Evaluation in media discourse

Despite the apparent novelty and fluidity of the media today, there is strong evidence that patterns are emerging which both reflect and extend the evaluative paradigms previously observed in the print and broadcast media. In this complex scenario, discourse analysis offers a rich and varied methodology for understanding the different types of evaluation conveyed through media texts and the way these project, reflect and develop their relationships with their audience. The chapters in this volume draw on a variety of analytical tools, including appraisal analysis, argumentation theory, multimodal approaches and corpus linguistics, to address the issue of evaluation in media discourse. The theoretical underpinning for these chapters ranges from corpus-informed discourse studies, through critical discourse analysis and semio-communicative approaches, to Bakhtinian perspectives. Although the chapters are all in English, the scope of the volume is broadly European, covering aspects of the British, Spanish, Dutch and German media in their traditional and online manifestations, as well as contrastive studies.

Manuel Casado-Velarde: Foreword - Ruth Breeze / Inés Olza: Introduction - Juana I. Marín-Arrese: Stancetaking and inter/subjectivity in journalistic discourse: The Engagement system revisited - María de los Ángeles Gómez González: Concession in evaluative argumentative discourse: The semantics, pragmatics and discourse functions of but and although - Laura Alba-Juez: Evaluation in the headlines of tabloids and broadsheets: A comparative study - Paola Catenaccio: Negotiating futures in socio-technical controversies in the media: strategies of opinion orientation - Frank J. Harslem: The banality of evil. A study about translating «los desaparecidos» in the German and English press - Isabel Corona: «A life well lived of a lady well loved»: The power of appraisal in the comments section - Jasper Vandenberghe: The evaluative potential of colonial metaphor scenarios in (written) media representations of Spain's economic expansion. Spanish investors as forceful aggressors or audacious pioneers? - Jan Zienkowski: Re-articulating critical awareness about racism in public discourse: Changing one's mind on the Black Pete debates in the Netherlands - Notes on Contributors