Re-thinking engagement: Dialogic strategies of alignment in letters to two South African newspapers
- Smith, Jade, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Smith, Jade , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125876 , vital:35828 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2014.909872
- Description: This article uses an appraisal analysis of 40 letters to the Daily Sun and The Times newspapers in South Africa to illustrate a reconceptualisation of the Engagement system. It discusses dialogism (Bakhtin 1981), which inspired the creation of the Engagement framework by White (2003), who classified attempts to either align or disalign readers with a writer’s stance. Contrary to the options for dialogic Engagement proposed by Martin and White (2005) and White and Don (2012), the data suggests that not all Engagement strategies carry equal power of alignment, as the framework’s systemic layout implies. This prompts a re-thinking of the Engagement categories as occurring along a continuum of their strength.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Smith, Jade , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125876 , vital:35828 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2014.909872
- Description: This article uses an appraisal analysis of 40 letters to the Daily Sun and The Times newspapers in South Africa to illustrate a reconceptualisation of the Engagement system. It discusses dialogism (Bakhtin 1981), which inspired the creation of the Engagement framework by White (2003), who classified attempts to either align or disalign readers with a writer’s stance. Contrary to the options for dialogic Engagement proposed by Martin and White (2005) and White and Don (2012), the data suggests that not all Engagement strategies carry equal power of alignment, as the framework’s systemic layout implies. This prompts a re-thinking of the Engagement categories as occurring along a continuum of their strength.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Newspapers as ‘community members’: Editorial responses to the death of Eugene Terre'Blanche
- Smith, Jade, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Smith, Jade , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125320 , vital:35771 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2012.702778
- Description: This article uses the appraisal system to expose covert meanings surrounding white supremacist Eugène Terre’Blanche’s murder in editorials from three South African newspapers: The Citizen, Sowetan and The Times. Following Martin and White’s (2005) framework, inscribed and evoked Attitudinal meanings are identified to prove an ‘us versus them’ perspective of Terre’Blanche’s death. Graduation and Engagement strategies supplement this, illustrating how meanings are modified or organized to align readers. The analysis reveals surface attempts to present a ‘balanced view’ of this racially-sensitive event; however, beneath this is clear blame allocation. Additionally, the covert evaluation is explained by Coffin and O’Halloran’s (2006) theory of ‘dog-whistling’, where only aligned readers can detect underlying meanings. This creates the imagined community – ‘us’ – of which the newspaper is seen as a trusted member. Print media, it could be inferred, is symbolic of other South African community members, who mask their evaluations with a politically correct façade.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Smith, Jade , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125320 , vital:35771 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2012.702778
- Description: This article uses the appraisal system to expose covert meanings surrounding white supremacist Eugène Terre’Blanche’s murder in editorials from three South African newspapers: The Citizen, Sowetan and The Times. Following Martin and White’s (2005) framework, inscribed and evoked Attitudinal meanings are identified to prove an ‘us versus them’ perspective of Terre’Blanche’s death. Graduation and Engagement strategies supplement this, illustrating how meanings are modified or organized to align readers. The analysis reveals surface attempts to present a ‘balanced view’ of this racially-sensitive event; however, beneath this is clear blame allocation. Additionally, the covert evaluation is explained by Coffin and O’Halloran’s (2006) theory of ‘dog-whistling’, where only aligned readers can detect underlying meanings. This creates the imagined community – ‘us’ – of which the newspaper is seen as a trusted member. Print media, it could be inferred, is symbolic of other South African community members, who mask their evaluations with a politically correct façade.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »