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Contrastive Media Analysis
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Volume 226
Contrastive Media Analysis. Approaches to linguistic and cultural aspects of
mass media communication
Edited by Stefan Hauser and Martin Luginbhl
Approaches to linguistic and cultural aspects
of mass media communication
Edited by
Stefan Hauser
University of Zurich
Martin Luginbhl
University of Neuchtel
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Contrastive media analysis : approaches to linguistic and cultural aspects of mass media
communication / edited by Stefan Hauser and Martin Luginbhl.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Contrastive linguistics. 2. Mass media and culture. 3. Communication--Social aspects.
4. Sociolinguistics. I. Hauser, Stefan, 1970- II. Luginbhl, Martin, 1969-
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Table of contents
Approaching contrastive media analysis 1

Stefan Hauser and Martin Luginbhl
section 1. One language one culture?
Crosscultural perspectives on advice: The case of French

and Cameroonian radio phone-ins 11
Martina Drescher
Global and local representations of Cambodia: Two tales of one country 47

Stephen Moore
Contrastive news discourse analysis from a pragmatic perspective:

Context, ideology and representation in press coverage about Kenyas crisis 67
Roel Coesemans
section 2. Culture in communication culture as communication?
Film subtitles and the conundrum of linguistic and cultural representation:

A methodological blind spot 101
Marie-Nolle Guillot
Linguistic, intercultural and semiotic contrasts of obituaries 123

Bernd Spillner
Language and culture in minor media text types: A diachronic,

intralinguistic analysis from fanzines to webzines 145
Viviana Gaballo
section 3. Does nation matter?
Italianicity goes global: National and transcultural strategies

in advertising discourse 179
Eva L. Wyss
What defines news culture?: Insights from multifactorial

parallel text analysis 201
Martin Luginbhl
Genre matters: Theoretical and methodological issues

of a genre-based approach to contrastive media analysis 219
Stefan Hauser
Index 245
Approaching contrastive media analysis

University of Zurich and University of Neuchtel, Switzerland
The last few decades have seen an enormous increase in transnational and translo-
cal mass media communication. This development has had various consequences
on genre styles of mass media texts. Earlier studies on differences and parallels of
similar genres often provided shorthand explanations (sometimes rather descrip-
tions than explanations) of the observed genre styles. Within a traditional
comparative approach in linguistics, Contrastive Textology - to pick a prominent
example - assumed until recently that texts are homogeneously designed within
and for one country or one language area (cf. Clyne 1987; Landbeck 1991). In
globalization studies on the other hand, the assumption is that differences between
media texts are disappearing as a consequence of globally circulating texts
(cf. Levitt 1983; Thussu 2007). Both approaches have been challenged by recent
studies for theoretical and empirical reasons. In terms of theory it has been point-
ed out that different text design strategies are related to norms and values of differ-
ent social communities above and beyond the level of single nations or language
areas.1 In terms of empirical observation the often assumed processes of homo
genization in fact are accompanied by processes of localization, which means that
the relation between media text(s), language(s) and culture(s) has to be revisited.
These phenomena can be observed in journalistic media as well as in other types
of mass media communication (e.g. advertising, film, etc.).
The analysis of the interdependent relationships between these analytical cat-
egories has become a major concern in various academic fields, such as intercultural
communication and comparative journalism studies (Hallin and Mancini 2004,
Holliday, Hyde, and Kullman 2004, Zelizer 2005, Hanitzsch 2007, Hanitzsch 2008,
Hahn and Schrder 2008), Contrastive Textology (Eckkrammer, Hdl, and Pckl
1999, Adamzik 2001, Fix 2006, Lger and Lenk 2008, Luginbhl and Hauser 2010),
1. For journalistic cultures cf. Hanitzsch (2007), Esser (2008); for hip hop culture cf.
Alim (2009), Androutsopoulos (2001); for scientific communities cf. Schrder (1995),
Yakhontova (2006).
historical and intercultural pragmatics (Jucker and Taavitsainen 2010, Trosberg

2010), etc. This volume aims at advancing and broadening (some of) the method-
ological and theoretical discussions involved and offers new empirical insights
into the field. Among the key questions of a cultural approach in mass media com-
munication is how the theoretical status of culture can be conceptualized in a way
that culture is more than a passe-partout explanation for any kind of observed dif-
ferences. In contrastive studies of mass media communication not only the theo-
retical status of culture often remains unclear but also the interdependent relation
between the conceptualization of culture and the methodological approach of text
analysis; thus the comparative constellation has to account for various influencing
factors. While a wide range of existing studies focus on aspects such as nation,
language area and media systems, the contributions of this volume indicate that
there are various other factors being relevant when studying language use in mass
media. From a methodological view, therefore, the corpus design as well as the
comparative method should be the object of theoretical reflection.2
Contrastive media analysis covers a wide range of comparative constellations
among which we would like to highlight four main perspectives:
i. The inter-cultural perspective aims at explaining cultural imprints in media
communication. Central questions are how in a synchronic perspective
media texts from different socio-cultural communities differ, to what extent
the differences reflect different cultural norms and values and to what extent
the differences establish different norms and values.
ii. The diachronic perspective focuses on changing forms of language use over a
certain period of time. If culture is conceptualized as dynamic practice of a
social group, texts from different time periods reveal changes in social practices
and can illustrate cultural change.
iii. The intermedia perspective compares and discusses differences of similar
genres in different media settings such as television, newspaper or CMC.
Comparisons in this field can reveal how constraints of different media
influence the language use, but they also show how different media are used
for different communicative purposes.
iv. The inter-lingual perspective compares various aspects of media texts realized
in different languages. Comparisons of this kind always come together with
cultural differences, but they can also reveal linguistic and pragmatic
specificities of the compared languages.
2. The term corpus is not understood in the specific sense of corpus linguistics, but in a
broader sense, including all kinds of quantitative and qualitative approaches based on the sys-
tematic and methodologically reflected compilation of data material.
Thus, contrastive media analysis compares different forms, contents and processes
of mass media communication. It does so on different levels of abstraction and by
combining different analytical perspectives. Mass media texts have proven to be a
rich source for studying the relation between language (use) and culture. In order
to avoid the mentioned shortcomings of a simplifying conceptualization of the
language-culture relation, we propose to take the following questions into consid-
eration which also are the core questions of this book:
Which aspects of mass media texts are worth comparing from a culturalistic
point of view and how can the selection of these aspects be justified? To what
extent does the corpus compilation influence the findings?
What are the implications of different understandings of culture (e.g. culture
as a homogeneous whole vs. culture as a heterogeneous, dynamic and
process-related concept)? Whose culture is at stake? Should culture be related
to entire nations (as it is the case in many studies), to a language area or to
another (local or translocal) community of practice?
How can the macro phenomenon culture be related to a micro analysis of text
structures? How can it empirically be made plausible that genres of a group
reflect specific, culturally shaped world views?
What kind of knowledge is needed to be able to adequately interpret cultural
differences of mass media communication? What kind of knowledge can be
gained from the comparison of mass media texts? How does the comparison
as a basic heuristic process influence (enable, distort, enhance) the findings?
When comparing genres from different cultural contexts which texts are
equivalent and can therefore be compared appropriately? On what grounds
can functional equivalence be postulated?
How can one allow for the often postulated tendency towards globalization and
internationalization on the one hand and cultural fragmentation and hybrid-
ization of social affiliation on the other hand? How does the assumption of the
virtualization of cultural and social spaces affect our understanding of culture?
The contributions of this volume study the questions mentioned above from dif-
ferent theoretical and methodological angles focusing on various comparative
constellations. Combining linguistic and Cultural Studies approaches, potentials
and problems of contrastive media analysis are addressed to gain a deeper
understanding of pragmatic and cultural context factors and of their influence on
mass media genres.
The articles are grouped into three sections each dealing with a main focus of
contrastive media analysis. The first section, One language one culture?, is dedi-
cated to different genres of mass media communication revisiting the assumption
of a homogenous genre style within a language area. The first contribution by
Martina Drescher, Cross-cultural Perspectives on Advice, compares the communi-

cative genre of advice-giving in francophone radio phone-ins, combining conver-
sation and media analysis. Comparing radio phone-ins of Cameroon giving health
advice and phone-ins of France giving gardening advice the author shows different
realizations of the genre and highlights the difficulty to ascribe the observable dif-
ferences to a single cause. It seems though that the affiliations to different discourse
communities play an important role when it comes to the sequential structure of
advice-giving. On the other hand, the media format shapes the language use as
well, leading to a complex interplay between different levels.
Similar to the first contribution, the second article Global and Local Represen-
tations of Cambodia by Stephen Moore focuses on texts from different origin with-
in one language. The author compares the reporting on Cambodia from 1991 to
2005 in a global magazine (The Economist) and a local English newspaper from
Phnom Penh (Phnom Penh Post). Using a systemic functional linguistic approach
the two media outlets are compared in terms of context, text and lexicogrammar
as well as ideological positioning in the discourse by analyzing point of view and
voice projection in detail. The observed differences go beyond the expectable more
extensive spelling out of background history in the global magazine, but can also
be found in different approaches to reporting: While the local newspaper in ques-
tion tends to report, the global magazine displays a tendency to explain.
In his contribution Contrastive news discourse analysis from a pragmatic per-
spective Roel Coesemans examines different ways in which local African news are
covered in national Kenyan and international British and American newspapers.
Combining pragmatic ideology research and social actors analysis, the author ex-
amines how social actors are represented following different contextualization
strategies. These differences are interpreted in terms of ideology and the author
argues that they reflect different world views resulting in a tribal versus a political
framework of interpretation. The author links aspects of language use to culture,
e.g. professional culture, arguing that language use is first of all ideologically in-
spired and not culturally.
The second section, Culture in communication culture as communication?,
reflects different aspects of multimodal variation and their function(s) for various
social communities. Marie-Nolle Guillot is concerned with Film subtitles and the
conundrum of linguistic and cultural representation. Film dialogues and their sub-
titles are a special case for contrastive textology, as the subtitles have to represent
dialogues in another language, but still relate to the same visual and aural context
of the original dialogue. So, source dialogue and subtitle are not parallel texts in a
strict sense, but they are linked and invite covert comparison. Analyzing examples
from the film Sur mes lvres and its English subtitles, the author argues that subtitles
are twice removed from their source as they are interlingual representations of
intralingual representations. Applying Fowlers Theory of Mode she then shows

