The Language of the Film Criticism

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Language of the press The Language of the Film criticism

Diploma thesis

Brno 2020

Supervisor: Author: Doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová Bc. Vendula Stará

Declaration I hereby declare that I wrote this thesis myself and worked independently using only the sources stated in bibliography.

Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů.

V Brně dne 10. 8. 2020 ………………………... Vendula Stará

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my diploma thesis supervisor, doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová, for her guidance through the process of writing this thesis. She kindly navigated and provided me with valuable advice and essential resources.

Anotace

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá zkoumáním jazykových prostředků používaných v tisku, konkrétně pak jazykových prostředků, které jsou využívané ve filmových recenzích publikovaných v tisku. V první, teoretické, části práce, je představeno několik pohledů a poznatků z oblasti daného žánru, praktická část pak zkoumá specifický vzorek filmových recenzí za účelem potvrzení či doplnění zmíněných teoretických poznatků. Za účelem bližšího prozkoumání daného žánru byl vytvořen soubor filmových recenzí publikovaných ve dvou významných britských denících, The Guardian a The Independent. Pro detailnější analýzu je v práci využito i metod korpusové lingvistiky.

Klíčová slova jazyk, film, recenze, noviny, analýza, korpusová lingvistika

Abstract

This diploma thesis deals with language of the press, specifically language of the film reviews published in newspapers. In the first, theoretical, part, several established views and notions connected to the given genre are introduced, the practical part examines a specific film review sample in order to confirm or expand on the previously discussed knowledge. For the purposes of closer examination of the genre, and analysis of its linguistic features, review sample is compiled of 40 film review articles from two major British newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent. Methods adopted from corpus linguistics are applied for more detailed analysis.

Key words language, film, review, newspaper, genre, analysis, corpus linguistics

Table of contents

Introduction ...... 6

1 Theoretical part ...... 8

1.1 Journalism ...... 8

1.2 The business of publishing newspapers ...... 8

1.3 The role of journalism ...... 10

2 Description of the research sample ...... 12

2.1 Film reviews ...... 12

2.1.1 The Guardian ...... 13

2.1.2 The Independent ...... 16

3 Analysis ...... 18

3.1 Format diversity of the film review genre ...... 18

3.2 Subjectivity of the content ...... 22

3.3 The use of informal language ...... 26

3.3 Corpus-based analysis ...... 30

3.3.1 Film review corpus ...... 30

3.3.2 The use of adjectives in the review sample ...... 33

3.3.3 Polarity of evaluation ...... 35

4 Conclusions ...... 49

Bibliography ...... 50

Bibliography of the cited sources ...... 50

Bibliography of the film review articles ...... 52

Introduction

It is the twenty-first century and the whole world is immensely influenced by the media. Whether it comes in the form of newspapers, radio, television or the Internet, it is the main source of information for people from all over the globe. And even if the primary purpose may be merely to transfer information and enhance the knowledge of the recipients, the actual impact is much more significant. Apart from delivering a message, the media have the power to influence people’s opinions, beliefs, and the perception of the world in general, both positively and negatively. The growth of media has raised the platform for journalism which can, apart from delivering factual information, also affect opinions of many.

As for the content, distinction can be made between hard and soft news. According to Busà (2014) the former category represents stories about current happenings in the world, for instance catastrophic events, crimes, changes in economy or public statements of influential political figures. Focusing on providing the readers with facts, circumstances, reasons and implications, it often fills the front pages of newspapers. The latter is more concerned with issues which are of interest to the readers and generally affect their everyday lives, including entertainment, art, sports or lifestyle. In other words, the hard news informs whereas the soft news primarily entertains. According to this classification, one can deduce that it is soft news which makes more considerable impact on readers’ views and opinions, it tends to be more personal and subjective. One of the genres of the soft news category is a review. According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary “review is a report in a newspaper or magazine, or on the Internet, television or radio, in which somebody gives their opinion of a book, play, film/movie, etc.” (Definition of Review in English, n.d..). Review is therefore genre which can be very subjective and tends to use a lot of evaluative and descriptive language.

When talking specifically about film reviews, two groups can be distinguished. First is comprised of reviews written by professional journalists and critics, published in newspapers and magazines. Second, and much more numerous, group contains reviews written by ‘ordinary’ members of the audience, posted online. Because writing a review is mostly the matter of expressing one’s opinion, it gained in popularity, especially with the advent of Internet. There are websites specifically created as platforms for internet users to evaluate and recommend films, for instance csfd.cz in Czech Republic, or the world’s most popular

6 imdb.com. The users can write their review and post it online for anyone to read, or simply rate the film in percentage terms. And even though one might say that because they are only written by laymen, not much attention should be drawn to them, thanks to the sheer volume of the reviews, these websites have been established as great sources of relevant information about the film industry. Some even use the rankings as a guide for deciding which films to watch. This thesis, however, focuses on the reviews belonging to the first and smaller group, that is the ones published in the press.

As for the language in which the newspapers are written, one description or characterisation simply cannot be produced. As Crystal & Davy (1969) point out, it is dangerous to make generalization about 'Journalese', as the use of language in the press is commonly labeled. There is no precise linguistic definition nor is it all homogeneous. The language is very eclectic and large number of styles and devices can be found in newspaper reporting. And numerous variables play the role there as well, from different formats of newspapers to the variety of audiences (Crystal & Davy, 1969).

This thesis aims to explore the genre of film reviews published in newspapers, to search for common characteristic features that can be found in the articles, whether it is the format or the language of the review, features that could explicitly define the genre.

To narrow and specify the aim, the practical part of the thesis focuses on the reviews published in two major British newspapers: The Guardian and The Independent. By selecting a sample of forty film reviews, specific corpus is created, in effort to analyse the language of the genre, focusing primarily on the structure, the evaluative content and the use of evaluative devices.

1 Theoretical part

1.1 Journalism

Examining the language of review and the genre itself, one should begin with exploring the field of journalism in general. Which raises the very first question: ‘What is journalism and where did it come from?’

In her book Taking Journalism Seriously: News and they Academy, Barbie Zelizer contemplates the origin of the field in a broad sense. “Journalism has been with us in one form or another since people recognized a need to share information about themselves with others” (Zelizer, 2004, p. 2). From this point, it is viewed not as an outcome of the past few centuries as one may think, but rather a phenomenon rooted in human nature and the process of socializing of the mankind. The author further expands on the notion, stating that making inquiry, which is gathered as the core of journalism, constitutes a cognitive act, as well as a social one (Zelizer, 2004).

Since the first inquiries and the need for sharing personal information a lot of time has passed. Generating whole media industry, inquiring information has grown into a massive business. It is a complex process involving many different stages from collecting and organizing the data to distributing and delivering it to the audience. Issuing the newspaper therefore requires utilizing expertise from many different fields such as sociology, politics or economy. (Busá, 2014)

1.2 The business of publishing newspapers

An important thing which also needs to be factored in the process of publishing newspaper is the ownership. However objective and impartial the press strives to be, like in any other business the owner has the power to influence the media to certain extent. It is not so frequent nowadays as it used to be, Busá (2014) claims, adding that even though in the past the owners would insert their own interests and political views in the content, today it is not that common. They sometimes still influence the editorial composition, but it is more likely indirect influence which prevails, for instance the act of appointing the editor. In order to

8 provide the readers with objectivity and wide range of topics and views, the journalism business should not be in the hands of only few owners. The circumstances are however not always that ideal. In her book The Language of Newspapers, Danuta Reah explains how the ownership situation in Britain has changed over the course of the last fifty years.

In 1965, there were 11 companies owning newspapers, and 19 national titles (including 7 Sunday papers). By 1995, 7 companies owned newspapers, and the number of titles had increased to 21 (including 8 Sunday papers). The situation is even more complex in 2001. Legislation restricting cross-media ownership, that is, any company having a significant stake in several different media organisations, is being reviewed, under pressure from massive global organisations such as Murdoch’s News Corporation which published four national newspapers that had, in May 2000, 20% of the market. (Reah, 2002, p. 8)

Considering this demonstration, one can gain some insight into the complexity of the process that is creating newspapers and contemplate the underlying aspects of freedom of the press.

Another aspect, which can have considerable influence on the newspaper content, is the finances. To be successful, the newspapers need to generate money, therefore many and many pages are covered with advertisement and entertainment. It is however not only the display of such content itself, as the influence runs deeper. In order to make a compelling argument for the readers, the advertiser needs to go further and create convenient circumstances. “If an advertiser has a luxury product, particularly a luxury food product, to sell, does that advertiser want the audience disturbed by reports of poverty and famine? If a major company has been polluting the environment and supporting state terrorism in a developing country, is that company going to give its lucrative advertising contracts to publications that reports these events?” (Reah, 2002). The answer is probably not.

After exploring the first two aspects, ownership and advertisement, the process of publishing newspapers appears to be much more complex and multi-layered that one might think. It is also one of the reasons for selecting two different newspapers in order to broaden the scope of the review sample.

1.3 The role of journalism

According to Bartošek (2001), journalism falls under the domain of communication, which makes it an interaction between two entities. Furthermore, it is part of a social sphere of communication, because the information is communicated as part of a social contact. There are three components in the process of communication: the source, the message and the recipient. Two types of social communication occur. Firstly, it is interpersonal communication, which is realized directly, face to face, and secondly, it is mass communication which is collective and indirect. Journalism falls under the latter category of mass communication (Bartošek, 2001).

With technological progress came a big boom of mass media, which expanded the range of mass communication immensely. So nowadays, the biggest amount of information is transmitted electronically, through radio, television and the internet, which all fall under the category of mass media. They communicate indirectly and to a large number of recipients at the same time.

In democratic society, journalism plays three basic roles. It interprets public opinion, informs, and therefore provides public service, and guards civil rights and freedom, it is so called ‘public watch-dog’ (Bartošek, 2001, p. 9).

Linguistic competence of a journalist is an important feature to consider when analysing the language of the news. Good writers should have the ability to use appropriate language in different contexts and social situations. They should also be able to work well within the language, collect relevant information and know how to pass it on their audience.

It is not only the content of the review that is influenced by the author and is therefore subjective to certain extent. It is the style of writing as well. In her book Stylistika pro žurnalisty (2011), Eva Minářová lists many different factors which affect and shape the style of writing. They are author’s education, maturity, intellect, abstract thinking, mental status, physical and psychological condition, life experiences and attitudes, interests, communication skills, knowledge of culture and society in general, and the list continues (Minářová, 2011, p. 41-42). Essentially, every experience that has in any way shaped author’s life and personality can be imprinted in his or her style of writing. Some of the journalism genres, review being

10 one of them, encourage or even require for the author to have creative skills (Minářová, 2011, p. 43).

2 Description of the research sample

2.1 Film reviews

For the purposes of exploring the genre of film criticism, forty film reviews were selected. They are articles published online by two major British newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent, over the period of three months, from the beginning of October till the end of December 2018. Following table lists titles of the films reviewed by the two newspapers, in alphabetical order.

