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doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00137.xpmid: N/A
In the spring and summer of 1996. one of the more prominent Danish media discourses was the coverage and discussion of the practice whereby some German citizens bought Danish houses for holiday purposes, even though these houses by law had to be permanent residences. This paper attempts to pin‐point different argumentation strategies and linguistic realisations in this media discourse with particular reference to central concepts in Critical Discourse Analysis. It throws light on the interrelationship between these strategies/realisations, on the one hand, and the socio‐psychological and cultural‐historical background of the discourse, on the other hand. By so doing, it discusses central concepts of Critical Discourse Analysis in terms of their heuristic value and presents an analytical frame based on a synthesis of different approaches in order to bridge the gap between quantitative and qualitative media text analysis and to show how language use is an integrated part of the analysis of media and social practices.
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00138.xpmid: N/A
This paper is a study in textural mode analysis (TMA). It examines the generic discourse texture of a set of editorials from the London Times and Guardian, on the topic of the British General Election of May 1997. It describes how the texture of the set can be accounted for in terms of just three representational textural modes– narrative, description and argument – and shows how argument predominates in the editorial genre. Toulmin's influential rhetorical model of argumentation, consisting of grounds, claims and warrants, is used and related to the realisation of argument mode through a number of functions, namely hypotheses, predictions, evaluations and assertions. The last of these frequently perform an ideological role in editorial discourse, via unmodalized assertions. The extremely common blending of textural modes by means of linear and layered blending is brought out, particularly through a ‘case study’of one of the editorials.
Simon‐Vandenbergen, Anne‐Marie
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00139.xpmid: N/A
The expression I (don't) think has in recent years received a fair amount of attention from different viewpoints and in different linguistic frameworks. After a brief survey of the most important literature on the subject, this article examines the occurrence of I think in political discourse as compared with its use in informal conversation. On the basis of two samples of 100 instances each from casual conversations and radio political interviews, the expression is looked at from the points of view of syntax, intonation, the semantics of the proposition, collocation, and the wider context of the interaction taking place. It is shown that the expression has a complex of meanings which cannot simply be labelled ‘uncertainty’or ‘lack of commitment’. Depending on the context, it can signal a tentative attitude or authoritative deliberation. It is further argued that an understanding of the extralinguistic situation and the cultural meaning of the genre, including the power and status of interactants, is essential if one wishes to interpret the selection of I think in individual instances.
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00140.xpmid: N/A
This article puts forward a discourse‐analytical and argumentative framework for the interpretation of clichés used in parliamentary debates. The analysis of their argumentative functions is based on their metadiscursive use and institutional evaluation provided by the cliché‐users, namely British Members of Parliament. Metadiscursively introduced clichés undergo a double evaluation by their utterers: evaluation of the status of the cliché as a discursive strategy in general, and of the appropriateness or validity of the cliché as the bearer of a particular topos in a certain context. The argumentative orientation of political clichés is shown to originate in the speaker's implicit and explicit ideological commitments and to involve a marked, but shifting, polarization in terms of positive and negative values. The most frequent argumentative topoi for the parliamentary clichés in this corpus convey cliché status evaluations in scalar terms, such as ‘old’, and cliché appropriateness evaluations in binary terms, such as ‘true’/‘untrue’.
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00141.xpmid: N/A
Despite all the many appearances of the terms‘competence’and‘proficiency’in journals, conferences, and dissertations every year, there is still no clear consensus about what the exact meaning conveyed by these words is. Neither is there agreement on the particular adjectives that should be attached to the term‘competence, since the possibilities range from linguistic and communicative to pragmatic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic or transitional. After discussing the many different uses of the terms ‘competence’, ‘proficiency’and ‘communicative language ability’in linguistic and applied linguistic literature, the conclusion is that ‘competence’should be accepted in its Chomskyan formulation, whereas ‘communicative language ability’ought to be applied to speakers’ability to use a language and be further divided into two components, namely language proficiency and communicative proficiency.
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00142.xpmid: N/A
This article begins by introducing the concept of meta‐pedagogical awareness The term has its roots in several disciplines, in particular teacher development, language awareness, applied linguistics and educational research into self‐directed/regulated learning. The article then presents two case studies of EFL learners describing and evaluating their lessons, making the point that in the course of face‐to‐face interviews carried out over a ten‐week period, these two individuals manifested a great deal of knowledge about teaching practice (i.e. meta‐pedagogical awareness). Next, three concerns are dealt with – the status of oral data, the practical usefulness of this research, and the question of whether or not meta‐pedagogical awareness is only a useful concept for adult learners. The article closes with a call for more exploration of language learners’meta‐pedagogical awareness.
doi: 10.1111/j.1473-4192.2000.tb00143.xpmid: N/A
Getting along well at work involves a variety of sociolinguistic and pragmatic skills. Drawing on a database of over 300 interactions collected in a range of New Zealand professional workplaces, this article identifies some potentially problematic areas for those who are expected to communicate in English at work, although English is not their first language. The discussion focuses in particular on the topics, distribution and functions of small talk and social talk in the workplace.
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