how subtitles generate their own meanings to fulfill similar functions like the
source dialogue but using other sign systems.
In Bernd Spillners contribution, Linguistic, intercultural and semiotic contrasts
of obituaries, current developments in the composition of obituaries are compared.
The author refers to text material from several cultural backgrounds like Germany,
France, Great Britain, China etc. and analyses various textual features such as ver-
bal style (frequency of kinship terms, euphemisms, names and nick names,
religious metaphors), typography, and text structure. The study concludes that be-
sides a number of internationalization developments, e.g. borrowing of visual
elements (photos, visual symbols, emblems), most obituaries show a strong
tendency towards national, religious and even regional differences.
Viviana Gaballos contribution A synchronic and diachronic contrastive analy-
sis of minor media text types is concerned with so called fanzines and webzines in
the context of punk culture. Fanzines are an example of underground press that in
the case at hand the author describes as amateurish, do-it-yourself music journal-
ism. Gaballos article discusses how the genre reflects world views of punk culture
from the mid 1970s onward. Here aspects of language form become crucial, like
the use of informal language style, elements of spoken language, combinations of
hand- and type-written texts as well as non-conventional ways of spelling. In a
second step the author investigates the evolution of fanzines into webzines dis-
cussing the question whether or not the social function of the genre has changed.
The third section, Does nation matter?, critically discusses the influence of
national affiliation on genre style and its cultural meaning. In her contribution,
Italianicity goes global, Eva Wyss compares European and global TV commercials
and their national and transnational corporate identity strategies. Starting point of
the article is the observation that within the advertising discourse TV commer-
cials are a core communicative factor to construct, reproduce and reaffirm expli
citly or implicitly the national or the cultural images of: the promoted product, the
broadcasting channel (the host) and its broadcasting territory. The author shows
how signifiers are used for the construction of national and nationalist discourse
and how the concepts of nation and culture could be shaped from a media
linguistics point of view.
In his article Martin Luginbhl tackles the question What defines news culture?
Referring to the concept of multifactorial parallel text analysis the author com-
pares TV news stories from the US and different European countries on the one
hand and different Swiss stories from the same public TV station but produced for
three different language areas within Switzerland on the other hand. Thus, the
question is addressed to what extent the genre features of the news shows match
with features that can be found regionally, locally, translocally or globally.
Luginbhl comes to the conclusion that other factors below and above the
according nation or language have to be taken into account.
Stefan Hausers contribution Genre matters discusses various theoretical and
methodological issues of a genre-based approach to contrastive media analysis. In
order to be able to differentiate between aspects of national origin and language
community a comparative constellation consisting of texts from two different
languages (German and English) and four different national origins (Germany,
Switzerland, Great Britain, Australia) is proposed. The authors claim is that this
quadripartite composition of data material allows to analyze the culture-boundness
of communicative genres more accurately from various perspectives and with re-
gard to different reference points.
In conclusion, this volume aims at discussing matters of contrastive media
analysis from different theoretical and methodological angles without preference
for a specific approach. As the different contributions of this volume indicate,
there is, on the one hand, a set of core problems of contrastive media analysis,
which concerns all comparative research. On the other hand, there are also various
topics that are specific to certain comparative constellations. The combination of
more linguistic and more Cultural Studies oriented chapters illustrates different
scholarly interests in contrastive media analysis and indicates potentials for fur-
ther research.
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section 1
One language one culture?

Crosscultural perspectives on advice
The case of French and Cameroonian
radio phone-ins
Martina Drescher
University of Bayreuth, Germany
In most African countries radio remains not only the leading but also the best
assimilated medium. Its broadcasting formats and media genres are subject
to both Western and African influences, which make them interesting for
comparative media studies. This paper examines radio phone-ins in which
advice on health issues play a central role from an empirical cross-cultural point
of view. Its goal is to examine patterns for the communicative genre of advice-
giving within the global language community of the francophone world. The
data originates from France and Cameroon. The study assumes that French
functions as a roof under which different discourse communities could form.
Since advice type phone-ins are combinations of the interaction type advice
and the media format phone-in, the comparative analysis has to distinguish, at
least theoretically, between these two levels of description.
Given that some of the basic concepts, general conditions and methodological
issues of a cross-cultural media analysis still require clarification, the paper
also raises a series of theoretical questions that are crucial for a comparative
approach.
1. Introduction
To date the media landscape of francophone Africa remains largely undiscovered.

While the use of new media forms brings with it the risk of a digital divide
(Bucher 2005) between technologically developed and more backward countries,
this certainly does not apply to radio. In many African countries it remains, de-
spite the increasing significance of television and internet, the leading medium.
Radio is not just widespread; it also links up with the various oral traditions and is
thus considered the best assimilated medium in Africa. Its broadcasting formats
Martina Drescher
and media genres are hence subject to Western and African influences, which
make them especially interesting for contrastive or comparative both terms are
used as synonyms here media studies.
The aim of this paper is twofold: first, it intends to compare on an empirical
basis radio programmes with listener participation (also called talk-back radio,
phone-ins or call-ins) in which advice plays a central role. Second, it discusses some
fundamental methodological questions of contrastive media analysis from a lin-
guistic point of view. At the centre of my investigation are two radio-corpora,
which, although they both make use of French, are anchored in different cultural
contexts. The data originates on the one hand from France, and on the other from
multilingual Cameroon, where French has the status of an official language be-
sides English1. Herein lies an important difference to traditional comparative stud-
ies, which in general study data differing from each other with respect to language
and culture. Such studies usually proceed from the implicit assumption that differ-
ent languages imply different cultures. In contrast, the focus here is on programmes,
which in terms of language not taking into account the regional and social vari-
ation within the language do not diverge. With the language remaining constant,
the focus of the analyses will lie on the cultural and discursive dimensions of me-
dia genres. In a first step, I will examine whether different patterns for a
communicative genre exist within a global language community, in this case the
francophone world, and in a second step I will map their contours more closely.
Such a focus on internal diversity is to my mind justified, especially in the case of
languages which like French, English, Spanish, etc. in the course of colonial
expansion were exported beyond Europe, and which there, came in close contact
with other languages and cultures. It is based on the assumption that the French
language functions as a roof under which various discourse communities could
form (cf. 4.2). Of course, I am well aware that neither France nor Cameroon rep-
resent homogeneous entities, and that the equation of discourse communities with
nations is intrinsically problematic. For reasons of economy, I shall however re-
frain from further internal differentiation here.
The differences between discourse communities can on the one hand apply to
what Luckmann (1986: 206) calls the communicative budget, i.e. the inventory
of communicative genres as a whole. On the other hand, the question arises of
whether in the comparison of tokens, i.e. of the empirically observable instantia-
tions of a genre in distinct discourse communities, typical variations can be
1. Besides the two official languages there are also approximately 250 African languages which
make Cameroon both ethnically as well as linguistically and culturally a very heterogeneous
nation.
observed which allow to infer the existence of specific patterns2. Here, this sec-
ond aspect is placed in the foreground. In so doing, it must be kept in mind that
advice shows on the radio display two characteristics: they combine the interac-
tion type advice with the media format phone-in. The basic form of advice-
giving, as it arises in a direct face-to-face situation, thus shows a number of media
specific modifications. Within the framework of a contrastive analysis it is there-
fore necessary to distinguish, at least analytically, between aspects which belong
to the interaction type of advising, and aspects which belong to the media format
of phone-in.
2. Radio in the African context
In sub-Saharan Africa radio has exceptional significance. Nevertheless specific

investigations of the African mediascape are still lacking3. The comprehensive
study by Tudesq (2002) represents an exception. Here mainly political and infra-
structural conditions of the medium are discussed, while the specific media land-
scapes of the African countries are only examined in a synthesizing manner.
Despite the growing competition from television, radio remains the first medium
in Africa4 (Tudesq 2002: 5)5. Besides the economic and infrastructural factors
the acquisition of a radio is comparatively inexpensive, and with batteries it can
even be used in regions without electricity supply cultural reasons are also re-
sponsible for the success of radio. First of all, radio is highly compatible with the
predominately oral African traditions. In addition there are the high rates of illit-
eracy in many African states. Both factors have promoted its rapid assimilation.
Unlike national television, which is often unable to withstand the international
competition, radio represents a bridge between the global and the local. It is the
medium through which global tendencies gain access to African cultures, and
forms a platform for processes of appropriation. To quote again Tudesq (2002: 130):
Today the diversity of radios [...] leads to different types of appropriation of the
2. Here, I leave aside the theoretically rather important question of how much internal varia-
tion there may be, while still being able to speak of one genre, or, at what point the observed
differences justify the assumption of two separate genres.
3. Cf. Beck & Wittmann (2004) and Njogu & Middleton (2009), where radio, however, plays
a secondary role.
4. For reasons of text economy I only provide the English translations of the French and
German quotations here. All translations are my own.
5. According to Tudesq (2002: 8), in Cameroon there are 41 radio sets per 100 people, but
only 8.1 television sets.
Martina Drescher
radio by the Africans. [...] depending of the case, the radio is both an instrument
of acculturation and the medium best assimilated by the African populations.
Hybridization, i.e. the overlaying or mixing of Western and African traditions
with regard to media formats and communicative genres, can be observed most
clearly on the radio. Hence the medium veritably presents itself for contrastive
investigations in the Francophone world.
3. Advice-giving type phone-ins
Radio phone-ins primarily concerned with advice display two characteristics: on

the one hand, their structure is determined by the sequential or action-logical
conditions of the interaction type, and on the other by the media conditions of the
broadcasting format. Thus, the basic form of advice-giving is subject to a series of
modifications. It becomes institutionally or media-specifically reshaped. Conse-
quently, advice-giving in programmes with listener participation differs not only
from advising in day-to-day, non-media conversations, but also from advice-
giving in other media, e.g. in magazines or internet fora. Within the framework of
a comparative investigation, it is thus useful to differentiate between the sequential
and the media aspects, and to first describe both patterns separately. In order to
maintain a conceptual distinction between these different levels, the sequential
structure will be referred to as interaction type in the following. For the media
pattern, I shall use the term format. And communicative or media genre will
be reserved for the combination of interaction type and media format as illustrated
by the advice-giving phone-in.
For a more detailed description of communicative genres, I refer to Gnthner
& Knoblauch (1995: 8), for whom genres are prepatterned and complex solutions
to recurrent communicative problems consisting of typical and more-or-less fixed
combinations of situational, communicative-functional and structural features.
Communicative genres arise from traditions of speaking, and are hence deter-
mined by history and culture. Luckmann (1986) already distinguished the social,
situational and media embedment of a genre its external structure from its
linguistic-textual or internal structure. Gnthner & Knoblauch introduce a third
level of analysis they refer to as the situative level, which relates the internal and the
external structure, and in particular takes into account that many genres are dia-
logically structured. Ritual aspects such as greetings, but also sequential patterns,
conversational strategies, preference structures, participation frameworks and
other structural regularities belong to the situative level, which thus is especially
relevant for the analysis of dialogical genres, like the advice programmes of radio
broadcasting.
3.1 Advice-giving as an interaction type
Advising plays an important role in many private as well as institutional settings.

