
прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - News Analysis
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2. STRUCTURES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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When focussing on the event itself, such news items are often written in the linear, temporal coherence mode that characterizes natural stories.
In conclusion the news items about the assassination of Gemayel follow the usual coherence links between propositions. There are, however, differences in explicitness. In some newspapers, only a temporal linIc is established between events, whereas others explicitly express the inferred causal relationship. This is particularly relevant in the way the newspapers suggest how Gemayel's past actions may be related to the assassination. Usually, they only mention that he had enemies because of his actions in the civil war, but they do not explicitly state this was a direct cause of the assassination. The popular press may have a quite different pattern of local coherence, based on temporal/causal relationships between subsequent events, as is found in natural storytelling.
Implications
As in any discourse, news discourse will leave much information implicit, either because it is generally lmown and can be inferred by any reader of the same culture or because it is a possible inference the journalist does not want to make openly. The causes of the assassination of Gemayel illustrate this point. If the newspaper would write explicitly that either the other Christian parties or one of the Mosi. - rpr Gemayel's murder, it would overstate its case, so it leaves this precise inference implicit and only describes Gemayel's enemies and explains why they were his enemies.
When the New York Times sketches the life history of Gemayel as follows "(there were) attempts to kill Gemayel before . . . (which) followed the death of Tony Franjieh thought to be killed by Phalangists under Mr. Gemayers direction," this sentence does not state explicitly that the previous attacks were in fact acts of retaliation for the earlier killings, but such a connection is strongly suggested by the very cooccurrence of the two fact descriptions in one sentence and by the use of the seemingly neutral "fol-
Similarly, this sentence has an interesting form of indirectness, resulting from the use of what we might call a cognitive passive, narnely "thought to be killed by . . . which is the routine journalistic strategy of talcing distance from serious allegations when there is no hard evidence.
Similarly, when Granma writes that immediately after Gemayers election the United States "expressed their satisfaction" it indirectly suggests that Gemayel's election was favored by Washington. The use of the predicate "to be satisfied'' has as its presupposition that an event is positively valued. A presupposition is also implied by the phrase "new fighting between Christians and Moslems" (New York Times), which presupposes that

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STYLE AND RHETORIC |
there were fights before. And when Granma speaks about Gemayel's "secret meetings" with the Israelis, it does not only imply that these meetings were controversial but also suggests that Gemayel was a traitor, a qualification we also find in other press items in their of course quoted allegations by his Moslem opponents.
These are rather simple and straightforward examples. A full account of the many forms of indirectness, vagueness, or implicitness in the news about the situation in the Middle East would require a lengthy political and ideological analysis to make explicit the many presuppositions used by the newspapers or the news actors they write about. For instance, the correspondent of Israeli Ma'ariv in Washington writes "the USA supported the election of Gemayel in an attempt to (. . .) bring about a strong central government in Lebanon." This statement is correct, but it leaves implicit a very important qualification, namely that the United States would only support a strong pro-U. S. candidate. It is not likely that the United States would support a strong pro-Syrian, pro-PLO, or leftist candidate, even if such a candidate could form a strong government.
These examples demonstrate that the news coverage about the assassination has, on the one hand, many markers that suggest preciseness (numbers, names, dates), but, on the other hand that it may leave implicit the more controversial political backgrounds.
