MEDIA DISCOURSE: COGNITIVE MODELS USED TO INTERPRET EVENTS (based on British and American quality press)

MEDIA DISCOURSE: COGNITIVE MODELS USED TO INTERPRET EVENTS (based on British and American quality press)

Author:  Beliaevskaya, E.G.

Affiliation:  Moscow State Linguistic University

Abstract:  The paper centers on news discourse and analytical discourse of British and American quality press to analyze new tendencies in event interpretation construal. The study involves brief news items and feature articles published within 1996–2014. The author applies the procedure of frame semantics with special reference to the stereotype frame focus variability, which helped to discover four cognitive models bringing about modifications in the conventional interpretation of an event so as to reflect the writer’s point of view: (1) introduction of supplementary intensifiers and evaluative lexis, (2) the use of conceptual metaphor to represent the event described, (3) the use of segmented quotations, and (4) providing additional information serving as a new point of departure in evaluating the information presented. All models are aimed at changing the conventional focus of the frame underlying the event presented and discussed. Both news media discourse and analytical media discourse employ similar event interpretation cognitive models to ensure the programmed ideological impact on the reader. Brief news items tend to grow in size; one and the same frame focus tends to be sustained in the presentation of different events in a feature article. The procedure of the analysis worked out may be used in studying other varieties of media discourse both synchronically and diachronically.

Keywords:  media discourse, cognitive models, event, frame, conceptual metaphoric representation, segmented quotation, interpretation, evaluation

References: 
Arutyunova, N.D. (1988). Tipy yazykovykh znacheniy (Otsenka, sobytie, fakt). Moscow: Nauka.
Belyaevskaya, E.G. (1990). Parametricheskaya zona lichnogo deyksisa i ee rol' v opisanii semantiki idiom. In Frazeografiya v Mashinnom fonde russkogo yazyka (pp. 195-204). Moscow: Nauka.
Belyaevskaya, E.G. (2005). Ponyatie konnotatsii s kognitivnoy tochki zreniya. In Kontseptual'noe prostranstvo yazyka: sbornik nauchnykh trudov (pp. 53-66). Tambov: Izd-vo TGU im. G.R. Derzhavina.
Boldyrev, N.N. (2014). Interpretatsiya mira i znaniy o mire v yazyke. In Kognitivnye issledovaniya yazyka. Vyp. XIX. Kognitivnoe var'irovanie v yazykovoy interpretatsii mira: sbornik nauchnykh trudov (pp. 20-28). Moscow: In-t yazykoznaniya RAN; Tambov: Izdatel'skiy dom TGU im. G.R. Derzhavina.
Vol'f, E.M. (1985). Funktsional'naya semantika otsenki. Moscow: Nauka.
Bednarek, M. (2006). Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus. London: Continuum.
Carter, R. & Nash, W. (1997). Seeing Through Language. A Guide to Styles of English Writing. Oxford: Blackwell.
van Dijk Teun, A. (1985). Structures of News in the Press. In Teun A. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse and Communication (pp. 69-93). Berlin; N.Y.
van Dijk Teun, A. (1988). The Analysis of News as Discourse. In Teun A. van Dijk (ed.), News Analysis. Case Studies of International and National News in the Press (pp. 1-30). New Jersey: Hillsdale.
Fowler R. (1994). Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London; N.Y.: Routledge.
MED – Macmillan English Dictionary (2002). International Student Edition. Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Limited.

Pages:  5-13