordon Wolfson, who has died at the age of 82, took control of a fam-ily business which earned huge amounts of money and also distributed huge amounts through a philanthropic foundation.

In his decades in charge of both, he made money with remarkable regular-ity as boss of Great Universal Stores, which he built into a powerful retailing empire that reported year-on-year profits for almost half a century. Meanwhile, The Wolfson Foundation, which he and his parents set up, distributed in ex-cess of a billion pounds to a vast array of causes in education, health, science and the humanities.

In this he followed in the footsteps of his father, Isaac, of whom Lord Young of Graffham once said: “He loved making money, and he loved giving it away.” The description applied equally to his son, Leonard. But although his philan-thropy was on a prodigious scale, his concern for mankind was not so evident at a personal level. “He was not what you would call user-friendly,” a former director once confided to Management Today magazine. “In fact, he could be appallingly rude. I would say he had more self-confidence than anyone I have met.”

He added: “I can’t say his presence was good for the digestion. Everyone froze when he came into the room – the other directors always referred to him as “Sir.” He was the hardest man I have ever met.” A family friend added to this conception of Wolfson’s public face. “I think he prefers books on history and economics to people. He is very difficult to get on with – a man who often acts irrationally and bears grudges.”

The magazine summed him up as heavy-handed, terse and acidic – “a multi-billion-pound enigma, a man feared, loathed and respected in roughly equal measure.”

Leonard Wolfson was born in 1927 and educated at The King’s School, Worcester. He skipped university. His father was the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant who settled in Glasgow and developed a small furniture concern. Isaac worked first for his father and then for Great Universal Stores, a fast-growing mail-order business. It grew even more rapidly after he became chair-man following the Second World War, with acquisitions including the fashion house Burberry.

Appendix214

Wolfson and his father ran the company together until the latter succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Wolfson became a director in 1952, managing director in 1962 and chairman in 1981. In the 1980s he swam against the commercial tide, selling more than 2,000 high street shops to the puzzlement of rivals who were in headlong expansion. His approach, which was one of consolidation, concentrating on mail order and on a large property portfolio, paid off. He re-mained chairman until 1996 when he handed over control to his cousin David, Lord Wolfson of Sunningdale.

Choosing to run his operation from an office near the Tottenham Court Road rather than from within the Square Mile, the style Leonard Wolfson cultivat-ed for GUS was austere, ascetic, even secretive. These traits did not always endear him or his company to the City. While acknowledging the virtues of the company as a “reliable colossus”, the financial press complained that all it did was to carry on “monotonously churning out profits”.

Wolfson was oblivious to such carping: he was in the business not of winning friends, but of influencing people and making profits. He was content to preside over what has been described as the longest period of continuous profitability of any company in these islands, reporting year-on-year profits for 48 years. His style was autocratic not only in business but also in philanthropy. The Wolf-son Foundation, formed in 1955 after much careful planning, came into being after his mother, father and Wolfson himself gathered in his magnificent apart-ment in central London to establish the enterprise. The signing of documents took place under a legendary art collection worth millions of pounds.

In the years that followed, millions flowed out to good causes in the UK, Israel and elsewhere. But funds were released only after the most detailed research and under Wolfson’s own exacting scrutiny. Its grants and endowments were myriad, among them one Wolfson College in Oxford and another in Cambridge. In all, more than 8,000 grants have been distributed.

While most of these went to UK causes, he reportedly gave a total of $300m to Israel, where he was friendly with many of the country’s leaders, including Shimon Peres and Chaim Herzog. Tel Aviv academic Professor Haim Ben-Shahar, a member of the Foundation’s advisory board, said of him: “He felt very Jewish and Zionist. In 1948, as a young man, he came to Israel during the war of independence by ship so that he could be with the young country at a crucial moment.”

