British Newspaper Discourse Lesson 4: Review and extension Evaluation

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British Newspaper DiscourseLesson 4 Review and
extensionEvaluation persuasion
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A brief quiz

• What is described as the voice of the
  newspaper? What characteristics does it have?
• What does the inverted pyramid refer to?
• What information is usually included in the
  lead or intro to a news story?

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Commenting

• In the editorial, who is evaluated
• favourably? (give e.g.s of vocabulary used)
• unfavourably? (give e.g.s of vocabulary used)
• Underline example(s) of
• modality
• a rhetorical question
• first person plural pronouns who do they refer
  to?
• a metaphor

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• A brave widow and our broken society
• 19th January 2008
• Brave Devastated widow Helen Newlove spoke wise
  words about today's society
• Anyone who wants to know how to tackle the tide
  of drunken, mindless lawbreaking that threatens
  to engulf our communities, should read the wise
  words of Garry Newlove's widow, Helen.
• Despite still raw grief for the loss of her
  husband and the father of her three daughters,
  Mrs Newlove set out a clear template for dealing
  with Britain's social breakdown in her impact
  statement to the court that this week found three
  youths guilty of kicking her husband to death.
• The first culprit was the legal system. The
  ringleader of the gang had been released on bail
  hours before the attack.
• Mrs Newlove believes that we have a "justice
  system that does not do enough to protect decent
  hard working people".
• Yesterday, in a separate case, a judge agreed
  that our obsession with rights was leaving
  society "bedevilled by feral youth".
• Then, Mrs Newlove criticised the police. The gang
  that killed her husband had, along with others,
  she said, been terrorising the neighbourhood for
  weeks.
• Local police had done nothing to stop them. What
  kind of policing is it that allows criminal gangs
  to make people prisoners in their own homes?
• But Mrs Newlove did not limit her criticism to
  the authorities. Parents must "take
  responsibility for their children".
• It's up to parents to teach their children
  respect for authority and for other people. It's
  up to parents to set an example about drinking.
  It's up to parents to ensure that truanting
  children get the education that will put them on
  the path to a better life.
• Mrs Newlove and her daughters have suffered a
  terrible loss, but if we act on what she has
  learnt, we'll be taking the first steps to making
  our streets as safe as they ought to be.

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A blooming flower
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• Pope cancels trip in Rome over security
• By Malcolm Moore in Rome, Last Updated
  1201am GMT 16/01/2008
• The pope has been forced to cancel a visit to a
  university in Rome because of fears for his
  safety.  
• Benedict was due to address students at La
  Sapienza University, but called off his trip at
  the last minute because of a sit-in protest. The
  last papal trip to be cancelled for security
  reasons was in 1994, when John Paul II was due to
  visit Sarajevo. However, the pope has never been
  unable to tour Italy in modern times. Angry
  students had threatened to blast dance music at
  the pontiff, and also to dress up as nuns.
  According to sources close to the Vatican, there
  had also been "more serious threats". The
  official newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore
  Romano, said that "this is a dramatic threat
  against the papacy, culturally and civilly".
• The controversy began after 67 professors at the
  university signed a letter saying the pope should
  not be allowed to give the inauguration speech
  for the academic year.
• The professors accused Benedict of being opposed
  to science, and cited a speech he gave two
  decades ago. They argued that the pope would have
  supported the Church's 17th century trial against
  Galileo for claiming the earth revolved around
  the sun.
• Although there is little evidence in the speech
  to support their claim, the students lent their
  support to the cause, and occupied the dean's
  office, waving banners which said "The Pope has
  occupied La Sapienza. Free the Intellectuals!"
• The Italian Bishops' Conference said they were
  "worried" about the state of the university,
  which was founded by the Vatican seven centuries
  ago. "There seems to be part of the secular world
  which does not argue, but demonises and which
  does not discuss, but creates monsters," said a
  spokesman for the bishops.
• Students rejoiced when the Vatican finally
  conceded and cancelled the trip, shouting "Get
  the Pope out !"
• However, Renato Guarini, the dean of the
  university, said he was "bitterly upset" at the
  tension on campus.
• Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, also
  condemned the students' actions, saying that it
  had been "unacceptable".

