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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Motivation
News is one of the most important means by which we receive information
nowadays. The major disruptive events, the important government announcements or
the words of important officials are transmitted by the means of language, which is
presented mainly by two modes—newspapers and broadcasting. According to the
statistics provided by government of Information Office, there are 2,216 newspaper
offices and 178 broadcasting stations in Taiwan. Therefore, one can conceive that the
amount of the language produced one day is so huge and the media language is so
ubiquitous in our society.
Previous studies on media language are multidisciplinary, from the fields of
“communication studies, linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, semiotics,
and sociology [to] social psychology” (Bell, 1991).For example, from the perspective
of sociology, researchers may focus on “macro-phenomena, such as the institutions,
the audience or public, large-scale processes of effects, or overall functions of media in
society” (van Dijk, 1985). Otherwise, researchers pay their attention to the news
values and ideology, which influence journalists’ choice and formation of news.
Consequently, media language is more than a tool of expressing information; it is a
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However, comparatively few studies pay their attention to the discourse structure
of news itself. Among these relatively few linguistic-oriented researches, nearly all of
them are concerned with news in print. For example, van Dijk (1988) considers
different genres have their own grammar so he analyzes numerous newspapers
worldwide and draws up the discourse structure or schemata of news stories. In the
same vein, Bell (1991, 1994, and 1998) compares news stories in print with personal
oral narrative and concludes that though the two share some crucial structural elements,
they differ from each other in 1) the temporal organization of events and 2) the
distribution of orientation and evaluation. Yet, unfortunately, seldom does research
focus its attention on the discourse structure of broadcast news register, which, though
rooted in the tradition of newspaper (Bell, 1991), is different from news in print in the
following aspects.
1. The allocated time and the amount of words used are much constrained in
broadcast news. According to Chang (2007), for the same news story, the amount
of words is roughly 700 to 800 words per piece of news in print; yet, the same
content has to be condensed into approximately 300 words in its counterpart of
broadcast news.
2. The broadcast news script, though in written form, is edited with the voice-over of
the journalists and is presented in spoken form. The sentences should be short and
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simple because the audiences cannot go back to the information they do not catch
up (Lanson and Stephens, 1994). In addition, the lexicons tend to be colloquial.
3. The broadcast news has an additional and decisive element—visual image, which
plays a crucial role in distinguishing it from news in print. The frequent use of
demonstrative like zhe 這 ‘this’ and synchronized editing of words and images
underline its influence upon the narration of the news event.
Accordingly, broadcast news is believed to behave at variance with news in print to
some extent. It exhibits the features of both written and spoken discourses
simultaneously (Cotter, 2001). On one hand, it “has a measure of economy and
cohesion, which is lacking in everyday speech” (Glasgow University Media Group,
1975). In addition, its audiences, just like the readers of a written work, are so remote
that they cannot influence the flow of discourse (Garrett & Bell, 1998). On the other
hand, it should meet the requirement of being colloquial because it is for listening
rather than reading (Lanson and Stephens, 1994). Therefore, broadcast news is a genre
existing between the extremes of written and spoken discourses (Cotter, 2001), which
makes it so distinct that deserves our attention. In 1.2 and 1.3, we will introduce the
formation of a piece of broadcast news and the subtypes of news, respectively.
1.2 The Production of Broadcast News
The production of a piece of broadcast news takes many parties to cooperate with
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each other, including the journalists, camera operators and the editors. In practice, the
journalists gather materials with the camera operators. The staffs involved in will
discuss what the main events of the news are, provide script and then supplement it
with shots. Once it is determined, one mode is the main narration line while the other
is used to supplement it (Niu, 2006). After that, the journalists will write news scripts
and edit the pictures with voice-overs. If necessary, they need to add extra elements to
enhance the audiences’ comprehension, such as charts to illustrate the key points of an
important announcement from the president or animations of the process of crime
when there are no suitable shots. Hence, a piece of broadcast news is a hybrid of
voice-over, visual images and captions or charts on screen. Then they pass the product
to the news editors to see if there is any language or content problems.