In British politics he was a Tory, taking the Conservative whip in the House of Lords after receiving a peerage in 1985. He was not, however, a Thatcherite, supporting Michael Heseltine for the party leadership. He received a knight-hood and, in 1985, a life peerage. He also received innumerable awards and honours from academic and other institutions, most of them in recognition of his bequests, and sat on scores of committees.

Appendix 215

The only son of Sir Isaac and Lady Wolfson, his first marriage took place in 1949, producing four daughters, who survive him. This marriage was dissolved in 1991; later in the same year he married again.

David McKittrick

Lord Wolfson, businessman and philanthropist: born 11 November 1927; married first Ruth Sterling 1947 (marriage dissolved, four daughters), second Estelle Feldman 1991; died 20 May 2010.

Appendix216

The TimesJanuary 1, 2009

Tommy Gosling: successful jockey who went on to become a trainer

Tommy Gosling was one of the most prominent figures in the world of horserac-ing in the decades following the Second World War, initially as a jockey and subsequently as a trainer.

He was born in New Lanark in 1926 and left school during the war to join the Lambourn stable of Captain Ossie Bell. He rode his first winner in 1944 and shared the apprentices’ championship with Frankie Durr the following year. Although his 1945 total of ten wins appears small by usual championship-win-ning standards, the racing programme was severely curtailed during the hos-tilities and did not return to normal until 1946.

His biggest success during his championship-winning season – the Stewards’ Cup on Happy Grace – came at Windsor because Goodwood was out of com-mission.

Of the pair of co-champions, Durr, a natural lightweight, was to remain a jock-ey until 1978, but weight would eventually restrict Gosling’s riding career in 1963. By that time, however, he was established as one of the country’s senior jockeys, and no horse did more to further his career than the most popular competitor of the post-war years, Colonist II. Owned by Sir Winston Churchill, Colonist II was blessed with his owner’s fighting spirit, and he and Gosling formed a famous partnership. Together they won eight races including the Par-adise (now Sagaro) Stakes and Jockey Club Cup in 1950 and the White Rose Stakes the following year.

Their finest hour came when, to scenes of jubilation, they triumphed in that year’s Winston Churchill Stakes. They also finished second to Pan II in that season’s Ascot Gold Cup and fourth to Supreme Court in the first running of the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Gosling had continued to ride for Captain Bell after finishing his apprentice-ship, partnering Fairey Fulmar to victory for him in the Victoria Cup and Cam-bridgeshire in 1947, but before long he was also established as a regular rider for Epsom-based stables such as that of Colonist II’s trainer Walter Nightingall.

This association would remain throughout Gosling’s riding career, and in the early 1960s he found himself again regularly wearing the colours of Sir Winston Churchill on two more good horses, Vienna and High Hat. Gosling also rode for a time as stable jockey to the Beckhampton trainer Jeremy Tree,

Appendix 217

on whose Double Bore he won the 1955 Goodwood Cup, and in 1957 he partnered the George Beeby-trained champion sprinter Arcandy to victory in the Stewards’ Cup and the Diadem Stakes.

The leading Irish trainer Paddy Prendergast was another patron, using Gosling for some of his English raids, and this association saw Gosling aboard the top two-year-olds of 1953: the colt The Pie King, on whom he won the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, and the filly Sixpence.

Although he never played professionally, Gosling was a talented footballer as well as rider, regularly training with the Arsenal squad at Highbury. This sta-dium was the scene in 1949 of one of his proudest moments when, playing as captain of a side which won 5-3, he scored a hat-trick in a jockeys v boxers charity match, playing before a crowd of 41,000 in the first game of soccer to be played under floodlights in England.

Gosling never rode an English Classic winner, his best positions being second in the Derby in 1954 on Arabian Night and third in the St Leger in 1960 on Vienna. However, the 1962 Derby provided him with a less happy experience, as his mount, Changing Times, was involved in a seven-horse pile-up. He did, though, taste Classic glory in 1961, riding Lady Senator to victory in the Irish 1,000 Guineas for the Epsom trainer Peter Ashworth.