However, a distinction must be made between the micro-structural level, the ad-
vice in the narrow sense, and the macro-structural level, the advising or advice-
giving, which refers to a complex pattern of action, to a type of interaction
(Kallmeyer 1985; Nothdurft et al. 1994). Two complementary yet asymmetrical
participation roles constitute advice-giving. This asymmetry manifests itself not
just in the differences in expert knowledge, but also in a divergence of the emo-
tional, cognitive and interactive perspectives between the adviser and the advised.
For Nothdurft et al. (1994: 15) it is the special knowledge of the other that prompts
me to ask him for advice. It is the alternative view which may help me gain new
insights into my problems. Advising not only presupposes an unequal distribu-
tion of knowledge, but it also contributes to their balancing. For this reason, advis-
ing is a crucial component of all expert-layperson communication. At the same
time, advising is an important means for doing expertise (Hutchby 2006: 106),
for the adviser constructs his role as an expert by giving advice.
Advice-giving typically consists of the following activity complexes, which
provide different tasks for the advisor and the advised and need not all be realized
in an actual case: situation opening with instantiation of participants, presentation
of the problem, development of a view of the problem, development and processing of
a solution, resolution of the situation (Nothdurft et al. 1994: 10ff.). As this scheme
was developed empirically from German data, it remains to be determined to what
extent advice-giving in other languages and cultural contexts proceeds according
to the same pattern. For the purpose of my study, I shall assume that these activity
complexes are largely universal, and thus also to be found in French and
Cameroonian contexts. However, the question remains whether the deviations
from the ideal sequencing pattern that one can observe in the data are due to lan-
guage or culture-specific influences, or whether they are a result of institutional or
media reshaping. As advice-giving can be found in various media e.g. in maga-
zines, internet fora, on the radio and television one can assume that specific
modifications of the basic sequence pattern, as found in direct face-to-face inter-
action, come into play for each media format.
3.2 Media formats with audience participation
Phone-ins belong to the family of audience participation shows (Lauerbach &

Aijmer 2007) or of public participation programmes (Thornborrow 2001), which
are to be found on both radio and television. While the prototypical representative
of this family seems to be the talk show for television, for radio it is the phone-in.
Martina Drescher
Like the talk show, the phone-in is a fluid genre, a flexible form, which, depend-
ing on content and participation framework, displays a series of modifications.
The characteristics which Lauerbach & Aijmer (2007: 1336) list for a differentia-
tion of the talk show format can in essence be transferred to the phone-in. In de-
tail, these are: audience segmentation (i.e. the type of addressee can determine
themes, program slot and manner of presentation), the participation framework
beyond the television audience (e.g. host, guests, experts, studio audience, per-
forming artists) and the themes dealt with. On the basis of these criteria, the two
authors distinguish the following sub-types of the talk show format: issue shows;
self-help, counselling and therapy shows; political and celebrity shows as well as trash
shows. Transferring their structural and thematic criteria to the programmes ex-
amined here, they mainly belong to the self-help, counselling and therapy show type
(cf. 5). One of the peculiarities of radio phone-ins is furthermore that lay people
are given the opportunity to interact publicly with experts. In so doing, the phone-
in provides a space in which lay and expert discourses meet, and at the same time
makes mediating instances necessary. This applies in particular to the advice-
giving type show (Hutchby 2006: 102) where the transfer of knowledge plays an
important role.
3.3 The advice-giving type phone-in as a media genre
While advice-giving which is not institutionally reshaped is characterized by two

participation roles the adviser and the advised the number and the tasks of the
participants change in the case of advice-giving in the media. Besides the caller in
the role of the advised and the expert in that of the adviser, there are also the pre-
senter and the listeners of the programme. Consequently the participation roles
are doubling: Instead of being a two-way dialogue between an advice-seeker and
an advice-giver, advice talk on call-in radio has a more complex communicative
framework in which four categories of participants are involved: the caller (advice-
seeker), the expert (advice-giver), the studio host (professional broadcaster) and
the overhearing audience (Hutchby 2006: 116). The presenter is responsible for
mediating between the different participation roles, and especially for assuming
discourse-organizational tasks. The audience listening to the radio are of special
significance, since they form an important part of the experts addressees. The
complexity of the participation framework thus calls for multiple form of address.
While in face-to-face encounters the addressee is the immediate counterpart,
in the mass-media interaction he may be relegated to a second rank in favour of
the general public. Bell (1984: 186), who coined the concept of multi-adressee re-
cipients, here speaks of referee design: Referees are third persons not physically
present at an interaction, but possessing such salience for a speaker that they
influence speech even in their absence. In media contexts, multiple addressing

creates a certain tension between the adressee-orientated and the public dimen-
sions of advising, since advice-giving shows raise the question of how, under the
conditions of media communication, the suggested solution for the individual
problem of the one caller can be presented in such a way that even the not-directly-
involved radio listener feels addressed.
In order to meet these requirements, the expert uses a series of strategies,
supported in this task by the presenter. Among these is the Answer plus Auxiliary
Information technique, a two-part format whose first part consists of a straight-
forward answer to the callers question, while the second part provides an auxil-
iary response in which subsidiary information or advice was conveyed
(Hutchby 2006: 103f.). Combining a direct answer and additional information,
the expert makes it clear that he not only has the caller, but also the radio listen-
ers in mind. For his suggested solution goes beyond the individual problem of
the advice-seeker. Other strategies comprise the presenters generalization of the
experts advice or his sliping into the role of an advice-seeker and to ask further
questions a technique that Hutchby (2006: 112) terms proxy questioning. To
sum up, both the expert as well as the presenter generally display an orientation
to the significance of the public nature of advice-giving on talk radio
(Hutchby 2006: 103).
Referee design especially becomes palpable in the generalisation of the advice.
For through the packaging of the advice in a general recommendation, the expert
succeeds in serving the actual caller as well as the radio listeners. Presenting advice
as a general prescription hence is a contextually sensitive strategy of the adviser
who in this manner observably orients to the public as well as to the personal
dimensions of the context and puts both his knowledgeability and expertise
(Hutchby 2006: 108) on show. In advice programmes on health issues, the recourse
to general formulations has the added advantage of saving the face of the partici-
pants. For the public discussion of disease, sexuality, etc., which belong to the
more intimate areas of our lives, often represents a difficult undertaking. It touch-
es on delicate issues, for which euphemistic, indirect expressions appear preferable,
especially in public6.
Finally, the advice-type phone-in genre may be described as the combination
of specific interactive and media patterns. It seems obvious that a contrastive
analysis of advice in the media poses a number of methodical difficulties because
of its numerous levels and influencing factors. These will be discussed in the fol-
lowing section.
6. Cf. Drescher (2010).

Martina Drescher
4. Theoretical and methodical considerations
The contrastive analysis of media genres draws on methodical principles and pro-
cedures which on the one hand have their origins in contrastive linguistics and on
the other hand in translation theory. Both sub-disciplines already have to deal
with a number of problems, especially with regard to the basis for comparison, the
tertium comparationis. The possible equivalence of linguistic, communicative or
cultural phenomena constitutes a crucial issue here. Starting from these two areas,
I will now focus on some of the fundamental difficulties that contrastive investiga-
tions have generally to cope with.
4.1 The basis of comparison
At its beginnings, the comparative study of languages was focussed on formal and
structural differences in language systems. From a typological perspective, this
was done with the aim of determining linguistic universals whereas a second
branch, rooted in foreign language didactics and translation theory, was more in-
terested in an application of the results. While theoretical and methodical issues
were here often of secondary importance, phenomena of language usage quickly
came into focus. Subsequently, contrastive investigations no longer limited them-
selves to a comparison of language systems, but also included the levels of speech
acts and texts. As texts are always specimens of specific text types, genre related
aspects also became relevant. These gave birth to contrastive textology, which since
the 1980, especially in German-speaking countries, has produced a series of pub-
lications in which the genre-specific differences brought to light by the compari-
son are generally seen as culturally motivated7.
In contrast, the comparative study of speech acts, which mainly appeared in
Anglo-Saxon areas, led to the birth of so-called cross-cultural pragmatics that is
based on the assumption that speech acts are universal and only diverge in their
linguistically and culturally specific realisations. Concentrating on isolated speech
acts, this comparative strand of pragmatics was prompted by Blum-Kulka &
Olshtains (1984: 196) study on foreign language acquisition who ask: to what
extent is it possible to determine the degree to which the rules that govern the use
of language in context vary from culture to culture and from language to lan-
guage?. In order to distinguish the language- or culture-specific variation from
the intralingual individual, social or situational variation Blum-Kulka & Olshtain
7. Cf. Drescher (2002b) for a comparative approach of genres in the Romance languages.
Media genres are dealt with by Lenk & Chesterman (2005), Lger & Lenk (2008) as well as
Luginbhl & Hauser (2010).
first carried out a preliminary study with the aim of determining the respective
intralingual pattern on the basis of discourse completion tests. Such an approach
may well be appropriate for the contrastive investigation of isolated speech acts.
However for complex structures like communicative genres, it can hardly be
suitable.
Translation theory may provide more promising methodical borrowings. As
linguistic-cultural mediators, translators are often faced with the task of transfer-
ring differing generic conventions in the translation process. In this respect, Kroly
(2008: 45) lists so-called genre transfer strategies, which serve to bring the text-type
conventions of the source and target language closer together.
While translation theory is based on a direct comparison between the source
text and the translated text, contrastive textology is more interested in general
principles of a comparative analysis of texts with different linguistic and cultural
origins. From a methodical standpoint, it favours the analysis of parallel texts
based on the assumption of their situational, functional and thus communicative
equivalence. This, however, does not take into account that a texts function or
speech purpose can not be determined independently from the linguistic means
which convey this function. Hence the approach is finally circular, as the identifi-
cation of the text function in principle presupposes the analysis of its linguistic
texture. If one, however, accepts that the assumption of equivalence primarily has
heuristic value, this circularity can nevertheless be productive since the postulate
of equivalence lays the foundation of the comparison. At the same time, however,
it can only ever have a provisional character as it can be confirmed, but also cor-
rected or placed in doubt by the results of the analysis8.
4.2 Cultural vs. discourse community
It has already been touched upon, that by whatever type of comparative analysis,
the question arises of the language specific patterns. Thus the interlingual com-
parison of genres must be preceded by an intralingual analysis, which determines
what pre-patterned solutions for a communicative task exist within a linguistic
community. In both cases, we rely on the methodological tool of comparison. The
level of abstraction, however, varies: the first case deals with a comparison of vari-
ants within a language. The aim here is to isolate a dominant pattern. The second
case, in contrast, is about a comparison between the language specific patterns, in
order to determine linguistically or culturally based differences.
My investigation focuses on the intralingual pattern(s) of the advice-giving
phone-in within one language community. Unlike most other contrastive studies,
8. Cf. Drescher (2002a) for a discussion of these aporia.

