News as Discourse Van Dijk From micro to macrostructures Three major aspects of discourse: sentence forms, meanings &

speech acts. There are, however, other aspects of discourse that cannot simply be defined in terms of the usual syntax, semantics or pragmatics as applied mainly to isolated sentences. That is, we seem to operate only on what may be called a microlevel of description: sounds, words, patterns & their meanings. We also need a description of a more comprehensive, global level, that is, of whole parts of discourse or of entire discourses. ot only do we need some !ind of macrosemantics which deals with such global meanings but also some !ind of macrosyntax to characteri"e the overall forms of a discourse, which we will call schemata# superstructures $e.g. headlines in news discourse, setting in a narrative story%. These overall schematic forms are filled with the overall macrostructural meaning or topics of a discourse. The microlevels & macrolevels of discourse are both related. The meaning of whole text parts or entire texts is derived from the local meanings of words & sentences. This derivation ta!es place by macrorules. &acrostructures Topics are a property of the meaning or context of a text. 'owever, they are not defined as the meaning of individual words or sentences. Topics belong to the global macrolevel of discourse description. The theoretical notions we use to describe topics or themes, therefore, is that of semantic macrostructures. &acrostructures are characteri"ed in terms of propositions. (ropositions are typically expressed by single sentences or clauses, as in )&ary is a lawyer*. +omplex sentences, on the other hand, may express several single or complex propositions: ),andra fired her manager because he was incompetent*. ,o, we can say that propositions are the smallest, independent meaning constructs of lg. & thought, used to denote facts which do not need to exist in our own real, historical world. &acrorules The hierarchical relationships b# lower level proposition & higher level macroproposition can be defined by macrorules which are semantic mapping rules which lin! lower level propositions with higher level macropropositions. These rules define the gist, the most important info. They essentially reduce information in - different ways: .% We can simply delete info. that is no longer relevant. e.g. local details: deletion. /% We can ta!e a se0uence of propositions & replace them by one generali"ation. e.g. dog, cat pets: organi"ation. -% We can replace a se0uence of propositions by one macroproposition that denotes the act# event as a whole. e.g. going to the airport, chec!ing in, etc., summari"ed by )1 too! a plane to2*: construction. 3eletion, organi"ation, construction, then, will be ta!en as the - major macrorules that reduce info. of a text to its topic. &eanings are assigned to texts in processes of interpretation by lg. users. They have a cognitive nature. The same is true for macrostructures. (eople assign a topic to a text & this process is a constituent part of understanding. This also enables them to construct their own personal macrostructures. 4fter all, different lg. users may find different info. in the text more important & therefore, we may expect at least slightly different summaries of a given text. ,o, cognitively spea!ing, topics may be subjective, even when a minimum of overlap exists to guarantee mutual comprehension. &acrorules re0uire !nowledge of the world, such as frames or scripts. They cannot operate simply in propositional input from the text. They also re0uire propositions derived from our !nowledge of the world & from our personal beliefs & interests. Topics are crucial in the overall understanding of a text, i.e., in the establishment of global coherence. They act as semantic top5down control on local understanding at the microlevel. Without topics, it would be impossible to grasp what the text is about globally.e.g. in news, topics may be expressed & signaled by headlines which act as summaries of the news text. The topics of news discourse form a hierarchical structure: the ordering of the text is defined by relevance of topics, rather than by some logical order. From macrostructure to microstructure The structural organi"ation of news discourse is caused by the top5down principle of relevance: news discourse is organi"ed so that the most important or relevant info. is put in the most prominent position, both in the text as a whole & in the sentence. This means that for each topic, the most imp. info. is presented first. The reali"ation of topics in news discourse ta!es place by the application of inverse macrorules, which we call specification rules.