Table 1: List of selected film reviews

The Guardian The Independent

Amazing Grace Aquaman An Elephant Sitting Still Bad Times at the El Royale Assassination Nation Been So Long Dumplin’ Bohemian Rhapsody Evelyn Bumblebee Make Us Dream Creed II Mandy Fantastic Beasts Marry Poppins Returns Holmes & Watson Nancy Mandy Night of the Living Dead Mary Poppins Returns Private Life Mowgli – Legend of the Jungle Sometimes Always Never Papillon Spider Man Ralph Breaks the Internet Super November The Christmas Chronicles Surviving Christmas with the Relatives The Nutcracker and the Four Realms The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (I) The Old Man and the Gun The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (II) They Shall Not Grow Old The Old Man and the Gun Three Identical Strangers Utoya – July 22 Utoya – July 22 Vice VS

As it is a part of their job description, film critics closely follow the film industry, and focus their attention mainly on new releases, therefore at the time of the review being published, the object of its critique is either playing in theatres or streaming on popular platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and others. Due to this fact, there are several titles which were covered by both newspapers at the same time, in one case The Guardian even published two reviews of the same film. This will be used for comparison purposes.

2.1.1 The Guardian

The Guardian, part of Guardian Media Group, is a British daily newspaper and its online format theguardian.com is one of the largest English-speaking quality news websites in the world. (About Guardian Media Group, 2018)

According to the website, it is owned by the Scott Trust, a form of global media ownership created in 1936, which provides the newspaper with financial and editorial independence, liberal values, and freedom from commercial and political interference. The trust was named after CP Scott, founder or The Manchester Guardian, which was the original name of the media, created in 1821. By founding the trust, Scott’s son wanted to ensure that the newspaper would remain faithful to its main values – liberal journalism and freedom in the press. (The Scott Trust: Values and History, 2015)

The Guardian publishes film reviews as part of their Culture section in both online and print version of the media, some of the reviews appearing on the website are also printed in The Observer, its sister newspaper.

The twenty reviews from The Guardian that were selected for the analysis were written by nine different authors. The following table lists the names of these authors next to the films they reviewed.

Table 2: List of film reviews published by The Guardian, and their authors

Film title Author of the review

Amazing Grace Jordan Hoffman An Elephant Sitting Still Simran Hans Assassination Nation Wendy Ide Dumplin’ Jake Nevins Evelyn Leslie Felperin Make Us Dream Andrew Pulver Mandy Simran Hans Marry Poppins Returns Peter Bradshaw Nancy Peter Bradshaw Night of the Living Dead Steve Rose Private Life Cath Clarke Sometimes Always Never Peter Bradshaw Spider Man Simran Hans Super November Peter Bradshaw Surviving Christmas with the Relatives Cath Clarke The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (I) Cath Clarke The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (II) Wende Ide The Old Man and the Gun Wendy Ide Utoya – July 22 Simran Hans Vice Peter Bradshaw

Despite being written by different authors, all the reviews are structured in the same way. There is always a headline containing the name of the reviewed film, and a dash followed by a few words whose purpose is to pique the readers’ interest and hint author’s opinion on the piece. The second feature of the review is the number of stars ranking the film on a scale from one to five, one being the lowest, five the highest possible score. Following the stars is a sub- headline which is somewhat of a one-sentence synopsis of the film or performance evaluation which expands some more on the author’s opinion. Next, there is a photograph from the film, some of the longer reviews insert more pictures in between the paragraphs, and there is also a

14 video with the trailer of the film1, so the reader can watch a few interesting scenes and get a better visual idea of the content. And finally, there is the text of the review itself which ranges in length from 2 to 10 paragraphs, the average number of words in The Guardian sample is 389,8 per article. The authors describe and evaluate various aspects of the film. They briefly, or in more detail, describe the storyline, offer opinion on actors’ performances, director’s work, production, the soundtrack, etc. Next to the review, the reader can also find information about the author and the date of publishing. Thanks to the online format of the media, archive of the reviews is available at all times containing thousands of articles.

1 The photographs and flm trailers were not included as a part of the review sample in the appendix. 15

2.1.2 The Independent

The beginning of the Independent daily newspaper dates back to 1986. Founded by three former staff members of The Daily Telegraph, its task was to bring objective and non-partisan news to educated people of Britain, unlike the rest of the politically biased newspapers of the time. It underwent several changes from format, transforming from broadsheet to tabloid edition, to ownership. In 2010 it was acquired by its fourth and current owner, a Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev. Unlike The Guardian, The Independent is now available in digital format only, the last print edition was published on March 26, 2016. (Britannica, 2017)

The twenty selected reviews from The Independent were written by four different authors. Following table lists their names next to the title of the film they reviewed.

Table 3: List of film reviews published by The Independent, and their authors

Film title Author of the review

Aquaman Geoffrey Macnab Bad Times at the El Royale Geoffrey Macnab Been So Long Geoffrey Macnab Bohemian Rhapsody Clarisse Loughrey Bumblebee Geoffrey Macnab Creed II Geoffrey Macnab Fantastic Beasts Geoffrey Macnab Holmes & Watson Geoffrey Macnab Mandy Geoffrey Macnab Mary Poppins Returns Geoffrey Macnab Mowgli – Legend of the Jungle Alexandra Pollard Papillon Geoffrey Macnab Ralph Breaks the Internet Clarisse Loughrey The Christmas Chronicles Christopher Hooton The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Clarisse Loughrey The Old Man and the Gun Geoffrey Macnab They Shall Not Grow Old Geoffrey Macnab Three Identical Strangers Geoffrey Macnab Utoya – July 22 Geoffrey Macnab VS Geoffrey Macnab

Fifteen out of the twenty reviews were written by the same person and the main reason for that is his position within the newspaper. Geoffrey Macnab is not only an author of several books and senior correspondent at Screen International, but mainly the chief film critic for The Independent. He has held this title since 2013 (Geoffrey Macnab).

The film reviews published by The Independent have very similar structure to the ones by The Guardian. They can also be found in the Culture section of the website, and the Film subsection. The very first feature that the reader sees after opening the article is, however, the trailer of the reviewed film. The publishers obviously aim for the readers to have a visual idea of what the film is about before reading the opinion piece. Then there is a headline, certain number of stars as awarded by the author (again, one being the lowest, five the highest possible score), and the sub-headline. These all have the same function which is to give the readers an idea about the reviewer’s opinion and pique their interest. Following is the name of the author and the date of publishing. The next feature contains some extra information about the film which the Guardian reviews do not provide. They are names of the director and the main actors staring in the film, the length of the film in minutes, and a type of certificate. Based on its content, every film falls under certain certificate which essentially determines how appropriate the film is for children and younger members of the audience. The classification differs in different countries. According to imdb.com, in the United Kingdom the certificates are as follows:

E – Exempt from classification U – Universal, suitable for all PG – Parental Guidance, some scenes may be unsuitable for kids 12A – Parental Advisory, children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult 15 – Passed only for persons 15 and over 18 – Passed only for persons 18 and over R18 – Passed only for persons 18 and over, in specially licensed sex shops or cinemas (IMDb)

The text of the review itself ranges in length from 5 to 16 paragraphs, with the average number of words being 728,6 per article. Each review describes the plot of the film, some of them in more detail than other, number of authors also provide a cultural or historical background of the storyline. Then they highlight either positive or negative attributes of various aspects of the piece, most often actor performances, director’s work, soundtrack, production of the film, the motifs, etc.

3 Analysis

As established earlier, authors of the publications explored in the first part of the thesis agree that there is no precise definition of the review genre, whether they discuss the content, format, or linguistic features of the genre. To challenge their convictions, this chapter of the thesis further examines and analyses the review sample, compiled of the 40 film reviews published by the two major British newspapers, from different points of view. It searches for specific features or recurring patterns that could help further define the genre. At the end of the chapter, the conclusions will either confirm the convictions and theories from the first chapter or establish new findings which could enhance the already established data on the given topic.

3.1 Format diversity of the film review genre

The first common characteristic of the reviews is the online platform, the second is the structure of the articles. Both newspapers publish their articles in very similar visual styles and structures. They both use captivating headlines and sub-headlines, as well as star- awarding evaluation system. This particular feature is very relatable for the readers, since many of them use it themselves while posting their own reviews and opinion pieces on popular film review websites, such as imdb.com. All of the articles also contain photographs and trailers of the film.

Very important feature to consider is the length of the articles. In this aspect, the reviews begin to differ. In general, there is a significant difference in length between print newspapers and the online media. According to Bednář (2011) the print version is limited by its format, the number of pages, their size, and the layout which always stays the same, issue after issue. As opposed to online news, which offers practically unlimited space for its articles. And while this is a big advantage, the online format is not necessarily without downsides. Although the authors do not have to limit their reporting in terms of characters or number of paragraphs, consequently they have to give a lot of thought to their audience’s ability to concentrate.

Especially articles which fall into the category of soft news. In contrast to hard news, which needs to be concise and focused on delivering the key information about current events, soft

18 news articles tend to be longer and more eloquent. They should, however, still be comprehensible and compelling. And it is the author’s job to find the right balance between the two.

Bednář (2011) further specifies the issue and explains that some of the articles in the print newspapers are still measured by number of lines, while most of the online articles are defined by number of characters. There is a term ‘kilo-character’ which stands for one thousand characters, including spaces. Hard news articles are generally written in one or two kilo-characters, the maximum, however, should be no more than three, excluding headlines and sub-headlines. Soft news being lengthier, as discussed earlier, usually ranges from five to seven kilo-characters per article. But the general rule, applying to both categories, is that sometimes less is more. (Bednář, 2011, p. 114)

According to this characterization, review writers seem to have much more freedom in their writing compared to their colleagues in the hard news category, as far as quantity goes. Nevertheless, they need to be careful with their words, and not let the quantity trump the quality. Boring the audience is not an attribute that a journalist, or writer of any kind, wants to be associated with.

Following table presents information about the number of characters, i.e. the kilo-characters, in the selected review articles from The Guardian and The Independent. It provides comparison of the two newspapers and calculates the average number of kilo-characters their reviews contain.

