Main sections inside the newspapers

Lecture 3

The representation of events in the British and American newspaper texts

1. An event as a starting point of a newspaper text

2. The representation of an event in a news text

3. The representation of an event in an analytical text

1. An event as a starting point of a newspaper text

The starting point of any newspaper text is an event that is something that happens in a certain space and time that is measured by certain space and time coordinates. The event changes the knowledge about the reality, so change is the main distinctive feature of any event. Change is a criteria according which we can define something as an event. One more characteristic feature of an event is freshness or novelty.

The event coverage in English newspapers revolves around the following principles: where and what, that is especially seen in American newspapers. They emphasize the essence of the event or the place where it takes place. They contain sections representing events on certain topics.

The given table shows the peculiarities of the event coverage in American and British newspapers, the event preferences, heir choice. It may be concluded that the Daily Mail give an isolated coverage of events, The New York Times and the WP give a wider coverage with the emphasize on the US, the IHT is globally oriented.

Main sections inside the newspapers

2. The representation of an event in a news text

The construction of events in the newspaper discourse is based on the change of perceptual, spatial motor and dynamic relations between the referents or participants.

The perceptual and spatial motor relations are grounded in the image schemas OBJECT, CONTAINER, IN-OUT. These relations are the basis for the events that deal with finding or no finding proof of any criminal activity, announcing the results of the court cases, results of technological disasters, behaviour of the victims of accidents.

The combination of nouns evidence, sign with negation and units denoting criminal activity (hostages, Hoffa’s body) indicate the absence of OBJECTS in the reader’s field of view that are considered to be the proof of any criminal activity, e.g. No evidence CIA slanted Iraq data (The WP 21.01.2004). The combination of nominative units denoting people with a certain social status with negation no in existential utterance inform about the absence of OBJECTS (appointees) in some place (politically important post), e.g. Still no new attorney general (The WP 11.11.2005).

Nouns denoting natural resources in combination with negation no in existential structures represents the absence of OBJECTS (natural resources) where a technological disaster took place, e.g. China city of 4 million, no water (The IHT 24.11.2005).

Existential structures are used to construct events based on the establishing relations between a reader and an OBJECT with the latter being foregrounded.

Actional structures construct events from a different perspective from the point of view of an event participant who conceptualizes an OBJECT as present or absent. Thus the structure nominative unit + verb (find) + negation no + nominative unit emphasize the action (search) which can be successful or unsuccessful, e.g. UN finds no foul play in Serb’s death (The IHT, 10-11.06.2006).

Dynamic relations are based mainly on the force image schemas ENBLEMENT/DISABLEMENT; BLOCKAGE/REMOVAL of BLOCKAGE; COUNTERFORCE/ REMOVAL of COUNTERFORCE; COMPULSION/REMOVAL of COMPULSION, consisting of the Source, Goal and Vector. Force relations construct most of the events in the newspaper discourse. It is explained by the fact that force is the source of changes in the world and influences other natural phenomena including a man. The vector of any force is represented by a verb that gives access to the whole event being its meaningful focus. The verb establishes relations between objects that correspond to the Source and Goal of force image schemas. The Source and Goal are denoted by nominative units.

The image schemas ENBLEMENT/DISABLEMENT structure the events dealing with participants’ ability to perform an action, to achieve results through this or that activity, successful or unsuccessful activity. Thus, inability of objects to perform their intrinsic or expected from them functions can be seen in the following examples, Rescuers find air in mine unbreathable (The WP, 24.03.2006); Turk who shot pope ruled unfit for military service (The IHT, 17.01.2006). In the former example air is represented as unable to support life and the latter the Turk is represented as unable to serve a military term.

The image schemas BLOCKAGE/REMOVAL of BLOCKAGE are the basis for the construction of events dealing with international activity participants of which use their authority to stop the pressure of others. Relations of BLOCKAGE/REMOVAL of BLOCKAGE underlie the view of event participants from the perspective of their strength and weakness. In the newspaper discourse SOCIAL BLOCKAGE prevails that may have purely social, legal or communicative nature. The following headline is an example of potential SOCIAL BLOCKAGE: China won’t cede control of its banks (The IHT, 17.01.2006). In the given example SOCIAL BLOCKAGE underlies the event with China as a main participant resisting pressure of other countries. The newspaper discourse allows to differ between temporary and permanent SOCIAL BLOCKAGE, e.g. Zimbabwe’s leaders want to delay presidential vote until 2010 (The NYT, 25.09.2006); Kenya reinforces border to block Islam fighters (The WP, 4.01.2007). The former type of BLOCKAGE represents temporary suspending of elections, negotiations, decision making. The latter type doesn’t identify the time of blockage aimed at appointing new people to the leading posts, political and religious views and threats of different kind.