,pecification ta!es place in cycles6 high level specifics are given first, followed by lower5level details. Top5 down organi"ation allows editors to cut the final paragraphs of a news story without the loss of essential info. ews schemata Textual superstructures The overall meaning $macrostructure% of discourse has more than its own organi"ing principles. 1t also needs some !ind of overall syntax, which defines the possible forms in which topics or themes can be inserted & ordered in the actual text. This overall meaning $macrostructure% of discourse can be defined in terms of a rule5based schema which consists of a series of hierarchically ordered categories which may be specific for different discourse types & conventionali"ed & hence different in various societies or cultures. .e.g. stories have a narrative schema, consisting of conventional categories such as summary, setting, complication, resolution, coda. These parts of a text have a specific function & re0uire specific info. 7veryday conversations: some begin with some !ind of greeting exchange & may be terminated by a se0uence of closing turns & leave5ta!ing formulas. &any discourse types in our culture have a more or less fixed schematic organi"ation. 8g. users learn such schemata during sociali"ation, although for some schemata, such as those used in professional discourse, special training may be re0uired. ,uperstructures We account the discourse schemata in terms of so5called superstructures. These are global structures of discourse, defined by specific superstructure categories & rules. 7ach superstructure category assigns a specific discourse function to the macroproposition & conse0uently to the se0uence of sentences# propositions summari"ed by that macroproposition. The necessary lin! with other discourse structures is established through semantic macrostructures $topics%. That is, in order to assign a global form or schema to a text, we have to relate it to a global meaning that can fill this form or schema. Thus, each superstructure category is associated with a macroproposition $topic% from the semantic macrostructure. The schema determines how topics of a text could or should appear in the text. ews schema categories .% ,ummary9 'eadline & lead 7ach news item in the press has a headline & many have a lead. We also have an elementary rule for them: headline precedes lead & together they precede the rest of the news item. Together they express the major topics of the text. That is, they function as an initial summary. 'eadline merely defines a special se0uence in a news text, in which variable global content $a topic% may be inserted. The headline may consist of a superheadline & a subheadline. 8eads may be expressed in separately & boldly printed leads or may coincide with the first thematical sentence on the text. /% 7pisode9 &ain events in context & their bac!grounds 4 news text may feature bac!grounds or an evaluation of the news events & we may indeed ta!e such categories as constituents of news schemata. We also need a category of &ain 7vents. The information given in the &ain 7vents may be embedded in +ontext. ,emantically, context information must denote the actual situation, consisting of other concrete news events, & not a general structural situation. :ften, context is main event in other or previous news items. +ontext in this respect is different from bac!grounds, which have a historical nature. -% +onse0uences +onse0uences is another category that routinely occurs in news discourse. The newsworthiness of social & political events is partly determined by the seriousness of their conse0uences. ,ometimes, conse0uences are even more important than the main events themselves. ;% <erbal reactions <= is a specific news schema category that may be seen as a special case of conse0uences. &ost important news events follow a standard procedure for as!ing the comments of important participants or prominent political leaders5 it allows journalists to formulate opinions that are not necessarily their own. :f course, the selection of spea!ers & of 0uotations need not be objective. >% +omment Finally, a news discourse has a category that features the comments, opinions & evaluations of the journalist or newspaper itself. 4lthough many newsma!ers show the ideological view that fact & opinion should not be missed, this final comment category fre0uently appears in the news, sometimes in an indirect form. The comments category consists of two major subcategories: evaluation & expectations. 7valuation features

evaluative opinions about the actual news events6 expectations formulates possible conse0uences of the actual events & situation. 1t may for instance predict future events. 1t is obvious that many news texts only have some of these categories. :rdering of news categories The news schema also determines the overall ordering of topics in the text & thereby organi"es the topics & the reali"ation of the thematic structure. ews schemata exist & both journalists & readers at least implicitly use them in the production & understanding of news. The microstructure of news discourse 1n the local or microstructure of news, propositions are built up from a predicate & a number of arguments. (ropositions may be coordinated by a conjunction or disjunction, or they may be subordinated by connectives such as when, because, etc. We need more than isolated propositions to account for the meaning of discourse. e.g.: .. )?ohn loves &ary because she is smart* $the spea!er ma!es an assertion of a complex proposition & may focus on the last point of the sentence%. /. )?ohn loves &ary. ,he is smart* $this example expresses two separate assertions of single propositions. This means that the spea!er assumes that the listener does not yet !now about ?ohn@s love for &ary or about his reasons for loving her%: local cohesion. 