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Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English

and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Radoslava Pekarov

Evaluative Language in Journalistic

Discourse Masters Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph. D.

2011

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

..

Authors signature

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D., for his guidance, valuable

advice and resources he provided me with.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5

2. Evaluation in journalistic discourse .......................................................................... 8

2.1 Galtung and Ruges (1965) criteria of newsworthiness ................................... 10

3. Methods and procedures ......................................................................................... 23

4. The Appraisal Theory ............................................................................................. 27

4.1 Classification of appraisal ................................................................................ 30

4.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................ 45

4.2.1 Attitude ..................................................................................................... 45

4.2.1.1 Affect expressing our feelings ........................................................ 46

4.2.1.2 Judgement .......................................................................................... 48

4.2.1.3 Appreciating things ........................................................................... 54

4.2.2 Amplifying attitudes ................................................................................. 57

4.2.2.1 Amplifying the force of attitudes ...................................................... 57

4.2.2.2 Sharpening and softening focus ......................................................... 63

4.2.3 Sources of attitudes ................................................................................... 65

4.2.3.1 Projecting sources .............................................................................. 66

4.2.3.2 Modality ............................................................................................ 71

4.2.3.3 Concession ......................................................................................... 74

4.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 76

5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 83

Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 86

Summary ......................................................................................................................... 92

Resum ............................................................................................................................ 94

Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 96

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1. Introduction

The thesis focuses on journalistic discourse, namely on evaluative features of

journalistic discourse. It draws on Fowlers (1991) view who challenges the medias

claims of their impartiality. To start with, if we consider the articles which occur in the

newspapers thousands of events occur every day, however, only few of them reach the

reader: the newsworthy events must be picked from those which are regarded as not

interesting for the readers of the newspapers, and thus here in the very beginning of

writing an article evaluation begins. This topic is discussed in the chapter devoted to

Galtung and Ruges factors which explain on what basis certain topics are more relevant

than others and thus picked to be published.

The hypothesis of this work is that quality newspapers use such language means

which are evaluative. The research of the thesis was focused on this aspect of

newspapers language employing the appraisal framework which is an approach which

enables to explore, describe and explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt

stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and

relationships (White 2005). By means of this approach it is possible to identify

attitudes, judgements and emotive responses that are explicitly presented in texts as

well as those which are indirectly implied, presupposed or assumed (White 2005).

This approach is thus suitable for the thesis as its aim is to look at journalistic discourse

and find out whether and to what extent journalists use evaluative language.

All in all, it is explained here that not only are the newspapers evaluative, but

they are necessarily evaluative: the evaluation occurs from the beginning of the process

of news production and the news is not a summary of facts as several people with

different interests infer with the process and influence what goes to the newspapers, in

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which form and wording. This is discussed in the second chapter which shows that the

same event can be depicted in a different manner with a different amount and type of

evaluative expressions.

The second chapter provides an introduction to journalistic discourse which is

further analysed. There is described a process of news production it is displayed here

that a report of an event is by no means a presentation of facts collected by a journalist.

It is rather a cooperation of a team of persons involved in the process. It explains why

some news is preferred than another on the basis of Galtung and Ruges (1965) and

Harcup and ONeills (2001) criteria. Further, there are explained roles of the people

who participate in the news production creating the final result that is given to the

reader.

The next chapter presents the material that was analysed for the purposes of the

thesis: the research for the thesis contains an analysis of the usage of language of the

chosen quality newspapers, namely of the online versions of the Guardian, the

Independent and the Telegraph. The methods and procedures that were employed in the

theses and in the research for the thesis are described here. This part further contains a

list of the articles on which appraisal was applied and provides a total number of words

and of the individual articles that were analysed.

The fourth chapter introduces the main part of the thesis the appraisal network.

There are presented two versions of appraisal, as for the purposes of the thesis a

simplistic one (described by Martin and Rose 2007) was more suitable, however, the

other, a complex one is generally applied in all studies I came across when looking for

some additional materials concerning appraisal and its application. The two frameworks

are briefly compared. On the basis of this comparison is shown that the simplistic

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version can be applied as well acquiring the same results with a lesser emphasis on the

categorisation. The analysis as such begins from the section 4.2 providing definitions of

the individual categories of appraisal together with examples and further explanations

showing that evaluative stances occur in articles of the quality press and how appraisal

is employed by them.

The occurrences of appraisal in the examined articles were counted and the

results are presented in the chapter 5 including a commentary concerning their

significance for the thesis. In this chapter some problematic areas encountered in the

course of the analysis are also pointed out.

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2. Evaluation in journalistic discourse

In this section the process of news production is discussed. Although the

emphasis is put on the products of this process in the thesis, it is necessary to realise that

evaluation is not only present in the articles we read, but rather it is an inherent part of

newspapers as such and thus evaluation that occurs in the newspapers is rather a

consequence of the process which is described below.

Journalistic discourse has earned substantial attention from the part of linguists.

Bell (1995) provides four reasons for the attention paid to journalistic discourse, First,

the media provide an easily accessible source of language data for research and teaching

purposes. Second, the media are important linguistic institutions. Their output makes up

a large proportion of the language that people hear and read every day. Media usage

reflects and shapes both language use and attitudes in a speech community. For second

language learners, the media may function as the primary or even the sole source of

native-speaker models. Third, the ways in which the media use language are interesting

linguistically in their own right; these include how different dialects and languages are

used by different segments of media to construct their own images and their

relationships to an unseen, unknown audience. Fourth, the media are important social

institutions. They are crucial presenters of culture, politics, and social life, shaping as

well as reflecting how these are formed and expressed (23). Various products of media

are indeed all around us and touch perhaps every sphere of our life and as Bell (1995)

maintains they influence our views. Journalistic products are all around us whether they

are spread via radio, TV, the Internet or printed newspapers. Additionally, scarcely can

anyone remain untouched by them as topics covered by the media include all areas of

our life: for example, they talk about what we eat (e.g. German dioxin scare spreads to

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meat, Telegraph), what we do in our free time (e.g. Protests in Egypt and unrest in

Middle East as it happened, Guardian), about our work and how much we get paid

whether to expect increases in incomes or on the other hand, reductions in working

places (Businesses divided over UK minimum wage increase, Telegraph;

Unexpected rise in UK unemployment, Guardian, 16 February 2011) and so on.

Newspapers thus obviously influence their readers since on the basis of what they

publish the readers can decide that they will not eat certain meat or they will not spend

their holiday in Egypt. The fact that they have a substantial influence is confirmed by

the Resolution 1003 on the ethics of journalism which says that ...information and

communication play a very important role in the formation of citizens' personal attitudes

and the development of society and democratic life (Parliamentary Assembly, Council

of Europe 1993) with the media playing the role of a mediator, providing an

information service (Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe 1993). Furthermore,

according to this document journalism should not alter truthful, impartial information

or honest opinions, or exploit them for media purposes, in an attempt to create or shape

public opinion. Fowler (1991) says that this is indeed what journalists in general claim,

i.e. that he or she collects facts, reports them objectively, and the newspaper presents

them fairly and without bias, in language which is designed to be unambiguous,

undistorting and agreeable to readers. This professional ethos is common to all the news

media (Fowler 1991: 1). However, what we encounter in actual articles is not

impartial report of news: they skillfully work with facts and create an article that is

subsequently offered to the readers as Fowler says that newspapers language is not

neutral but on the contrary, it is a highly constructive mediator (1991: 1).

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2.1 Galtung and Ruges (1965) criteria of

newsworthiness

The evaluation from the part of the newspapers is present from the very

beginning of the process of writing an article. From all of the events that happen every

day must be chosen those ones which will be reported and published. Galtung and Ruge

(1965) summarized criteria of newsworthiness which were later revised by Harcup and

ONeill (2001). These are shown in Table 3 below, criteria by Galtung and Ruge (1965)

being shown in the left column, those ones by Harcup and ONeill (2001) in the right

column.