1.3 The Subtypes of News
News can be further divided into several subcategories based on how it is treated,
such as soft news and hard news, to name just a few. Soft news is usually concerned
with the least serious subjects, which are not timely at all, such as arts and
entertainments, lifestyles and celebrity. Their contents are treated in a “lighter” way
and their major purpose is to entertain the audiences rather than informing information.
Accordingly, more descriptions and comments can be found.
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1991), is featured as being serious, timely and of importance. Accordingly, it is
supposed to convey information in an accurate, objective, and neutral manner
(Montgomery, 2007). Its subject matters cover two major types. The first type is
“eruptive violence, [which] reveals fortune and socially significant breaches of the
moral order,” including accidents, natural disasters, crimes and conflicts (White, 1997).
Such kind of news is the core of hard news and thus is called “spot news” (Bell, 1991).
Niu’s (2006) statistics also reveals similar findings in which that damage and criminal
news occupies one-fifth of a broadcast news section in Taiwan. The second type
includes the other serious and crucial issues, such as news of elections, government
announcements, international negotiations, [and] party politics” (Bell, 1991). These
communicative events, including a speech, interview, report or press release can by
themselves form a piece of hard news because they have impact on a great number of
people (White, 1997).
1.4 Objectives
The present study will investigate broadcast news, for so far there have been few
linguistic-oriented studies on it. Hence, there is a need to explore this special genre
more. As to the subtypes of news, the present study will focus on only news about
crime and damage, because they are with higher percentage compared with the other
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contains 25 pieces of broadcast news, all of which is criminal and damage news. After
reviewing the previous literatures on the discourse structure of news, we would like to
examine what kinds of linguistic and visual markers are used to signal a unit boundary
and their co-relationships.
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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
In chapter two, the previous studies on the approaches concerning the discourse
structure of news and the markers of units will be discussed in detail. In 2.1, we
reviewed the three major approaches dealing with news stories—narrative approach,
news-as-commentary approach and satellite approach. In 2.2, we reviewed the
previous research on the correlation between discourse structures and their
corresponding boundary markers, be them linguistic or visual ones, including
discourse markers and shift of scenes.
2.1 Approaches to the Discourse Structure of News Story
The approaches concerned with the discourse structure of news story encompass
three major approaches—narrative approach, broadcast news-as-commentary approach
and satellite approach. Narrative approach can be applied to news in print as well as
broadcast news respectively. They are introduced in 2.1.1. Broadcast
news-as-commentary approach is introduced in 2.1.2 and satellite approach in 2.1.3.
2.1.1 Narrative Approach
Narrative has been one of the major topics in humanistic (Johnstone, 2001). Its
realm varies depending on different definitional criteria. In a narrow sense, it only
denotes the genre of story. In a wide sense, the characteristics of a narrative can be
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found in genres ranging from dramas, conversation, broadcast news, to fine art (Ochs,
1997; Montgomery, 2007). In either case, a narrative is a recapitulation of past events,
which create transformations of state of affairs and whose participants are usually
animate (Ochs, 1997). Personal oral experience and news report are two good
examples of narrative. The former one is a personal account of past experiences, which
are usually out of the ordinary and therefore are tellable (Labov and Waltezky, 1967;
Goffman, 1974; Ochs, 1997). More importantly, more than merely a recapitulation of
events, it usually has some moral points to make (Labov and Waltezky, 1967; Goffman,
1974; Ochs, 1997). On the contrary, news report, though also recapitulating other
people’s past events vicariously, is told due to having news values set by journalism
practitioners rather than moral points (van Dijk, Bell, 1991, 1994 and 1998).
Personal oral experiences and news reports have some structural elements in
common (Bell, 1991, 1994 and 1998). Therefore we would like to review the studies
on narrative structure before exploring the discourse structure of news report.
According to the classic study conducted by Labov and Waletzky (1967), there are six
structural elements of a personal oral narrative: abstract, orientation, complicating
actions, evaluation, resolution and coda and they are presented in this order (Labov
and Waletzky, 1967). A typical abstract occurs at the beginning of a narrative, serving
as a prelude to the following story. It outlines the main actions and may even reveal
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points of the narrative. Besides, it is a sign indicating the present speaker gets the floor
to speak.