Martina Drescher
it does not cross any language borders but keeps to the first stage of the compari-
son9. With regards to methodology, such a restriction has a number of advantages.
A limitation to the intralingual level is first of all preferable because multi-modal
genres as represented by radio programmes show a high degree of complexity with
an increasing number of comparative levels (cf. Lemke 2007). The identification of
the intralingual pattern creates far greater difficulty than it is the case with simple
speech acts. Moreover the generic conventions are less rigid which means that the
specific patterns will be less clearly contoured. In many cases it is not possible to
identify a single dominant pattern. Instead, it is common to observe coexisting
forms, cultural and discursive differences already appearing within a language
community. As a result, the respective contribution of language and culture on the
differences to be observed becomes an important issue.
As mentioned, many contrastive investigations take as self-evident that a
change in language results in a change in culture, while conversely assuming that
linguistic communities should be culturally homogeneous. Difference is therefore
not localized within a language, but associated with a change in language. But the
results of empirical studies show that linguistic and cultural or discourse commu-
nities are in no way necessarily congruent entities. To the contrary, such an equa-
tion falls far short in most cases (cf. Luginbhl 2010). In this regard, restricting the
study of genres to an interlingual comparison has only limited pertinence, as the
influence of variables other than language can be more decisive. More relevant in
many cases are shared rhetorical norms, i.e. affiliation to a particular discourse
community that can exist across linguistic boundaries. The discourse community,
as an independant but also connecting level between linguistic and cultural com-
munities, thus allows the shimmering concept of culture to be determined more
accurately, and furthermore to provide it with a clear linguistic basis.
Following Koch (1997), I understand a discourse community as a community
that shares certain discourse traditions. These complexes of rules with a historical
character (Koch 1997: 59), include genres, conversational forms, rhetorical gen-
era, speech acts and styles, which regulate not just the verbal, but always the non-
verbal as well. According to Koch (1997: 49), the difference between discourse
rules on the one hand and language rules on the other results from their incon-
gruous areas of application and carrier groups. Discourse rules are carried across
linguistic communities by cultural groups: by professional groups, literary cur-
rents, political movements, etc., whereas language rules are carried by linguistic
communities. Thus, discourse rules comprise the specific discursive and interac-
tive practices which give a community its typical appearance, and whose extent
does not necessarily coincide with a particular language.
9. Cf. Hausers (2010) similar plea for the use of corpora belonging to the same language.
Another argument for a limitation to the intralingual comparison is the fact

that the level of textual, pragmatic and interactional variation of genres has barely
been touched upon, even within one language. Only in recent years have there
been efforts to open pragmatics to variational issues (cf. Goddards 2006 on
ethnopragmatics) and conversely, to integrate pragmatic questions into variational
linguistics (cf. Barron & Schneider 2009 on variational pragmatics). If discourse
rules are thus placed in focus as the actually most relevant level of comparison, it
has as a consequence that the intralingual analysis is no longer simply a prepara-
tory step leading to a language-transcending contrasting, but is raised to an inves-
tigation in its own right.
Focusing on intralingual variation is even more justified if the language in ques-
tion covers a geographically large territory. Especially former colonial languages
like French make the orientation towards the discourse traditions most worthwhile.
For such an analysis draws attention to patterns in the Francophone world that may
deviate strongly from conventions valid in France. It therefore contributes to dis-
covering the oft-neglected plurality existing within a linguistic community. This
applies in a special way to post-colonial societies, in which local and Western dis-
course traditions overlap and intermingle as a result of processes of appropriation
and transformation. Such societies form an especially attractive field for contrastive
analyses, as greater discursive and cultural differences are likely to be observed than
would be the case for an interlingual study restricted to the European area.
Advice programmes with listener participation have been relatively well re-
searched with regard to France10. In contrast, the media landscape of Cameroon is
up to now largely unknown. Consequently the Cameroonian broadcasting format
takes centre stage here, while the French pattern primarily serves as a comparative
template11. For the comparison aims first and foremost at training an eye for dif-
ference in order to sound out contact zones between discourse communities and
cultures. It gains fresh significance as a fruitful methodical principle of relating.
This produces interesting commonality with current approaches in cultural stud-
ies, which propagate an enlarged concept of translation seen as a more compre-
hensive transfer of foreign ways of thinking, world views and different practices
(Bachmann-Medick 32009: 243). Hence, every translation represents a creative
procedure accompanied by processes of appropriation. This applies also to the ra-
dio phone-ins which are in the centre of the present analysis since media genres,
especially in post-colonial societies, are generally hybrid forms stemming from
the encounter of different cultural and discursive conventions.
10. Cf. Nowak (1994), Drescher & Glich (1996).

11. This has purely methodical reasons. It in no way implies that the French pattern is the more
basal form, whereas the Cameroonian pattern represents a deviation.
Martina Drescher
4.3 On determining the respective pattern
Even in an intralingual comparison, the question arises of just how the respective
typical realisations of a particular genre in a given discourse community are to be
determined. With regard to our case: how does one know what the typical format
of the advice programme with listener participation is in French or in
Cameroonian broadcasting? Does the typical format even exist? In principle, this
question can only be answered empirically. On the basis of text tokens, the pattern
would be determined inductively and through abstraction. In so doing, besides
the criterion of frequency, the prototypicity of the text tokens also plays a role.
Nonetheless, carrying out such a project would be so time consuming, that for the
purposes of the present investigation, I shall restrict myself to a rather superficial
comparison of certain phone-ins broadcast in France. This comparison suggests
that it will hardly be possible to determine a single pattern. Rather, we find a cer-
tain variation which points to the existence of several subtypes, and therefore of
discourse communities, even in France12. Here media formats have diversified to
an extraordinary degree over the last few years, so that one has to rely mainly on
the criterion of pragmatic equivalence in order to decide which advice programme
allows a comparison with the Cameroonian data. Most suitable for representing
the pattern of classical advice-giving phone-ins seems the meanwhile perhaps
somewhat old-fashioned programme with Michel le jardinier, which I have chosen
as part of the French corpus.
Diversity is also characteristic of the discourse traditions of ethnically, cultur-
ally and linguistically highly heterogeneous Cameroon. Here the programme Un
autre monde was chosen, in which the focus is on health issues. Despite varying
themes being stressed, not only the media formats but also the manner in which
the advice-giving is conducted show a number of points in common, making a
comparison seem meaningful in the first place13. At the same time, even superfi-
cial observation reveals interesting differences, especially in the interaction be-
tween the advice-seeker and the adviser as well as in the structure of the programme.
12. Here the question arises as to the size of the discourse community. If one were to tie the
concept rigidly to the specific realisation of genres, then in the case of a media genre like the
advice phone-in the audience of a specific programme would constitute a discourse commu-
nity in its own right. Such a solution, which would inevitably lead to the assumption of a huge
number of discourse communities, does not seem to me very meaningful in the end, and hence
unsatisfactory. It would make more sense to determine discourse communities via a set of shared
norms, extending beyond a single genre.
13. Cf. Hauser & Luginbhl (2010) on the risk of producing culturally specific differences
through the choice of corpora. Similarly Hauser (2010), who points to a constructive moment
inherent in every comparison.
These aspects will be at the centre of the following analyses whose main purpose is
to work out variations in media genres. The example of the advice-type phone-ins
thus allows to focus on the plurality of discourse communities existing under the
roof of a single linguistic community, namely the Francophone world.
5. Analyses
Advice-giving phone-ins are composed of a series of interactions between the rep-

resentatives of the institution presenter and/or expert on the one hand, and
callers on the other. These sequences, which are structurally very similar, involve
settings in which each encounter is another in a series of similar encounters, in
each of which the same basic tasks have to be accomplished (Hutchby 1999: 43).
Phone-ins thus have a serial character. One of the basic tasks is the conversational
opening, over the course of which speaker identities are negotiated and the caller
is established in the role of an advice-seeker. In the analyses, I concentrate on these
interactional and organisational aspects of both programmes. The focus lies on the
global structure on the one hand, and on the other on the opening sequence of the
interactions between the presenter or expert and the callers. This crucial phase,
during which the caller is established in his participatory role as an advice-seeker,
extends from the presenters announcement of a new caller to the transition of the
problem presentation start with the French radio phone-ins and give first a short
presentation of the data.
5.1 The French data14
The French corpus comprises a programme produced by the public broadcaster

France Inter, in which Michel Lis, better known as Michel le jardinier, entertain-
ingly and at the same time competently provided answers to gardening questions
regularly on Saturdays between 7:20 and 8:00 a.m. Besides the direct consultation
in the programme, there is the possibility to receive advice by written means, or to
describe problems via letter, which will then be treated in a subsequent programme.
The recordings utilized here with Michel le jardinier as the expert date back to
1982. In all, 42 advice-giving sequences from different broadcasts were analysed.
The programme still exists, however over the years, its format has slightly changed,
as has the composition of its presenting and expert team.
14. The French corpus was kindly placed at my disposal by Elisabeth Glich (Bielefeld), to
whom I am most grateful.
Martina Drescher
5.1.1 The opening sequence

The opening sequence, during which the participants identify and greet one an-
other, resembles the opening of an everyday telephone conversation. Yet simulta-
neously characteristic differences become apparent indicating the institutional
reshaping of the calls.
The following piece of data illustrates the simplest and shortest form of an
opening. It shows how Michel (M), who takes on the role of both presenter and
expert in personal union, and the caller (D) typically accomplish the task of open-
ing the conversation. Already the first turn realized by a female operator (S) clear-
ly indicates the existence of a preliminary switchboard, which apparently decides
on a selection of callers in advance, but clearly collects essential information on
the caller, to pass it on to all participants at the beginning of the conversation.
Here, as in the majority of cases, this consists of the name and place of residence
of the caller waiting on the line15.
(1) leucalyptus (Mlj)
01 S madame rene durand est villeneuve-ls-avignon
02 M oui (---) bonjour madame durand
03 D bonjour monsieur michel le jardinier
04 M je vous coute;
05 D euh ben voil; (--) jai des racines de (-) jai un eucalyptus devant la
maison
Geographical localisation plays a role in almost all advice-giving sequences. Its
significance can be explained by the fact that the regionally varying climatic cir-
cumstances represent an important aspect in gardening advice. Michel ratifies the
information introduced by the female speaker with oui (yes) and after a short
pause greets the caller, whom he addresses with the formal form madame and her
surname. The caller answers with a greeting in return, addressing the adviser with
the complex form monsieur michel le jardinier (mister michel the gardener). This
combination of a formal term of address and the advisers pseudonym appears in
many interactions. Alternatively the interactants also use the polite form vous in
combination with the Christian name, and thereby found a more familiar relation-
ship. With je vous coute (Im listening) in the next line, Michel signals the end of
the opening sequence and the transition to the problem presentation. Within the
context of the programme this is an established routine, which regularly marks the
beginning of the action pattern advising. The caller starts her turn with a
15. The transcripts follow the conventions of GAT 2 (cf. Selting et al. 2009). A simplified Eng-
lish translation of the examples is to be found in the annexe.
hesitation and two opening markers, and after a short pause comes to her
problem an eucalyptus tree.
The example shows that the institutional identities are negotiated at the very
beginning of the interaction, and achieved by the specific activities of the
participants. While the greeting of a new caller represents a recurrent task for the
presenter, which he must fulfil several times within a single programme so that
quite often communicative routines emerge, showing up in identical or nearly
identical formulations, callers are in general merely passively familiar with this
task as more-or-less regular listeners to this or similar programmes. The structure
of this conversational opening consisting of two sequences coincides with the one
Hutchby (1999) describes for talk radio shows. The first sequence, realized in ex-
ample (1) by an operator, has the form of a caller-identificatory announcement with
double address. The announcement is on the one hand directed at listeners, who
by this means learn, that a new channel is open and a new caller is about to en-
gage in talk (Hutchby 1999: 50). On the other hand, it is directed at the caller
waiting on the line, who is in this way informed that it is his turn. Callers are hence
requested, to recognise him or herself as the next selected speaker (Hutchby
1999: 50). Thus the callers name is of special importance. After the greeting se-
quence, the presenter gives up the double form of address and turns his attention
exclusively to the caller.
In contrast, the next opening sequence is achieved without any previous infor-
mation from the switchboard. In example (2), Michel opens the floor by asking
whether there is a caller on the line. Here we are also dealing with an utterance,
directed at both the caller and listeners, who are thus informed that a new advice-
giving sequence is about to begin.
(2) la lune descendante (Mlj)
01 M est-ce que nous avons un tlphone maintenant (-) all
02 B all
03 M oui bonjour madame
04 B bonjour monsieur michel; [(-) alors moi je voudrais]
05 M [oui je vous coute ]
06 B vous poser une question; (-) on me parle de la lune descendante
Michels question is followed by the phatic signal all. The caller answers with all,
upon which Michel greets her using the impersonal address form madame. The
caller returns the greeting by addressing the presenter with monsieur michel.
Directly afterwards, she seizes the initiative by passing on to her problem presen-
tation, which she introduces with a meta-communicative utterance (je voudrais
vous poser une question (I would like to ask you a question)) in overlap with Michels
stereotypical request to begin with the problem presentation (oui je vous coute
Martina Drescher
(yes Im listening)). With the waning moon, she introduces the subject of her call.
In this opening sequence where the initiatives originate from the calling advice-
seeker, her personal and geographical identification is foregone.
Hutchby (1999) comes to the conclusion that opening sequences in phone-in
programmes turn out to be shorter and reduced compared to everyday telephone
conversations. The more economic variant would hence be due to the fact that
both caller and presenter have already some important information regarding the
respective identities before the conversation actually starts. On the one hand, the
caller, as a listener of the programme, already knows of the presenter. On the other
hand, the presenter already has essential personal information about the caller and
his problem at his disposal because of a previous filtering of calls through a switch-
board, so that two turns are sufficient to place the participants on a footing of
mutually ratified participation and to get the first topical business introduced
(Hutchby 1999: 46).
Yet, the reduced format cannot be found in all the interactions investigated
here. Firstly, even in programmes that make use of a switchboard, problems may
arise, which result in an expansion of the opening phase. And secondly, being en-
tertaining, while at the same time giving advice, can form a part of the particular
profile of the programme. This purpose is achieved by a number of interludes in-
terrupting the series of calls, to which I shall return later in the context of the
global structure of the programme. Yet such digressions can be observed even in
interactions with the callers. They occur especially subsequent to the opening
phase, for instance, when this does not directly lead into the problem presentation
but generates other topics arising out of the speaker identification, which are pur-
sued within pre-sequences. They constitute a form of small-talk, which serves the
self-presentation of the expert as not merely professionally competent, but also as
an engaging entertainer. At the same time, this strategy, which is often observed in
the French data, contributes to the loosening up of the programme, hence height-
ening its attraction for listeners. The following example illustrates this case.
After the intervention of the operator, who announces the name and place of
residence of the next caller, as well as the fact that she is the last person waiting on
the line, a greeting sequence ensues, out of which an initial, professionally irrele-
vant topic develops. Perhaps the reference to the last call which in this context
could also be interpreted as indirect information of ample amounts of remaining
programme time is the decisive factor for the digression.
(3) le cerisier malade (Mlj)
01 S cest la dernire personne qui est en ligne (-) cest madame nicole
alain darles; michel
02 M [oui bonjour madame] alain;

