STARTER

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 475.

· When you plan to write a newspaper article what do you start with?

· What things are very important to take into consideration while working on the story?

· Have you ever heard anything about “discourse” and “discourse categories”? If “yes” what knowledge do you possess about these things?

1While studying this unit try to compose a cognitive map which will cover the information about the writing process, mainly, about producing a news item.

To write a good article and thus to realize effective communication first of all it is necessary to analyze the situation in which communication takes place (its extralinguistic features) and then code the information taking into consideration the discourse categories [1] which correspond to a particular newspaper genre. As we deal with a news story, we need to describe its key discourse categories.

Self-identification is a discourse category which meansself-representation (how the author of a particular text is represented in this very text) through sign nomination and its interpretation (by means of semantics, grammar, stylistics, etc.).

Time means displaying oneself in time (past, present, future; real / unreal). This category is represented in a news article in a different way. As the author does not openly express his / her point of view on a certain problem / issue being covered, so it is shown through the described event and its representation in a time context.

Space means displaying oneself in space: geopolitical (local or global level) or modal (reality, virtuality level). In a news story it is represented by displaying an event in a certain space.

Audience means reflection of the characteristics of the audience: through identification of the audience and forms of address.

Intertextuality means widening the latent content by means of citations, proverbs, illustrations, etc.

Intereventness means widening the latent content by means of referring to other (non-topical) events.

Discourse practice means extensional characteristic of discourse, realised with the help of the key topic, which is both the goal and the result (for example, discourse of consolidation, confrontation or lobbying discourse).

Stylistic range means variety of stylistic registers (formal, informal, slang…).

Representation of these categories in a newspaper text helps convey the information more fully and deeply and thus establish a contact with the target audience and later get a feedback from the readers.

Have a look at the following article taken from the Observer which shows you the above mentioned discourse categories represented in the text of the story.

LONDON 2012: GREG RUTHERFORD OVERCOMES INJURY TO CLINCH GOLD

The British long jumper's triumph at the Olympic Stadium comes after he considered quitting due to a spate of setbacks