Orientation’s unmark position is between abstract and the following complicating
actions. It mainly functions as setting the scene of a narrative and is usually realized
by a set of phrases or lexical items, which orient the listeners in respect to person,
place, time and behavioral situation. Hence, such kind of information is called as
“introductory orientation.” In addition, orientation can also occur throughout the
whole narrative because as the action happens, the scene changes accordingly. The
narrators are responsible to provide the background information so that the listeners
can catch up the development and such orientation is labeled as “emerging
orientation.”
Complicating actions, taking place after orientation, is the skeletal structure of a
narrative. It comprises a series of chronological events, which advance or progress the
storyline. Each event is linked to one another causally and there is at least one
temporal juncture within them. Normally, the series of events lead to the most
reportable event, i.e., the climax or the high point, which is the point of maximum
suspense. After that, the tension is gradually released and what happens at last occurs
to conclude the sequences of events. The last event, labeled as “resolution” or “result,”
is usually unreportable so it does not need further explanation.
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Evaluation is the value of a narrative, normally inserted between complicating
actions and resolution but can also occur throughout the story. It points out the most
interesting or unusual part of the story, persuading the listeners to keep listening to or
reading the story. It can occur either outside or within the narrative. In the previous
case, the narrators comment on the story from outside, stating phrases like “But it was
really quite terrifying,” which emphasizes the value of the story—horror. In the latter
case, evaluation is embedded in the storyline. The narrators can exploit some linguistic
devices to underscore the importance of one event, including intensifier, explicatives,
quantifiers, paraphrase and repetition.
Coda falls at the end of a narrative, wrapping up the story and signaling its end.
Sometimes it provides a short summary or connects the story world with the present.
Phrases like “And that was that” is an example of coda.
News report, as mentioned above, is considered as sharing some structural
elements with personal oral experience. Therefore, some researchers apply the
Labovian framework to account for news in print. Similarly, a few researchers deem
broadcast news as being evolved from news in print so they also examine it with
narrative approach. In 2.1.1.1 and 2.1.1.2, we will introduce the narrative approaches
on news in print and broadcast news, respectively.
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2.1.1.1 Narratives in Printed News
Traditionally, news has been treated as one narrative genre because it shares some
structural properties with personal oral narratives. Bell (1991, 1995, and 1998) and
Schokkenbroek (1997), therefore, apply the framework introduced by Labov and
Waletzky (1967, 1972) to account for news in print, respectively. Both of them agree
that news in print and personal oral narratives are similar in the following aspects: 1)
they are concerned with a series of events and 2) they are told or reported for some
purposes.
However, the two differ from each other in context and purposes. News is
institutional language whose authors are multiple and the purpose is mainly to inform.
On the other hand, personal oral narratives belong to personal discourse and their aims
range from self-aggrandisement to social talk (Schokkenbroek, 1997). Accordingly, the
narrative form of news stories has been modified.
The structure of a news item, be it in newspaper or news bulletin, is composed of
an obligatory lead plus a subsidiary story proper1. The beginning paragraph of news
stories, i.e. the lead or the intro, not only summarizes the central actions of a news
story but also underlines its importance—why the reporters think it is worth reporting.
In other words, it is an abstract within which the news values are the most prominent.
1
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Bell (1991) illustrates this point by offering an example. He observes that intensifiers,
which function as stressing the importance of a news story, are used much more often
in the lead and the intensity, seriousness and importance are decreasing in the story
proper section.
In the section of story proper, the whole news event is reported in some detail.
Contrary to personal oral narrative, there is no separate section for orientation in news
in print because a news item usually covers more than one person, place and time,
orientation is usually embedded in events and disperses throughout the news stories.
With regard to complication, Labov and Waltezky (1967) have defined that the
chronological ordering of events is a required definition for a personal oral narrative.
