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Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature The Passive in the British Political News Bachelor thesis Brno 2017 Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Renata Jančaříková, Ph.D. Karolína Šafářová Announcement I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently and that I have used only the sources from the works cited list. Brno, 30 March 2017 ..…..………………… Karolína Šafářová Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Renata Jančaříková, Ph.D, for her guidance, kind support and valuable advice. Anotace Tato bakalářská práce The Passive in the British political news je zaměřena na užití trpného rodu v politických článcích na téma Brexit vyskytujících se v seriozních novinách The Guardian a bulváru The Daily Mail. V práci je použita kvantitatvní analýza za účelem srovnání výskytu činného a trpného rodu, vyhodnocení důvodů pro používání trpného rodu, analyzování výskytu významových a uvozovacích sloves, a poměru činitelů trpného rodu vyjádřených pomocí 'by'. Annotation This bachelor thesis The Passive in the British political news is focused on the use of the passive in the broadsheet The Guardian and the tabloid The Daily Mail on the topic of concerning Brexit. It uses quantitative analysis to compare the frequency of use of the active and the passive voice, to analyze reasons for using the passive, the frequency of occurrence of lexical and report verbs, and the proportion of agents expressed by 'by'. Klíčová slova trpný rod, činný rod, noviny, politické zprávy, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, analýza, kvalitní noviny, bulvár Key Words passive voice, active voice, newspaper, political news, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, analysis broadsheets, tabloids Content 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 7 2 Theoretical part .................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 British Newspapers ...................................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 Current Situation .................................................................................................. 9 2.1.2 Online Newspapers ............................................................................................ 10 2.1.3 Broadsheets ........................................................................................................ 12 2.1.4 Tabloids .............................................................................................................. 14 2.1.5 Audience ............................................................................................................. 15 2.1.6 Political News ..................................................................................................... 18 2.2 Active and Passive voice ............................................................................................ 19 2.2.1 Active vs. Passive voice ...................................................................................... 19 2.2.2 Reasons for using the passive voice ................................................................... 23 2.2.3 Lexical verbs used in the passive ........................................................................ 25 3 Practical Part .................................................................................................................... 28 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 28 3.2 Newspapers used in analysis ..................................................................................... 29 3.2.1 Corpus ................................................................................................................ 30 4 Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 31 4.1 Active vs. Passive voice .............................................................................................. 31 4.2 Reasons for using the passive .................................................................................... 34 4.3 Lexical verbs ............................................................................................................... 36 4.4 Report verbs .............................................................................................................. 39 4.5 Agent expressed by 'by' ............................................................................................. 42 5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 45 6 Bibliography...................................................................................................................... 47 6.1 Sources....................................................................................................................... 52 7 Appendix........................................................................................................................... 61 1 Introduction As the internet is evolving and it reaches to billions of people through computers, TV, smartphones, even through watches, for many people it is the main source of receiving information and more importantly news. Even though printed newspapers are still the primary source of news for many people their everyday circulation is decreasing over the period of time and the number of people who read news online is significantly rising. Therefore the main source for obtaining news has become the internet and so the British political online news, primarily focused on the Brexit, became the corpus for the present thesis. This thesis is focused on the use of the passive in political news in the British online newspapers: the quality press (broadsheets) and the popular press (tabloids). The specific aim of this work is to examine the frequency of occurrence of the passive voice, the reasons for using the passive, frequency of occurrence of lexical and report verbs used in the passive and the proportion of agents expressed by 'by'. The Theoretical part briefly describes the British newspapers and their current situation on the market, as well as the state of their online websites. It is also focused on broadsheets and tabloids, their intended audience and the topic of political news. Furthermore, it discusses the analytical part of this work, such as the difference between the active and the passive voice, reasons for using the passive as well as lexical and report verbs used in the passive. The Practical part contains information about the corpus used for this work which is followed by the actual analysis divided into five parts. The first part of the analysis is based on the assumption that tabloids might contain less passives than broadsheets. It is supported by the statement from Crystal and Davy (1969) that “the tendency in the popular press is to use the active voice rather than the passive” (p. 187). In other parts of the analysis there are examined the reasons for using the passive, the frequency of occurrence of lexical and report verbs used in the passive and the analysis of agents expressed by 'by'. 7 The thesis presents how frequently The Guardian and The Daily Mail use the passive voice in the articles that are focused on the same political events. The qualitative method have been applied in the analysis. 8 2 Theoretical part 2.1 British Newspapers As stated in the introduction, the thesis is focused on the use of the passive in British online newspaper. However, to understand the online news it is essential to be also informed about the printed press in the UK. The British press has changed enormously in the past seventy years, especially with the increased use of the internet in the 21st century, and some of the changes are mentioned later in this thesis. As described below, British newspapers are divided into broadsheets and tabloids which started to separate at the beginning of the 20th century. 2.1.1 Current Situation With the digital revolution being so influential it was a matter of time it would change the way in which newspapers are written and distributed. Moreover, nowadays owning a phone device, which has an internet connection, is very common, at least in the western world e.g. according to the statistics portal, there are 42.4 million people who use smartphones in the UK ("Number of smartphone users in the United Kingdom", n.d.). This enormous number had influenced the consumption of news through newspapers in the UK. According to National Readership Survey, in the past ten years there was a significant decline of reach of the national newspapers among adults by 27% (from 72.4% in 2005 to 45.4% in 2015). The manner in which the newspapers reach their readers also varies by age e.g. only 29.3% of 15-24 year olds are print newspaper readers whereas there is 67.9% of over 65 year old readers (Ofcom 2015). This decline in reading printed newspapers led The Independent, which was launched in 1986, to print its last daily title on 26th March 2016, making approximately 75 journalists redundant, and continue as only digital source of news (Armstrong 2016). In January 2017, Roy Greensdale from theguardian.com wrote that the latest ABC figures for the national newsprint sales may confirm the long-running decreasing trend of the popular and quality sector. Surprisingly, the biggest downfall
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