Table 4: Length comparison of the film reviews

The Guardian The Independent

kilo- kilo- Title of the reviewed film Title of the reviewed film characters characters Amazing Grace 4,390 Aquaman 6,370 An Elephant Sitting Still 1,628 Bad Times at the El Royale 2,468 Assassination Nation 1,393 Been So Long 3,756 Dumplin’ 4,622 Bohemian Rhapsody 3,819 Evelyn 2,133 Bumblebee 4,665 Make Us Dream 2,058 Creed II 5,922 Mandy 1,285 Fantastic Beasts 4,698

Marry Poppins Returns 4,536 Holmes & Watson 4,579 Nancy 1,666 Mandy 3,004 Night of the Living Dead 1,880 Mary Poppins Returns 5,799 Private Life 2,189 Mowgli – Legend of the Jungle 3,507 Sometimes Always Never 2,921 Papillon 4,738 Spider Man 1,746 Ralph Breaks the Internet 3,989 Super November 1,882 The Christmas Chronicles 3,658 Surviving Christmas with the The Nutcracker and the Four 1,693 3,925 Relatives Realms The Nutcracker and the Four 2,063 The Old Man and the Gun 4,478 Realms (I) The Nutcracker and the Four 1,754 They Shall Not Grow Old 5,504 Realms (II) The Old Man and the Gun 2,126 Three Identical Strangers 3,131 Utoya – July 22 1,067 Utoya – July 22 5,915 Vice 4,500 VS 2,147

Average of kilo-characters 2,377 Average of kilo-characters 4,304

According to these numbers, the length of the reviews differs considerably, not only between the two newspapers, but also within them.

The reviews published by The Guardian range from 1,067 to 4,622 kilo-characters, with average of 2,377 kilo-characters per article. The shortest article is written by Simran Hans, who writes only two-paragraph-long review of the film Utoya – Jully 22. In contrast to the longest article, which is Jake Nevin’s Dumplin’ review consisting of nine paragraphs. From the point of view of Bednář’s classification, none of the articles published by the Guardian reaches the range of five to seven kilo-characters, which he finds the standard length of the soft news articles.

The Independent reviews are significantly longer. With average of 4,304 kilo-articles, they are almost twice as long as the ones published by The Guardian. The shortest and the longest review, even though written by the same author, chief film critic Geoffrey Macnab, differ fairly. An article about the film VS only written in six paragraphs consists of 2,147 kilo- characters, while the review of Aquaman extends over eleven long paragraphs, containing 6,370 kilo-characters.

Considering the whole review sample, there is a total of 40 review articles published by two different newspapers, the articles range from 1,067 to 6,370 kilo-characters, with the average of 3,341 kilo-characters per article. These numbers demonstrate that not only do the review articles differ in length considerably, they also stray from the standards set for the soft news genre as stated by Bednář. Expanding on his argument, it may also very well be the writers’ intention of putting quality over quantity and agreeing with him on the notion that ‘sometimes less is more’. Nevertheless, based on their length, the review articles prove to be very diverse.

3.2 Subjectivity of the content

The subjectivity and diversity of the content is essentially given by the genre description itself. Every review is different because the object of their critique is different, and the author is different as well. Different people prefer different genres of films, enjoy different performances, fancy different actors or directors, it is simply about one’s taste. And even though a good critic should always offer some evidence to support the claims, his or her personal opinion or impression will always surface somewhere in the article. Every article is therefore subjective to a certain extent.

Within the review sample there are four films which were reviewed by both The Guardian and The Independent writers, in one case the former even published two different reviews of the same film. Exploring these reviews in more detail, can highlight the subjective nature of the review content.

The following table lists the headlines, number of stars awarded, and authors of the film reviews published by both The Guardian and The Independent.

Table 5: Authors’ evaluation of the films Title Number of Headline of the review Author/Newspaper of the film stars Mandy review – Nicholas Cage’s rage rings *** Simran Hans/G hollow Mandy Mandy review: A primal revenge drama *** Geoffrey Macnab/I that’s inventive, funny and very macabre Mary Poppins Returns review – a spoonful of state-of-the-art genetically modified *** Peter Bradshaw/G Mary Poppins sweetener Returns Mary Poppins Returns review: Pays homage **** Geoffrey Macnab/I to the original, but finds its own footing (I) The Nutcracker and the Four Realms *** Cath Clarke/G review – a festival of winter schmaltz The (II) The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Nutcracker ** Wendy Ide/G review – the Disney princess story respun and the Four The Nutcracker and the Four Realms review: Realms The Disney formula strikes again, but it’s *** Clarisse Loughrey/I luscious to a fault Utoya: July 22 review – harrowing but ** Simran Hans/G manipulative Utoya: July 22 Utoya – July 22 review: Concentrates on capturing the sheer hellishness of the **** Geoffrey Macnab/I teenagers’ experiences

The First title reviewed by both newspapers is the film Mandy. The first and possibly last thing the two reviews have in common is the number of stars. Both Simran Hans from the Guardian, and Geoffrey Macnab from the Independent awarded the film with three stars, which signifies their ranking of the film is slightly above average. After that, they do not even agree on the genre of the film, Hans’ review classifies it as a thriller, Macnab as a horror movie and a revenge drama. From the very beginning it is clear that Hans’ review will not be very positive, attributing the main actor’s rage as ringing hollow right there in the headline, and calling the film ‘all style and no substance’ in the sub-headline (Hans, 2018). Even though he later admits that there are things to enjoy, one of them being the soundtrack in the film, and highlights one particular scene, in none of the three paragraphs does the author show praise for the piece.

Geoffrey Macnab, reviewing the same film for The Independent, however, extends his evaluation over six paragraphs, using very positive attributes in the headline, then promising relish for those watching the main actor’s performance. He reminds the readers of Nicolas Cage’s previous roles before describing the current one in the film, and then continues to explain the storyline. Unlike Hans, he finds the soundtrack in the film deafening, the dialogues mumbled and distorted. Later on, he adds background information about the setting, includes a few lines from the film, and mentions the director’s work, too, not in very positive way though. Even though he finds a few negative aspects, Macnab concludes by saying the film picks up momentum, and is inventive and funny as well as very macabre (Macnab, 2018).

These two reviews demonstrate that even though based on the number of stars, the writers seem to rank the film on the same level, the articles create very different impressions of what their opinion actually is.

The second film reviewed by both newspapers is Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel to original Mary Poppins movie from 1964. Both authors offer a lengthy opinion piece which details the plot of the film, but also dedicate a significant part of the article comparing the sequel to its original version. They praise the production of the new film, its visual aspects as well as the musical numbers, and of course the performances, especially the leading character played by actress Emily Blunt. And they both conclude the review by complimenting the nostalgia of the sequel which should be one of the reasons for the fans of the original film to love the new

23 one just as much. Nonetheless, the Guardian review written by Peter Bradshaw falls a little behind and assigns only three stars to the film, as opposed to the Macnab’s four-star piece. The explanation is hidden in the third paragraph of the former article, where Bradshaw confesses: “But at the risk of annoying the faithful, I have to admit I was never a massive fan of the original, which starts terrifically and ends cloyingly (just like this new one)” (Bradshaw, 2018).

This explicit expression of personal opinion demonstrates how author’s taste, his preferences and previous experiences were imprinted in the article. Explicitly stated in the review or not, writers all have their own personal opinions and preferences, and even while striving for objectivity, they always influence the writing to a certain extent.

The film titled The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was not only reviewed by both newspapers, but even reviewed twice by The Guardian. The first of the two is written by Cath Clarke and by awarding the film with three stars and calling it enchanting, she essentially ranks the film on the same level as Clarisse Loughrey, who covers the same piece for the Independent. Distinguishing itself from the two is the third review of the film written by Wendy Ide and published in the Guardian, for the second time. Ide’s short three-paragraph review finds fault in the thin plot, awarding only two stars to the film. These three reviews demonstrate that differences of opinion can occur not only between newspapers, but also within them.

Fourth example of a film reviewed by both newspapers is a documentary reflecting on tragic massacre in Norway, Utoya: July 22. The Guardian’s Simran Hans calls the film harrowing but manipulative and manages to find only one positive attribute of the movie, which according to him is the fact that it was filmed in real time as one continuous take. Other than that, he essentially questions the film’s ability to provide reflection or catharsis, and criticizes dubious twists inserted to create ‘additional sympathy’ (Hans, 2018). According to the author, the film only deserves two stars.

Although The Independent’s chief critic agrees with Hans on the fact that the film does not provide any catharsis or explanation of the horrifying events it was based on, Macnab does not perceive it as a negative, and admires the film’s attributes over ten-paragraph-long review. He also highlights that the story unfolds in real time of the massacre and praises the

24 filmmakers for “capturing the sheer hellishness of the teenagers’ experience”. He appreciates the authenticity of the piece, as well as its ‘surrealistic quality’. Concluding the review, he answers a question that Hans also poses in his article but, as to why someone would turn such a horrible tragedy into a film in the first place. Hans’ question is only rhetorical, Macnab however provides the answer as he concludes his four-star review.

In the news report, the 69 who died during the attack on the island and the many others who suffered horrific injury and trauma were seen simply as passive and anonymous victims while the killer hijacked the headlines. Poppe (the director) wants to turn this perspective the other way round so that our focus is entirely on the teenagers and the killer is the one who fades into the background. (Macnab, 2018)

Comparing the two reviews clearly demonstrates that different authors can highlight the same feature in a film but evaluate or interpret it in completely diametric ways. This case particularly demonstrates how very subjective the review genre can be.

For the sake of the argument, one other example of content diversity can be made exploring Clarisse Loughrey’s review of Bohemian Rhapsody published by The Independent.

This film attracted enormous amount of attention and was adored by fans all over the world, mainly because it celebrates the music of Queen, one of the world’s most successful bands and icons of popular music. Clarisse Loughrey however, shared much less enthusiastic opinion, rating the movie with two stars only. Beginning with a headline that reads ‘This karaoke-style paean is all style, no soul’, she establishes her review will be more of a negative nature. Even though she expresses her admiration of Queen as she compares their 1985 live performance to a ‘proclamation from Mount Olympus’, she certainly does not compliment the performances in the film. Expanding on the role of Rami Malek who portrays the frontman of the band, Freddie Mercury, she is not very generous with words of praise either. As she puts it, despite his very best efforts, the film does not deliver as a ‘satisfying biopic on Mercury’. Although she later attributes some positive qualities to his performance, claiming that “if given better material to work with, would surely have made Malek part of the awards conversation” (Loughrey, 2018).

Three months after the review was published, Bohemian Rhapsody became one of the films with the most nominations for upcoming Academy awards. Better known as the Oscars, they are considered to be the most prestigious awards in the film industry. At the 91st Academy Award ceremony, Bohemian rhapsody won four Oscars for best sound editing, best sound mixing, best film editing, and Rami Malek won best actor in a leading role (Ocars 2019: Winners in full, 2019).

It is evident that Clarisse Loughrey and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences obviously do not share the same views on the aspects of this particular film.

After examining several examples of contrasting reviews, it is very clear that content of the review articles is very diverse, and it is nearly impossible for two people to agree on every single aspect of a film review. The genre in general is very subjective, and is influenced by many factors, including the author’s taste, interests or attitudes toward the piece.

3.3 The use of informal language

Written texts typically use more formal language. On the other hand, the review writers strive to be persuasive, convey personal opinions, write relatable articles, and use colourful and evaluative language. This suggests that the review articles are written in rather informal language. The review sample will provide a corpus for testing this hypothesis.