4nother example of local cohesion is !nown as +onditional. The cohesion is not based as relationships b# propositions but rather on relations b# facts denoted by them. 1t is the fact that &ary is smart that causes the fact that ?ohn loves her. (ropositions should denote facts in an episode that is consistent with the !nowledge or beliefs of the listener. 8ocal coherence is established relative to the current topic & !nowledge or beliefs $scripts% of the speech partners. ews discourse style 3iscourse style as context mar!er 3epending on various social dimensions, lg. users may have recourse to different sound patterns, sentence patterns, or words to express a given meaning. ,imilarly, more or less independent of spo!en dimensions, the context of communication has its own stylistic constraints. ,tyle variation seems to involve notions such as selection or choice. ,tyle is not the result of completely free choices among alternatives. There are different notions of style: personal style group style contextual style functional style Aeneral constraints on news style ,tyle of news reports in the press, li!e any style, is controlled by its communicative context. 4s a type of written discourse, it must meet the general constraints or monological written or printed text. =eaders as communicative partners are present only indirectly & implicitly in news discourse. They are not even addressed, as may be the case in written manuals or textboo!s: there is no )you* in the news, except in 0uotations or sometimes in feature articles or editorials. ,tylistically, we may expect distance towards the usually implicit reader. ews is not only written but also public discourse. +ontrary to personal letters or special5purpose publications, its readers are large groups, sometimes defined by similar political or ideological allegiance, but usually undifferentiated at a more personal level. ,ocially & cognitively, this means that a considerable amount of generally shared !nowledge, beliefs, norms & values must be presupposed. Without such ta!en5 for5granted information, the news would not be intelligible. ews discourse is also impersonal, because it is not produced & expressed by a single individual but by institutionali"ed organi"ations, whether public or private. That is, not only is a )you* generally absent but also a really individual )1*. ews stories, then, are not stories of personal experiences & they do not routinely express private beliefs & opinions. 4ccording to the prevailing news ideology, they are intended as impersonal statements or facts. The )1* may be present only as an impartial observer, as a mediator of the facts. :f course, there are style differences within & among newspapers & among types of newspapers, countries & cultures. Bnderlying beliefs & attitudes are not so easily suppressed & they may appear indirectly in the text in many ways: selection of topics, elaboration of topics, relevance hierarchies, use of schematic categories6 and finally, in style, such as the words chosen to describe the facts. ews style is controlled by the possible topics of news discourse. These topics may belong to major categories li!e national politics, internal politics, military affairs, social life, violence, disasters, sports, arts,

etc. Topics, by definition, control local meanings & hence possible word meanings & therefore, lexical choice. The style of a report about a local concert is less formal than that of a report about an international summit of political leaders. ews style displays the usual features of formal communicative styles. 3eadlines re0uire fast writing & editing & to avoid too many grammatical errors, stylistic inappropriateness or semantic nonsense, the syntax & lexicali"ation must also be routini"ed. We may expect fixed patterns of sentences, strategically effective schemata that can be used fre0uently to describe recurrent properties of news events. ?ournalism textboo!s teach part of this news grammar in normative texts. They tell the new journalist about effective headline & lead sentences. ews syntax ,entence syntax in news discourse may be fairly complex. =arely do we find sentences consisting of a simple clause. &ost sentences are complex, with several embedded clauses & nominali"ations & therefore, express several propositions. The sentence complexity is not limited to 0uality newspapers or to 7nglish. The role of word order & other syntactic functions: there is more to sentences syntax than its overall complexity. The syntactic structures of the news may signal an interpretation. The use of active & passive sentences & the agent or subject position of news actors. 1f authorities, such as the police, are agents of negative acts, they tend to occur less in agent position. 8exical style of the news The choice of words, even more than syntactic patterns, is usually associated with the style of discourse. 