Appraisal theory and the analysis of point of view in news and views journalism – unpacking journalistic “persuasiveness”

IF 1.4 2区文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION

Language & Communication Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI:10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.005

Peter R. White

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper offers a demonstration of Appraisal Theory as an analytical framework for dealing with point of view in journalistic discourse. It takes journalistic “persuasiveness” as its central theme and thereby offers novel insights into a key, much scrutinised property of news journalism – its potential for influencing public understandings and expectations of the way the world is and ought to be. In operating with this notion of “persuasiveness”, the paper outlines lines of inquiry for dealing with news journalism texts which are often treated as distinct, both with respect to their stylistic properties and their communicative effects. Specifically, the concern is with the communicative functionality of both news “reporting” and journalistic “commentary”, or with what are here termed “news journalism” and “views journalism”. Appraisal Theory offers an account of the resources for conveying evaluative meanings and the framework is demonstrated through a comparison of a news report and a commentary piece concerned with the same subject matter – a decision by an education scholarship provider to include in its application form optional questions about candidates' sexuality. Specifically the paper demonstrates how similarities and differences in the two pieces’ “persuasiveness” can be discovered through an analysis which attends to four points of interest: (1) tendencies in the different types of attitudinal assessment by which the reader is positioned to adopt negative or positive views, (2) whether attitudinal assessments are conveyed explicitly or implicitly, (3) whether the attitudes being conveyed are authorial or are attributed to external sources and (4) the nature of the entities or phenomena which the reader is being positioned to view positively or negatively.

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评价理论与新闻观点分析——解读新闻的“说服力”

本文论证了评价理论作为处理新闻语篇观点的分析框架。它以新闻的“说服力”为中心主题，从而对新闻报道的一个关键、备受审视的属性——影响公众对世界现状和应该是什么样子的理解和期望的潜力——提供了新颖的见解。在运用“说服力”这一概念的过程中，本文概述了处理新闻新闻文本的探究路线，这些文本通常在风格属性和交际效果方面都被视为不同的。具体来说，关注的是新闻“报道”和新闻“评论”的沟通功能，或者是这里所说的“新闻新闻学”和“观点新闻学”。评估理论提供了传达评估意义的资源的说明，并通过对同一主题的新闻报道和评论文章的比较来证明该框架-教育奖学金提供者决定在其申请表中包含有关候选人性取向的可选问题。具体来说，本文展示了如何通过分析两个部分的“说服力”的异同可以发现，其中涉及四个兴趣点：(1)在不同类型的态度评估中，读者被定位为采取消极或积极观点的倾向；(2)态度评估是明示的还是隐含的；(3)所传达的态度是作者的还是归因于外部来源的；(4)读者被定位为积极或消极看待的实体或现象的性质。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Language & Communication Multiple-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.