Table 1 Criteria of newsworthiness as established by Galtung and Ruge (1965) in the left column and revised

by Harcup and O'Neill (2001) in the right column

F1 Frequency

F2 Threshold

F2.1 Absolute intensity

F2.2 Intensity increase

F3 Unambiguity

F4 Meaningfulness

F4.1 Cultural proximity

F4.2 Relevance

F5 Consonance

F5.1 Predictability

F5.2 Demand

F6 Unexpectedness

F6.1 Unpredictability

F6.2 Scarcity

F7 Continuity

F8 Composition

F9 Reference to elite nations

F10 Reference to elite people

F11 Reference to persons

F12 Reference to something

negative

1. The power elite

2. Celebrity

3. Entertainment

a) picture opportunities

b) reference to sex

c) reference to animals

d) humour

e) showbiz/ TV

4. Surprise

5. Bad news

6. Good news

7. Magnitude

8. Relevance

9. Follow-up

10. Newspaper agenda

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By frequency Galtung and Ruge (1965: 66) mean the time-span needed for the

event to unfold itself and acquire meaning compared to the frequency of the relevant

news medium. They exemplified this by a murder: it happens on one day and it is

possible to report it on the other day which is in accordance with frequency in which

newspapers are published, i.e. daily. On the contrary, when during a war hundreds of

people die to single out one murder ... would make little sense - one will typically only

record the battle as such... (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 66).

The second criterion, says that an event needs to pass a certain threshold to be

recorded, i.e. the event has to have certain intensity and the greater the intensity is, the

greater the opportunity for the event to be reported, or as Galtung and Ruge (1965: 66)

put it, the more violent the murder the bigger the headlines it will make.

The criterion of unambiguity provides that the less ambiguity the more the

event will be noticed (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 66) which does not, however, imply

that simple events rather than complex ones are preferred. It means that an event which

can be clearly and unambiguously interpreted is more likely to be reported than the ones

which are confusing and allow for more interpretations.

Meaningfulness covers two dimensions cultural proximity and relevance.

Cultural proximity says that the receiver will pay particular attention to the familiar, to

the culturally similar (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 67) and leaves out what is not

culturally close to him/ her or what he/ she is not familiar with. For example, the

Slovaks get more excited about the news concerning the upcoming championship in ice

hockey held in Slovakia than the Czechs. Relevance provides that even if an event

concerns a culturally distant place, it may become interesting for the reader if it

contains some information with culturally familiar content, e.g. presence of a nations

member at some natural disaster in a foreign and culturally distant country.

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Under the criterion of consonance is meant a situation when a person expects,

with meaning of the verb expect to be predict or even want, something to happen.

When the development of the situation is divergent from these expectations, it will not

be registered, according to this hypothesis of consonance (Galtung and Ruge 1965:

67).

The sixth criterion points out that within the criteria of culturally meaningful and

consonant with what is expected the more unexpected the event is, the greater the

chance to be reported. It includes an event which is either rare or unpredictable.

Continuity is the seventh criterion which says that once an event became news, it

remains in the attention for some time although its amplitude is drastically reduced

(Galtung and Ruge 1965: 67). This is because it has become familiar and easy to

interpret (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 263).

The starting point for the criterion of composition is that a person responsible for

the content of the reported news tries to achieve a balanced composition. Consequently

when happens that the responsible person receives many pieces of news from abroad

and only a few of them from home which are additionally less important, the threshold

value will be lowered for the domestic news and which makes it to the headlines. Thus a

balanced composition will be preserved.

According to the ninth and tenth criteria, reference to elite nations and reference

to elite people, events with such connection are more likely to be reported because the

actions of the elite are, at least usually and in short-term perspective, more

consequential than the activities of others: this applies to elite nations as well as to elite

people (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 68).

The criterion of reference to persons speaks about the tendency of the media to

connect a certain piece of news with a concrete person or a group of persons who is/ are

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explicitly named which enables identification of the reader with the person depicted in

the news.

Finally, reference to negative provides that negative news will be preferred to

positive news (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 69). This is due to the several reasons: it fulfils

the criterion of frequency as the negative is much easier and takes shorter time than the

positive (e.g. it takes shorter time for a house to be burnt by fire than to build it) and

thus a negative event can more easily unfold itself completely between two issues of a

newspaper and two newscast transmission (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 69); negative news

is considered as consensual and unambiguous and is seen as more unexpected than

positive news.

Harcup and ONeill (2001) question the validity of the criteria by Galtung and

Ruge (1965) and provide their own set of news values which are listed in Table 3 above.

I, however, assume that they are not that novel as is claimed by Harcup and ONeill

(2001) for the category of the power elite and of the celebrity which includes elite

people as well as institutions and organisations could be subsumed under F9 and F10

reference to elite nations and elite people; surprise under F6 unexpectedness; bad news

under F12 reference to something negative; magnitude under F2 threshold; and

relevance under F4 meaningfulness; follow-up under F7 continuity. The only categories

not mentioned by Galtung and Ruge (1965) and introduced by Harcup and ONeill

(2001) are the category of entertainment, of good news and of newspaper agenda. The

group termed as Entertainment consists of 5 subgroups: picture opportunities, reference

to sex, reference to animals, humour, showbiz/TV. The showbiz/TV covers stories

about TV stars particularly those featured in soap operas and docusoup (Harcup and

ONeill 2001: 275). This description can be easily subsumed under Galtung and Ruges

(1965) factor F10 Reference to elite people despite the fact that Harcup and ONeill

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(2001) object this factor asking how this category can be useful when it does not

distinguish between the President of the USA and Spice Girls. However, the point of the

category is that it expresses that known or famous people are interesting for the press

and their readers. Whether one creates two categories for these persons or not, the result

is still the same: they are identified in both cases (i.e. when Galtung and Ruges or

Harcup and ONeills criteria are applied) as news values. The subcategory called

picture opportunities says that If a story provided a good picture opportunity then it

was often included even when there was little obvious intrinsic newsworthiness. When

combined with a top celebrity or a royal, the combination seemed to almost guarantee

inclusion (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 274). Concerning the remaining subgroups of

entertainment reference to sex, reference to animals and humour, Harcup and ONeill

(2001) conducted their research solely on tabloid press and compiled their set of criteria

on the basis of their results, thus I do not assume these three are applicable on quality

newspapers.

Two remaining categories of newsworthiness to be discussed are good news and

newspaper agenda. The former is defined as stories with particularly positive overtones

such as rescues and cures (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 279). In the latter are included

stories that set or fit the news organisations own agenda (Harcup and ONeill 2001:

279).

To sum up, the criteria of newsworthiness were listed and defined above.

Galtung and Ruge (1965) and Harcup and ONeill (2001) maintain that the more criteria

are fulfilled by an event, the more likely is that the news will be published.

Fowler (1991) also holds that news is not simply about reporting facts and

speaks about some artificial criteria for the events to be picked and published: news

is socially constructed. What events are reported is not a reflection of the intrinsic

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importance of those events, but reveals the operation of a complex and artificial set of

criteria for selection (2).

When the topic is chosen, the evaluation of the event continues: it needs to be

decided whether it is suitable to put it to the front page or not, and further, how much

space it will be awarded as the news that has been thus selected is subject to processes

of transformation as it is encoded for publication; the technical properties of the

medium television or newsprint, for example and the ways in which they are used,

are strongly effective in this transformation (Fowler 1991: 2). First of all, when

comparing the front pages of the online versions of the Guardian, Independent and the

Telegraph from 11 April 2011, we discover that scarcely is any of the leading news

identical in all three newspapers. (The print screens of the front pages of the websites of

the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph are provided in the appendix.)