STYLE AND RHETORIC
Lexical Style
News about foreign affairs has a rather special lexical style register. Not only are the words used in accordance with the formal style of newswriting in general but also the account of international politics, which is the prevailing component of foreign news, requires both delicacy and some typical political jargon borrowed from diplomats and politicians. The event in this analysis is both political and violent and requires a lexical account that involves both the register of murder and the register of political conflict and violence. This means, for instance, that Gemayel may be portrayed basically as a victim, or as somebody who ultimately was responsible for his own death, as is stated in many editorials. Similarly, instead of describing Gemayel in terms of a violent person who committed civil war crimes, it is typical newspaper style to call such a person controversial, as found in many of the reports. More directly political is the choice of "sionista" in Granma when used to refer to Israel. This lexical choice also appears in the Eastern European press, which also routinely describes the Israelis as "agressors" or "warmongers. "

2. STRUCTURES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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Another feature of lexical style is the use of mitigating words or more literary variants of harsh expressions. The New York Times does not speak about how many were "killed" in the bomb explosion but reports that eight people were "slain." Later in the article it describes Gemayel as being "fatally wounded" instead of "dead." Similarly, it describes the declaration of Wazzan, which contains a few strong statements, as "he deplored the killing", thereby indulging in the international style of politicians or diplomats reacting to serious events. Mexican Excelsior does not say that Gemayel was an ally of Israel or a spy as other newspapers do but uses the vague phrase that "he was identified with Israel." The popular press does not use the political register, but the everyday registers of murder and violence, and says of Gemayel that his body was ripped apart ("zerfetzt"), as does Bild Zeitung in West Germany.
Descriptions of Gemayel
The stylistic description of Gemayel is of primary importance because it may show some of the implicit evaluations of Gemayel as a person or as a politician. Table 2.24 lists the designations by 17 newspapers for the assassinated president-elect. The analysis reveals the familiar devices of journalistic distance, such as quotes, and the use of indirect discourse and declarative sentences. For most qualifications that are not neutral, the newspapers use phrases such as repurteuiy , 'was iuund tu be . "for X, Gemayel was . . .", or "was generally considered." Sources used in such cases are indicated. The use of passive voice allows the journalist to omit precise sources without giving up the necessary distance in the description of Gemayel. In general, role descriptors such as "president-elect", "military chief "leader of the Falangist milita", etc. are used. The other designations are more evaluative, such as "tough", "controversial," or "ruthless." The pattern in this. case follows the attributions of there evaluations to Gemayel's own followers and to his opponents: For X he was (POS), whereas for Y he was (NEG). Most reports carry both types of qualifications. It should be noted, however, that the general evaluation, both in the West and in the Arabic countries, is cautiously positive. The negative characteristics are presented in a concessive and past context and the positive ones in an assertive mode pertaining to the present: Although he was a ruthless warlord, he nevertheless is a strong leader and the only hope for Lebanon to get peace. Some of the phrases used by the agencies, such as the one by Reuter's (Gemayel was "variously regarded as a popular hero and as a ruthless warlord") appear in several news anides. Indeed, when the respective descriptions are compared, there is much overlap and homogeneity. News actor descriptions tend to become standardized and at the same time are indications of the political consensus evaluation of such news actors. It

110 STYLE AND RHETORIC
TABLE 2.24
Stylistic Descriptions of Gemayel
1. Los Angeles Times (Sept. 15)
Lebanon chief; president-elect; Christian leader; young leader; united his own people by brute force; dynamic Ieadership (Christian), military commander willing to use brutal force (Moslems); "typical Mediterranean macho"; student.
2. New York Times (Sept. 15)
President-elect; commander; enemy and an agent of Israel (Moslems); the most hated Lebanese Christian (Moslems and some Christians); having used too soft a manner (right-wing elements of the Falangist Party). Background anide: tough, ambitious, ruthless; moderate leader (Gemayel); dominant Christian figure in Lebanon; "my dear friend" (Begin). BA. (16.9.): puppet created and manipulated by Israelis, Bashir (as he was popularly known), reproached for his brutality, fighter.
3. Granma (Sept. 15)
President-elect; chief of military forces of the Kataeb party; principal ally of Israel.
4. ExcelsWr (Mexico) (Sept. 15)
President-elect; falangist leader; identified with Israel and impopular with the Moslem community; accomplice of Israel; "martyr of a criminal complot against Lebanon" (Sarkis); BA: prominent figure of the christian falangists; young and unexperienced.