03 A [(bonjour) monsieur ]
04 M comment allez-vous
05 A a va trs bien [je vous remercie]
06 M [a va (--) je me ] suis toujours demand comment
on faisait le saucisson darles
07 A ah ben a (.) je ne suis pas de la rgion je ne pourrais pas vous le
dire;
08 M [daccord ]
09 S [on dit que] cest avec des nes mais cest pas vrai
10 M cest pas fait avec des nes
11 S non (xxxxx) jen sais rien
12 M bon madame alain je vous coute;
13 A bon eh bien moi je vous avais crit pour un cerisier qui perdait la
gomme
Unlike in the previously discussed excerpts, already the greeting is expanded be-
yond the usual adjacency pair by a further ritual question that leads to a three-
part exchange. After a short pause, Michel introduces as a first topic the dry sau-
sage traditionally produced in Arles, the callers place of residence. Whereas
topical initiatives otherwise stem from the caller, here it is the expert who is fos-
tering the thematic development within a small-talk. Since the caller is unable to
answer the question, the operator intervenes again to report a widespread opinion
of its composition which she immediately contradicts (mais cest pas vrai (but
thats not true)). This change in the participation framework contributes to the
enlivening of the programme. Over a few lines, the dialogue between expert and
caller becomes a polylogue. Finally Michel turns once again to the caller and sig-
nals the end of the side sequence through the use of structuring devices, and with
je vous coute cuts to the problem presentation. The caller first refers to her writ-
ten inquiry and then comes to the ailing cherry tree, the actual object of the
consultation.
The examples show that the opening sequence can also be expanded in insti-
tutional contexts and instrumentalized for other purposes. Furthermore, there are
listener contact programmes, as will be evident in the Cameroonian examples,
which have to contend with a number of technical problems, or must make do
without a preliminary switchboard. In these cases an expanded opening sequence
is necessary, as the identity of the caller as well as his problem must be ascertained
by the expert during the programme itself.
Martina Drescher
5.1.2 The global structure of the programme

Michel le jardinier appears in a morning show, to which further presenters nor-
mally contribute. While consultations are exclusively Michels domain, additional
interactions within the team of presenters take place. Hence, the interactions be-
tween the expert and the various callers only form one part of the programme.
The series of calls is furthermore interrupted by interludes like time announce-
ments and short musical sequences. There are also segments with their own ge-
neric formats. In one of these, labelled un petit conseil (a small advice), Michel
presents new products which may be of use for gardeners. Then there is a press
revue, in which new issues of gardening magazines are reviewed, as well as tips on
specific events for gardening devotees. Furthermore there is the awarding of a
prize for the best question of the week, as well as a segment designated la chro-
nique which provides advice on seasonal issues. On top of that, there are guest
appearances in the studio by garden architects, plant breeders, etc. The programme
ends with dictons, i.e. country sayings for the season and weather predictions
from almanacs. All in all, it is a varied format that goes beyond a pure advice-
giving show and integrates other genres, which probably contribute to the pro-
grammes popularity in no small measure. Besides his gardening expertise Michel,
as a journalist, has extensive media experience and competence. Both the manner
in which he fills the role of the expert, and the variety of small genres, break the
otherwise often monotonous format of the advice programme, and give this show
its special character. In both these points, considerable differences to the
Cameroonian data arise.
5.2 The Cameroonian data
The Cameroonian data consists of an advising phone-in broadcast by the private

station Radio Equinoxe FM 93.00, based in Douala, the economic capital of the
country. We are looking at the programme Un autre monde (Another world), which
can be heard regularly Thursday evenings between 9:00 and 10:30 pm
Cameroonian time. The programme focuses on health issues, an area which plays
a central role in the African media (cf. Tudesq 2002, 176). Radio hence has an
important educational function in the area of public health16. Radio Equinoxe
broadcasts in the official languages French and English, which are both widely
spoken in the metropolis of Douala, even though it is actually part of an officially
Francophone province. While the news directly preceding the phone-in are
16. Even international channels like Radio France International (RFI), BBC or Deutsche Welle
attach special importance to health issues in their programmes tailored for sub-Saharan Africa.
presented in both languages alternatingly, only French is used in Un autre monde.

All participants speak a more or less strongly marked regional variety showing
specific phonetic, morphosyntactic, lexical and pragmatic deviations to hexagonal
French17. Besides French is for most Cameroonians an L2-language18. Thus there
are differences in proficiency, which are also to be observed in the phone-in
programmes.
Like the French programme, the Cameroonian phone-in also has a permanent
expert who gives the programme its distinctive character. In this case it is Docteur
Eriko, who presents himself primarily as a tradipracticien, i.e. as a traditional heal-
er. The recourse to alternative medicine is already indicated by the programmes
title Another World. Because, in the Cameroonian context, it is thoroughly normal
to designate people pursuing a health profession docteur, regardless of the profes-
sional qualifications, the doctor title needs not necessarily refer to a tertiary medi-
cal degree. Docteur Erikos recommendations for treatment are generally based on
prescriptions made of plants and other ingredients, although occasionally he re-
fers callers to hospitals. Especially when so-called problmes mystiques, i.e. magic,
witchcraft and supernatural forces come into play as the trigger or cause of health
problems, he provides callers with his own telephone number to arrange a private
consultation. Docteur Eriko is assisted by a nameless presenter, who mainly con-
centrates on organisational tasks.
In principle, every programme has a certain thematic focus; however, in
general, callers hardly ever keep to it. For the current investigation, a total of
three programmes with 15 to 20 callers each were analysed, all of which were
broadcast in spring 201019. One of the programmes is dedicated to sexual disor-
ders, while a second deals with various viral diseases, in particular HIV/Aids.
For the latter Docteur Eriko is joined in the studio by two virologists. Besides
these, a third programme is on diseases caused by paranormal phenomena,
although the subject of magic takes up much of the discussion in all three
programmes.
17. On Cameroonian French cf. Mendo Z (1992), de Fral (1993), Biloa (2003).
18. According to Rossillon (1995: 82), using the figures for 1993, 40% of Cameroonians are
francophone. Most Francophones namely 27% however, only possess rudimentary skills
(locuteurs potentiels) whereas 13% are considered truly francophone (locuteurs rels).
19. Since the end of May 2010, Un autre monde has no longer been in its accustomed broad-
casting slot. According to information from Cameroonian colleagues, this change could be the
result of the sudden death of the expert Docteur Eriko. According to Tudesq (2002: 134) it is
nonetheless not unusual for broadcasting slots to change unannounced in sub-Saharan Africa:
Programmes are known mainly by listening to the radio.
Martina Drescher
5.2.1 The opening sequence

Unlike its French counterpart, the Cameroonian programme does not seem to
have a preliminary switchboard, meaning callers come live on air directly and
without having been previously selected. One consequence of this is that techni-
cal disturbances like poor line quality or strong feedback are not identified in
advance, but must be dealt with in the opening sequence. Another is that the
presenter is not in possession of any prior information on the interlocutors
identity or reason for calling, but must deal with callers presenting inappropriate
or delicate topics in situ. This represents a certain risk particularly for pro-
grammes with a medical focus. Indeed, there are the institutional participation
roles, as well as the, at least in principle, pre-determined topic. A pre-structured
framework thus stands ready, in which participants can align themselves in
terms of given speaker identities (those of caller and host), and move into the
specific topical agenda of the call (Hutchby 1999: 47f.). By this means, the ne-
gotiations in the opening sequence are considerably reduced in comparison to
every day telephone calls. Still, in the Cameroonian data they are often more
complex, as the actual formulation of the problem can be preceded by various
side sequences. On top of that, the specific participation framework and its dou-
ble casting of the conversational role with both presenter and expert leads to
confusion in some callers.
The following excerpt illustrates the simpliest form of an opening sequence
without further expansion.
(4) Arnaud (DE 130510)
01 M all bonsoir (--) a:ll
02 A oui all bonsoir
03 M comment est-ce quon vous appelle?
04 A je suis arnaud
05 M arnaud?
07 A oui
08 M arnaud on vous coute
09 A je voudrais demander dabord au docteur
It comprises, as a first step, an adjacency pair initiated by the presenter, in which a
check of the lines is combined with a greeting. A further sequence serving to iden-
tify the caller follows, which as in the majority of calls is stereotypically introduced
with the question comment est-ce quon vous appelle? (how are people calling you?).
What is most striking is the avoidance of the direct form, replaced by an impersonal
turn of phrase unusual in standard French20. As in most of the conversations, the