Table 2 Leading news by the Guardian, 11 April 2011

The Guardian

1. Brown's hacking inquiry halted by civil service

2. Scholars outrage at Manning torture

3. Clegg ally threatens to quit over NHS

4. Zuma: Gaddafi accepts path to peace

5. UN and France attack Gbagbo base

6. Masters 2011: Schwartzels late charge seals the green jacket

7. Kroenke to take control of Arsenal

8. Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle United

Table 3 Leading news by the Independent, 11 April 2011

The Independent

1. Britain's nuclear timebomb: Government's doomed 6bn plan

to dispose of nuclear waste

2. Nothing like a quiet weekend at the beach

3. Desperate search for food as Gbagbo fights on

4. Incendiary devices: Books as bombs

5. Payouts over NOTW phone hacking could reach 40m

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Table 4 Leading news by the Telegraph, 11 April 2011

The Telegraph

1. Gordon Brown: I made a big mistake on banks

2. HMS Astute shooting: Able seaman charged

3. Libya: Kol Gaddafi accepts road map to peace

4. 100 victims of phone hacking

5. Obama plans health cuts

6. Schwartzel wins masters

Only one of the topics (i.e. the one discussing phone hacking) is common to all

three newspapers, further one other topic covered by the Independent (the one covering

Gbagbo although the headlines cover the event from the differing viewpoints, it is

understood that a situation around Gbagbo, the ex-president of the Ivory coast, is

reported) and two topics covered by the Telegraph (headlines concerning Gaddafi and

Schwartzel winning the Masters) are also published by the Guardian. The criteria of

newsworthiness provided above are obviously not employed in the same manner by the

individual newspapers. Thus even here the evaluation which of the criteria is more

newsworthy for the relevant newspaper occurs.

Further, when a topic is chosen it needs to be decided how long it will be or

which information and how much of the information available will be used in the

article. If we look at Table 2 numbers of words of the individual articles are stated in the

brackets. Although the Guardian shows the tendency to produce articles longer than the

remaining newspapers reaching the highest number of words used in the articles in total,

Table 2 reveals that some of the topics were less relevant for the Guardian: in three

cases out of 15 the Guardian produced shorter articles than the remaining analysed

newspapers. Obviously, even if a newspaper evaluates some topic as newsworthy, it is

still further re-examined how much space is desirable to provide for that particular piece

of news.

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As the sample contains articles covering a particular event by all three analysed

newspapers, it enabled me to compare the approach employed by the newspapers

toward an event and see how information concerning a topic is handled by the

newspapers. The most outstanding differences as regards to the amount of information

provided by the newspapers were observed with the articles covering the death of Ian

Tomlinson during the protest against G20 meeting (topic no. 3) where numbers of

words in the individual articles are as follows: the Guardian 1218, the Independent

885, the Telegraph 602. It should be noted that the high amount of words used in the

article does not automatically mean that the newspapers also present a high amount of

relevant or new information. This was observed with the articles dealing with the

criminal Raoul Moat in which the highest number of words occurred in the article by

the Telegraph (1942), the lowest in the Guardian (984). The Telegraph included in the

article a plenty of direct quotations by several people who were nearby the place where

the event happened and mentioning how the people felt or that they heard something at

the back door implying thus that the criminal Raoul Moat could have possibly been

close to them. But else the information concerning the case offered by the Telegraph

was similar.

The situation is, however, different with the death of Ian Tomlinson who was

coincidently caught up in the G20 riots in London and hit to the ground by a police

officer. Mr. Tomlinson managed to walk away several metres but then collapsed and

died. The first statement by the police supported by a post-mortem claimed that Mr.

Tomlinson died of heart attack. However, the Guardian was delivered a footage

showing the police officer striking Tomlinson down. Subsequently another two post-

mortems were conducted which said Mr. Tomlinson died of severe head injury. Despite

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the footage and the last post-mortems a criminal prosecution could not be commenced

due to the time that had elapsed and the conflict between the post-mortems.

The newspapers treated the event differently and not only in length but also in

the content. The Guardian devoted the topic the most of the space offering more details

containing more statements by the individuals involved in the case compared to the

Telegraph and the Independent which could be interpreted that the Guardian considered

the topic to be more relevant and newsworthy than the remaining two newspapers.

Obviously, the Guardian included more information, however, not only were

these facts more descriptive or contained more quotations, but also involved statements

and descriptions which were more critical toward the police than the information

provided by the Telegraph and the Independent. Additionally, some of the information

provided by the Guardian could be marked as strongly relevant for the readers but

despite it omitted by the remaining papers. The Telegraph and the Independent said that

the official statement by the police did not agree with what actually happened in that

Mr. Tomlinson died due to the injuries caused by the police officer. This was

supplemented by the Guardian with the following:

a) Tomlinson had his hands in his pockets and his back to the officer when he was hit.

The video footage suggests that no other police officer went to his aid and it was left to

a bystander to lift him to his feet. He appeared to stumble about 100 metres down

Cornhill, clutching his side, before collapsing a second time.

b) Police initially led Tomlinson's wife and nine children to believe he died of a heart

attack after being caught up in the demonstration. In statements to the press, police

claimed attempts by officers to save his life by resuscitation had been impeded by

protesters. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)

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To begin with, saying that police initially led ... to believe strongly denotes that

they even consciously tried to fool the family of the deceased. Further, in the example

b) there is mentioned a claim by the police that they tried to help the person, but this

was not allowed by the protesters. In the example a) this is denied by the video footage

which proves the police to be liars. The conclusion brought by this analysis is that from

some reason the Telegraph and the Independent did not insert in their articles

information suggesting that the police are liars. It could be argued that the Telegraph

and the Independent did not have this information but Mr. Tomlinson died on 2 April

2009, the articles were published in July 22, 2010, i.e. there was a sufficiently long

period of time between the event and the day it was published to acquire the relevant

information. Furthermore, statements by the police tend to be made available to the

press in general and so should be that one claiming that the officers tried to help Mr.

Tomlinson. And thus any objections saying that the newspapers had different

information at their disposal are invalid as the information was generally available.

As to the criticism expressed more strongly by the Guardian than the remaining

papers this is illustrated by the example a) emphasising the innocence and not-

participation of Mr. Tomlinson saying that he had his hands in his pockets and his back

to the officer when he was hit. This means that Mr. Tomlinson not only did not take part

in the riot but even if he had taken part in the event, there still would not have been any

reason to use any force against him. This is again emphasised solely by the Guardian.

Further extra criticism against the police expressed by the Guardian is shown in the

example c):

c) The CPS announcement comes five years to the day since another landmark incident

involving police use of force. On 22 July 2005, officers shot dead Jean Charles de

Menezes after mistaking him for a terrorist who was about to detonate a bomb. Then,

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the family of the innocent Brazilian criticised the CPS for failing to bring criminal

charges against any individual. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)

The Guardian reminds its readers of the previous case of unnecessary use of force by

the police when similarly nobody was punished for the death of an innocent person

turning it into a problematic area of the police conduct.

On the basis of the above stated it is possible to conclude that the Guardian

presents less benevolent attitude towards the police, pays attention to their conduct and

publishes more relevant information than the remaining studied newspapers at least

concerning the currently discussed topic. This proves that the newspapers can, indeed,

omit certain though relevant information or provide some extra information which can

shed light on the topic currently discussed or provide a new perspective. Vasterman

(1995) maintains that journalists actually do not report events as news is not out there,

journalists do not report news, the produce news. They construct it, they construct facts,

they construct statements and they construct a context in which these facts make

sense. They reconstruct a reality and dismisses any selection criteria such as those by

Galtung and Ruge (1965). Bell (1991) also speaks of constructions of news in a way

and though the Resolution 1003 on the ethics of journalism (1993) provides that News

is information about facts and data, while opinions convey thoughts, ideas, beliefs or

value judgments on the part of media companies, publishers or journalists, he presents

a four-layer model of news producers consisting media companies, publishers or

journalists. Bell (1991) provides a four-way division of roles that points to a division

of responsibility for linguistic form as well as news content (38). He explains that the

process of news production is influenced by principal, author, editor and animator.