5. El Universal (Venezuela) (Sept. 15)
President-elect; young mandatory; a tenacious fighter; merciless (his enemies); lawyer; com- mander-in-chief.
5. Jornal do Brasil (Sept. 15)
President-elect; leader of the Maronite Christian and chief of the right-wing falangist militias; sectarian leader (leftist groups); controversia) military leader; popular hero (his partisans); a merciless warrior (his opponents); sectarian candidate (Moslem leaders);
6. La Prensa (Argentine) (Sept. 15)
President-eléct; right-wing leader; a figure identified with Israel; impopular (Moslem community); the most prominent representative of the maintenance of the law; his intransigeant attitude.
7. The Guardian (Sept. 15)*
Lebanese leader; president-elect; partisan candidate (moslem and leftist leaders); (16.9.): Gemayel was variously regarded as a popular hero and a ruthless warlord; ercperienced military leader; an implacable opponent of the Syrian and Palestinian military presence in Lebanon. (16.9.): an effective military leader; successful organiser; ruthless killer in the past; perhaps the most important leader.
8. Le Monde (Sept. 16)
"Great patrio( (Begin), "promising young leader" (Washington); president elect; war chief adored by his troups; contested and even loathed by his opponents; president of all Lebanese (Gemayel); falangist chief; he was no saint; clan chief.
9. Corriere della Sera (Sept. 15)*
President-elect; new chief of state; (16.9.): "instrument of imperialists and Zionists" (leftists); reliable ally (Israel), "Proconsul" (Israel/CdS).
10. El País (Sept. 15)
President-elect; one of the crucial pieces to achieve a negotiated solution in the whole region (USA, Israel); falangist leader; young Lebanese politician; chief of the Lebanese Forces; "candidate of Israel" (Moslems), "chief of a clan of warriors" (his followers), "the man imposed
(continued)

2. STRUCTURES OF INTERNATIONAL NE"WS |
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TABLE 2.24
(Continued)
by the Israeli enemy and elected under the protection of their guns" (his enemies); wadord; as a man aboye the factions and parties" (Gemayel in his election promises).
11. Frankfirrter Allgemeine (Sept. 16)
"Strong man'' (Maronite Christians); without scruples; too closely related to the occupying Israeli forces and only getting his orders and being executot of Israeli aims (leftists, some Christians, and parts of the sunnite community).
12. Le Réveil (Sept. 15)
President; hero; martyr; . . affable, frank and direct; energical, dynamic; man of decision and action; lucid and realist, (. . .)
/2. Daily News (Tanzania) (Sept. 16) President-elect.
/3. Renmin Ribao (Sept. 16)
President-elect; member of Christian militia, commander, lawyer.
14. New Statesrnan (India) (Sept. 16)
President-elect; leader; was variously regarded as a popular hero and a ruthless warlord (see Guardian!); experienced militaty leader.
15. Indonesian Observer (Sept. 16)
The controversial president-elect of Lebanon; leader; (17.9.) strong president like Gemayel (many Lebanese); "Al Bash" (his men), collaborating with Israel (enemies).
16. Mainichi Shimbun yapan) (Sept. 16)
Future president; belongs to the Christian right-wing Falangist party; expected to reestablish order from a pro-American and pro-Israeli point of view; president of militaty council of the Falangists; commander of the Christian (falangist) militias.
17. Bangkok Post (Sept. 16)
President-elect; the Maronite Christian; Phalangist military commander; (17.9.): a young saviour to some and a brutal warlord to others; slain leader; (16.9.): variously regarded as a popular hero and a ruthless warlord (see Guardian and
*Newspaper did not cany the news about the death of Gemayel in the editions of the 15th of September we used).
needs no further comment, however, that what for many observers may be called "tough" would for others be rendered "brutal."
The lexical style seems to mirror the political confusion about Lebanon. On the one hand it is clear that the events, the assassination, and the situation in Lebanon are described in terms of political violence, and this also holds for the characterization of Gemayel and his opponents. Yet, on the other hand, political realism, leads to a general mitigation in the description of a controversial but important political actor.