caller here identifies himself with his first name. What follows is the presenters
repetition of the name with rising intonation, which is to be interpreted as a re-
quest for confirmation. After ratification by the addressed, the presenter invites
him with another stereotypical utterance to tell his problem. This utterance differs
from that of the French expert only in its impersonal character: on vous coute
(literally: one is or we are listening to you). Instead of je (I) he uses the impersonal
third person pronoun on, which in the given context can also be interpreted as we,
and as such, as a pronoun representing both the presenter and the expert. In addi-
tion there is a direct form of address with the first name. And the combination of
first name and the address with the distance form vous, which we have already
encountered in the French data, is generalized here. With the next turn, the caller
finally presents his problem. Even this first example, which represents the normal
form of an opening sequence in the Cameroonian corpus, shows that these gener-
ally comprise significantly more than two turns, as described in Hutchby (1999).
In contrast to Michel le jardinier, where the expert also takes on the tasks of the
presenter, these roles are clearly separated in Un autre monde. The usual participa-
tion framework allows direct contact only between the caller and the presenter,
but not with the expert. In order to illustrate this aspect central to the course of the
programme, I shall present an interaction with a caller in full length in the follow-
ing. It is the first call of the programme, which at this point in time has been run-
ning for approximately 12 minutes. In its lead-in, the profile of the programme,
the expert Docteur Eriko, as well as the current issue of magic and witchcraft have
been introduced. After the interlude of some African music, the presenter an-
nounces that the first callers are already waiting on the lines, and again recites the
telephone number.
Mireille (DE 130510)
(5)
01 M all bonsoir (--) all
02 MM << sifflement> oui all bonsoir
03 M bonsoir (-) comment est-ce quon vous appelle?
04 MM moi cest (marie mireille)
05 M euh: mireille est-ce que (.) vous pouvez vous loigner de votre
poste-rcepteur ou alors vous rduisez complEtEment le volume?
06 MM oui
07 M mireille encO:re: alors a (.) on a limpression quil y a quelque
chose qui siffle encO:re (--)> all bonsoir
08 MM oui all bonsoir
20. In the whole corpus, only one other variant can be found (une auditrice (-) comment est-ce
quelle sappelle? (a caller (-) what is her name?)), which is also kept impersonal.
Martina Drescher
09
M on vous coute prsent
10
MM oui (.) jAI un problEme
11
M h=hm
12
MM jai (vraiment) jai fait une fausse couche
13
M h=hm
14
MM de:: de sept mois la (xxxxx) on a fait le curetAge bon a fait
( peu prs) un an presque un an et demi je ne sAIgne plus bien
le jour que je dois saigner je saigne goutte par goutte (.) donc je
voulais vous poser mon problme si vous pouvez me donner une
recette pour que: a puisse (dclencher) les rEgles (.) pour que je
puisse saigner parce que (xxxxxx) saigner seulement deux ou
trois gouttes et je (xxx) (savoir) chaque mois et mon jeune ge
vingt-quatre ans (xxx) avec a je ne peux plus (accoucher)
(xxxx) encore facilement concevoir (-) donc sil vous plait je
voulais vraiment que vous maidez avez une recette si a peut
maider = faire en sorte que (xxx) mes rEgles reviennent
comme (.) avAnt
15 M restez lcoute:::: ma mireille on va pouvoir vous donner une
rponse tout lheure par rapport : : ce: problEMe: un autre
auditeur un ligne
The opening sequence starts with the usual greeting and caller identification ritu-
als. However, since the beginning of the conversation a loud whistling sound has
been audible, which the presenter picks out by addressing the caller by name and
asking her to either move away from her radio set or to turn it down. Although the
caller ratifies this request with oui (yes), the feedback effect is still to be heard.
With an impersonal formulation, the speaker again refers to the interference, upon
which it suddenly ends. The excerpt gives a good impression of the technical dif-
ficulties often arising in the programme, which in the opening phase lead to more
or less lengthy side sequences.
Once the whistling has stopped, the presenter returns to the opening and
starts again with the greeting all bonsoir. The caller answers with a return greet-
ing. The phase of identification is skipped. Instead, the presenter encourages the
caller to formulate her problem with the conversational routine we are listening to
you. She begins her contribution by announcing the description of a problem
(jai un problme (I have a problem)) and after a back-channel from the presenter,
embarks on the presentation of this problem. It involves a curettage made neces-
sary by a miscarriage, which has led to a suspension in her menstrual cycle. The
caller asks the expert for a recipe (recette) in order to have her period and to
become pregnant again. I shall not enter into the details of the problem presentation
here, but do point out the fact that the conversation is held exclusively between the
presenter and the caller, whereby the former does little to influence the problem
presentation, e.g. through enquiry or commenting. This gives a first hint of the low
dialogicity of the Cameroonian format. While the caller can assume that the ex-
pert is present in the studio and listening, she nonetheless has no direct contact
with him. As such the reference of the pronominal vous with which she addresses
her opposite remains ambiguous. Although the presenter is her immediate inter-
locutor, in view of her problem she turns to Docteur Eriko. Thus, here too, we find
forms of multiple addressing (cf. 3.3).
After the problem presentation, one might now expect the presenter to hand
over to the expert, so that similar to the French programme a reaction of the
advisor might ensue and possibly even an interaction with the advice-seeker. One
could also imagine the presenter, on behalf of the expert, asking further questions
in order to contribute to the resolution of the problem. The problem presentation
however leads up directly to the closing sequence. The presenter reacts to the
callers intervention by inviting her to stay by her radio (restez lcoute) in order
to receive the answer to her problem. There is no parting, instead the conversa-
tion breaks off rather abruptly. Immediately afterwards and prosodically hardly
marked, the presenter leads over to the next caller (un autre auditeur en ligne
(another listener on the line)). The dispensing with any words of parting is espe-
cially remarkable in the African context, with its otherwise extensive greeting
rituals, and can be considered a clear indication of the interactions institutional
character.
As the analysis of the data shows, the closing sequence is also realized stereo-
typically to a large extent. At the same time, a special feature of the programme Un
autre monde becomes clearly visible here. It is that of the decoupling of problem
presentation and solution suggestion, which do not take place interactively but
temporally delayed and within different participation frameworks. The programme
so to speak is broken into two parts whereby the presenter functions as a kind of
link between caller and expert. I shall come back to this stretching of the advice-
giving scheme in connection with the programmes structure in Section 5.2.2. Suf-
fice it to say here, the presenter of Un autre monde holds a special position in
controlling access to the expert more strictly than is usual in the French phone-ins.
Moreover, the media format of the phone-in intensifies the already given asym-
metry of the participation roles as inscribed in the advice pattern. The data provides
evidence that not all callers accept these conditions. In some cases they succeed in
breaking through the specific sequential format of the programme, and to ques-
tion the gate keeping role of the presenter withholding them from direct contact
with the expert.
Martina Drescher
Thus, the caller in the following excerpt first insists on greeting Docteur Eriko,
too, and afterwards again turns expressly to the expert in his problem presenta-
tion, who deviating from the usual course of the programme reacts directly to
the advice-seeker.
(6) Raoul (DE 130510)
01 M all bonsoir
02 R all bonsoir
03 M comment est-ce quon vous appelle?
04 R raoul (xxx)
[0508]
09 M quel est votre problme?
10 R bonsoir docteur
11 DE bonsoir
12 R oui jai un problme de faiblesse sexuelle l
13 M h=hm
14 R euh:: quand je suis lactE je peux passer (quinze cinq) minutes
comme a (-) je jouis vite et:: mon (xxxx) compltement (xxxx)
quaprs une (xx) comme a (xxx) je ne sais pas si vous pouvez
me conseiller quelque chose (docteur)
15 DE vous avez quel ge?
16 R vingt-deux=vingt-trois ans oui
17 DE vingt-trois ans?
18 R oui
19 DE euh::: je vous conseille dj daller lhpital hein cest pas
normal
20 R DE?
21 DE daller lhpital
22 R ah oui?
23 DE parce que vingt-trois ans on fait encore::: deux trois quatre
coups (-) voil et:: du moins de quinze vingt minutes lorsquon
a vingt-trois ans et quon est africain
24 R Ok
25 DE doit aller lhpital il y a un problme de sant cach derrire
26 R merci docteur
27 M raoul
28 R oui
29 M restez lcoute
30 R oui
The conversation starts with greetings and identification, the latter being extended
by a short side sequence left out in the transcript, and leads to the presenters ex-
plicit invitation to present the problem. The caller ignores this, instead greeting the
expert, whom he addresses by title (bonsoir docteur). Docteur Eriko returns the
greeting in brief form. Only then does the caller move on to his problem with an
almost technical categorization (jai un problme de faiblesse sexuelle (I have a
problem of sexual weakness)). He then explains the nature of his sexual difficulties
and with an indirect request for advice, turns to the expert, whom he addresses
again by title (je ne sais pas si vous pouvez me conseiller quelque chose docteur
(I dont know if you can recommend me something doctor)). The expert responds to
this with a question about the callers age, and gives a first piece of advice he de-
clares to be preliminary (je vous conseille dj daller lhpital (I already recommend
you to go to the hospital)). In contrast to Thornborrows (2001: 140) findings re-
garding talk radio shows, where the hosts orientation to his gatekeeping role as
mediator becomes more overtly expressed as he struggles to regain his position
and reaffirm his institutional identity as controller of the talk event, the presenter
abandons the floor completely to the two other participants, and only returns
when the caller has signalled the end of the consultation sequence through the
honouring of the expert (merci docteur). Only then he ends this interaction with
the stereotypical request to stay by the radio. This request, as well as the character-
ization of the advice as preliminary can only be understood in the context of the
unusual, phase-shifted course of the consultation on this programme, which is to
be the subject of the following sections.
5.2.2 The global structure of the programme