Principal contains two tiers the business institution which includes proprietors and

commercial managers, and the news institution which includes professional news

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executives. Their roles played in the process of news production despite the convention

of editorial independence from commercial interests... (38) are those of owners who

possess the ultimate control and care about efficiency and profit (38). Proprietors,

despite the fact that they do not directly interfere in the language of a newspaper, set

the editorial policies which affect news language (40), and news executives serve as

the channel for implementing proprietors policies (40). The latter mentioned

additionally determine the ideological framing of news and its linguistic expression ...

and set routine guidelines for their journalists language use (40), for example in

prescribing who will be labelled as a terrorist and who as a guerrilla (Schlesinger,

1987: 229).

The second segment that participates in the news production, the author (a

journalist) is the actual producer of the news language. Bell (1991), however, points out

that the author is not always as original as it may appear (40): he/ she often draws on

the previous articles written on the same topic, press releases, and most prominently on

what people involved in a case say about it - the articles in my sample, indeed, consist

of direct or semi-direct quotations and paraphrased utterances from a greater part. And

thus the journalist is as much as a compiler as a creator of language, and a lot of news

consists of previously composed text reworked into new texts (Bell 1991: 41).

The third segment, editors, have three functions: overseeing, copy editing, and

interpreting (Bell 1991: 42). The function of overseeing lies in the retrospective

critique of a reporters writing, or input to general language prescriptions such as the

newspapers stylebook (Bell 1991:42). Copy editing is about cutting and modifying

(Bell 1991:43) of a text produced by a journalist. The final function, conducted by an

interpreter, lies in determining the significance of the story, how much prominence it

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receives and how it is displayed (Bell 1991:43). Interpreters are responsible for

headlines, type size and order of the stories.

The fourth group consists of the animators who play the physical and technical

roles necessary to communicate authors stories to their audience (Bell 1991:43). In

broadcast it is personified a by the newsreader, in newspapers by the typesetter who is

responsible for accurately keying in the print journalists copy (Bell 1991:44).

However, the validity of the role of the typesetter nowadays with the use of computers

is rather questionable and should be preferably presented in a manner that the typesetter

used to play this role.

Thus the final result the readers can find in the newspaper is less based on the

actual event, but rather it is a cooperation of several segments in the news production.

During the process of the news production several versions of an article are created as a

result of modifications caused by the internal policy of the newspapers, by the authors

themselves, by the work of editors and finally news presenters.

In sum, what we read in an article is not simply a result of collecting of facts by

a journalist which are subsequently reported but rather a careful process of selection of

proper topics, proper wordings which are finally presented in a proper font.

In the following section the methods and procedures employed when collecting

the sample are introduced.

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3. Methods and procedures

This chapter describes methods and procedures employed in the thesis especially

concerning the research.

Central to the study are articles from three different British quality newspapers,

namely from the online versions of The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph.

On the basis of the Appraisal theory 45 articles were analysed (15 articles from each

newspaper). Among the studied articles are only those ones which appeared on the main

sites of the online versions of the chosen papers - the aim was to examine such articles

which could be regarded as hard news. Another prerequisite for the choice of an article

was its topic it was required that the topic was handled by all of the chosen papers. By

doing so the individual approaches towards particular events employed by the

newspapers could have been compared. This enabled me to observe the differences in

the discourse of the individual papers and to consider how much attention was devoted

to the same event depicted in all the newspapers on the basis of the length of the

articles. Altogether 32,595 words were analysed as is shown in Table 5 below together

with the number of words analysed in the individual papers.

Table 5 No. of words analysed

No. of

words

Guardian 12,646

Independent 10,538

Telegraph 9,411

Total 32,595

24

Table 6 contains the list of the articles that were analysed together with number of

words of the individual articles stated in the brackets.

Table 6 List of articles analysed (no. of words in brackets)

Guardian Independent Telegraph

1 Raoul Moat dead after

single gunshot ends

standoff with police

(984)

Raoul Moat kills

himself during police

stand-off (1085)

Raoul Moat dies after

shooting himself during

armed police stand-off

(1942)

2 Former MI5 chief

delivers damning

verdict on Iraq invasion

(816)

Iraq invasion 'increased

terror activity against

UK' (972)

Iraq war increased

terrorist threat to the

UK, former MI5 chief

tells Chilcot Inquiry

(402)

3 Ian Tomlinson death:

police officer will not

face criminal charges

(1218)

Riot officer faces no

charge over G20 death

(885)

G20 riots: policeman

escapes charges over

Ian Tomlinson's death

(602)

4 Nick Griffin told: we

don't want that kind of

party at the palace (572)

Palace bans Nick

Griffin from palace

garden party (762)

Nick Griffin denied

entry to Buckingham

Palace garden party

(452)

5 Pakistan president will

'put David Cameron

straight' over terror

claims (965)

A humanitarian disaster

at home, a diplomatic

crisis abroad (741)

Pakistan president to

challenge David

Cameron's 'uncalled for'

terrorism remarks (660)

6 Northern Rock savings

fall but 'bad bank' is in

the black (627)

Northern Rock plans to

resume credit cards and

loans (595)

Northern Rock's 'bad

bank' makes a profit,

'good bank' a loss (332)

7

Cloned meat: British

consumers have eaten

parts of least two bulls

(490)

Second cloned cow

offspring used in food

chain (670)

Meat from second

cloned cow offspring

entered food chain

(671)

8 BP oil spill mostly

cleaned up, says US

(487)

Most of BP oil spill has

gone, says US (436)

BP oil spill: majority of

oil in the Gulf of

Mexico 'eliminated'

(408)

9 Naomi Campbell: I

didn't know if 'dirty

diamonds' were Charles

Taylor's gift (1014)

Naomi Campbell

accused over Charles

Taylor trial evidence

(845)

Naomi Campbell: I

handed 'blood

diamonds' to Mandela

charity (899)

10 David Cameron and

Pakistan's Asif Ali

Zardari show united

front on terrorism (947)

UK-Pakistan

relationship

'unbreakable' (535)

Britain and Pakistan

have 'unbreakable'

relationship, insist

Cameron and Zardari

(541)

11 Naomi Campbell gave Charity man hands Naomi Campbell

25

Guardian Independent Telegraph

me uncut diamonds,

says former Mandela

charity chief (535)

Naomi Campbell gift

diamonds to police

(506)

diamonds handed in to

South African police by

charity head (551)

12 Nick Clegg's first day

(2197)

Coalition proving

doubters wrong, says

Clegg (526)

Nick Clegg: Coalition

has brought reform, not

'insipid mush' (265)

13 Inflation eases but stays

above 3% (662)

Bank 'surprised' at

inflation strength (743)

Bank of England

Governor warns that

Britons face higher

inflation for longer

(547)

14 A-level results 2010: A-

level pass rate rises to

97.6% (597)

1 in 12 A-levels have

new A* grade (1136)

Universities minister

apologises to A-level

students missing out on

places (827)

15 Last US combat troops

leave Iraq (535)

Goodbye Iraq: Last US

combat brigade heads

home (93)

'Last' brigade of US

combat troops leaves

Iraq (312)

The sample was collected in July and August 2010.

Concerning the Appraisal, theoretical background for the thesis is predominantly

based on Martin and Rose (2007) where the appraisal framework is clearly structured

and explained though does not go into such a detail of the Appraisal as other works

dealing with the theory (e.g. Martin and White 2005; White 2005). The reason for this

choice is that my aim is not purely to study all the nuances of the individual categories

and subcategories of appraisal or a precise classification of all expressions in the studied

material, but rather the identification of the occurrences of the evaluative expressions in

the newspaper language for which purpose Martin and Rose (2007) serve sufficiently.