The LEGAL BLOCKAGE underlie news informing about law forbidden actions or court cases, e.g. Paris hotel underscores illegal immigrants’ plight (The IHT, 20.04.2005). In the given example immigrants are represented as a Goal of image schema BLOCKAGE and law is conceptualized as its Source. The relations of LEGAL BLOCKAGE emphasize the immigrants’ plight.

The relations of COMMUNICATIVE BLOCKAGE are of performative nature as they represent events which coincide with the process of speaking, verbalization. Such events deal with decisions of the power organs and citizens’ reaction to the political and social reality. In the example Congress says ‘no’ to new arms (The IHT, 23.11.2004) COMMUNICATIVE BLOCKAGE is aimed against the production of arms giving the reader some hope about the changes in the home policy of America. Communicative blockage focuses the strong powers of the event participants represented as the Source of the force.

Unlike COMMUNICATIVE BLOCKAGE COUNTERFORCE constructs events dealing with participants’ refuting the statements of others, e.g. N. Korean diplomat says missile launch not an attack (The WP, 6.07.2006), Hamas, Abbas in disharmony over policies (The WP, 13.09.2006).

Besides perceptual and force relations news events are constructed by means of such image schematic structures as EMOTIONAL SCALE and EVALUATIVE SCALE, e.g. Sudan turns its fury on a rebellion in central region (The IHT, 22.06.2011), Puerto Ricans living in fear as murder rate worsens (The IHT, 22.06.2011).In the former example the event is constructed with the help of the EMOTIONAL SCALE of ANGER with the noun fury ‘extreme, often uncontrolled anger’ (LDCE: 658) marking its highest point. As a result the reader is emotionally charged with the same feeling as the Sudanese, sharing their experience and reaction to the rebellion that allows to understand the situation better. In the latter example the event deals more with evaluative scale because the noun fear ‘the feeling you get when you are afraid or worried that sth bad is going to happen’ (The LDCE: 578). So fear is located near the mark ‘bad’ on the evaluative scale identifying the position of Puerto Ricans who expect only bad things to happen.

Alongside image schemas as mechanisms of conceptualization in the construction of event in the news stories such mental operation as perspective is involved.

Perspective is a perception of an object from different sides (right-left; up-down) that depends on a place of a conceptualizer. News stories represent events from a certain perspective: invariable, variable and adversative.

Invariable perspective means representing events from a point of view of the same participant who coincides with the source of one image schema at all stages of the text development. Events dealing with court refusals and denial of accusations are represented from the invariable perspective in the news stories. Events represented from the invariable perspective seem to be more objective and persuasive.

Cleric says Big Ben not targeted

(1) LONDON: The Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri, accused in Britain of racial hatred and inciting murder charges, denied Friday that he would advocate a terrorist attack on Big Ben, the London landmark. (5) The 47-year-old also stated that he had not studied the 10-volume work.” (10) He denied seeking to incite any members of his audience to hate Jewish people in Britain. (14) He denied the charges.

Variable perspective represents events from the point of view of several participants identified as a source or goal of one or several image schemas. Such perspective blocks the one-sided view of the event, highlights strong and weak positions of participants, causes and effects of an event.

Leading Muslim scholar is denied U.S. travel visa [WP 41]

(1) New York, Sept. 25 – The government has rejected the visa application of one of Europe’s best-known intellectuals. (2) Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who teaches at Oxford University, was denied a temporary business and tourism visa Thursday. (3) Janelle Hironimus, a State Department spokeswoman, said she could not reveal specifics about Ramadan’s case. (5) Ramadan has said that he opposes the U.S. invasion of Iraq and U.S. policies in Israel and the Palestinian territories but that he also opposes Islamic extremism.

Counteractive perspective provides event representation from the point of view of participants identified as a source and goal of the image schema COUNTERFORCE. It enables the reader to compare opposing points of view and form their own view of the situation. This perspective is provided by nominative groups identifying opposing parties and negative units like disagree, dispute, differ, discord. They underlie the equal status of two or more opposing parties.

Western Powers dis agree on elements of Iran proposal

(1) The United States and Europe are divided over the latest phase of their negotiating strategy on Iran, with the Bush administration resisting a new European offer. (2) The diplomats said the administration was also resisting the idea of protecting European countries from punishment by the United States. (3) The dis agreements on these issues are clouding the possibility of a deal with Iran, the diplomats said.

(4) The United States and Russia have not agreed on the need to impose sanctions on Iran. (6) The envoys were supposed to have met Friday to discuss the European ideas, but dis agreements on the details were said to have postponed the session until next week.

(9) In the proposed European package for Iran, there is still no agreement with Russia on sanctions. Russia has said it will not endorse a United Nations Security Council resolution.