The central organizing principle of Un autre monde has already been touched
upon: the phone-in is divided into a first part dedicated to the problem presenta-
tion, in which presenter and callers interact, and a second part, in the course of
which solutions are suggested en bloc. Here the presenter takes up the task of brief-
ly reformulating the callers problems and submitting them to Docteur Eriko. The
peculiarity of the Cameroonian phone-in thus lies in the separation of the advice-
seekers problem presentation, and the advisers solution, which consequently do
not occur interactively. Only in exceptional cases does direct interaction between
caller and expert come to pass. Instead, there is interaction with the presenter, who
functions as a kind of mediator between caller and expert.
To illustrate this tendency towards splitting up the advice-giving scheme, I
shall discuss in the following a lengthier excerpt from the second part of the
programme, where the expert proposes his recommendations. Docteur Eriko is
Martina Drescher
assisted by the presenter, who refers to the callers problems one after the other.
In the next piece of data (example 7) Marie Mireille and Raoul are dealt with,
whom we have already met in the presentation of their problems in examples 5
and 6.
(7) une poigne de basilic (DE 130510)
01 M et ctait donc la dernire auditrice et:: nous rpondons rapide-
ment :: ces questions euh: poses par les uns et les autres (.)
nous commenons par marie mireille qui parlait de fausse couche
:: sept mois elle a fait un curetage depuis un an et demi (.) elle
saigne elle saigne pas bien (.) elle peut saigner deux trois gout-
tes (.) elle est ge de vingt-quatre ans (.) elle aimerait bien savoir
si (.) comment est-ce quelle peut faire pour euh: remdier ce
problme (.) retrouver un cycle menstruel normal et concevoir
02 DE oui euh: par rapport son cas ce quelle peut prendre cest (-)
quelle prenne::: (-) une:: poigne de (cotemanjo)
03 M h=hm
04 DE une poigne de basilic (-) une poigne de grain de ginseng (-) un
morceau de (seinsein)
05 M h=hm
06 DE (trois) (xxx) (--) mettre:: euh macrer le tout donc (xxxx) le tout
mettre dans leau fraiche et boire un verre par jour
[0716]
17 M voil jespre que marie-mireille euh: a pu recopier cette recette
et quelle va lappliquer
18 DE je lai rpte deux fois donc cest::
19 M h=hm (.) raoul parlait de faiblesse sexuelle il est g de vingt-
trois ans et::: le docteur lui a: demand daller dabord lhopital
pour savoir
[(xxxxxxxxx) ]
20 DE [oui=oui=oui vous savez] a a toujours t reconnu et lafricain
est puissant sexuellement
21 M h=hm
22 DE et donc un jeune de vingt-trois ans (--) euh:
This passage starts immediately after the final call. The presenter announces the
transition to a new activity complex the development and processing of a solution
, and begins with paraphrasing the first callers problem reduced to its essential
points (nous commenons par marie mireille qui parlait de fausse couche (we start
with marie mireille who talked about miscarriage)). He refers her problem utilising
more or less verbatim reformulations and ends with an explicit question to Docteur
Eriko. Contrary to what one might expect, Docteur Eriko does not provide a diag-
nosis, but immediately gives concrete recommendations for treatment, in the form
of a potion to be prepared by the caller. This example already shows that neither
the interpretation of symptoms nor the clinical classification of the illness play a
role. The diagnosis is irrelevant, only the treatment is decisive. This also applies to
all further sequences where the activity complex named development of a view of
the problem by Nothdurft et al. (1994) is always skipped.
Thus a pattern develops consisting of a series of reconstructions of the callers
problems by the presenter and the corresponding recommendations by the expert.
Through these organizational activites, the phone-in receives a high degree of
structural regularity. Hence what Thornborrow (2001: 121) notices in general
about the role of the presenter in listener contact programmes, applies in a special
way to the Cameroonian corpus: The actions of the host in managing the pro-
gramme [...] provide a generically recognizable, structured framework for the
talk. In addition it must be said that the role of the presenter as a mediator be-
tween caller and expert takes on special features in the Cameroonian data.
It seems reasonable to assume that this format, which has significant conse-
quences for the structure of the phone-in as a whole, is nurtured by a tradition
which represents a common form of interaction in Western Africa, spanning
various languages and cultures. According to Ameka & Breedveld (2004: 175f.) a
fundamental mode of communication in West Africa, be it in formal or informal
contexts, is to channel information between an addressor (source) and an address-
ee through intermediaries. The authors call this type of communication, in which
mediation through a third person plays a central role, triadic communication.
Triadic communication is common not just in formal but also in informal con-
texts: While it is almost impossible to communicate without an intermediary in
formal encounters, informal encounters also often use the triadic mode of com-
munication. [...] In general, any social encounter which is thought of as serious,
and during which significant exchanges will take place, calls for the use of inter-
mediaries (Ameka & Breedveld 2004: 176). Communication involving a third
person acting as a mediator seems to be the norm, at least in Western Africa.
Hence, it is not surprising that triadic interactions are to be found in the media,
especially as this constellation of participatory roles is fostered by the phone-in
format that already provides for the role of the presenter. Like a traditional griot,
the presenter is simultaneously mediator and translator. As a radical form of indi-
rectness, brought about by the participation framework, triadic communication
primarily serves the purpose of saving the interlocutors face. In the media con-
text, it furthermore provides an original solution to the problem of multiple ad-
dressing, for the presenters problem reformulations contribute to a more general
form of advice-giving freed of the individual case.
Martina Drescher
It cannot be ruled out that practical reasons are also responsible for the un-
usual structure of the programme, with its separation of problem presentation and
solution. On the one hand, this could be the poor quality of the telephone connec-
tions. Here, the presenters reconstruction can contribute to ensuring comprehen-
sion for radio listeners, but also for the expert in the studio. On the other hand,
economic factors could play a role. Long mobile telephone conversations are ex-
pensive, the land-line network in Cameroon, as in many African countries, being
largely undeveloped. The curtailing of the conversation to problem presentation
could also have its origins here. What must be stressed in the end is that the over-
all structure of Un autre monde consists of two series of interaction constructed in
parallel, which show similarities to advice-giving shifted in space and time as are
to be found in the print media or in internet fora (cf. Locher 2006).
In conclusion, I shall compare the French and the Cameroonian data by re-
viewing the major differences on the background of the theoretical and method-
ological considerations developed in Section 4.
6. French and Cameroonian programmes in comparison
The analyses have shown that there are differences between the French and the
Cameroonian data. As a number of factors have an influence on the shaping of the
programme, the observed differences could hardly be ascribed to a single cause.
Moreover we reach methodical limits here, because it is difficult if not impossible
to keep all variables constant in a contrastive analysis of media genres. Conse-
quently at the end of the investigation there are no certain results regarding the
causes of these differences, but only hypotheses, which include affiliation to differ-
ent discourse communities. Some reasons for the observed differences could lie in
the thematic focus of the respective programmes. They could also have their ori-
gins in the more or less developed media competence of the callers, or in the pro-
fessionalism of the presenters and experts. The prevailing infrastructure (e.g. the
existence of a switchboard, the technical standard of the studio, the quality of tele-
phone connections, etc.) also plays an important role. Only the triadic pattern
discussed above seems to me to be discursively motivated in a narrow sense. Even
though it is not specific to Cameroon it will have had an influence on the pre-
senters role as a discourse tradition that is widespread in West Africa. This is prob-
ably the only difference between the two corpora which has been brought about by
either being anchored in a different discourse community. On the basis of the
analyses, it hardly seems possible to further distinguish which part in the creation
of the differences belongs to the interaction type and which to the media format.
It can hence not be accurately said which of the differences have their origins in
the sequential structure of advice-giving, and which in an alternative shaping of

the phone-in media format. For the separation of problem presentation and solu-
tion suggestion into two strands of interaction with the presenter as mediator
observed in the Cameroonian data seems rather to have its roots in an overriding
communicative maxim. Therefore it is not possible to establish clear correlations
that show media or interactive phenomena as specific to a given discourse
community.
Possible divergences are mainly regarding the participation framework and
the construction of interpersonal relations between the participants. The nameless
Cameroonian presenter is a subordinate assistant to the expert, hardly showing an
individual profile. The interest of the listeners is directed exclusively on Docteur
Eriko. In addition, there is little interaction which is not part of the activity of ad-
vising. This is most likely founded in the already mentioned significance of radio
for the health sector. Information is at the centre, to which listeners otherwise only
have limited access because of the precarious nature of health care. The role of
Michel is completely different as he embodies the role of an expert and at the same
time he is also one of the presenters of the programme. The many light-hearted
side sequences give the impression that audience entertainment enjoys a high pri-
ority here. These differences in the modality of interaction could be due to the
subject tips on gardening are less weighty than medical consultation or to the
other participation framework of the Cameroonian programme. Indeed, the sepa-
ration of advice-seeker and advisor, who only communicate with each other indi-
rectly, and the resulting doubling of activity complexes of the advice pattern, has
far-reaching consequences for the interaction. This division into two series, each
with differing participation roles and tasks, is partly responsible for the low dia-
logicity of Un autre monde. It moreover has consequences for the relationship of
the involved parties, which becomes especially manifest in the terms of address.
While in the French data a certain range of forms, reaching form the formal to the
rather familiar address in connection with the polite pronoun vous is to be ob-
served (formal address with monsieur, madame; formal address in combination
with surname or first name; only first name), the presenter in the Cameroonian
corpus consistently addresses callers with their first name and vous. On the part of
the caller, forms of address only appear in the seldom direct interaction with the
expert, who is consistently addressed with his title (docteur). Overall one gains the
impression that relationships are structured more hierarchically. Here, the media
genre reflects differences that seem to characterize the discourse community as a
whole (cf. Farenkia 2008). The fact that the French data is almost thirty years older
than its Cameroonian counterpart seems to be of no consequence in this regard.
Conversely it becomes clear that the differences one would expect are obvi-
ously leveled out by the media format. This applies particularly to the absence of
Martina Drescher
extensive greeting rituals, which play an important role in day-to-day interaction

in Cameroon and most parts of Africa. Although greetings are a fixed compo-
nent of the opening sequence, they are executed as short adjacency pairs, which
show no differences to the French pattern. To the contrary, Michel le jardiniers
openings are often more expansive for instance through the ritual inquiries
about the callers well-being than in the Cameroonian phone-in. Furthermore,
the closing sequence is highly compressed or left out entirely. In general, it is
reduced to the presenters appeal to remain at the radio set. The callers occasion-
ally express thanks, however not a single example of a parting in the actual sense
is to be found.
The analyses have shown that comparative studies of media genres within a
linguistic community are highly profitable, because they sharpen the focus on
intralingual specificities, and thus contribute to a more precise localisation of
the observed differences. Indeed, such an approach can be more fruitful than a
comparison across language boundaries, especially in the case of quite diverse
discourse communities. At the same time, preliminary theoretical and method-
ological considerations have highlightend the complexity of media genres and
the large number of levels of comparison that result, making a clear identifica-
tion of purely discursively motivated differences difficult if not impossible. The
conclusions to be drawn for further investigations are on the one hand the re-
quirement for an empirically-based approach, and on the other, the need for
extreme caution in extrapolating cultural or even national characteristics from
media genres.
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8. Annexe
(1) the eucalyptus

01 S misses rene durand is at villeneuve-ls-avignon
02 M yes (---) hello misses durand
03 D hello mister michel the gardener
04 M Im listening
05 D uhm ok so (--) I have roots of (-) I have a eucalyptus in front of the
house
(2) the waning moon
01 M do we have a phone call now (-) hello
02 B hello
03 M yes hello madam
04 C hello mister michel [(-)now I would like to] ask you a question (-)
05 M [yes Im listening ]
06 C there are stories about the waning moon
(3) the sick cherry tree