Additionally, though the detailed framework contains more categories and

subcategories, it is not explained why such a complex framework is even necessary to

apply, i.e. it is not specified whether any of the subcategories play a specific/

extraordinary role in a text and thus should be distinguished/ highlighted. The

subcategories are only presented and exemplified without mentioning any importance of

26

such a classification. In the following section appraisal is introduced and described:

firstly, there is a brief introduction into the detailed framework and on examples drawn

from Martin and White (2005) it is illustrated that they can be easily subsumed under

the less complex classification provided by Martin and Rose (2007).

27

4. The Appraisal Theory

The appraisal theory is an approach which enables to explore, describe and

explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual

personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and relationships (White 2005). By

means of this approach it is possible to identify attitudes, judgements and emotive

responses that are explicitly presented in texts and how they may be more indirectly

implied, presupposed or assumed (White 2005) which is exactly what is intended to be

identified in the course of analysing the newspaper articles.

White (2005) further specifies in which linguistic situations appraisal can be employed:

the linguistic basis of differences in a writer/speakers style by which they may

present themselves as, for example, more or less deferential, dominating,

authoritative, inexpert, cautious, conciliatory, aloof, engaged, emotion.

impersonal, and so on,

how the different uses of evaluative language by speakers/writers act to

construct different authorial voices and textual personas,

how different genres and text types may conventionally employ different

evaluative and otherwise rhetorical strategies,

the underlying, often covert value systems which shape and are disseminated by

a speaker/writers utterances,

the different assumptions which speakers/writers make about the value and

belief systems of their respective intended audiences,

how different modes of story-telling can be characterised by their different uses

of the resources of evaluation,

28

the communicative strategies by which some discourses (for example those of

the media and science) construct supposedly objective or impersonal modes of

textuality. (White 2005)

Appraisal performs these functions:

1. Attitudinal positioning

2. Dialogistic positioning

3. Intertextual positioning

Under intertextual positioning are subsumed such uses of language by which

writers/speakers adopt evaluative positions towards what they represent as the views

and statements of other speakers and writers, towards the propositions they represent as

deriving from outside sources. At its most basic, intertextual positioning is brought into

play when a writer/speaker chooses to quote or reference the words or thoughts of

another (White 2005). When a quotation of words or thoughts of another person appear

in a discourse, it means that according to the author of the discourse these words or

thoughts are relevant for him/ her for a certain reason and thus the most basic mode

evaluative stance to intertextual material is one of implied relevance. (White 2005)

Besides the relevance an utterance can be further evaluated as endorsed or

disendorsed. By means of endorsement the author signals support for an agreement

with the utterance it means that the utterance is seen as reliable and trustworthy. On

the other hand, disendorsement means that the author distances from the utterance.

1. It confirmed meat from a second bull, Parable, had entered the food chain.

(Independent, 4 August 2010) - endorsement

2. Moat had remained at large for a week, allegedly aided by friends and associates.

(Guardian, 10 July 2010) - disendorsement

29

Dialogistic positioning is an area of meaning which has typically been explored

in the linguistics literature under such headings as modality, evidentiality, hedging,

boosting and meta-discursivity. (White 2005) The meanings are negotiatory in that

they are concerned with managing or negotiating interpersonal relations between the

speaker/writer and actual or potential respondents. (White 2005) They include such

cases when a judgement is passed on the degree of discrepancy between the

speaker/writer and potential respondents, i.e. a judgement on what reaction the speaker/

writer expects from his audience.

3. But footage later showed Mr Tomlinson being struck from behind by a member of the

Metropolitan Police's controversial territorial support group. (Independent, 22 July

2010)

But in this sentence means that the author presents something that is in discrepancy to

what the reader expects/ knows/ assumes.

4. The diplomatic carpeting was apparently not enough to assuage Pakistani wrath.

(Guardian, 2 August 2010)

Apparently denotes something self-evident and a low degree of discrepancy.

5. The spot is a stones throw from the polices temporary headquarters in Rothbury,

suggesting he could have been intending to carry out his threat to kill police officers.

(Telegraph, 10 July 2010)

Suggesting here expresses low degree of discrepancy. The same conclusion that a

criminal intended to kill police officers is expected from the readers.

The function of Attitudal positioning encompasses praising and blaming,

with meanings by which writers/speakers indicate either a positive or negative

assessment of people, places, things, happenings and states of affairs (White 2005).

30

6. He is accused of trading in "blood diamonds" to fund the brutal and bloody war in

which more than 120,000 died. (Telegraph, 5 August 2010)

7. Fighting back tears outside CPS headquarters, his son Paul King called for the

officer responsible to be "named and shamed". (Independent, 22 July 2010)

8. An ambulance reportedly sped from the scene, taking the former nightclub bouncer,

37, to a Newcastle hospital. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)

In these cases we have come across examples of negative or positive assessments of

things, people and feelings: the war being marked as brutal and bloody is obviously

negative assessment; fighting back tears denotes negative feeling; and marking

someone as a former nightclub bouncer is a negative assessment of a persons character.

4.1 Classification of appraisal

In this part two appraisal frameworks are considered: one that contains a more

profound categorisation, and briefly another one on which the analysis of the thesis is

based, which is, however, simpler in a number of categories. The aim is to show that the

one applied in this work is sufficient enough to distinguish all the cases of evaluative

stances in the analysed texts. Both frameworks are co-authored by the same person,

namely J. R. Martin, which implies that the simplistic framework is valid and can be

applied.

As to the classification of appraisal, there are distinguished three aspects:

attitude, amplification and source. The Table below shows the most basic division of the

categories of appraisal and subgroups of the individual categories.

31

Table 7 Summary of appraisal

Appraisal

Attitude

Affect

Judgement

Appreciation

Amplification/

Graduation

Force

Focus

Source of attitude/

Engagement

Monogloss

Heterogloss

The individual categories are discussed more in detail later in the section

discussing the analysis being based on Martin and Rose (2007) and applied in the

context of the analysis. The rest of this chapter is devoted to the depiction of the more

complex framework of appraisal supplied with the equivalents of the simplistic

version provided by Martin and Rose (2007) (which, however, is not ignoring the

detailed framework on the contrary, the last pages of the relevant chapter introduce

the standard version of attitude presenting it with headline More detail on kinds of

attitudes (63)).

I. A To start with, the first category to be discussed is the affect. The different

categories can be identified on the basis of these questions, the first five of them being

drawn from Martin and White (2005), and the sixth one from Martin and Rose (2007):

1. Are the feelings popularly construed by the culture as positive ... or negative ones... ?

2. Are the feelings realised as a surge of emotion involving some kind of embodied

paralinguistic or extralinguistic manifestation, or more internally experienced as a kind

of emotive state or ongoing mental process?

3. Are the feelings construed as directed at or reacting to some specific emotional

Trigger or as a general ongoing mood for which one might pose the question Why are

you feeling that way and get the answer Im not sure.

4. How are the feelings graded towards the lower valued end of a scale of intensity or

towards the higher valued end; or somewhere in between?

32

5. Do the feelings involve intention (rather than reaction), with respect to a stimulus that

is irrealis (rather than realis). (Martin and White 2005)

6. Are the feelings to do with un/happiness, in/security or dis/satisfaction? (Martin and

Rose 2007)

Depending on the answers to these questions the following categories of the affect can

be identified:

Table 8 Affect

affect

1. positive negative

2. behavioural surge mental process/ state

3. reaction to other undirected mood

4. low median high

5. realis irrealis

6. Un/happiness In/security Dis/satisfaction

The subcategory of irrealis is further divided, namely into fear and desire.

