Finding the Global Groove: Theorising and analysing dynamic reader positioning using Appraisal, corpus, and a concordancer

TY - JOUR

T1 - Finding the Global Groove

T2 - Theorising and analysing dynamic reader positioning using Appraisal, corpus, and a concordancer

AU - O'Halloran, Kieran

AU - Coffin, Caroline

PY - 2005/9/1

Y1 - 2005/9/1

N2 - Within critical discourse analysis (CDA), there has been ongoing interest in how texts position readers to view social and political events in a particular way. Traditionally, analysts have not examined how positioning is built up dynamically as a reader progresses through a text by tracing how earlier parts of a text are likely to affect subsequent interpretation. This article shows how APPRAISAL tools (as developed within the systemic functional tradition) can be usefully employed within CDA to do this. Using a story from The Sun newspaper website as illustration, we show how due to a cumulative groove of semantic patterning, the reader is dynamically positioned to interpret a seemingly neutral statement at the end of the story in a negative way. We ‘over-interpretation’ can be checked through the use of a concordancer. We also demonstrate how a specialised corpus can go some way to grounding the APPRAISAL analysis in terms of the context of the target readership and the meanings they are routinely exposed

AB - Within critical discourse analysis (CDA), there has been ongoing interest in how texts position readers to view social and political events in a particular way. Traditionally, analysts have not examined how positioning is built up dynamically as a reader progresses through a text by tracing how earlier parts of a text are likely to affect subsequent interpretation. This article shows how APPRAISAL tools (as developed within the systemic functional tradition) can be usefully employed within CDA to do this. Using a story from The Sun newspaper website as illustration, we show how due to a cumulative groove of semantic patterning, the reader is dynamically positioned to interpret a seemingly neutral statement at the end of the story in a negative way. We ‘over-interpretation’ can be checked through the use of a concordancer. We also demonstrate how a specialised corpus can go some way to grounding the APPRAISAL analysis in terms of the context of the target readership and the meanings they are routinely exposed

U2 - 10.1080/17405900500283607

DO - 10.1080/17405900500283607

M3 - Article

SN - 1740-5904

SP - 143

EP - 163

JO - Critical Discourse Studies

JF - Critical Discourse Studies

ER -