Title: British Newspaper Discourse Lesson 3
1British Newspaper DiscourseLesson 3
2- Review and extension
- Getting to know the UK papers better
- The construction of news
3Differences between Quality and Popular Press
- Selection of news
- hard politics, foreign affairs etc.
- soft celebrities etc.
- Personalisation of news
- Language style
- shorter articles and paragraphs
- more simple lexis
- more colloquial language
4Functions of the headline
- Attract the readers attention to the story (or
paper, if on the front page) - Tell the reader what the story is about
- summarising the content of the story
- indicating the evaluation of the story
- indicating the register of the story
- indicating the focus of the story
5Headline language evaluation
- An emphatic triumph (Sun)
- A shattering blow (Mirror)
6Headline Language Focus
7Headline language
- Specialised vocabulary
- Playing with words (puns)
- Creativity metaphor / metonymy
- Playing with sounds
- Playing with knowledge
- Special grammar
8- Cops name stabbed store man
- (Sun, 15/01/2008)
- POLICE have named a man who was stabbed to death
in Brixton. - He was Khalilulah Naseri aged 25.
- Officers were called to Atlantic Road at 7.40pm
on Sunday to reports of three men attacked in a
market place store.
9- Expelled knife boy legal bid
- (Sun, 15/01/2008)
- A TEENAGE boy who was expelled for carrying a
knife is taking his school to the High Court, it
emerged today.
10Headline language grammar
- grammatical words omitted
- no verb
- present tense
- past participle
- to-inf for future
- extended noun phrases
11Ambiguity
- police squad helps dog bite victim
they help the person who was bitten by a dog
they help the dog to bite the victim
12Headline ambiguities
- Giant waves down funnel.
- Female binge drinker arrests rocket.
- British Left waffles on Falklands
- Crowds rushing to see pope trample 6 to death.
- Foot heads arms body
13The construction of news
14The construction of news
- the reporter does not go out gathering news,
picking up stories as if they were fallen apples,
he creates news stories by selecting fragments of
information from the mass of raw data he receives
and organizing them in journalistic form. -
- (Chibnall 1982 76)
15- Where does news come from?
16News comes from a variety of sources
- It then undergoes
- Selection, transformation and mediation
17stance is a refracting and structuring medium
- Different newspapers and news broadcasts report
differently, both in content and presentation - They express affiliations and disaffections in
the way they represent or mediate by means of
transformation or differential treatment in
presentation - This is part of the social construction of news
but before transformation and treatment there is
the question of selection the decision that
something is worth including, is relevant
18Selection events become news when they are
selected for inclusion in a news report
- There is a difference between events that happen
out there and news. News is not found or even
gathered it is a creation of the journalistic
process - selection gives us a partial view of the world.
- texts come out of a context
19so what makes an item newsworthy?
- Each source will have criteria for selection and
choice of what is newsworthy or worth including - it is a matter of certain criteria which have a
gatekeeping function, filtering and restricting
news input. a question of values known as news
values
20- According to Fowler(1991 13) the news media
select events for reporting according to a
complex set of criteria or values. - The list includes conflict (war, controversy
over issues), currency (of public concern),
bizarreness (unusual), prominence (about
prominent people), impact (number of people
affected), proximity (who it affects and where it
takes place) and timeliness (how recently it
occurred) (Curtis 2011)
21News values
- Negativity
- Peace v war? disasters rather than triumphs
- Immediacy /recency
- Breaking news v yesterdays news? Single events
rather than long processes - Proximity
- Small fire in town in Chile? Cultural proximity
and relevance - Lack of ambiguity / simplicity
- Britney v Middle East easy to understand
- Novelty
- Dog bites man v man bites dog? Unexpectedness and
scarcity - Personalization
- Is there a human interest? To promote
identification and empathy or disapproval - Eliteness
- George Bush v Donald Tusk elite people and
nations - Others?? Composition intensity (based on Bell
1998 74)
22changes
- Cardiff report on
- The quality and Independence of British
Journalism - Tracking the changes over 20 years
- Cardiff School of Journalism, media and Cultural
Studies
23Where news comes from
- Press release material is being used more often
as a basis for - articles, and phrases are frequently taken
verbatim by the journalists from a - limited number of press releases
- 60 percent of press articles come wholly or
mainly from pre-packaged sources
24PR sources
- . The findings suggest that public relations
often does much more than merely set the agenda
it was found that 19 percent of newspaper stories
were verifiably derived mainly or wholly from
public relations material, while fewer than half
the stories appeared to be entirely independent
of - traceable PR
25PR concerens
- . The most PR-influenced topic was health,
- followed closely by consumer/business news
- and entertainment/sport.
26News imposes a structure
- Not only is news judged during the selection
process, it is then transformed as it is encoded
for publication news represents the world in
language, and language is a semiotic code which
imposes a structure of values, social and
economic in origin, on whatever is represented
(Fowler 1991 2-4
27The news construct and values
- Caldas- Coulthard (2003 273) emphasises this
point, stating that news is not an objective
representation of facts, but a cultural
construct that encodes fixed values. - Evaluation is pervasive in practically all forms
of linguistic communication.
28Once a topic is selected then the next thing..