Another category out of those in the Table above divided into subgroups is the sixth

category, which is quite complex. This is displayed in Table 9:

Table 9 Un/happiness, In/security, Dis/satisfaction

Un/happiness Unhappiness Misery

Antipathy

Happiness Cheer

Affection

In/security Insecurity Disquiet

Surprise

Security Confidence

Trust

Dis/satisfaction Dissatisfaction Ennui

Displeasure

Satisfaction Interest

pleasure

33

The affect by Martin and Rose (2007) shown below is in comparison to the

detailed framework simpler, however, sufficient enough to identify evaluative language

in an article. To prove this claim I will categorise the examples subsumed under the

individual categories of the detailed framework by Martin and White (2005) according

to Martin and Roses (2007) simplified version of appraisal. This will be done in the

following part of the thesis despite the fact that definitions of the individual categories

by Martin and Rose (2007) are provided later, namely in the part dealing with the

analysis of the newspaper articles which is preferred because there it is discussed in the

context of examples of evaluative newspaper language.

Table 10 Affect by Martin and Rose (2007)

Positive

Negative

Direct Emotional state

Physical expression

Implicit Extraordinary behaviour

Metaphor

As for the positive or negative affect, this category is identical with the one by

Martin and Rose (2007). In the second category we distinguish between behavioural

surge, i.e. physical manifestation of feelings, and mental process/ state which again

corresponds with Martin and Roses (2007) category.

Examples by Martin and White (2005: 47):

Behavioural surge: the captain wept

According to Martin and Rose (2007) this would be subsumed under physical

expression.

Mental process/ state: the captain disliked leaving/ the captain felt sad

This should be subsumed under emotional state.

34

The third category includes distinction between reaction to other, i.e. to some

Trigger which is the cause of the emotions, and undirected mood which lacks such a

clear cause of a described emotion. Examples by Martin and White (2005: 47):

Reaction to other: the captain disliked leaving/ leaving displeased the captain

Undirected mood: the captain was said

Both cases would be subsumed under the heading of emotional state according to

Martin and Rose (2007).

Further distinction between low, median and high affect has to do with gradation

which is discussed by Martin and Rose (2007) solely in the part dealing with gradation/

amplification of attitude and thus the examples below would by Martin and Rose (2007)

classified simply as emotional state.

Low the captain disliked leaving

Median the captain hated leaving

High the captain detested leaving (Martin and White, 2005: 48)

The fifth category distinguishing between irrealis and realis affect is provided

with the following examples (Martin and White, 2005):

Realis: the captain disliked the leaving

Irrealis: the captain feared the leaving

These would be classified as emotional state by Martin and Rose (2007).

Irrealis is further divided into fear and desire:

Fear: tremble, wary

The first one is the example of physical expression, the second one is the example of

emotional state.

Desire: suggest, miss

Both would be identified as emotional state by Martin and Rose (2007).

35

Finally, the sixth category is divided into un/happiness which is concerned

with affairs of heart sadness, hate, happiness and love, in/security which covers

emotions concerned with eco-social well-being anxiety, fear, confidence and trust,

and dis/satisfaction which includes emotions concerned with telos (the pursuit of

goals) ennui, displeasure, curiosity, respect (Martin and White 2005: 49). The

following examples are drawn from Martin and White (2005) where they were

subsumed under the individual subgroups of the sixth category. Subsequently they were

classified according to Martin and Rose (2007).

Martin and White (2005) Martin and Rose (2007)

Misery: whimper physical expression

sad emotional state

Antipathy: rubbish physical expression

dislike emotional state

Cheer: chuckle physical expression

cheerful emotional state

Affection: shake hands physical expression

be fond of emotional state

Disquiet restless physical expression

uneasy emotional state

Surprise start physical expression

startled emotional state

Confidence declare physical expression

together emotional state

Trust delegate physical expression

comfortable emotional state

36

Ennui fidget physical expression

flat emotional state

Displeasure caution physical expression

bored with emotional state

Interest attentive physical expression/ emotional state

involved emotional state

Pleasure pat on the back physical expression

satisfied emotional state

It should be noted that Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish also implied and

direct affect, while Martin and White (2005) do not include these into their

classification for some reason but discuss it in an independent section of the book

together with implied and direct judgement and appreciation.

On the basis of above stated it is obvious that it is possible to identify the affect

by applying both types of the framework, whether it is the more complex one or the

simpler one. The point is that the simpler one could be considered as a general one,

while the other as a specific one. It should be also noted that the examples by Martin

and White (2005) did not include any examples of metaphor or extraordinary behaviour

which Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish as separate categories which is shown below.

I. B Judgement, unlike affect, does not contain many differences between the

versions by Martin and White (2005) and Martin and Rose (2007). The tables below

provide overviews of the two versions of judgement, Table 11 showing a more complex

classification, while Table 12 provides us with a simpler version.

37

Table 11 Judgement (Martin and White, 2005)

Positive (admire) Negative (criticize)

Social esteem

Normality (how special?)

Capacity (how capable?)

Tenacity (how dependable?)

Positive (praise) Negative (condemn)

Social sanction

(mortal)

Veracity [truth] (how honest?)

Propriety [ethics] (how far beyond reproach?)

Table 12 Judgement (Martin and Rose, 2007)

direct implied

Personal Admire

Criticize

Moral Praise

condemn

Judgement by Martin and White (2005) distinguish between social esteem which

subsumes normality, capacity and tenacity, and social sanction which includes veracity

and propriety. Judgements by Martin and Rose (2007) tell apart actually the same two

subgroups which are just termed differently personal and moral judgement but do

not mention further classification. Both versions identify judgements as either positive

or negative and use the same terminology to label them as either positive or negative,

i.e. one set of judgements is termed as admiring and criticizing, and the other as praising

and condemning. This means that by employing the simpler version of the framework

we should receive the identical results as the categories are actually identical.

Finally, it is necessary to remind that Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish

between direct and implied judgements, while Martin and White (2005) do not include

these into their classification, but discuss it later in the individual section.

All in all, it is obvious that the framework by Martin and Rose (2007) is

sufficient enough to enable to determine cases of judgement.

38

I. C The third category of attitude Appreciation is first of all divided into

positive and negative. Martin and White (2005) unlike Martin and Rose (2007)

distinguish further nuances between individual evaluations of things and distinguish

realisations of appreciation:

1. Reaction impact: did it grab me?

e.g. positive: arresting, negative: boring

2. Reaction quality: did I like it?

e.g. positive: lovely, negative: ugly

3. Composition balance: did it hang together?

e.g. positive: harmonious, negative: discordant

4. Composition complexity: was it hard to follow?

e.g. positive: simple, negative: ornate

5. Valuation: was it worthwhile?

e.g. positive: penetrating, negative: shallow

Martin and White (2005: 57) further subsume these categories under types of mental

process and metafunctions:

Table 13 Sub-types of Appreciation

Appreciation Mental process type Metafunction

Reaction Affection Interpersonal

Composition Perception Textual

Valuation Cognition Ideational

All of these examples would be simply labelled as either positive or negative

appreciation by Martin and Rose (2007) which shows that it is possible to identify

39

evaluation in the texts with the difference lying in the fact that no further classification

is conducted.

II. Another part of appraisal, which is considered here, deals with graduation

termed also as amplification (Martin and Rose 2007). The most basic classification

consists of the categories of force and focus. In focus Martin and White (2005) discern

whether an attitude is softened or sharpened. The same classification is used by (Martin

and Rose 2007).

A more complex network is distinguished in the sub-category of force by Martin

and White (2005).

Table 14 Classification of force

FORCE

Intensification

Quality

(degree)

Process

(vigour)

Quantification

Number

Mass/ presence

Extent

Proximity Time

Space

Distribution Time

Space

Martin and Rose (2007) divided this category purely to strengthened/ toned up

attitude and toned down attitude.