Considering the level of formality, an enquiry into the point of view from which the reviews are written can be useful. 35% of The Guardian reviews (7/20) are written in third person only, The Independent sample contains 40% reviews (8/20) whose authors write in third person only. The rest of the articles, i.e. 65% reviews from the Guardian and 60% reviews from the Independent use first, or second person point of view at least once in the text. The following tables provide excerpts from the review articles, using first, and second person point of view.

Table 6: Examples of informal language in The Guardian reviews

The Guardian film reviews First, or second point of view as used in the review

a film that the subject didn’t want you to see. Amazing Grace And we can quibble close to 90 minutes I sat with chills up and down my spine it feels as though we are watching something we’re not An Elephant Sitting Still supposed to be seeing Assassination Nation online hysteria that you are likely to wince your way through Dumplin’ tells you all you need to know about the source Evelyn - Make Us Dream - I’m not sure its metalhead aesthetic services much more than Mandy mood. I have to admit I was never a massive fan of the original Marry Poppins Returns I admire it for its craftsmanship and technique Nancy - Night of the Living Dead - In the more Hollywood version, you’d get Bradley Cooper Private Life wait until you’ve got a career, but hang on, you’re as barren as the colonies in The Handmaid’s Tale by the time you hit 30. Sometimes Always Never - Spider Man - King and Long might be asking us We will be tootling inoffensively along in our jolly little lives, Super November each of us the hero or heroine of the unassuming little romcom that is our existence Surviving Christmas with the But my pick for nadir is Miranda’s twin boys Relatives I have to admit to being helplessly enchanted The Nutcracker and the Four The Nutcracker will take you from zero to Christmas jumper Realms (I) I suspect in years to come TV schedulers may feel the same The Nutcracker and the Four - Realms (II) a tide of goodwill that makes you realise just how much you The Old Man and the Gun are enjoying spending time with these incorrigible old-timers. Utoya – July 22 I’m not convinced either film offers much this movie made me think of Citizen Kane But the stylised inserts reminded me a bit more Vice far less powerful and important than we thought him at the time

Table 7: Examples of informal language in The Independent reviews

The Independent film revies First, or second person point of view as used in the review

Arthur/Aquaman tells us in a voice-over Aquaman We see Arthur as a kid when you think, by rights, they should be garling Bad Times at the El Royale to make sure that we don’t know quite what is going on as we see dancers half-heartedly performing Been So Long Coel and Kene somehow convince us of the intensity Bohemian Rhapsody - Bumblebee - combination that we haven’t seen countless times You see it coming. Creed II Do we really need to spend so much time with Adonis few seconds could surely have let us know that but we are shown very little of Adonis and Rocky You need to be good at family trees to keep up Fantastic Beasts making sure that we are always aware We are whisked from New York to London Holmes & Watson - Mandy - Mary Poppins Returns - Mowgli – Legend of the Jungle So bleak you almost admire Serkis’s audacity. We see him first with his head sticking out of a gap Papillon We can guess in advance just when characters are going However, just as we might also predict, Ralph Breaks the Internet wants us to feel just as wonderstruck as Vanellope, as jaded as we might be Ralph Breaks the Internet it dares us to feel hopeful about the future It dares us as Walt Disney himself once did, You have to go back over a decade we find Santa having an absolute shocker The Christmas Chronicles Santa’s hampered by police, who you think would have enough The Nutcracker and the Four - Realms The Old Man and the Gun earnest do-gooder preaching to us from the Utah mountain tops You might have thought there was nothing new to say In case we are not getting the point They Shall Not Grow Old Jackson takes us through the war in broadly chronological fashion. Three Identical Strangers - The ground, we quickly discover, is very wet under foot. Utoya – July 22 we will catch a glimpse of a screen image so that our focus is entirely on the teenagers VS -

The usage of the first, and second person point of view, as used in 25 out of the 40 reviews suggest that the authors of these reviews tend to use rather informal language. It is used mainly to express their opinion and persuade the reader of the merits behind their own judgement and make the article more relatable to the audience.

Another indicator of the informal language can be the use of contracted forms. Out of the 40 reviews, Peter Bradshaw’s Nancy review article is the only one where the contracted forms do not occur. Every other article uses various amount of contractions.

3.3 Corpus-based analysis

In their publication Corpus linguistics: investigating language structure and use, Biber et al (1998) provide their readers with four essential characteristics of corpus-based analysis. They are as follows: - it is empirical, analyzing the actual patterns of use in natural texts; - it utilizes a large and principled collection of natural texts, known as a “corpus,” as the basis for analysis; - it makes extensive use of computers for analysis, using both automatic and interactive techniques; - it depends on both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques (Biber at al, 1998, p. 4).

To implement the analysis, a corpus was compiled from the 40 film reviews using Sketch Engine, online software provided by the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University. It is a tool whose algorithms allow its users to create their own corpora and analyse authentic texts of their own selection, but also offers access to existing corpora in many different languages. One of them being the British National Corpus (BNC) which consists of 100 million words of written and spoken English language. Accessibility of the BNC offers various possibilities, for instance comparison between the two corpora and their data.

3.3.1 Film review corpus

As stated earlier, the corpus compiled for the purposes of this analysis, consists of 40 review articles published by two major British newspapers, the Guardian and the Independent. It contains 1 120 sentences, 24 251 words and 28 169 tokens2, as generated by the Sketch Engine. As the corpus-based analysis is commonly used for simply counting the occurrence of linguistic items and providing frequency indicating data, the following table presents a wordlist of the 100 most frequent lemmas3 that the corpus is comprised of.

2 including punctuation marks 3 A lemma is a basic form of a word as found in a dictionary, the frequency of given lemma in a corpus accounts for all forms of the given word, such as all verb forms, etc. For the purposes of the analysis, punctuation is not included in the list. 30

Table 8: List of the 100 most frequently used lemmas

Lemma Frequency Lemma Freq. Lemma Freq. Lemma Freq.

the 1 436 its 98 so 48 show 32 be 955 they 98 you 48 no 32 a 703 who 92 can 46 much 32 and 644 do 84 also 44 way 31 of 627 their 79 here 43 give 30 in 506 one 79 look 42 world 29 to 503 out 78 time 42 story 29 as 253 or 76 get 41 go 29 with 231 there 75 if 40 still 29 have 224 about 72 character 40 too 29 it 222 like 68 just 40 christmas 28 his 200 will 64 review 40 disney 28 he 199 she 63 even 39 other 28 that 198 very 61 scene 39 i 28 on 175 when 61 life 39 only 28 film 166 make 60 some 39 young 27 not 155 all 59 first 39 them 27 but 143 which 58 what 39 seem 27 for 134 up 58 take 37 director 27 by 123 into 56 see 37 now 27 at 119 him 53 man 35 try 26 an 113 more 53 come 34 year 26 her 110 we 52 new 34 good 26 this 109 movie 52 than 32 may 26 from 106 play 50 turn 32 though 26

As demonstrated by the wordlist, the most frequently used lemma of the review articles is the definite article the, followed by several other functional words such as other determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and interjections. The second most frequent word is the verb be. As can be seen in the table, the use of lexical words carrying certain meaning, i.e. verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, is far less frequent. Second verb have is listed as the tenth most frequent lemma, followed by other functional words with the first noun being film, occupying the sixteenth place on the list. Only one other noun is listed in the first fifty lemmas and that is movie, as a matter of fact a synonym to the first noun presented. This is a common phenomenon. By comparing this corpus to the British National Corpus, as available at the Sketch Engine, it can be concluded that as far as the frequency of the lemmas, the two share a great degree of patterns. In this respect, the former and significantly smaller sample of language therefore proves to be representative of the latter, one of the utmost collections of

31 the English language. In both corpora, the two most frequently used lemmas are the and be respectively (punctuation not included). The very first noun in the British National Corpus only appears at the beginning of the second half of the hundred most frequent lemmas and it is time. It occupies the exact place in the frequency wordlist of the review corpus in which it is listed as the third noun after the two mentioned above. Given the topic of the research sample being film reviews, it is to be expected that the two most frequently used nouns should be film and movie. However, considering the specifics of the research sample, another important word class should be further emphasized. As evaluation assumes the essential role of the reviews, it is adjectives above all which carry the evaluative function of a discourse. Following paragraph discusses a specific function which can be performed by the use of adjectives.

As established earlier, the genre of review falls under the category of soft news. Out of the two, it is the category of hard news which puts more emphasis on objectivity. Nevertheless, according to Busà, (2014) journalists can never reach complete objectivity in their writing, no matter which category they fall into. “Reporters strive to use neutral language to tell their stories. But language is itself a social construct and cannot be neutral. As we shall see later, journalists make lexical and grammatical choices, both consciously and unconsciously, that reflect their ideology. And ideology also conditions readers’ interpretation of news texts. In other words, news texts are subjectively written and subjectively interpreted. A typical example is the use of adjectives, which can betray the writers’ judgment on the narrated event” (Busá, 2014, p.33). Following the notion of adjectives being the evidence of subjectivity in the reviews, the use of adjectives in the research sample will be the primary focus of attention hereafter.

3.3.2 The use of adjectives in the review sample

According to the Sketch Engine algorithm, the corpus compiled of the film reviews contains 1 108 adjectives of total frequency 2 203. However, after closer examination of the wordlist, it was discovered that apart from adjectives, there were also adverbs, pronouns and determiners included in the list, therefore the overall number of adjectives used in the corpus is lower than stated above. The inaccuracy could be attributed to occurrence of words which may belong to more than one word class depending on the context in which they are used, as well as a potential nuance in the algorithm of the software. When compared to the British National Corpus, however, such discrepancies were not found. This shows that modern technologies provide vast opportunities, but diligence is still required while utilizing such resources. After revision, following table of the 100 most frequently used adjectives of the reviews was compiled.

