Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus

Description

Evaluation is the linguistic expression of speaker/writer opinion, and has only recently become the focus of linguistic analysis. This book presents the first corpus-based account of evaluation; one hundred newspaper articles collated to form a 70,000 word comparable corpus, drawn from both tabloid and broadsheet media. The book provides detailed explanations and justifications of the underlying framework of evaluation, as well as demonstrating how this is part of the larger framework of media discourse. Unlike many other linguistic analyses of media language, it makes frequent reference to the production circumstances of newspaper discourse, in particular the so-called 'news values' that shape the creation of the news. Cutting-edge and insightful, Evaluation in Media Discourse will be of interest to academics and researchers in corpus linguistics and media discourse.

Monika Bednarek is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia.

"Monika Bednarek's Evaluation in Media Discourse sets itself two goals: to introduce a partially new framework and method for studying evaluation and to apply it in accounting for differences between tabloids and broadsheets... [Bednarek's] approach is eclectic and does not require commitment to a particular theory of grammar. It is flexible and open ended as relevant parameters can be added or subtracted dependent on the material that is being studied. The danger can lie in that the number and combinations of parameters can make the analysis extremely delicate and possibly vague. Bendarek skillfully avoided this trap and succeeded in achieving both goals she set herself to do." Tatjana Radanovic Felberg, Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, Norway.