Martin and White (2005: 148) describe several ways of realisations of

intensification and quantification and provide examples. Similarly, Martin and Rose

(2007) provide a list of language items which are used to graduate attitude which,

40

though shorter, includes the realisations below with the exception of repetition. Table

15 displays realisation of graduation by Martin and Rose (2007).

Table 15 Realisation of graduation by Martin and Rose (2007)

usage of intensifiers, e.g. highly, last, several, worst, biggest, modal

verbs

usage of attitudinal lexis which is lexis with attitude (Martin and

Rose, 2007: 42), e.g. frantic, huge, dramatic, heavy

usage of metaphors

swear words

What follows are realisations by Martin and White (2005) which are supplied with their

equivalents by Martin and Rose (2007).

a) an isolated lexeme which solely, or at least primarily, performs the function of

setting the level of intensity (141)

e.g. slightly, very

This is equivalent to intensifiers.

b) semantic infusion where the sense of up/down-scaling is fused with a meaning

which serves some other semantic function (141),

e.g. happy ecstatic

Attitudinal lexis would be applied here.

c) repetition, e.g. laughed and laughed and laughed

Repetition is not mentioned by Martin and Rose (2007), however, when the analysis

was conducted, repetition was despite partly taken into account and is briefly discussed

later in the relevant part of the thesis. It should be though noted that it did not occur

very frequently and not in the manner presented by Martin and White (2005), i.e. as a

sequence of words following one another but rather as phrases consisting of several

words repeated throughout the article several times.

41

Realisations of isolated intensifications are (Martin and White 2005):

a) grammatical, e.g. very easy, greatly reduced

b) lexical, e.g. amazingly easy, crystal clear

These distinctions are again covered by intensifiers which tend to be grammatical and

by attitudinal lexis which includes lexical realisations (Martin and Rose, 2007). We

should be, though, aware of what Sinclair (1994) points out:

The meaning of words chosen together is different from their independent

meanings. They are at least partly delexicalized. This is the necessary correlate

of co-selection. If you know that selections are not independent, and that one

selection depends on another, then there must be a result and effect on the

meaning which in each individual choice is a delexicalization of one kind or

another. It will not have its independent meaning in full if it is only part of a

choice involving one or more words. (23)

Sinclair here explains that lexical words used in a context partly lose their feature of

having an independent meaning and the boundary between lexical and grammatical

words is slightly blurred here.

The second sub-group of force, quantification, can be realised via (Martin and

White 2005):

a) isolation, i.e. usage of an isolated term acting as a modifier of a graduated entity

(151)

e.g. many, large

b) infusion, i.e. estimation of quantity is carried, not by a modifier, but by the noun

head itself (151)

42

e.g. a throng of digital imaging products (vs. many digital imaging products) (151)

hes a mountain of a man (152)

c) metaphor

e.g. Very shortly we were struggling through mountainous seas. (152)

In this set of realisations Martin and Roses (2007) one is applied similarly as it was in

realisations of intensifications: isolation is included in intensifiers and infusion in

attitudinal lexis or in metaphors.

Realisations are further (Martin and White 2005):

a) figurative, e.g. crystal clear, came out like a jack in a box

b) non-figurative, e.g. very, greatly, rapidly

This distinction is basically about a question whether an intensifying word or an

utterance has metaphoric meaning or not.

Finally, it should be noted that what is not used by Martin and White (2005) and

is applied in Martin and Rose (2007) is a category of swear words which, however, is

not important for the thesis anyway as no examples of swearing words occurred in the

sample. Martin and White (2005) explain that they omitted it intentionally: In order to

scale our presentation of attitudinal resources down to something manageable we have

focused on gradable lexical items construing evaluation. This places swearing beyond

the scope of our study, since it involves non-gradable lexis (68). The category is,

however, mentioned in the relevant part of the thesis and supplied with an example

drawn from Martin and Rose (2007).

III. Finally, third part of the appraisal framework by Martin and White (2005) is

provided, namely Engagement. The basic division of engagement consists of

monogloss which includes situations in which occurs a single source of an utterance,

43

and of heteregloss which covers such circumstances when more sources of an utterance

appear. Heterogloss is further divided in the following subgroups by Martin and White

(2005).

Firstly, heterogloss is divided into expansion which allows for dialogically

alternative positions and voices (Martin and White 2005: 102) and dialogic contraction

which acts to challenge, fend off or restrict the scope of alternative positions (Martin

and White 2005: 102). Further categorization of heterogloss is displayed in Table 16.

Table 16 Heterogloss - overview

HETEROGLOSS

Contract

Disclaim Deny

Counter

Proclaim Concur

Affirm

Concede

Pronounce

Endorse

Expand

Entertain

Attribute Acknowledge

Distance

Examples of these categories are drawn from Martin and White (2005) and are

classified according to Martin and Rose (2007).

Disclaim

o Deny

There is nothing wrong with... (118) modality negotiating

information

o Counter

Even though we are getting divorced... (120) concession

Surprisingly, there seems to have been... (121) concession

Proclaim

o Concur

44

Affirm naturally, of course (134) concession

Concede admittedly, sure (134) concession

o Pronounce

I contend... (127) modality negotiating

information

The facts of the matter are that... (127) projecting sources names

for speech acts

o Endorse

All five show that..., (126)

five studies demonstrate that... (126)

According to Martin and Rose (2007) all five and five studies would be marked

as a source of attitude and would be further classified as projecting sources

names for speech acts.

Entertain perhaps, this may be (134) modality negotiating

information

Attribute

o Acknowledge

Halliday argues that..., (134) projecting sources

projecting clauses

...its said that... (134) projecting sources

projecting clauses

o Distance

Chomsky claimed to have shown (134) projecting sources

projecting clauses

45

While all the categories of sources of attitudes by Martin and White (2005) are

covered by Martin and Rose (2007), it does not apply vice versa Martin and Roses

(2007) category of scare quotes was not discussed by Martin and White (2005). Scare

quotes are discussed and exemplified in the respective part of the thesis.

All in all, this part intended to prove that though less complex categorisation is

applied in the thesis, the same results can be acquired. I believe that this was achieved

as all the examples were classified according to Martin and Rose (2007) which was

used for the purposes of the analysis.

4.2 Analysis

In this part the individual categories of appraisal are defined and supplied with

examples from my sample. In the light of the examples the categories are characterised,

or rather clarified.

4.2.1 Attitude

Attitude is characteristic of evaluating peoples feelings, peoples character and

the value of things. Evaluation can be either positive or negative, stated directly or

implied. Attitude is divided in the following subgroups: affect which subsumes

evaluations of feelings; judgement which concerns of assessment of peoples character;

and appreciation which includes evaluation of things. When talking about attitude, it is

important to realise that it is not created only by individual words, but rather one comes

across whole utterances which contain evaluative stances as White (2005) points out.

Both types of creating attitudinal constructions, i.e. single-word expressions and

several-words utterances, will shown in the following sections on the individual

categories of Attitude. Examples are drawn from my sample.

46

4.2.1.1 Affect expressing our feelings

Concerning the feelings, Martin and Rose (2007) explain that there are good and

bad feelings and thus affect can be marked as positive and negative. Further, people can

express what they feel directly or we can sense it from their behaviour and similarly

affect can be expressed directly or implied. When emotions are named explicitly or

expressed physically, e.g. by tremble or shakes, the affect is expressed directly;

description of unusual behaviour is considered as indirectly expressed feelings. Unusual

behaviour signalises that something is wrong, however, we cannot say exactly which

emotion is expressed. Further, metaphors can be employed to manifest certain emotions.

Examples below show both one-word expressions of affect as well as whole utterances

conveying evaluation of a persons emotional state.