(12) Administration hardliners do not like any kind of security guarantees for Iran put forward by the Europeans.

In the given above news story the opposing views of America, Europe and Russia are given that signal about the uncompromising position of the three states concerning the solution of the Iranian problem.

Thus, the characteristic feature of the news stories is the introduction of events by establishing relations between referents in an invariable, variable and counteractive perspective. One more peculiarity of news stories is a detailed representation of events with its participants and the direction of their activity indicated.

3. The representation of an event in an analytical text

In contrast to the news stories analytical texts reintroduce events by focusing or refocusing relations between referents. The operations of focusing and refocusing can be achieved by means of negative units. Refocusing takes place when relations between referents introduced in the news texts are suppressed in the analytical text and the new relations can be introduced be in the course of the text unfolding or be ignored. Refocusing is aimed at problem revealing, attracting attention to the state of their solving, attractive and unattractive changes and correction of the wrong attitudes and sets of the addressee.

Let’s look at the realization of refocusing in the analytical text headlined Drones alone are not the answer (The New York Times, 14.08.2011):

(1) OVER the past two years, America has narrowed its goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a single-minded focus on eliminating Al Qaeda.

(2) In Pakistan, no issue is more controversial than American drone attacks in Pakistani territory along the Afghan border. The Obama administration contends that using drones to kill 10 or 20 more Qaeda leaders would eliminate the organization. This is wishful thinking.

(3) Drone strikes are no longer the most effective strategy for eliminating Al Qaeda’s ability to attack us.

(4) But the important question today is whether continued unilateral drone attacks will substantially reduce Al Qaeda’s capabilities. They will not.

(5) Instead, we must work with Pakistan’s government as an equal partner to achieve our common goals.

(10) Washington should support a new security campaign that includes jointly controlled drone strikes and combines the capabilities of both countries.

(11) We can help Pakistan with logistics, transport and intelligence; Pakistan can help us by deploying security forces and improving local government on the ground. Drone strikes targeting Qaeda leaders and other terrorists would be conducted by mutual agreement.

(12) A cooperative campaign against common enemies offers them the best chance of controlling American actions in their country.

(13) If we are ever to reduce Al Qaeda from a threat to a nuisance, it will be by working with Pakistan, not by continuing unilateral drone attacks.

In the given above article the representation of an event about drones is based on refocusing the addressee’s attention from the position of Barack Obama administration who consider drone usage effective for eliminating Al Qaeda to their ineffective use and inability to guarantee safety. The refocusing is realized in the compositional-content structure of the given text with such components: 1) the stating the author’s position (thesis in the headline); 2) problem introduction + the stating the author’s position (thesis in the introduction); specifying the author’s position (arguments in the main body); final stating of the author’s position. Drones as a source of ENABLEMENT are suppressed. This suppression opens place for new relations, i.e. the collaboration of America with Pakistan that is the source of ENABLEMENT (Instead, we must work with Pakistan’s government as an equal partner to achieve our common goals. Washington should support a new security campaign that includes jointly controlled drone strikes and combines the capabilities of both countries). So refocusing opens place for substitution and gives new alternatives for problem solving.

Focusing is one more mental operation responsible for retention of relations introduced in the news texts. The relations are reintroduced by way of focusing on them. Implicit negative units like failure, fail, deny, refuse etc. represent focusing. The application of image schemas facilitates revealing sensorimotor mechanisms of this operation and its study in the newspaper discourse reveals its effect in the certain communicative situation. Due to focusing the addressee is attracted to the event that is very hot and becomes an urgent problem that needs to be solved. Focusing keeps the problem in the addressee’s view to persuade him that changes are needy. Relations of DISABLEMENT (failure, failing, losing, collapse) and BLOCKAGE (obstacles, denying, halting, blocking, deterring, delay) are most often focused on. Focusing on the problem determines the compositional-content structure of an analytical text with such elements: 1) introducing the problem (headline and introduction); 2) problem specification (arguments in the main part); 3) problem solving (final passage).

Let’s illustrate focusing implementation in the text of editorial under the headline Blocking Mexican Trucks (The New York Times, 11.09.2007):

(1) One way the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to encourage free and efficient trade was by allowing long-haul trucks from Canada, Mexico and the United States to deliver goods throughout the three countries. Unfortunately, more than a decade later the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and their allies in Congress are still working to keep Mexican trucks out.

(2) The Teamsters and their environmental allies claim that the trucks aren’t safe and are dirty. A new pilot program, however, would require that any Mexican trucks approved for entry into the United States be inspected for safety every three months.

(3) That’s not enough to satisfy the Teamsters, which, we suspect, are just trying to stave off the competition.