Table 9: List of the 100 most frequently used adjectives

Lemma Frequency Lemma Freq. Lemma Freq. Lemma Freq.

good 26 previous 8 black 6 naive 4 other 25 bad 8 only 5 nice 4 own 24 magical 8 corporate 5 manipulative 4 young 23 main 8 astonishing 5 clear 4 new 22 Bohemian 7 romantic 5 grim 4 late 17 extreme 7 recent 5 apparent 4 old 16 familiar 7 likeable 5 wrong 4 same 15 festive 7 quiet 5 comic 4 final 14 particular 7 clever 5 intriguing 4 human 13 big 7 central 5 identical 4 British 13 special 7 private 5 social 4 real 12 long 7 brutal 5 intelligent 4 dark 11 animated 7 angry 5 missing 4 full 10 emotional 7 dramatic 5 chaotic 4 great 10 due 7 ironic 5 interesting 4 last 10 ready 7 personal 5 short 4 American 10 underwater 6 smart 5 fascinating 4 true 10 sheer 6 single 5 raw 4 hard 10 narrative 6 fellow 4 brief 4 different 9 certain 6 bizarre 4 oppressive 4 funny 9 former 6 right 4 conventional 4 early 9 beloved 6 inventive 4 local 4 original 9 live 6 sentimental 4 elderly 4 musical 9 high 6 sure 4 white 4 little 8 visual 6 strange 4 technical 4

After initial examination of the list, most of the adjectives listed are commonly used in English language, some more frequently than others. For instance, just in the first column, as many as 18 out of 25 adjectives are also listed in the 100 most frequently used adjectives in the British National Corpus. According to the BNC, the five most frequently used adjectives in English language are: other, new, good, old, different respectively, three of them being listed within the five most frequently used in the review sample as well. On the other hand, there are adjectives such as musical, magical, animated, narrative, visual, romantic, dramatic, ironic, sentimental, bizarre, manipulative, grim, comic which are not necessarily occupying the highest positions on the BNC list but as directly connected to the genre of film reviews are expected to appear on the most frequent list of the review sample. It is interesting to examine the frequency of the use of adjectives in the review sample, more important, however, is their significance in the manner they are used by the reviewers in context and how the writer’s judgement and subjectivity can be expressed, sometimes explicitly, sometimes covertly, through the use of adjectives. The use of adjectives for evaluation.

3.3.3 Polarity of evaluation

As discussed earlier, evaluation is the primary role of reviews. This chapter focuses on this feature, specifically the polarity of evaluation, by exploring the distribution of positive and negative evaluation within the review sample.

An article by Lorés-Sanz (2012) issued in the Brno Studies in English, journal published by the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, explores comparison between British and Spanish history book reviews. The author claims that not only language but also culture of reviewers determines the polarity of evaluation. According to the article, both British and Spanish reviewers incline to use praise, i.e. positive evaluation, more frequently. At the same time, the British do not avoid criticism in their reviews and sometimes the two can be well balanced. The Spanish, however, tend to refrain from negative evaluation and consequently their reviews are filled with praise alone. The author argues that, as a result, they “do not successfully fulfil their most significant communicative function: the evaluation of new knowledge” (Lorés-Sanz, 2012, p. 98).

By examining the list of hundred most frequently used adjectives in the review sample, the most positive adjectives indicating praise are as follows: “good, great, funny, festive, beloved, astonishing, likeable, clever, smart, right, inventive, nice, intriguing, intelligent, interesting and fascinating”. On the other end of the evaluative scale there is the use of adjectives which are indicative of negative evaluation: “dark, hard, bad, brutal, angry, bizarre, strange, naive, manipulative, grim, wrong, missing, chaotic and oppressive”. It can be concluded that findings of the previously mentioned article by Lorés-Sanz are applicable to this case. The film reviews all published in British newspapers contain both praise and criticism, the former being more frequent, but not significantly, as they seem to be almost well balanced.

In order to properly explore the polarity of evaluation, however, not only explicit evaluative acts but also context needs to be considered. As Hunston and Thompson (2000) explain, individual words and phrases have inherent meaning as well as connotations of positive or negative evaluation. They argue that there are two aspects of meaning, semantic and pragmatic. The former is given by a definition of a word in dictionary, the latter, encoded in context, is an additional component. Therefore, apart from the central explicit meaning, other

35 aspects of meaning, such as association and context, should be taken into consideration. The significance of context is also highlighted in the notion of semantic prosody.

The notion of semantic prosody (or pragmatic meaning) is that a given word or phrase may occur most frequently in the context of other words or phrases which are predominantly positive or negative in their evaluative orientation (‘polarity’ is the term that Channell uses). As a result, the given word takes on an association with the positive or, more usually, the negative, and this association can be exploited by speakers to express evaluative meaning covertly (Hunston and Thompson, 2000, p. 38).

Method

Following on the information previously stated in this chapter, it is clear that, in order to analyse evaluative lexis in the review sample, not only the inherent meaning of words, in this case adjectives, needs to be considered, but also their use in context and occurring associations. For this purpose, the Sketch Engine offers a “Concordance” function. It allows its users to instantly generate context to any word or phrase of their choosing.

Polarity of evaluation will be determined by applying a ‘bottom up’ method suggested and demonstrated by Hunston and Thomspon (2000), indicating that large number of examples should be used. For this reason, concordances will be generated by the Sketch Engine for the most frequently used adjectives, as listed earlier. These concordances will be searched for evidence of positive and negative polarity. It was previously stated that corpus-based analysis uses both quantitative and qualitative techniques, at this point the quantitative records provided by the corpus will be interpreted in a qualitative analysis. On account of utilizing the corpus, analysis of evaluation allows systematic observations which go beyond intuition. Apart from searching for evidence of positive and negative polarity, search for association patterns will be included, such as common co-occurrences in the review sample and the possibility of evaluative polarity being shifted depending on context and choice of referents to which certain attributes are being applied, notion suggested by Hunston and Thompson (2000).

Table 10.1: Concordance examples for good

original songs for the film, Dumplin' is often good fun, as in a scene where a vivacious group of Texan drag queens breakfast joint, and lounging in the pool with her best friend Ellen. The film takes its name from the sweet but unintentionally premise is nevertheless full of potential. There is a better version of Fletcher's film that is less one-note, but Dumplin' adheres to the her daughter's crusade, and then impressed by it; a best friend who decides, to Dumplin's chagrin, that she likes the beauty pageant who joins Willowdean's protest). That the best lines are Parton's own - "It's hard being a diamond in a rhinestone world" "It's hard being a diamond in a rhinestone world"; "It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen" - tells you all Christina Choe's strong debut feature. There are good performances and interesting, though undeveloped, narrative ideas can be conjured. Riseborough, Cameron and Buscemi are all good in difficult roles: there is a fascinating moment when they meet with the wherewithal to do something about the crisis. He's good at boarding up windows and hand-to-hand combat, though certain type of loneliness spectrum. He is simultaneously very good with words and absolutely terrible with them. He can't make makes his own kites: who does that? "). Josie shares a flat with her best friend, the gentle Darren and they hang out with their horrible, were at least smart and rational people who had the good taste to stay out of the limelight personally, and you sort of knew neat twist involving the voiceover narrator. Basically, it's a better film than The Big Short because of a big, enjoyable, intelligent growling leviathans and head-banging sharks. Director James Wan (best known previously for his horror movies) somehow manages "you need to get your piece wet". By chance, she meets the soulful, good looking Raymond who is fresh out of prison and living Bar Arizona, presided over by the phlegmatic Barney has seen better days. Barney is behind on his council tax payments The latter is the most harshly underserved, despite Malek's very best efforts. While studiously nailing Mercury's theatrical approach their enemies. They have a plan to wipe out the Autobots for good and are ready to destroy the planet in the process Jude Law, Johnny Depp. Cert 12A, 133 mins. You need to be good at family trees to keep up with the second Fantastic Beastsfeature everybody from the Carpenters to Neil Young. Lines like, "Take a good look, you worthless piece of human excrement. working in a lowly job at the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. He is not good with money and has taken out a loan he can't pay back. "It's just something your mother tells you to feel good about yourself," he yells, "because you came out wrong". rehabilitate the prisoners. "We know that is useless so we do our best to break you," the warden warns Henri. These early scenes Danish-made contemporary prison drama, R. The convicts cope as best as they can in an extremely hostile and violent environment. these celebrity cameos we're reminded of what is still Netflix's best festive effort to date, Sofia Coppola's A Very Murray Christmas. the camaraderie of the soldiers and their ability to make the best of any given situation - in true British fashion. Jackson takes us

Good, together with its comparative and superlative form better and the best, is the most frequently used adjective of the review sample. Its inherently positive meaning implies positive evaluation when expressing one’s judgement or attitude towards a given referent. At the very least from the semantic aspect of meaning, which is defined in a dictionary, as previously discussed. Considering the pragmatic aspect of the meaning, the concordance examples are used in order to discover what is encoded in the context.

This, however, raises an issue which could make decoding context problematic, and it is the sole idea of the pragmatic meaning depending on context and collocations. Consequently, it means that in order to assign positive or negative polarity to a word, one needs to consider its context, but then in order to assign the polarity of the context, the context’s context must be examined, etc. It could trap one’s efforts in a never-ending circle. There is, however, a very

37 good solution to this problem. To assign which collocates of the adjectives carry positive and which carry negative polarity, Collins COBUILD English dictionary (CCED) can be used in the determination. Since it is built on the extensive use of corpora, unlike other dictionaries, it provides its users with vast context and considers the pragmatic meaning. And it is available online. According to Hunston and Thompson (2000) pragmatic meaning is “coded” in this dictionary. Following examples of the collocates are therefore assigned their positive or negative polarity using the Collins online dictionary.

According in the concordance examples, good collocates with following positive descriptors: fun, friend(s), efforts, cope.

Because it is the word good which carries the inherently positive semantic meaning, in most examples of the concordance it collocates with inherently neutral words which, given the co- occurrence, creates an evaluative phrase where the positive polarity is ultimately determined by the use of the adjective, such as: better version of, best lines, good thing, all good in, good with words, good taste, better film, best known for, good looking, he’s good at, feel good about yourself, do our best, to make the best of.

The only example of negative polarity is expressed not through co-occurrence with other lexical features, as in the previous examples, but through grammatical pattern using not to deliberately change the polarity of the phrase: not good with money.

A specific concordance example is take a good look at which in this context is followed by some offensive language. To take a good look at something is a commonly used idiom whose inherent meaning, to examine something more closely or in more detail, seems to be neutral in polarity, nevertheless, this example suggests negative connotations. After searching for further concordance examples of this phrase in the British National Corpus, similar examples of this phrase followed by offensive or even vulgar language were found there, however, most of the examples were neutral. This suggests that take a good look at something can in some cases have negative connotations, but overall concordance does not suggest a general tendency of associations with either positive or negative polarity.