However, according to Bell (1991), in journalistic writing, the presentation of events
seldom chimes in their logical order in the real world; instead, they are presented
non-chronologically. Normally, the latest development of a series of news events is
placed earlier in order to satisfy the principle of recency/timeliness. There is a set of
news values manipulating the placement of events in news behind2. The more valuable
the events are, the earlier they are placed. Both van Dijk (1985) and Bell (1991) argue
that in newspaper writing, events are organized contingent on their news values rather
2 These news values are journalism conventions. Galtung and Ruge (1965b) have made a commonly categorization. The following researchers (van Dijk, 1985; Bell, 1991, Montgomery, 2007 and the others) all follow the categorization more or less. According to Bell (1991), these news values include recency, proximity, consonance, unambiguity, unexpectedness, superlativeness, relevance,
personalization, eliteness, attribution and facticity.
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than their corresponding sequences in real world. That is, the most news-worthy parts
of a news story are reported first, then the background information may be
supplemented, and subsequently return to the details of the news. This kind of writing
results in the specific schemata of news writing—inverted-pyramid structure. However,
Duzak (1995) has pointed out that writing styles vary from culture to culture. She
compares news-texts in English, Polish and German, finding that the latter two show
the traces of everyday storytelling. In her data, a piece of news begins with possible
causes, then presenting the setting against which the news events occur. Subsequently
the main news events are organized chronologically.
Schokkenbroek (1997), though admitting that a news item starts with abstract
rather than settings, questions Bell’s argumentation of non-chronological order of
events. She asserts that in most of the cases she studies, the discourse structure
matches the event structure. If not, there must be some linguistic markers to indicate
their temporal relationship to prompt the readers/audiences in the process of
comprehension. The linguistic markers to indicate the temporal structures are divided
into anchors and temporal connectors by Schokkenbroek (1997). Anchors mainly
function as situating events in absolute calendar time, including deictics and adverbial
phrases. Temporal connectors are used to explicate the relative temporal order of two
events, such as relational adverbials.
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In terms of evaluation, Labov (1972) has mentioned that evaluation is as
important as complicating actions in personal oral narratives. It expresses the
narrators’ attitude toward the narrative. However, in the case of news story, due to the
principle of objectivity in journalism, the journalists’ personal comments are less
preferable in hard news (Schokkenbroek, 1997; Keeble, 2006). Instead, it is news
values that can account for why a news story is reported (Bell, 1991, 1994 and 1998;
Schokkenbroek, 2007). Journalists write their news stories based on the principles
established by their proprietor managers.
Though in principle the journalists’ personal comments are not welcomed,
Schokkenbroek (1997) discovers that the journalists can still evaluate the news event
by either semantic or formal means. Bell (1991) has roughly discussed the frequent
use of intensifiers in the lead, but he neither extends the concept into the story proper
section nor refers to form devices. Schokkenbroek (1997), on the other hand, asserts
that both evaluative devices can be found in the story proper section. In the semantic
level, the journalists can use intensifiers, comparators, correlatives and explicatives to
compare the scales of importance among events. In the formal level, they can
extensively quote a third person’s evaluative comments directly or indirectly3 serving
as their own evaluation. They are empowered to select which person’s speeches to
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quote and decide in which context the comment is placed. Accordingly, they can
evaluate the events covertly and meanwhile avoid directly expressing their own
evaluation, which is less preferable in news reports. However, nowadays, the direct
evaluative comment made by the journalists in broadcast news seems very common,
especially at the end of a news item.
With regard to resolution and coda, Bell (1991) mentions that these two are
optional in news items. News story, according to him, is more akin to a serial than a
short story. Most of the time, news is only concerned with the latest step rather than
the result when the news events have not ended at reporting time. Therefore, it seems
that resolution is not an obligatory element in news story. As to coda, Bell asserts there
seems no counterpart in news items to mark the finish or to return from the story world
to the real world as personal oral narrative does.
In summary, a news item contains a lead/intro (abstract) and a story proper
(complicating actions). In story proper, the events, which may be accompanied with
orientation, can be arranged depending on either their importance or their logical
orders in the world. In the former case, some linguistic markers will definitely occur to
orders in the world. In the former case, some linguistic markers will definitely occur to