Syntactie Style
The syntactic style of the news about the assassination does not show special features. It is the usual, formal, and complex type of syntax we find in other

112 STYLE AND RHETORIC
news discourse. Compare for instance the lead paragraphs of the New York Times and Granma, respectively (the Granma item is translated literally):
President-elect Bashir Gemayel was killed Tuesday when a bomb shattered the headquarters of his Lebanese Christian Phalangist Party in East Beirut. The Government said he would be buried today.
Mr. Gemayel, 34 years old, who was to have been inaugurated Sept. 23, was said to have died as he was about to address 400 of his followers at a weekly meeting. The state radio said the blast left at least 8 dead, among them other Phalangist leaders, and more than 50 wounded.
Bechir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon and chief of the military, forces of the Kataeb Party (Phalangist), died today as a consequence of the explosion of a bomb that partially destroyed the headquarters of this right-wing organization in West-Beirut.
Further 19 persons, including three important leaders of the Kataeb, also died and some 60 were wounded, the news agencies reported.
Not only semantically, but also syntactically these two leads are rather similar, featuring the usual information for initial lead sentences. In both cases, Gemayel is sentence topic, in the Times sentence subject of a passive clause, and in Granma subject of the intransitive verb [lo die']. The cause in the Times sentence is described in an embedded temporal clause, whereas the Granma sentence uses a complex adverbial phrase. In both cases noun phrases are qualified with several embedded clauses: the relative clauses appended to Gemayel in the second sentence of the Times lead, and the relative clauses in Granma that specify the result of the bomb explosion. Finally, in both cases the information is embedded in declaratives, a passive "was said" in the Times and a postponed declarative main clause, "the news agencies reported", in Granma. Both are typical for news discourse syntax, and a routine strategy to embed new information within specified or unspecified information about sources or declarations. Final position main clauses used as declaratives are especially typical in news discourses and emphasize the background nature of the source and the foreground nature of the contents of the declaration. Thus, the general pattern is a complex sentence, in which a declarative is often the formal main clause, but the main news actor remains subject and topic of the sentence as a whole, such that the main participants are modified by one or ore relative clauses or adverbials. This structure exists both in English and in Spanish syntax.
Note also that even simple sentences may be rather long and complicated, due to the use of nominalizations and adverbials, as in the following sentence of Granma:
According to declarations of witnesses, the body of Gemayel was pulled from the rubble of the offices of the Kataeb, in the zone of Ashrafieh, some six hours after the attack.

2. STRUCTURES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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This simple sentence has vine embedded propositions, related to the main topic, body, using a series of prepositional phrases. In other words, semantic complexity need not necessarily be expressed in syntactically complex sentences. Many specifications of detail may thus be added to the main head noun of a simple sentence.
