4.2 Level 2 markers
4.2.3 Follow-up markers
participant in that section is a woman who witnessed Mr. Chuang falling down.
Moreover, a sound-bite narrating the process is placed between the event scene
presentation and the main news events. To reintroduce the participant, the journalist
linked him with the previous context by means of a relative clause.
4.2.3 Follow-up Markers
In this section, we move to the boundary markers indicating follow-ups. The
markers for the section include: referential forms (modified NPs and full NPs),
connectives (temporals and causatives) and shot shift. The combinations of markers
are shown in Table 8.
Table 8 Boundary markers of the beginning of follow-ups (Level 2 markers)
Boundary markers N %
1. Triply marked:
(1) Referential forms: full NP + temporal + shot shift (2) Connectives: adversative + full NP + shot shift
causal + full NP As Table 8 above reveals, the amount of markers ranges from one to three. Up to 52%
+ shot shift
+ shot shift
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a
tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
of this section is doubly marked, 28% is triply marked and 20% is singly marked. The
combinations of double marking fall into three categories: referential forms plus shot
shift, connectives plus shot shift, and reporting verbs plus shot shift. Referential forms
and reporting verbs are the most widely used. As for triple marking, although no clear
pattern is found, we notice the frequency of causals is comparatively high here.
Regarding single marking, shot shift and speaker shift comprise all of the tokens.
As mentioned earlier, the two most common combinations of double marking are
referential forms plus shot shift, and reporting verbs plus shot shift. The referential
forms include two modified NPs and three full NPs. The modified NPs are nuxueseng
jiashu 女學生家屬 ‘the female student’s family members,’ and you liangming
chuanyuen 有兩名船員 ‘there are two crew members.’ The full NPs are jiaren 家人
‘family members,’ lishuchuan 李恕權 ‘Li-shuchuan,’ jingfang 警方 ‘the police
officers,’ and jingfang 警方 ‘the police officers.’ The prevalence of full NPs is due to
the participants of this section being more predictable. Since the data we collected are
social events, the participants of follow-ups are confined to a set of characters, such as
the victims’ relatives, police officers and investigators. Therefore, the modifiers do not
need to carry as much new information as those qualifying the NPs at the beginning of
main news events. The following example is a kidnapping, in which the father of the
kidnapped youth tried to negotiate with the kidnapper.
‧
Reporter: The abductors did not release the kidnapped youth as they claimed they would.
Instead, they asked for more ransom. The police officers examine the cars near the kidnapping site and focus on a black Mazda recreation car. Later on, they found out that the suspect, Mr. Liu, lent the car to a man called “Xiao Chen.” Xiao Chen rents a suite in Yingge in Taipei County.
(#15, ET-Today) IUs 60-61 are part of the main news events, in which the parents of the kidnapped
youth negotiate with the abductors over the ransom. The full NP jingfang 警方 ‘the
police officers’ was not mentioned in the previous discourse; it is newly introduced to
the discourse. However, there is no need to add more information to the full NPs
because they are predictable and therefore contextually grounded.
The other two categories of double marking include connectives (including
temporals and causals) and reporting verbs. The temporals usually signal the time
when the follow-ups take place. As to the causals and reporting verbs, they can lead
the inferred causes for the main news events. In our data, there is one causal youyu 由
於 ‘because,’ which is followed by locative phrases signaling the event scene, to bring
out the evidence gathered in the event scene. The reporting verb genju 根據
‘according to’ is always followed by full NPs like diaocha 調查 ‘investigation,’
The end of the main news events
Follow-ups Level 2 marker
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a
tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
inferred evidence provided by the relevant authorities or participants.
Besides the linguistic markers, we found that 20% of this section is marked by an
abrupt shift of shot shift and speaker shift. The following excerpt is taken as an
example.
(18)
36. Reporter: ..發現老父親躺在>二樓的落地窗前,_
37. ..母親則趴在衣櫃旁地上,_
38. ..>已經沒有呼吸心跳.\
39. Police: ..>就就就就由他的前妻由他的前妻由他的前妻,_ 由他的前妻 40. ..那邊去清查,_
41. ..我們也不排除有第三者.\
Reporter: The two victims are Mr. Pan, 62, and his wife, 58.
Police: We will start with investigating his ex-wife. We don’t exclude the possibility of there being an accomplice.
(# 2, Era News) IUs 36 and 38 are the end of the main news events. The follow-ups regarding the
present action are personally narrated by the police officer in front of the camera. The
transition of units is not marked by any linguistic marker. Instead, it is signaled by a
rigid shift of both shot and speaker. Even with the sudden unannounced transition, the
audiences are still able to be aware of the boundary, for the shift to the presence of the
police is a clear change to mark the transition of topic.
Main news events
Follow-ups Level 2 marker
‧
In this part, we move to the Level 2 boundary markers indicating evaluations.
Only eight evaluative comments were identified; they may be a single phrase tightly
connected to follows-ups or form a separable unit itself. The specific markers
signaling the section are shown in Table 9.
Table 9 Boundary markers of evaluation (Level 2 boundary markers)
Boundary markers N %
Table 9 above shows that the amount of markers of this section ranges from zero to
three. Up to 62% of evaluations are at least marked by modified NP. The unmarked
evaluations only comprise 38% of the total evaluations. In fact, the amount of markers
is related to the size of the evaluative comments. For one thing, if the evaluations can
be distinctly separated from the follow-ups, they are at least marked by one marker; if
they are tightly connected to follow-ups, no boundary markers are found.
The markers of triple marking consists of a referential form, a temporal and a shot
shift, such as sizhe liangge libaiqian 死者兩個禮拜前 ‘Two weeks ago, the dead’
+ temporal + shot shift