Alyson Steele Weickert a Study of Power Microscenes In
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Repositório Institucional da UFSC UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS/INGLÊS E LITERATURA CORRESPONDENTE A STUDY OF POWER MICROSCENES IN JOURNALISTIC TEXT por ALYSON E. R. STEELE G. WEICKERT Tese submetida à Universidade Federeal de Santa Catarina em cumprimento parcial dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de DOUTOR EM LETRAS FLORIANÓPOLIS 19 de dezembro, 2007 Esta Tese de Alyson E. R. Steele G. Weickert, intitulada A Study of Power Microscenes in Journalistic text , foi julgada adequada e aprovada em sua forma final, pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente, da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, para fins de obtenção do grau de DOUTOR EM LETRAS Área de concentração: Inglês e Literatura Correspondente Opção: Língua Inglesa e Lingüística Aplicada ____________________________________ Prof. Dr. José Luiz Meurer Coordenador BANCA EXAMINADORA: ___________________________________ Prof. Dr. Apóstolo Theodoro Nicolacópulos Orientador e Presidente ___________________________________ Prof a. Dr a. Maria da Graça Albino de Oliveira Examinadora ____________________________________ Prof a. Dr a. Suzana A. Dias de Oliveira da Rocha Examinadora ____________________________________ Prof a. Dr a. Viviane Maria Heberle Examinadora ____________________________________ Prof. Dr. Lincoln P. Fernandes Examinador Florianópolis, 19 de dezembro, 2007 iii PRAYER OF THE POWERLESS O god of governance, disarm for us those who blind voting rights with hardened cash, or plan public budgets for private pockets, or who regard barrack guns as golden geese, or who turn contract awards into wayward gains, or who crucify services on civil crosses, or who inter the truth in technical graves, or who impregnate banks with bastard wads, or who constipate young minds with chronic notes. We also pray you to empower for us only those who act counter to all the above. (Egudu, 2002, p. 39) Amazing grace! How sweet the sound! that Saved a soul like mine, I once was lost but now am found, Was blind and now can see. I dedicate this thesis to Mum and Dad with my heart and soul for empowering me with love, life and education and to Jorge, Jessyca and Marcello, Lizzy and Tiago, John and Fylipe for their roles in loving and supporting me in spite of the pressures I have placed upon them Obrigada Mestre Samael pela força, Anjo Gabriel pela proteção, Anjo Rafael e Hermestrimegistro pela saúde, a Deus de Mercúrio pela mãe de peixe, e a Mãe divina pela orientação e apoio, e todos elementais de natureza e ao Pai, ao Filho e ao Espírito Santo quem me ajudaram todas a finalizar essa obra. Infinitos graças nos damos. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, Dr. Apóstolo Nicolacópulos thank you, for giving me the power Benefactive , and professional knowledge to defend its proposal, not forgetting the professional advice and encouragement, whenever called upon. Dr. Viviane M. Heberle for accepting to be my co-supervisor, I shall always remember the time you spent reorganising my open seminar. I would like to thank CAPES for the much appreciated doctoral grant here in Brazil and also for my flight to England and living allowance in 2005 while I was a visiting research fellow at the University of Birmingham. Most importantly I thank CARE 1 for giving me my own room to carry out personal research under the supervision of Dr Carmen Rosa Caldas Coulthard, along with permission to attend postgraduate classes, staff and postgraduate seminars and conferences held at Birmingham University. Carmen, thank you for not only being my mentor while I was a CARE visitor, but opening up your home to me, giving me the opportunity of experiencing BAAL SIGmeetings 2, and similar events, and introducing me to other professional researchers. Special thanks go to Dr. Murray Knowles, the director and Michelle Devereux, the caring secretary, along with all the research staff who gave suggestions for my research among them: Dr. Alison Sealey, Dr. Andrea Mayr, Dr. Geoff Barnbrook, Dr. Murray Knowles, Dr. Nicholas Groom, Dr. Pernilla Danielsson, Dr. Rosamund Moon, Dr. Susan Hunston, Dr. Wolfgang Teubert and Prof. Ramesh Krishnamurthy, from the University of Aston. Dr. Peter Redgrave, University of Sheffield, for his advice and encouragement. A special thanks to Juliet Herring for our conversations, her help and suggestions on the power Benefactive, there and now, and 1 Centre for Advanced Research in English 2 Special Interest Group vi all the other PhD students and visiting researchers who welcomed me with open arms at Birmingham Uni. Fiona Robson Singh thank you for your support and ideas too. Juliet and Fiona, thank you for not only proof reading but being close