- Is who gets to speak
- news has to be gathered so there are a number of
sources, events and institutions which are
frequently used as sources sometimes called
accessed voices - Sources monitored routinely such as parliament,
councils, police, emergency services, courts,
diary events, royalty, airports, other news media
29Accessed voices 2
- organizations issuing statements and holding
press conferences (government departments, local
authority departments, public services,
companies, trade unions, non-commercial
organizations, political parties, armed forces)
30Accessed voices 3
- Individuals making statements, seeking publicity
- (prominent people, members of the public)
- The interesting thing is how they are introduced
and how their words are used
31Attribution and authorial endorsement
- The way accessed voices are reported is subject
to the choice of the reporter - the linguistic resources by which
speakers/writers include, and adopt a stance
towards, what they represent as the words,
observations, beliefs and viewpoints of other
speakers/writers.
32Source specification
- how is the nature of the source specified?
- (personalized, impersonalized, institutional,
named, anonymous, generalized, specific, generic,
aggregate, collective, association)
33Source status
- Sources are often associated with some level of
status, authority or power in the current speech
community (see accessed voices) - source type has an impact and the type of source
chosen indicates the values of the reporting
source
34Inclusion means evaluating relevance
- When a writer/speaker chooses to quote or
reference the words or thoughts of another. - By referencing the words of another, the writer,
at the very least, indicates that these words are
in some way relevant to his/her current
communicative purposes. - Thus the most basic intertextual evaluation is
one of implied relevance'.
35extra-vocalisation using others words
- There are a number of factors including the
degree of authority which is indicated of the
source and the degree to which the writer/speaker
endorses (or dis-endorses) the attributed
material. - As X, perhaps the world's leading authority on Y,
has demonstrated, ... (high authority /
authorially endorsed, the writer indicates they
share responsibility with the source for the
proposition/proposal) - X says that... (neutral with respect to
endorsement) - Some Xs have claimed that...(dis-endorsed,
author disavows responsibility for the
proposition/proposal)
36Formulations of Attribution
- a range of variables, including the
authoritativeness of the attributed source and
the extent of authorial endorsement of the
attributed proposition. - An endorsement-neutral formulation such as Some
researchers argue...' is represented as simply
one view among many.
37- In contrast, endorsed formulations (for example,
As X has so compellingly demonstrated) - the writer not only indicates their personal
investment in the current argument, but adds to
the argumentative force by representing the
current view as one which is not theirs alone but
one which is shared with, for example, the wider
community or with relevant experts.
38Disendorsement
- Even if writers/speakers choose to include what
other people say they can also distance
themselves from the utterance, indicating that
they take no responsibility for its reliability. - This is commonly done by the use of a quoting
verb such as to claim' and allege', nouns such
as rumour, adverbs such as reportedly.
39Signalled choices?
- Does the writer indicate support for, acceptance
of, or agreement with the views or observations
provided by the attributed material? - writers can either choose to remain neutral with
respect to endorsement (neither endorsing or
disendorsing) - or they can choose to actively take a position
(endorsing or disendorsing).
40- The speech criticiesd those who falsely claim
that Bush is just a Texas catle-rancher Disendor
sement - The Archbishop rightly describes the killing as
evil. Endorsement - The report demonstrates clearly Endorsement
41Responsibility
- Who is presented as taking responsibility for the
utterance under consideration - sole responsibility (all unattributed material)
- no responsibility (as with dis-endorsed,
attributed material) - shared responsibility (with endorsed attributed
material)
42textual integration
- assimilation or insertion
- a clear separation between the words of the
source and those of the source or whether the
distinction has been blurred - actual words
- or reformulation and paraphrasing
43Direct and indirect quotation
- whether the writer purports to offer the reader
the actual words of the attributed source or
whether these have been reworked in some way,
often with the result that the wording is more
like that of the text than that of the original
speaker/writer. - At its most simple, this distinction separates
direct quotation (where the attributed material
is clearly separated from the rest of the text) - and indirect quotation (where the words of the
attributed are not so clearly demarcated and
where there may be considerable paraphrasing.)
44Indirect quotation
- through indirect speech of this type, the
distance between external and the authorial voice
is reduced. - There is some degree of assimilation by the text
of the attributed meanings. - Such assimilation may be increased through the
use of the various grammatical structures of
attribution. (reporting verbs)
45Attribution and text types
- There are marked differences between text types
e.g. fiction vs. news reporting - ambiguous attribution and blurred distinctions
can be used for a series of rhetorical purposes - the media also have a set of editorial rules
regarding the accuracy of reporting - in literary studies the distinction between
indirect and free indirect speech has undergone a
vast amount of research
46Argumentative and persuasive genres
- the social purpose of these genres is to argue a
case in such a way that the audience is convinced
of the truth or merits of the viewpoint - Exposition Thesis Arguments Reiteration
- hard news is about events
- comment is about issues and opinions
- news which is created rather than just reported
can be part of a persuasive build up of argument
47Sources / Useful Reading
- See lesson 2
- Bell, A. 1998. The Discourse Structure of News
Stories. In Bell, A. and P. Garrett (eds).
Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford Blackwell. - Martin and White the appraisal website on source
specification - For more on the grammar of headlines and extended
noun phrases see Morley, J. 1998. Truth to Tell
Form and Function in Newspaper Headlines. CLUEB. - The Guardian style guide as an example of advice
on attribution