1. The diplomatic carpeting was apparently not enough to assuage Pakistani wrath.

(Guardian, 2 August 2010)

Pakistani wrath is a clear-cut example of the affect: it expresses negative emotions of

the Pakistans foremost representatives.

2. As the siege wore on Moat apparently relaxed and allowed police to bring him food

and water. (Independent, 10 July 2010)

Relaxed illustrates that certain expressions of emotions cannot be strictly classified into

one or another category of affect: relaxed can relate either to the physical state when it

was possible to observe, for example, on his body that he was no longer strenuous, or it

can refer to emotional state when he started to communicate with the police. In this case

both of the meanings are included which is shown in Table 17 below where relaxed is

classified as boththe emotional state and physical expression.

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3. Fighting back tears outside CPS headquarters, his son Paul King called for the

officer responsible to be "named and shamed". (Independent, 22 July 2010)

This example demonstrates usage of phrases consisting of several words to describe

emotions.

4. Yesterday evening there was a sense of panic as marksmen flooded into the village,

which was cordoned off. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)

In the category of Affect, i.e. category of evaluating of peoples feelings, we can come

across an utterance which expresses evaluation of feelings, although no carrier of

feelings is mentioned, at least not directly. In this sentence the carrier is implied and is

necessary to determine him/ her from the context of the text who is in this case the

people of the city where a criminal was hiding. Thus though not mentioned explicitly

who is affected, it still should be marked as Affect.

5. The news, which will be welcomed by conservationists fighting the slick, comes as BP

began an attempt to permanently seal off the leaking well with a mixture of mud and

cement.

(Telegraph, 4 August 2010)

From this example it is obvious that the evaluation of feelings need not necessary refer

to the present timethe author of the article describes future positive feelings of the

conservationists.

An example of the metaphor did not occur in my sample and thus the example is

drawn from Martin and Rose (2007) to illustrate it. It is displayed in Table 17 below.

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Table 17 Affect

Positive ... will be welcomed

Negative Reacting with fury...

Direct Emotional state ...wrath, ...relaxed..., Fighting back tears...

Physical expression ...relaxed...

Implicit Extraordinary behaviour wander from window to window (Martin

and Rose,

2007: 32)

Metaphor ice cold in a sweltering night, eyes dull

like the

dead (Martin and Rose,

2007: 32)

4.2.1.2 Judgement

The second group of attitude, judgement, is concerned with evaluation of human

behaviour or a persons character. It can be described negatively or positively and thus

someone could be e.g. good, bad, brilliant or stupid. They can be expressed similarly as

with affect explicitly and implicitly. Judgements are divided into personal judgements

which denote either admiration or criticism, and moral judgements which indicate

praise or condemnation.

A. Personal Judgements

Personal judgements expressing positive evaluation of a character are subsumed

under admiration, the negative ones under criticism. Martin and White (2005) term this

type of judgement social esteem. They are concerned with the way in which peoples

behaviour lives up to or fails to live up to socially desirable standards (Eggins and

Slade 1997:131). Iedema et al. (1994, qtd. in Eggins and Slade 2001: 131) explains that

positive values of social esteem can result in an increase in esteem in the eyes of the

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public while negative values diminish or destroy it (202). Below are provided

examples together with further explanations.

1. It now appears that Moat could have been living under the noses of police in

Rothbury for several days. (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)

In this example criticism of the police is implied when an author of the utterance

indicates that the police was not competent enough to arrest a Mr. Moat although he

occurred very close to them for several days.

2. The former head of MI5 delivered a devastating critique of the invasion of Iraq today,

saying it substantially increased the threat of terrorist attacks in Britain and was a

significant factor behind the radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK. (Guardian, 20

July 2010)

This personal judgement implicitly says that the person who expressed criticism is a

competent person who knows the case and understands the circumstances and thus her

opinion should be accepted.

Judgements in the form of stating what peoples jobs are often appear in the

sample which could be regarded as a sole description or may be understood as

additional or evaluative information. From the point of view of appraisal stating ones

job makes a person enables to create certain view of him/ her or of his/ her utterance

concerning its relevancy for an article: it can evoke both negative and positive response

of the readers. It can result in readers acceptance of the person or his/ her statement

(e.g. as being valuable and trustworthy) but on the other hand it may also serve for

challenging the worthiness or credibility of the person or of his/ her utterance. The

example 15 says that the person is relevant and trustworthy. However, when someone is

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said to be a former nightclub bouncer (Guardian, 10 July 2010), it again evokes a

certain image of the person, however, this time a negative one.

3. It is expected that Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of defence staff, Sir John Sawers, the

head of MI6, and Cameron's national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, will meet

their Pakistani counterparts in an attempt to ease suspicions... (Guardian, 6 August

2010)

In this case stating the occupations of the persons expresses that the persons involved in

the case are important and at the same time it implies that the issue is taken seriously by

the Prime Minister (This happened in an effort to calm down the tension between

Pakistan and UK caused by Camerons improper remarks concerning the way Pakistan

dealt with terrorism).

4. The young mother, who did not wish to be identified, heard rustling behind a closed

door as she arrived... (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)

5. Chris Robertson, who was visiting his mother when armed officers told them to lock

themselves in the house... (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)

6. Trisha Best, 40, who watched the drama unfold, described Moat as looking very

tired and very scruffy. (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)

These three sentences come from the same article from the Telegraph. The persons

mentioned in the sentences are objectively unimportant for the case but still are marked

by the newspapers as witnesses of the situation that took place in the city where these

persons occurred. They do not provide any relevant information. Their role in the article

is important due to the attributes given them by the papers, i.e. the underlined segments.

No. 6 provides a woman who watched the scene and thus should be able to provide

relevant information, however, she does not say anything important. The role of the

judgement in no. 5 is rather that it can happen to anyone being anywhere, i.e. that even a

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person not living in a certain place could be endangered. In no. 4 the woman did not

wish to be named and thus she was at least evaluated by the newspapers as a young

mother. The other attribute could additionally imply that not only did she want to

remain anonymous, but also that she could have been still worried and anxious about

the situation. This, however, was not marked as an affect as it is not clear whether it was

the case. The article on this topic in the Telegraph contain several of these judgements

mentioning permanent inhabitants (among them those who lived really close to the

place the criminal was hiding), visitors, old and young persons, mothers, offspring and

whole families. The Telegraph is the only one among the three newspapers analysed

which employed this practice of emphasising the fact that people from various groups

were in danger. This tactics enables the readers to identify with the persons mentioned

in the article who were, in addition, explicitly named. This is in accordance with

Galtung and Ruges (1965) factor of newsworthiness F11 Reference to persons which

says that personification makes the event more newsworthy.

7. The 17-stone steroid addict shot himself. (Independent, 10 July 2010)

This is a criticism from the part of the author of the article. It may seem that it is simply

a description of a person, however, to be a steroid addict is a negative characteristics

and denotes that people do not need feel sorry about him. In addition, an article

covering the same topic in Guardian did not contain this characteristic of the criminal

which means that it was not considered to be important to mention, on the other hand,

the Independent wanted to emphasise this negative feature of the criminal.

B. Moral Judgements

Positive moral judgements denote praise, negative ones denote condemnation.

Martin and Rose (2007) explain that a shift from Incident to Interpretation takes place

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here: while moral judgements involve Interpretation, personal ones do not. In

Interpretation a person is judged on the basis of moral grounds. Martin and White

(2005) state that moral judgements called by them social sanction tend to be codified

in writing, as edicts, decrees, rules, regulations and laws about how to behave as

surveilled by church and state with penalties and punishments as levers against those

not complying with the code. Sharing values in this area underpins civic duty and

religious observances (52).

Eggins and Slade (1997: 131) provide that these are evaluative judgements

concerned with moral regulation or whether the behaviour of a person or a group of

people is seen as ethical or tru