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• reporting v commenting
• or
• reporting AND commenting?

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Evaluation

• Evaluation is the broad cover term for the
  expression of the speaker or writers attitude or
  stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about
  the entities or propositions that he or she is
  talking about. That attitude may relate to
  certainty or obligation or desirability of any
  number of variables
• Hunston Thompson 1999

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

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Expressing opinion

• The most obvious function is to tell the reader
  what the writer thinks or feels about something.
• Every act of evaluation expresses a communal
  value system and every act of evaluation goes
  towards building up that value system. This value
  system is in turn a component of the ideology of
  the society that has produced the text.

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Maintaining relations

• The second function of evaluation is to build and
  maintain relations between writer and reader
• Evaluation can be used to manipulate the reader,
  to persuade him or her to see things in a
  particular way

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How to recognise evaluation

• Some lexical items are clearly evaluative with
  evaluation as their chief function and meaning
  e.g.
• Adjectives splendid, terrible, obvious,
  surprising, important
• Adverbs happily, unfortunately, plainly,
  possibly, necessarily
• Nouns success, failure, tragedy, triumph,
  likelihood
• Verbs succeed, fail, win, lose, doubt

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Evaluative and non-evaluative

• Jane is a genius genius is a comparative term,
  the assessment of genius-ness is highly
  subjective and to be a genius is socially valued
  positively
• Jane is a student
• Objective category? Value free?, purely
  descriptive?
• Connotations?

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Synonyms and evaluation

• Assist Collaborate Collude Engage
• Help Interfere Join Meddle participate
• All have a meaning of being involved in something
  or taking part in an activity
• But they have different evaluative values

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• Assist and help positive
• Meddle and interfere negative
• Collude evaluates the activity negatively as well
  as the involvement
• Collaborate, engage, join, participate
• Do not evaluate the participation, it depends on
  the nature of the activity

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Approval and disapproval

• Dewy-eyed and sentimental
• An attitude towards the past speaker
  disapproval
• Flag-waving
• The speaker disapproves of this kind of
  patriotism
• Rebel vs malcontent
• Execution vs killing, murder, slaughter

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persuasion

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

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Grammar

• Certain aspects of grammar have been associated
  with evaluation
• Intensifiers
• Comparators (e.g comparatives and superlatives)
• Hedges (e.g. sort of, about,like)
• Emphatics (for sure, certainly)
• modals

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evaluation

• Involves comparison comparative adjectives and
  adverbs, adverbs of degree, comparator adverbs
  such as just, only, at least expressions of
  negativity
• Is subjectivemarkers of subjectivity
• Is value laden markers of value, including
  indications of goal-achievemnt or non-achievement)

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Evaluation in texts

• See Hunston and Thompson 2000
• Chapter 1 evaluation an introduction

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• Mori poll
• January 2007
• What population of the UK do you estimate are
  immigrants?
• Daily Express readers believed that 21 of the
  population were immigrants
• Daily Mail readers thought that 19 of the
  population were immigrants and
• Guardian readers thought that 11 of the
  population were immigrants.
• In reality, approximately 7 of the population
  were immigrants

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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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pouring water
pouring rain
flood
streaming water
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flooded by

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

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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in
UK newspapers Baker Gabrielotos 2006
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• What other differences in evaluation would you
  expect in the newspapers we have looked at?

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• The Daily Ex-Princess
• The Torygraph
• The Indescribablyboring

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Sources

• http//eprints.lancs.ac.uk/250/1/Discourses_of_ref
  ugees_and_asylum_seekers_in_UK_newspapers-CADAAD20
  06.pdf
• http//eprints.lancs.ac.uk/265/1/Representation_of
  _refugees_and_asylum_seekers_in_UK_newspapers-BAAL
  2006.pdf