friends and always on call in my hours of need. Prof. Andre Fabiano Moraes (MA), from CAC, UFSC, thank you for introducing me to Databases and for your constant encouragement and enthusiasm for this research along with Dr. Nildo and the other teaching staff, thank you for your support. Paloma and Marlise thank you for bringing me safely through the difficult moments with your compassion, affection and care. Dr. Maria Elizabeth da Costa Gama, Beth, thank you for helping me with the presentation and trips to Florianópolis, you are real friend, there when I most needed you. Last but not least Luzinete in memorium, no longer on Earth, yet present in my heart, thank you for all the force we sought together. May the Lord be always with you. vii ABSTRACT A STUDY OF POWER MICROSCENES IN JOURNALISTIC TEXT ALYSON E. R. STEELE G. WEICKERT UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTA CATARINA 2007 Supervising professor: Prof. Dr. Apóstolo Theodoro Nicolacópulos This thesis proposes a new semantic category – the power Benefactive (Steele Weickert & Nicolacópulos, 2005a) as a refinement of the Nicolacópulos et al model, a semantic-pragmatic approach , for localising and registering linguistic marks of power . The marks encompass (i) referential lexical items that may, or may not, generate power microscenes; (ii) relational lexical items (predicators) which compose power microscenes. A microscene is a unit of analysis that represents, and is represented by, a set of factors: a predicator and one or more accompanying participants/semantic roles aligned with the context . The power Benefactive concept comprehends both the positive and negative power Benefactive, along with the quasi-power Benefactive. The BBC, Telegraph and Washington Post online sites served as the source of real language in use to build a corpus containing 200 ‘ hard news’ reports. The Nicolacópulos et al framework was implemented to analyse texts, identifying and logging the power predicators, representing ‘in-power’, not-in-power’, and ‘competing for power’ in their microscenes. WordSmith4 (Scott, 2004), Corpus Linguistics software, facilitates the organisation and analysis of the results. In a random sample of 100 power Benefactive microscenes (i) 41% of the relationally power lexical items emerge in their basic power sense and (ii) 59% appear as power Benefactive metaphors which have taken on the sense of power Benefactive, originating in another (sub)domain and displacing to the power Benefactive subdomain. This research highlights that the family of power predicators are abundant in language in use demonstrating the importance of the power Benefactive concept to register marks of power linguistically . Keywords: power Benefactive; linguistic marks of power; semantic-pragmatic; polysemy; metaphor; Corpus Linguistics. No of pages: 256 No of words: 72,469 RESUMO A STUDY OF POWER MICROSCENES IN JOURNALISTIC TEXT ALYSON E. R. STEELE G. WEICKERT UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTA CATARINA 2007 Professor orientador: Prof. Dr. Apóstolo Theodoro Nicolacópulos Essa tese propõe uma nova categoria semântica - o Benefactivo de poder (Steele Weickert & Nicolacópulos, 2005a) como refinamento do modelo Nicolacópulos et al, uma abordagem semântico-pragmatica, para localizar e registrar marcas lingüísticas de poder. As marcas abarcam (i) itens lexicais referenciais que podem, ou não, gerar microcenas de poder; (ii) itens lexicais relacionais (predicadores) que compõem microcenas de poder. Uma microcena é a unidade de análise que representa, e está representado por, um conjunto de fatores: um predicador e um ou mais participantes/papéis semânticos acompanhantes alinhados com o contexto . O conceito Benefactivo de poder compreende o Benefactivo de poder positivo e negativo, assim como o quase-Benefactivo de poder. Os sites online da BBC, Telegraph e Washington Post serviram como fontes de língua em uso para construção de um corpus com 200 artigos de ‘ hard news’ . O modelo Nicolacópulos et al foi utilizado como ferramenta para analisar os textos, identificando e registrando os predicadores de poder, representando ‘ no poder ’, ‘ não no poder ’ ou ‘ na disputa pelo poder ’ em suas microcenas. O software de Lingüística de Corpus WordSmith4 (Scott, 2004) facilita a organização e análise dos resultados. Em uma amostra aleatória de 100 microcenas Benefactivas de poder (i) 41% dos itens lexicais de poder emergem em seu sentido básico de poder, e (ii) 59% são metáforas Benefactivas de poder que assumiram o sentido de poder, tendo se originado em outro (sub)domínio semântico e se deslocado para o (sub)domínio Benefactivo de poder. Essa pesquisa aponta que essa família de predicadores de poder ocorre em abundância na língua em uso demonstrando a importância do conceito Benefactivo de poder para registrar