Table 10.2: Concordance examples for other

revenge thriller that rewards its audience with, among other things, a bloody chainsaw duel, exploding grey goo and a live tiger compared with the sensational ending of Julie Andrews' other great film. Let's all fly a kite? In The Sound of Music, it was: let’s all do a decentish Cockney accent. Michael's creditor is none other than the Fidelity Fiduciary, the bank that once employed his father unsure whether to take her possible daughter's hand. Other dramatic third-act possibilities could have been looked at, more twists that has sparked mixed feelings in the heart of his other, now grownup son Peter (Riley) who feels that he was always second-best. gazing at their phones and being affectionately funny at each other's expense. It is an authentically weird left turn. But the dawnings Midway through the movie, for no particular reason other than that it brings them closer to antiquity, Arthur and Mera decamp with the fight scenes too. Antagonists hurl tridents at each other in a ceremonial "ring of fire" or engage in ferocious massed battles director due to DGA guidelines. What's arrived at the other side of this troubled production history is a work that's all spirit, no soul. resentment of her stepdad. Nobody much likes Charlie other than her nerdy neighbour Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr) who has a very Autobots are little different from similar set-pieces in other Transformers films. What gives this episode some buzz, though, combination that we haven't seen countless times before in other Rocky or boxing movies. Every twist in the tale is signalled ourselves, and plenty of slow-motion shots of one or other man hitting the canvas. The film's attitude towards boxing is ambivalent. his animals - his beloved nifflers, kelpies and assorted other creepy-crawlies. After the happenings in the last movie, he is still with a screenplay that gives him so little to work with. Other prominent members of the cast - Ralph Fiennes as villain Moriarty, conjured up by the filmmakers. For no particular reason, other than to add to the prevailing mood of extreme strangeness, being based on the same "true story", but of countless other movies about long-term incarceration, whether Midnight Express gift opening background TV, however, with none other than Kurt Russell playing the main man. Santa Claus has never a little help from a cellmate who is played by none other than Steve Van Zandt (Bruce Springsteen's guitarist and Sil from greenlighting every classic for a live-action remake; the other has been to break down and reuse the narrative ingredients Peter Jackson's astonishing WW1 documentary is like no other. No 'Lord of the Rings' battle could match the sheer hellishness Kaja will be shown lying in the undergrowth as other teenagers run in desperation past her, either in packs or on their own. shot at by a maniac. One dreams of a "nice hot bath". The other yearns to be in the final of a big football competition. the headlines. Poppe wants to turn this perspective the other way round so that our focus is entirely on the teenagers and the killer they are boxers or UFC fighters, but then attack each other with words. They're vicious in the way they ridicule and taunt one

Unlike the previously discussed adjective, other is not inherently marked with positive or negative polarity, it simply refers to additional people or things which share certain features. Its polarity is therefore determined by its collocations.

As the concordance examples demonstrate, other most commonly collocates with conjunction than. Out of the 25 concordance examples, the collocation other than occurs in six of them. Additionally, in three of these six occurrences, none is also added before that collocation.

Cited concordance examples of other than are all preceded by a negative statement: for no particular reason, nobody much likes Charlie, for no particular reason; and followed by a phrase which is presented as the exception to that statement: other than it brings them closer, other than her nerdy neighbour, other than to add to the prevailing mood.

The additional none preceding the other than collocation, further shifts the meaning of the phrase: Michael’s creditor is none other than the Fidelity Fiduciary, with none other than Kurt Russell playing the main man, played by none other than Steve Van Zandt. The mood of the phrases seems to have a hint of surprise in it. According to the Collins online dictionary, it is the case with none other than (also no other than) since it is used to emphasize the person or the thing which the phrase attributes to in a surprising situation.

It can be concluded that with other, the pragmatic aspect of the meaning has a great deal of significance, and the polarity of evaluation cannot be determined from only the semantic aspect of the meaning.

There are examples where other collocates with negative descriptors: other side of his troubled production history, other creepy-crawlies; as well as positive ones: other great film, other prominent members of the cast. In any of these cases, the polarity is determined by what other collocates with.

Table 10.3: Concordance examples for own who joins Willowdean's protest). That the best lines are Parton's own - "It's hard being a diamond in a rhinestone world"; "It's a good Film-maker Orlando von Einsiedel turns the camera on his own family in this unfiltered exploration of the effects of suicide was still alive. Gradually it emerges that Evelyn took his own life 13 years ago, having struggled with mental illness for years burbling in Make Us Dream), but it's Gerrard's own readiness to open up and reveal something of the agony behind Above all, Gerrard is not afraid to enumerate his own failings: his terror of "fucking it up" in the Champions League no less than five new Spideys, each hailing from their own parallel universe. There is Peter B Parker (Jake Johnson), comes in to do the weekly storytelling session ("He makes his own kites: who does that? "). Josie shares a flat with her best friend, a delinquent who holds him responsible for the calamities in his own love life and now wants to carve him up. The musical routines and "Another One Bites the Dust") are given their own backstory, the beats are usually the same: the band's members are astounded when they discover Decepticons have their own version of the internet, "an interconnected web of information!" judge of character. Predictably, it's only when it comes to his own private life, and the grandson he never sees, that he is stubborn Watson tell the baffled judge that the suspect "pours his own tea".) Rob Brydon looks suitably exasperated as Inspector Lestrade, Nonetheless, the film does pick up momentum. In its own deranged way, it is inventive and funny as well as very macabre review: Pays homage to the original, but finds its own footing **** Sometimes it pays to wait. Half a century on, her allure predecessor while eventually establishing an identity of its own. Emily Blunt is a rather more glamorous nanny than the one of the family home. The three Banks children devise their own money-raising schemes as their father becomes ever more distracted the film was gearing towards release, along came Disney's own remake - also a live-action/CGI combination. To avoid competing audacity. But too often the film stumbles around in its own darkness and falls flat. It is, to paraphrase Kaa, not quite Disney's imagining, it's been successfully defeated by their own incoming streaming service. In short, it's a capitalist love fest The internet is rendered as a utopian city, filled both by its own denizens - from eBay auctioneers to Taraji P Henson's algorithm due to the shock of Disney so readily poking fun at its own product. "I don't even have a mother," Vanellope says at one point colour, and excitement - as filtered through Vanellope's own wide-eyed enchantment - it dares us to feel hopeful about the future. not only for the skills of its performers, but for ballet's own power as a storytelling device. Indeed, The Nutcracker and the Four

Desperately Seeking Susan and eventually opened their own restaurant. They seemed almost like vaudeville entertainers.

As for the polarity, the next most frequent adjective of the review sample own shows similarities to the one previously discussed. Considering the semantic aspect of the word, it is inherently neutral. It indicates something belonging to certain person or a thing. As demonstrated above, it commonly collocates with words which are also neutral in its polarity, such as: own family, own life, own love life, own backstory, own version of, in its own way, its own footing, identity of its own, own restaurant, etc. The positive or negative polarity of evaluation is therefore also, as in the previous case, determined by the collocations, i.e. pragmatic aspect of the meaning needs to be considered rather than the semantic meaning of the word which is negative in polarity by itself.

Table 10.4: Concordance examples for young

at the patriarchy and the expectations placed upon young women by a jaded, content-hungry culture raised on insta-porn imagery bestows honors on thinner, more conventionally attractive young women as Dumplin' looks on from backstage, mourning her aunt tragically common cause of death worldwide, especially for young men. Graceful drone shots of the spectacular landscapes "off on his travels", apparently - but Bert 2.0 is Jack, a young lamplighter, who in keeping with tradition is played by an American hungry for human flesh, but also from Ben a young African American man who proves to be the only character in the movie for its ongoing commitment to diverse casting - the young black British actor Fowora-Knight is lovely as the Nutcracker wannabe MP Kaja (Andrea Berntzen, reminiscent of a young Jennifer Lawrence) searches for her younger sister. Lawrence) searches for her younger sister. The characters in the film are fictionalised but based on the accounts of real survivors Bale shows his man's simple personal evolution. As a young boozer and Yale dropout from Wyoming, Dick gets an almighty, CEO of energy giant Halliburton, before the naive young Dubya called him back as vice-president - a job he effectively reconfigured he suffers a heart attack in the middle of a speech as a young, would-be congressman - and he has been so mumbling, sweaty 125 mins "The belt ain't enough. You need a narrative," young heavyweight Adonis Creed is told by a seedy promoter camp? Here, Rocky (for some reason) has the young fighter pummelling the sand with a hammer and keeping one foot inside Everyone speaks with American accents. Henri is a dashing young safebreaker with a beautiful girlfriend, Nennete (Eve Hewson, fairly dull script and a plot so familiar that even the youngest viewers will see all the twists coming. The Home Alones narrative structure is near identical: an intrepid, intellectually minded young woman stumbles into a magical kingdom nothing would make sense for him. It keeps him young in spirit. He's an inscrutable figure whose real feelings are hard to read. having their brains blown out by snipers. The footage of young recruits preparing for war is especially poignant. You notice His film is entirely from the point of view of the young victims. Breivik's attack on Utøya lasted for 72 minutes. "You'll never understand," Kaja (Andrea Berntzen), the young heroine is heard saying into her phone at the start of the film. Joivan Wade, Kola Bokinni. Cert 15, 97 mins Troubled young adult Adam (Connor Swindells) finds redemption through As in any decent rite of passage story, the vulnerable young hero learns painful lessons about the duplicity of the adult world. family and new friends Swindells plays the angry young rapper in an appealing fashion, capturing both his hostility and resentment

Inherently, as commonly stated in dictionaries, young is not predominantly associated with either positive or negative polarity. It simply refers to the short time frame for which someone or something lived or existed. In different context, however, it can very easily be swayed towards positive, as well as negative pragmatic meaning.

When collocating with words such as women and men, one would assume that the semantic meaning would stay neutral, because young should only attribute them with certain time frame, however, the concordance examples above already suggest differently.

In some cases, the attribution of young collocates with other words creating positive associations: attractive young women, reminiscent of a young Jennifer Lawrence, intellectually minded young woman, young heaveweight Adonis, a dashing young safebreaker, young in spirit, young heroine. In this case, apart from context, also register plays role in assigning the polarity of evaluation.

It is socially accepted that young women are attributed to be beautiful and attractive, but there is also a lot of negativity connected to the concept as it is very well expressed throughout the whole first concordance example: at the patriarchy and the expectations placed upon young women by a jaded, content-hungry culture raised on insta-porn imagery, implying that young women are beautiful but there is a lot of pressure associated with the beauty standards. Young can also be associated with incompetence and lack of experience, such as in the following examples: the naive young Dubya and young, would-be congressman. The first clearly suggests that the views of this young person are not mature enough, the second, not so explicit example, has derogatory connotations of a person who wishes to be something that he is not, according to the Collins dictionary.

As demonstrated by these examples, young is another inherently neutral adjective whose semantic aspect of meaning in itself is not polarized, the pragmatic meaning, however, often varies between both ends of polarity, of which positive seems to be more common.