8exical stylistics is not only central to a stylistic in0uiry, but it also forms the lin! with semantic content analysis. The choice of specific words may signal the degree of formality, the relationship b# speech partners, the group5based or institutional embedding of discourse & especially the attitudes & hence ideologies of the spea!er. Whether the newspaper selects terrorist or freedom fighter to denote the same person, is not so much a 0uestion of semantics as an indirect expression of implied but associated values incorporated in shared5word meanings. :ther lexical choices do not originate in sociopolitical ideology but are part of professional registers used to denote specific event characteristics. 8exical style may be controlled by rhetorical strategies, e.g., those of understatement, mitigations, especially used when describing negative acts of important news actors are a routine procedure, used also to avoid charges of libel. The rhetoric of news discourse =hetoric & the effectiveness of discourse &uch li!e style, the rhetoric of discourse has to do with how we say things. Cut, whereas news style is heavily constrained by various contextual factors deriving from the public, mass media & the formal nature of news, the use of rhetorical structures in the news depends on the goals & intended effects of communication. We want our speech partner to understand that what we said was intended as an assertion, a re0uest, or a threat, we also want him or her to accept what we say, that is, believe our assertion, perform the actions re0uested & execute our commands. :ur speech acts should not only have illocutionary functions but also perlocutionary effects. The effectiveness of news ,uggesting factuality (ersuasion has a very specific aim & function for news discourse. 1deologically news implicitly promotes the dominant beliefs & opinions of elite groups in society. The bul! of our everyday news is an instance of the speech act of assertion. For such speech acts to be appropriate, the writer must express propositions that are not yet !nown to the listener# reader & which the writer wants the listener# reader to !now. =hetorical structures accompanying assertive speech acts li!e those performed by the news in the press should be able to enhance the beliefs of the reader@s assigned to the asserted propositions of the text. (ersuasive content features The content itself needs further organi"ation, in order to be noticed, understood, represented, memori"ed & finally believed & integrated. There is an inherent news value system that underlies news production. 4ttention for the negative, the sensational, sex & violence, even in 0uality papers, satisfies the rhetoric of emotions, which we also !now from the reporting of accidents, catastrophes, disasters & crimes. These !inds of events report hard facts, which have witnesses & which re0uire precise numbers $victims, etc.%6 they may be lost in narrative structure6 they may reflect opinions6 they allow for direct 0uotations6 they emphasi"e causes & conse0uences.

These events comprise the bul! of what most people in our western countries consume as news. 1n 7ngland, the country with the biggest newspaper consumption, the tabloids that report this news practically exclusively, sell perhaps .D times more than the so5called 0uality press. Their rhetoric seems to be very effective for many people. ews is more persuasive if it represents events that fit our models without being completely predictable. 3irect description & eye5witness reports :ne of the basic conventional conditions of truth is direct observation. ewspapers therefore try to get first5 hand evidence from their correspondents or reporters & may even send a special envoy to places where do"ens of other reporters are already present. ,imilarly, eye5witness reports given in interviews may be used as necessary substitutes for the reporter@s own observations. 1t is the popular press that uses direct reporting & eye5witness interviewing extensively. 4nd if ordinary people are participants & are interviewed, it is as if the ordinary reader himself or herself had seen the events. ,ources & 0uotations &ost of the news is about events that do not allow for direct observation & for description of eye5witness. =eporters get it from other media, from news agencies, or from reports of others. Their factuality must be assessed in different ways & the rhetorical strategy used is a subtle use & 0uotation of sources. 7lite sources are not only considered more newsworthy but also are more reliable as observers & opinion formulators. 1n a report about a stri!e, the director of a firm & the union leader will be 0uoted as sources much more often than the individual stri!er. Euotations or 0uasi50uotations are closer to the truth & more reliable than event descriptions by the reporter. Euotations not only ma!e the news report livelier but are direct indications of what was actually said & hence true5as5verbal5act. Euotations are the reporter@s protection against slander or libel. umbers The rhetoric of news discourse forcefully suggests truthfulness by the implied exactness of precise numbers. 1t is not so much the precision of the number that is relevant but rather the fact that numbers are given at all. They may be highly variable among news media, even when using the same sources and if incorrect, they are seldom corrected in follow5up news items. They are meant as signals of precision & hence, of truthfulness.