Three years later, however, Gosling’s battle with increasing weight had been lost and he set up as a trainer at Priam Lodge in Epsom. He was instant-ly successful. The first win of his first season came in a prestigious race in the spring, the Greenham Stakes at Newbury with Excel, and in his second year as a trainer he again landed the Irish 1,000 Guineas, when he sent out Ardent Dancer to win under Bill Rickaby.

Through the 1960s and 1970s Gosling’s stable continued to prosper, most notably courtesy of such good horses as Quartette (winner of the Vaux Gold Tankard and Yorkshire Cup), Sol Argent (winner of the Extel Handicap and Geoffrey Freer Stakes) and Bona-Mia (winner of the Esher Cup).

However, in the late 1970s the stable’s fortunes mirrored those of the Ep-som training centre as a whole – the latter, being so close to London, was in the process of being diminished by suburbanisation. At the end of the 1982 season Gosling thus relinquished his licence to run a livery stable. In 2000 he retired to France.

Gosling was twice married, first to Jill Leach, daughter of the famous jockey, trainer and author Jack, and second to Valerie Vickery, daughter of the football pools magnate Herbert. He is survived by Valerie and by his three sons.

Tommy Gosling, jockey and trainer, was born on July 24, 1926. He died on November 30, 2008, aged 82

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McKittrick, David (2010) “Leonard Wolfson: Businessman and Philanthropist.” [In:] The Independent, 4 June 2010. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/leonard-wolfson-businessman-and-philanthro-pist-1990944.html [ED 11.07.2010].

Pine, Richard (2010) “Gerry Ryan Obituary: Irish TV and Radio Broadcaster Who Liked to Shock.” The Guardian, 2 May 2010. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/02/gerry-ryan-obituary [ED 12.01.2012].

Rawling, John (2009) “Reg Gutteridge: Boxing Commentator Who Was ITV’s Man at the Ringside for More than 30 Years.” [In:] The Guardian, 27 Janu-ary 2009. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/27/obituary-boxing-reg-gutteridge-television [ED 7.01.2011].

Salmond, Alex (2009) “Bashir Ahmad: The Scottish Parliament’s First Asian Member.” [In:] The Independent, 14 February 2009. Available at: http://www.

References 227

independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bashir-ahmad-the-scottish-parlia-ments-first-asian-member-1609209.html [ED 29.01.2012].

Williamson, Marcus (2009) “Inger Christensen: Experimental Poet Who Used Mathematical Structures in Her Work.” [In:] The Independent, 2 February 2009. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/inger-christensen-experimental-poet-who-used-mathematical-structures-in-her-work-1523088.html [ED 24.04.2009].

Unsigned obituary articles“Group Captain Gerry South: Bomber Pilot Who Flew with the Pathfinders

over Some of the Heavily Defended Targets.” [In:] The Times, 27 May 2010. Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk [ED 1.10.2010].

“Helen Suzman: Anti-Apartheid Campaigner and Politician.” [In:] The Times, 2 January 2009. Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk [ED 9.02.2009].

“Patricia Kneale: Shakespearean Actress.” [In:] The Times, 19 January 2009. Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk [ED 9.02.2009].

“Tommy Gosling: Successful Jockey Who Went on to Become a Trainer.” [In:] The Times, 1 January 2009. Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk [ED 9.02.2009].

Email mini-interviews with:

Cohen, Susan, secretary to The Times Letters, Obituaries & Register Editor; the interview carried out on 29.09.2009.

Maume, Chris, obituaries editor of The Independent; the interview carried out on 22.09.2009.

The Team of The Guardian’s Obituaries desk; the email mini-interview from 22.09.2009 presented in extenso embrace the following articles: the obitu-ary of Helen Suzman (The Times 2.01.2009), Leonard Gordon Wolfson (The Independent 4.06.2010) and Tommy Gosling (The Times 1.01.2009).