Table 10.5: Concordance examples for new

Dolly Parton Jake Nevins Thu 6 Dec 2018 19.20 GMT The new Netflix film Dumplin' - the mawkish, rhinestoned lovechild of Glee, theme: songs, characters and plot moments are new versions of the old. The songs aren't bad, and the film is a technical triumph starts terrifically and ends cloyingly (just like this new one), especially its final number, for which this film finds a faithful now employs him as a humble clerk. Yet there is a genial new manager, in the form of William Weatherall Wilkins (Colin Firth), reimagining of the webbed wonder, which introduces no less than five new Spideys. There is a meme floating around the internet, playfully doubles down, introducing no less than five new Spideys, each hailing from their own parallel universe. It is an authentically weird left turn. But the dawnings of this new police state are disturbing in ways they might not have been loving and enthusiastic, but superficial in its sincerity. The new biopic that tracks the band's history, despite using the 1985 gigantic Hasbro toys around which the franchise is based. The new film has its share of apocalyptic battle scenes involving The filmmakers cross cut between Adonis and the brutal new Ukrainian contender, Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). he dresses in black and looks from a distance like a new romantic pop star. In his restraint and quiet malevolence, so leaden here. Reilly is wonderful as Oliver Hardy in new drama Stan & Ollie but, like Ferrell, struggles here with a screenplay spoonfuls of sugar but she still knows just how to make a new generation of Banks children jump to her bidding. The film is set For the kids, she represents magic and endless new possibilities. The nostalgia here could easily have been very cloying. This claustrophobic remake of a classic prison drama has nothing new to say *** Charlie Hunnam throws himself into the role story which has been told before, but it doesn't cast any new light on its central characters or on the system which treated them wielding signs about "sassy housewives" dying to make new friends. The dark net, meanwhile, is a true hive of scum and villainy; You might have thought there was nothing new to say about the First World War, but Peter Jackson's astonishing but Peter Jackson's astonishing and revelatory new feature documentary comes at the subject in a way no previous film what he recreates here when the Allies go "over the top". Their new tanks may be able to manoeuvre through the mud, but the surviving soldiers get back home, they are given new civilian suits but then promptly forgotten about. They're a "race apart". he keeps on being wrong footed by revelations about his family and new friends Swindells plays the angry young rapper in

Another frequently used adjective is new. Again, neutral in its inherent meaning and semantically, but can collocate with positive and negative descriptors which then assign the pragmatic meaning and polarity. In the table above, examples of positive collocations seem to be prevailing, such as: new versions of the old, a genial new manager, a new romantic pop star, endless new possibilities, make new friends, revelatory new feature, his family and new friends.

Some negative descriptors appear as well: dawnings of this new police state are disturbing, brutal new Ukrainian contender, nothing new to say, doesn’t cast any new light.

Otherwise the adjective is used with other inherently neutral collocations, corresponding to the description and typical use recorded in the Collins dictionary.

Table 10.6: Concordance examples for late

melancholic and mesmerising. The first and last film from the late Chinese director and author Hu Bo has a desolate beauty war zones such as Syria (The White Helmets). The subject of this latest feature is in every sense closer to home, but no less illness for years after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his late teens. Filmed by an intrepid cameraperson who was either Red (and, it must be said, his scream). Evocative, too, is the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's threatening prog-rock Her ability to fly, incidentally, renders slightly baffling a later sequence when she stands by and just watches her friends would look now, and she has a plausible story about how her late mother (a brief, potent appearance by Ann Dowd) evasively told film introduces Clara (Mackenzie Foy) as she demonstrates her latest invention - some kind of Rube Goldberg mouse-ensnaring through a vision of kitsch Christmas Victoriana. A gift from her late mother leads her, with the help of her benevolent billionaire knowledge of a job well done. That job just happens to be the latest in a series of calm, eminently reasonable bank heists, pulled off know or love. He was secretary for defense under the late George HW Bush. Then, during the exile years of the Clinton presidency along for the ride. Chris Hemsworth turns up (albeit much later) as a surfer dude/cult leader with a very mean and violent streak. Adonis Creed is told by a seedy promoter in the latest instalment in the Rocky series. Fighting the son of the man who a chain saw (he eventually gets to let rip with it in a bizarre late fight sequence). Given the deafening music that fills given until midnight at the end of the week. If they're a second late, the bank president (Colin Firth) and his minions will seemed perfectly equipped. Surely he could steer to glory the latest adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, the tale of formula strikes again, but it's luscious to a fault. Disney's latest live-action offering may tread familiar ground, but it succeeds one powerful advantage. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, or its later imitator Oz the Great and Powerful, the film draws from assumption is that she is telling the audience that the events on the late afternoon of that July day defy comprehension. In fact, she

With this next adjective late, distinction needs to be made between the two different inherent meanings at first. The first which is given more focus in dictionaries, is connected to the perception of time. It can initially be leaning toward the negative polarity, but not necessarily. As the following examples demonstrate: subject of this latest feature, in his late teens, a later sequence, her latest invention, the latest in a series, turns up (albeit much later), the latest instalment, the latest adaptation, latest live-action, later imitator, on the late afternoon. None of these examples suggest negative evaluation, they simply refer to a point in time. The only negative connotation can be seen in two examples: a bizarre late fight sequence, if they’re a second late. One would almost expect much more negatively polarized examples of the adjective since the notion of lateness and being late is never viewed positively. In this specific sample, however, it is not the case.

As for the second semantic meaning of late, it is inherently negative semantically, expressing somebody is dead, no longer alive. In this context it was used several times in the concordance examples: the late Chinese director, the late Icelandic composer, her late mother, a gift from her late mother, the late George HW Bush.

The use of this particular adjective and the distribution of polarity, suggests that in this case, the semantic meaning seems to have greater significance here, while the context serves not as much as deciding factor, but more as a determiner of which of the inherent meanings should be assigned to which use of the word.

Table 10.7: Concordance examples for old

one takes place 20 or so years later; everyone else is older but Mary remains the same. In place of Andrews' guileless songs, characters and plot moments are new versions of the old. The songs aren't bad, and the film is a technical triumph, Mirren looks a bit Vivienne Westwood as Mother Ginger, a wily old harridan terrorising the kingdom. When a pesky mouse runs off in a cat-and-mouse dance with the cops is just 40 years old. But detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck) wears his years like As if to show to show they are not just taking their cue from old DC comics, the filmmakers throw in early references to sci-fi no surprise if the production design (all those barnacle-covered old sculptures and underwater cities) turned out to be partly inspired his long dead wife. In his porkpie hat, he looks like an older version of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. services may well be needed. When he is approached by his old teacher, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law looking very dashing His portrayal of Grindelwald rekindles memories of his old mentor, Vincent Price, in some of his more outréroles. For Michael and Jane Banks (and probably for much of the older audience too), Mary Poppins is a missing link to the too familiar. It's a crushing scene in a film that, in time old Disney fashion, never fails to pull the heartstrings. before the sun comes up. Kate (Darby Camp) and her older brother Teddy (Judah Lewis) are the kids who put John David Washington. Robert Redford has said The Old Man and the Gun will be his final film as an actor. near psychopath he may be. Instead it shows him as a loveable old rogue. Tales of his many ingenious prison breaks of old Tales of his many ingenious prison breaks of old add to his mystique. Above all, the film exists as a platform through which Jewish twins (and often their older sisters, too) had been separated at birth and placed with families

Same as young, previously discussed, the dictionary definition suggests inherent neutral meaning referring to certain point in time. This time, however, the Collins dictionary implies tendency of negative polarity, as far as it possibly being cause of offence (providing examples: needs of the old or being too old for something).

This tendency can be found in some of the examples above: a wily old harridan terrorising the kingdom, barnacle-covered old sculptures (not necessarily negative with sculptures, when attribute to person, however, it definitely has negative connotations).

Surprisingly, contrary to what was previously stated, there are more examples of the positive descriptors associated with old, such as: new versions of the old, approached by his old teacher, Albus Dumbledore (very old but also very much beloved film character), rekindles

45 memories of his old mentor, old Disney fashion, never fails to pull the heartstrings, shows him as a loveable old rogue.

The prevailing examples of positive polarity in the pragmatic meaning of this particular adjective is very surprising.

Table 10.8: Concordance examples for same

years later; everyone else is older but Mary remains the same. In place of Andrews' guileless demeanour and serene self-belief I suspect in years to come TV schedulers may feel the same about this movie. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms review thriller with a very cumbersome screenplay that shows us the same events from multiple different perspectives, Rashomon-style. are given their own backstory, the beats are usually the same: the band's members - Mercury (Rami Malek), Brian May from a slow-moving fighter. You see it coming. The same goes for much of the dialogue. Even so, this is an enjoyable puts across her songs with plenty of brio, singing them in the same posh and perfect pitch in which she speaks. Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman film, being based on the same "true story", but of countless other movies about long-term Its main subjects are three identical triplets who come from the same New York adoption agency. Although they grew up in seemingly already knowing who he was. He had the same grin, same hair, same "meaty hands" and same expression already knowing who he was. He had the same grin, same hair, same "meaty hands" and same expression as Eddie He had the same grin, same hair, same "meaty hands" and same expression as Eddie Galland, the same grin, same hair, same "meaty hands" and same expression as Eddie Galland, who was thought to have left the college. The three youngsters got on famously. They shared the same tastes and enthusiasms - and even smoked the same the same tastes and enthusiasms - and even smoked the same brand of cigarettes. As their celebrity magnified, Greengrass in his admirable recent Netflix film about the same event. The Norwegian director isn't trying to put Anders

The use examples of same in this table does not seem to imply prevailing positive or negative polarity. Inherently very neutral adjective fulfils its function in putting two things, actions or qualities on the same level, with no particular indication of positive or negative connotations, none are mentioned in the Collins dictionary.

Table 10.9: Concordance examples for final

putting his feet up in a plush LA pad as he plays out his final months for the LA Galaxy, there's a lot to admire about his terror of "fucking it up" in the Champions League final, his confusion and shortsightedness during constant media and ends cloyingly (just like this new one), especially its final number, for which this film finds a faithful equivalent. On Christmas Eve she is given a mechanical silver egg, a final gift from her mum - but upsettingly the key is missing. Robert Redford twinkles one last time. The star's supposedly final big-screen outing as an ageing bank robber is an enjoyable nod Nearly 50 years on, in what is reportedly his final performance, Redford twinkles through The Old Man gay woman and same-sex marriage campaigner. Cheney's final treatment of her in this movie made me think of Citizen Kane let us know that, yes, Adonis is back to tip-top shape. The final reel showdown is in Moscow but we are shown very little

fraught relationships with one another. An explosive final reel, set around the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, the film exists as a platform for Robert Redford to take a final bow on screen. Almost half a century after Redford became Redford has said The Old Man and the Gun will be his final film as an actor. If so, it is a fitting way for him the film exists as a platform for Redford to take a final bow on screen. His scenes with Spacek in particular mushy nostalgia. It's refreshing, too, to see him in his final role playing a character with a devilry and sense of mischief "nice hot bath". The other yearns to be in the final of a big football competition. The film is full of

After initial examination of the concordance examples for final, two meanings can be determined, same as discussed in the case of late. The first and more common is the inherently neutral meaning pointing to a last one of series of things or events. In this case, the context does not imply positive or negative polarity.

Slight shift in the meaning can be seen in two examples: the Champions League final and in the final of a big football competition. Both these examples, based on their connotations, also refer to last one (football match), however, the use of final in sports signifies positive polarity, the most positive, in fact, since one of the two parties participating in the final will be celebrated as a winner (of a championship or competition).