To check the generality of this pattern, 'rabie 2.25 examines sentence length and complexity in the first five sentences of 20 newspapers, 10 from First World countries and 10 from Third World countries. The majority of the sentences are complex. First World newspapers have more simple sentences and Third World newspapers somewhat more coordinated struc-
TABLE 2.25
Sentence Length and Complexity in 20 Newspapers
Newspapers |
Simple |
Coord. |
Complex |
Length X |
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Xorld |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
(2.4) |
|
1. |
New York Times |
0 |
0 |
23.0 |
||
2. |
L.A. Times |
1 |
0 |
4 |
(1.8) |
25.2 |
3. Guarlan |
0 |
0 |
5 |
(2.6) |
25.4 |
|
4. |
France Soir |
2 |
0 |
3 |
(2.0) |
21.2 |
5. |
Corriere della Sera |
3 |
0 |
2 |
(4.0) |
19.0 |
6. El País |
1 |
1 |
3 |
(2.7) |
25.4 |
|
7. |
Frankfurter Allg. (16) |
1 |
0 |
4 |
(1.5) |
18.4 |
8. |
The Age (Australia) (16) |
1 |
0 |
4 |
(1.8) |
25.2 |
9. |
Daily Telegraph |
1 |
0 |
4 |
(2.0) |
21.2 |
10. Herald Tribune |
0 |
0 |
5 |
(3.0) |
28.0 |
|
Total |
10 |
1 |
39 |
|
232 |
|
Mean |
1 |
0.1 |
3.9 (2.38) |
23.2 |
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Third World |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
0 |
4 (3.3) |
28.4 |
||
1. Granma |
||||||
2. El Universal |
2 |
0 |
3 |
(2.3) |
20.4 |
|
3. Jornal do Brasil |
1 |
0 |
4 (2.8) |
20.4 |
||
4. |
Kayhan International |
0 |
2 |
3 |
(3.3) |
31.8 |
5. Le Réveil |
0 |
0 |
5 |
(1.5) |
36.8 |
|
6. |
L'Opinion |
0 |
2 |
3 |
(2.0) |
31.2 |
7. |
Daily News (Tanzania) |
0 |
0 |
5 |
(1.6) |
22.6 |
8. |
Daily Nation (Kenya) |
0 |
0 |
5 |
(2.2) |
26.4 |
9. The Statesman (16) |
1 |
0 |
4 (2.5) |
27.4 |
||
10. Indonesian Observer (16) |
0 |
1 |
4 (1.5) |
24.0 |
||
Total |
5 |
5 |
40 |
|
269.4 |
|
Mean |
0.5 |
0.5 |
4 (2.30) |
26.9 |
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Numbers are based on the analysis of the first five sentences of the items (after the headlines). Besides the frequency of complex sentences, we have indicated between parentheses the mear complexity of the first five sentences calculated from their degree of complexity (number of embedded clauses).

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THE USE OF AGENCY'S AND CORRESPONDENTS REPORTS |
Most portraits of Gemayel are positive — laughing and victorious. Those taken after his election, a month earlier, also show enthusiastic followers and suggest the popularity of the Falangist leader. This is also true for the picture taken of the burial scene in Bikfaya, in which the coffin of the deceased is surrounded by a mass of mourning people attending the burial. In both the post-election photos and the burial photos, Gemayel is carried -on the hands'' of his followers. This form of literal support may be interpreted in both cases as a symbol of the support he had among his followers.
An analysis of the regional distribution of photos reveals that both Africa and Asia use very few. Of the 20 most used pictures, Latin America and Western Europe appear to have the largest equal share, both using an equal amount. The North American newspapers carry several pictures of Gemayel and the explosion, but few of the Israeli invasion, a picture used more often elsewhere. These differences may have technical, cultural, or even ideological causes. Obviously, most African and many South Asian newspapers may not have several pictures of Gemayel available, unlike the richer Western countries; and they therefore tend to publish only a portrait, if any photograph at all, mostly provided by the international agencies.
THE USE OF AGENCY AND CORRESPONDENT'S REPORTS
The Use of Agency Dispatches
A number of newspapers were examined regarding their use of a single news vvire, Reuter. In Table 2.26 a systematic comparison is made of all clauses, sentences, or paragraphs in the dispatches and the corresponding text in the newspapers (if identifiable). The change made in the original — a deletion, addition, permutation, or other change — was noted. As may be expected, most transformations are deletions and small (stylistic) changes. The English and (South) Asian newspapers especially use the Reuter's wire, which means that on September 15, the British morning papers do not yet carry the news about the death of Gemayel. Data have been established by Boer (1983).
This comparison shows that the text from the wires is followed rather closely, often literally. Most changes are slight stylistic adaptations, and only some irrelevant passages or sentences are deleted. Note though that the comparison is based on agency takes that have been used; many repetitive takes may simply be disregarded. That is, selection or deletion may be more substantial when the total amount of agency material is considered. This analysis only considers the qualitative differences and similarities.

FIGURE 2.5.