Table 10.10: Concordance examples for human

receives company from more shuffling ghouls, hungry for human flesh, but also from Ben (Duane Jones), a young African filmmakers are keen to display their eco-credentials. The human beings have been polluting the oceans, sending as the resourceful underwater princess bewildered by human customs. (She doesn't know whether to sniff or eat the flowers.) because, for once, it pays as much attention to the human protagonists as to the gigantic Hasbro toys around throw in jokes or ironic observations. For example, the human scientists, still stuck in an analogue era, are astounded Lines like, "Take a good look, you worthless piece of human excrement. This is the trusted blade of the pale night, adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, the tale of a human "man cub" brought up in the Indian jungle by a pack of wolves. Cumberbatch, is pinched and bedraggled, with strangely human eyes. Peter Mullan's wolf leader Akela has facial scars with the sleek, imposing Bagheera. The black panther's human counterpart, Christian Bale - who no doubt spent 16 months hunting His spirit doesn't break. But whether taken as a study in human resilience, as an oblique love story, or as an indictment of the French Pixar's Inside Out, which created a world inside the human mind, Disney has found a way to turn the internet into a practical, begins in an upbeat and charming fashion as a feelgood, human interest story but grows gradually darker. Geoffrey Macnab begins in upbeat and charming fashion as a feelgood, human interest story but grows gradually darker and more disturbing.

Most of the examples of human listed in the table are referring to people as a species which is also the inherent neutral meaning of the word, not primarily assigned with positive or negative polarity. The Collins dictionary suggest some negative descriptors connected to

47 human, such as human weakness, human errors, typically used associations. The examples include another negative polarity example which is worthless piece of human excrement, but also refers to human resilience which is definitely a collocation of positive polarity. All the other examples are typical of the word, connected to people as a species, as suggested by the inherent semantic meaning of the word.

4 Conclusions

The present diploma thesis dealt with the language of the film reviews and the characteristics of the given genre. Several notions and views of the genre were introduced at the beginning of the thesis as part of the theoretical background on the matter, the most prevailing being that journalese, as is the language that journalists use, cannot and should not be generalised or somehow defined by specific characteristics. Examination and analysis of the review sample proved to confirm this prevailing opinion of the authors cited in the thesis.

There were, nonetheless, some partial findings, especially in part which dealt with the corpus- based analysis of the film reviews which were interesting and sometimes surprising. The most interesting conclusion, which is also see as very important for my studies and my future as an English language teacher, is that it is crucial for language to be studied in context. Especially studying new vocabulary and the meaning of words cannot and should not be learned mainly from dictionaries, because it would be incomplete and insufficient. The study of context and pragmatic meaning is essential in language learning and language acquisition.

Bibliography

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Bibliography of the film review articles

Bradshaw, Peter. “Mary Poppins Returns Review – a Spoonful of State-of-the-Art Genetically Modified Sweetener.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/12/mary-poppins-returns-review-sequel-emily-blunt.

Bradshaw, Peter. “Sometimes Always Never Review – Bill Nighy Spellbinding in Scrabble Drama.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/12/sometimes-always-never-review-bill-nighy-london- film-festival.

Bradshaw, Peter. “Super November Review – Josie Long in Romcom Turned Fascist Nightmare.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/23/super-november-review-josie-long-romcom-fascist- nightmare.

Bradshaw, Peter. “Vice Review – Christian Bale Hilarious as Toad-like VP Dick Cheney.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/17/vice-review-christian-bale-dick-cheney-biopic.

Clarke, Cath. “Private Life Review – Netflix Fertility Comedy Is Painfully Funny.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 5 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/05/private-life-review-netflix-fertility-comedy-paul- giamatti.

Clarke, Cath. “Surviving Christmas With the Relatives Review – Badly Wrapped Present.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/28/surviving-christmas-with-the-relatives-review- gemma-whelan-joely-richardson.

Clarke, Cath. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Review – a Festival of Winter Schmaltz.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 1 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/01/the-nutcracker-and-the-four-realms-review-keira- knightley.

Felperin, Leslie. “Evelyn Review – Moving Documentary on a Family's Loss.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/26/evelyn- review-moving-documentary-on-a-familys-loss.

Hans, Simran. “An Elephant Sitting Still Review – Melancholic and Mesmerising.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/15/an-elephant-sitting-still-hu-bo-review-five-stars.

Hans, Simran. “Mandy Review – Nicolas Cage's Rage Rings Hollow.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/13/mandy- review-nicolas-cage-full-blooded.

Hans, Simran. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review – Savvy and Sublime.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/16/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-review.

Hans, Simran. “Utoya: July 22 Review – Harrowing but Manipulative.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/28/utoya-july- 22-film-review.

Hoffman, Jordan. “Amazing Grace Review – Transcendent Aretha Franklin Documentary.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/13/amazing-grace-review-aretha-franklin-documentary.

Hooton, Christopher. “The Christmas Chronicles Review: Kurt Russell Is in the Pantheon of Great Movie Santas, but the Movie Is No Christmas Classic.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 21 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/reviews/the-christmas-chronicles-review-netflix-kurt-russell-santa-claus- mrs-goldie-hawn-a8645391.html.

Ide, Wendy. “Assassination Nation Review – Revenge Horror Packed with Insight.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 25 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/25/assassination-nation-review-revenge-horror.

Ide, Wendy. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Review – the Disney Princess Story Respun.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/04/nutcracker-four-realms-review.

Ide, Wendy. “The Old Man and the Gun Review – Robert Redford Twinkles One Last Time.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/08/the-old-man-and-the-gun-review-robert-redford- final-film-sissy-spacek.

Loughre, Clarisse. “Bohemian Rhapsody Review: This Karaoke-Style Paean Is All Spirit, No Soul.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 24 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bohemian-rhapsody-review-rami- malek-release-date-queen-film-soundtrack-a8598776.html.

Loughre, Clarisse. “Ralph Breaks the Internet Review: The Celebration of Capitalism That Will Also Break Your Heart.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 30 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/ralph-breaks-the- internet-review-good-key-cast-sequel-disney-princesses-a8659036.html.

Loughrey, Clarisse. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Review: Disney's Formula Strikes Again, but It's Luscious to a Fault.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 9 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-nutcracker-and-the- four-realms-review-disney-live-action-keira-knightley-mackenzie-foy-a8611651.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Aquaman Review: This Fish Stew of a Superhero Movie Is Certainly an Improvement on Justice League.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 12 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/aquaman-review-critics- jason-momoa-amber-heard-nicole-kidman-dc-comics-release-date-a8678606.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Bad Times at the El Royale Review: 'A Protracted Crime Thriller with a Cumbersome Screenplay'.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 12 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bad-times-at-the-el-royale- review-film-crime-thriller-chris-hemsworth-dakota-johnson-jeff-bridges-a8578151.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Been So Long Review: A Very Likeable Affair.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 25 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/reviews/been-so-long-review-musical-michaela-coel-tickets-arinze-kene- watch-a8600876.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Bumblebee Is a Considerable Upgrade on Previous Transformers Films – Review.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 20 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bumblebee-review-transformers- franchise-hailee-steinfeld-michael-bay-a8690421.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Creed II Review: Wins You over by the Sheer Process of Attrition.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 29 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/creed-2-ii-review-cast-rocky- sequel-cast-sylvester-stallone-a8656016.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review – an Astonishing Level of Visual Detail and Inventiveness.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 15 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/fantastic- beasts-2-review-crimes-of-grindelwald-harry-potter-eddie-redmayne-johnny-depp- a8624621.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Holmes & Watson Review: Will Ferrell and John C Reilly Can't Salvage a Film That Was Put Together in Such an Elementary Way.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/reviews/holmes-and-watson-film-review-release-date-tickets-john-c- reilly-will-ferrell-a8699626.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Mandy Review: 'Inventive, Funny and Very Macabre'.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 11 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-

55 entertainment/films/reviews/mandy-film-review-nicolas-cage-nic-horror-movie-cast- a8578101.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Mary Poppins Returns Review: Pays Homage to the Original While Establishing Its Own Identity.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 20 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/mary-poppins-returns- review-sequel-disney-cast-emily-blunt-trailer-a8677086.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Papillon Review: This Claustrophobic Remake of a Classic Prison Drama Has Nothing New to Say.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 21 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/papillon-film-review- remake-charlie-hunnam-michael-noer-a8692471.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “The Old Man and the Gun Exists as a Platform for Robert Redford to Take a Final Bow on Screen.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 6 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-old-man-and-the-gun- review-film-movie-review-robert-redford-a8668986.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “They Shall Not Grow Old Review: Peter Jackson's Astonishing WW1 Documentary Is like No Other.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 11 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/they-shall-not-grow- old-peter-jackson-review-first-world-war-ww1-lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-a8586401.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Three Identical Strangers Review: Mind-Boggling Documentary about Triplets Separated at Birth.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 29 Nov. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/three-identical-strangers- review-documentary-release-date-trailer-a8656041.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “Utøya – July 22 Review: Concentrates on Capturing the Sheer Hellishness of the Teenagers' Experiences.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 25 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/utoya-july- 22-movie-review-anders-breivik-film-massacre-teenagers-erik-poppe-paul-greengrass- a8600746.html.

Macnab, Geoffrey. “VS Review: Fascinating Rap Battle Film from First-Time Filmmaker.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 18 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/vs-film-review-rap-battle-british- ed-lilly-connor-swindells-release-date-watch-trailer-edited-a8588631.html.

Nevins, Jake. “Dumplin' Review – Jennifer Aniston's Netflix Comedy Is More like Trifle.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Dec. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/06/dumplin-review-jennifer-aniston-netflix-movie.

Pollard, Alexandra. “Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle Review – a Relentlessly Bleak Film That Aims High but Falls Flat.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 6 Dec. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/mowgli-legend-of-the-jungle- film-movie-review-andy-serkis-cate-blanchett-2018-a8669986.html.

Pulver, Andrew. “Make Us Dream Review – the Agony behind the Ecstasy for Steven Gerrard.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/16/make-us-dream-review-the-agony-behind-the- ecstasy-for-steven-gerrard.

Rose, Steve. “Night of the Living Dead Review – Still Vital, Brutal, Cryptic and Subversive.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/24/night-living-dead-review-george-romero-horror- 1968-classic-ghouls.

Appendix 1

List of tables

Table 1: List of selected film reviews Table 2: List of film reviews published by The Guardian, and their authors Table 3: List of film reviews published by The Independent, and their authors Table 4: Length comparison of the film reviews Table 5: Authors’ evaluation of the films Table 6: Examples of informal language in The Guardian reviews Table 7: Examples of informal language in The Independent reviews Table 8: List of the 100 most frequently used lemmas Table 9: List of the 100 most frequently used adjectives

Table 10.1: Concordance examples for good Table 10.2: Concordance examples for other Table 10.3: Concordance examples for own Table 10.4: Concordance examples for young Table 10.5: Concordance examples for new Table 10.6: Concordance examples for late Table 10.7: Concordance examples for old Table 10.8: Concordance examples for same Table 10.9: Concordance examples for final Table 10.10: Concordance examples for human