01 S this is the last person we have on line (-) it is misses nicole alain
from arles michel
02 M [yes hello misses] alain
03 A [[hello] sir ]
04 M how are you
05 A I am fine [thank you]
06 M [fine ] I have always asked myself how the arles dry
sausage is made
07 A ah well I am not from this region I wouldnt be able to tell you
08 M [ok ]
09 S [people say] that it is of donkeys but thats not true
10 M it is not made of donkeys
11 S no (xxxxx) I dont know
12 M so misses alain Im listening
13 A fine well I wrote to you because of a cherry tree that is loosing its
gum
(4) Arnaud
01 M hello (--) good evening hello
02 A yes hello good evening
03 M how are people calling you?
04 A I am arnaud
05 M arnaud?
06 A yes
07 M arnaud we are listening
08 A first I would like to ask the doctor
(5) Mireille
01 M hello good evening (--) hello
02 MM <<feedback sound> yes hello good evening
03 M good evening (-) how are people calling you?
04 MM I am (marie mireille)
05 M u:hm mireille can you move away from your receiving set or
turn down the volume compLETly?
06 MM yes
07 M mireille still so that (.) one has the impression that there is still
something whistling (--)> hello good evening
08 MM yes hello good evening
09 M we are listening now
10 MM yes (.) I have a problem
Martina Drescher
11
M u=hm
12
MM I (really) I had a miscarriage
13
M u=hm
14
MM in:: in the seventh month in the (xxxxx) they did the curettage
well it has been (almost) one year nearly one year and a half and
I dont bleed good anymore the day I should bleed I bleed drop
by drop (.) thus I would like to present my problem to you if you
could give me some instruction so that might (trigger) the
periods (.) so that I bleed because (xxxxxx) bleed only two or
three drops and I (xxx) (know) every month and at my young
age at twenty four xxx) with that I can no longer (deliver) (xxxx)
still easily conceive (-) thus please I really wanted you to help me
with some instruction if it could help me to to bring about that
(xxx) my periods will come back as (.) before
15 M keep listening my mireille we will be able to give you an answer
later with regard to to thi:s problem another listener on the line
(6) Raoul
01 M hello good evening
02 R hello good evening
03 M how are people calling you?
04 R raoul (xxx)
[0508]
09 M whats your problem?
10 R good evening doctor
11 DE good evening
12 R yes I have a problem of sexual weakness
13 M u=hm
14 R u::hm when Im in the act I can spend (fifteen five) minutes like
that (-) I come quickly a::nd my (xxxx) completely (xxxx) and
after one (xx) like that (xxx) I dont know if you can recommend
me something (docteur)
15 DE how old are you?
16 R twenty-two=twenty-three yes
17 DE twenty-three?
18 R yes
19 DE u::hm I can already recommend you to go to the hospital eh its
not normal
20 R TO?
21 DE to go to the hospital
22 R oh yes?
23 DE because at twenty-three one does it sti:::ll two three four times
(-) right a::nd at least fifteen to twenty minutes if one is twenty-
three years old and if one is african
24 R Ok
25 DE has to go to the hospital there is a health problem hidden there
26 R thank you doctor
27 M raoul
28 R yes
29 M keep listening
30 R yes
(7) a handful of basil
01 M and this was then our last listener a::nd we quickly answer the::se
questions u:hm asked by the one and the other (.) we start with
marie mireille who talked about miscarriage i::n the seventh
month she has had a curettage since one year and a half (.) she
has bled she has bled not good (.) she may bleed two or three
drops she is twenty-four years old (.) she would like to know if
(.) what she can do u:hm to cure this problem (.) regain a normal
menstrual cycle and conceive
02 DE yes u:hm with regard to her case what she can take is (-) she
should ta::ke (-) a handful of (cotemanjo)
03 M u=hm
04 DE a handful of basil (-) a handful of seeds of ginseng (-) a piece of
(seinsein)
05 M u=hm
06 DE (three) (xxx) (--) pu:t uhm macerate everything so (xxxx) put
everything in fresh water and drink a glass per day
[0716]
17 M well I hope that marie mireille u:hm was able to write down this
recipe and that she will apply it
18 DE I repeated it two times so it i:s
19 M u=hm (.) raoul talked about sexual weakness he is twenty-three
years old a::nd the doctor has asked him to go first to an hospital
in order to find out
[(xxxxxxxxx) ]
20 DE [yes=yes=yes you know] it has always been recognized eh the
africain is sexually potent
21 M u=hm
22 DE and therefore a young man of twenty-three (--) u:hm
Global and local representations of Cambodia
Two tales of one country
Stephen Moore
Macquarie University, Australia
This chapter is concerned with an intercultural perspective on the reporting

of a single entity (i.e. Cambodia) by two publications having different cultural
imprints. The Economist magazine, based in London, is a global publication
with a mission to spread its ideology of democracy, rule of law and free markets
(Moore 2005a). Phnom Penh Post, based in the Cambodian capital, is a local
English-language publication that claims to be Cambodias newspaper of
record. How Cambodia is represented in these two publications is described
and contrasted using a systemic functional linguistic approach which theorises
the relationships between culture, text and lexicogrammar. The two publications
different cultural contexts of creation and reception are shown to directly
influence the text types and wordings of their articles.
1. Background
In the early 1990s, following the signing of peace accords, Cambodia emerged
from 20 years of civil war and complete devastation. The countrys new beginnings
were marked by the arrival of the United Nations (to oversee a transition to demo-
cratic institutions), and many NGOs and other aid and development organisa-
tions. An American expatriate, Michael Hayes, arrived and set up the Phnom Penh
Post (hereafter, PPPost) which began publishing fortnightly in mid-July 19921. The
Economist magazine, itself founded in 1843, took a great deal of interest in
Cambodias transition to democracy, rule of law and free markets, perhaps viewing
the country as a test case that could be a model for other countries in transition
in the post-communist era. The study reported in this chapter is thus concerned
with the reporting of Cambodia in a global and a local publication, in the timeframe
1. The Phnom Penh Posts ownership, editor and publisher changed in 2008, the year it also
became a daily newspaper.
Stephen Moore
from 1991 to the mid-2000s. In particular, it addresses three key areas identified as
fundamentally important in this volume of contrastive media analysis: (1) relating
the macro phenomenon of culture to the micro analysis of text structures;
(2) determining the equivalence of texts for intercultural comparisons; and
(3) deciding which aspects of such texts can be compared.
2. Brief review of relevant literature
A review of the linguistics and communications literature reveals no published

accounts of comparisons between global and local English-language print media
as described in the present study. Some research, such as Pans (2002) comparison
of reporting a singular issue in Hong Kong newspapers with that of leading
American newspapers is essentially local-local despite its international scope.
Goss (2004) study of Spain as seen by The New York Times and The Guardian
newspapers, again offers symmetry in investigating the reporting of two leading
newspapers of both local and international standing. Rolston and McLaughlin
(2004) and Cho and Lacy (2000) discuss how international news is reported in
local newspapers in Northern Ireland and Japan, respectively. Other research, such
as Lash and Urry (1994), discusses the dialectic of globalization and localisation
in economic and social terms, but does not directly address media and their rep-
resentations. The focus of global and local points of view on the same broadly
defined subject (in this case, Cambodia) has so far not been reported in the lit-
erature, but does merit investigation, especially given the seemingly inexorable
push towards globalization and its inherent risk of homogeneity of worldviews.
3. Research questions
Four research questions are addressed in this chapter:

1. How is Cambodia represented in a global English language publication?
2. How is Cambodia represented in an English language publication that is local
to Cambodia?
3. How can the differences in representation be systematically accounted for?
4. What, if any, are the implications of these differences for readers understanding
of Cambodia?
4. Methods
The research reported in this chapter uses Hallidays (1994) theory of systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) as a framework capable of linking social and discur-
sive domains. Indeed, Halliday sees language as social semiotics and, as such, a
resource for making meaning and a system of choices for doing so. SFL explicitly
links context of culture, context of situation, discourse semantics, and lexicogram-
mar as shown in Figure 1. This figure can be read top down in terms of each
higher level motivating the adjacent lower level (e.g. context of culture motivates
context of situation). The figure can also be read bottom up in that each lower
level realises the level immediately above it (e.g. lexicogrammar realises discourse
semantics). Thus, SFL is a theory of language which, through the principle of lin-
guistic stratification, can relate culture to actual textual wordings.
The application of SFL in this study involves comparing two publications
across the various linguistic strata including context, text and lexicogrammar.
Contexts are concerned with the cultural and situational contexts within which
each publication is created (by the media outlet) and received (by the consuming
audience of readers). Texts are concerned with the outputs of the publications as
socially meaningful products. Lexicogrammar is concerned with the actual word-
ings used to realise meaning potential in reporting on Cambodia.
At the level of context, the study compares the two publications in terms of
their typical genres/text types and registers in the period from 1991 to 2005. To
compare discourse semantics and lexicogrammar, however, individual texts must
be analysed. To meet this requirement, texts that reported the same momentous
event have been selected. Moore (2005a) examined 129 articles in The Economist
during the period 1991 to 2002 and, together with a further 21 articles published
subsequently, a total corpus of 150 Economist articles was established. Against this
corpus, and over the same period to the end of 2005, the PPPost published
Context of culture

Context of situation

Discourse semantics

Lexicogrammar

Phonology/graphology/signing
Figure 1. A theoretical framework for relating language to culture

Stephen Moore
approximately 350 issues of 16 pages each containing between 10 and 20 articles

(making a total of at least 3,500 articles), all reporting on various aspects of
Cambodia. A sub-set of 18 articles in The Economist corpus were found to have
been given salience first through their positioning in the Asia section, and sec-
ond, through their extended length (approximately 1000 words each). These
18 articles have been matched against the PPPosts reporting of the same events at
approximately the same time.
For the purposes of the present chapter, one representative article from
the18-article Economist subset will be compared with its equivalent in the PPPost.
The article in question (hereafter referred to as the Ieng Sary story) appeared in
the 17 August 1996 issue of The Economist, and is compared with the lead story
appearing in the 23 August 1996 issue of the PPPost. This particular issue of the
PPPost actually ran 11 articles in total on various aspects of the Ieng Sary story
(which is essentially about the Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sarys defection from
the rebel forces to the Cambodian government side), so the question of which
article(s) to compare with the Economist article requires a principled stance. In
fact, equivalence of texts for comparative textual analysis purposes has been es-
tablished on the basis of salience in the final published product. Were the
comparison between The Economist and the PPPost to be made on the basis of
topic alone, then the eleven PPPost articles would clearly be reporting on a dif-
ferent scale to the single Economist article. However, were a PPPost reader to
choose to read only one of the eleven articles on the Ieng Sary story, they would
probably select the first one as being most likely to give an overview of the news-
making event. Thus, in this case, it makes sense to focus on the lead PPPost article
as being the best candidate for an in-depth textual analysis for comparative
purposes.
Both articles in this comparison can be said to be typical of their representa-
tive publications. In the case of the Economist article, it has the same generic
features as the other 17 articles in the sub-set of 18 articles mentioned above,
namely: (photograph or drawing), headline, (byline), (place), (lead), and then
recursively news, views, voices, and background, (map). (NB: items in parenthe-
ses are optional; see Moore 2006 for full details). In the case of the PPPost article,
it too has features typical of most of the political reporting in that publication,
namely: headline, byline, (photograph or map), and then recursively news, voic-
es, and background. It is worth noting here that most of the other ten related ar-
ticles in the same PPPost issue had features which were generally similar to those
of the selected article, although one used a more evaluative tone in its interper-
sonal settings, and a further two were structured as linked chains of biographical
sketches and person-in-the-street comments respectively, rather than as news
reports.
The notion of contextualization is central to an understanding of how mass

media organisations, in their communities of practice, produce texts and how
those texts are received by the reading audience. The next sections of this chapter,
therefore, focus on this aspect of contrasting global and local media publications.
5. The how of contextualization
Ruqaiya Hasan, in Halliday and Hasan (1985) discusses the notion of a context of
creation and a context of reception for verbal art (e.g. literary works), and notes
that these contexts are culture-bound. In other words, culture impacts on how
texts are produced by writers and interpreted by readers. Extending this model to
media texts, we can expect that culture will impact on how texts are produced
(through institutional processes in communities of practice) and how texts are
interpreted (by individual readers). Indeed, Philo (2007) argues that media dis-
course analysis that excludes considerations of production and reception processes
is fundamentally weaker than that which includes these contexts. Let us now brief-
ly consider the contexts of creation and reception for the global and local publica-
tions in this study.
5.1 The Economists contexts of creation and reception
The Economist magazine was established in London in 1843 by a Scotsman,

James Wilson, to serve as a platform for arguing the case for free trade
(Edwards, 1993). It became and has remained an influential and respected week-
ly publication ever since. At the time of this study, it was half-owned by FT
(London) and half-owned by private investors (including many of its own work-
ers). Its ideology could be broadly stated as laissez-faire on economic issues and
liberal on social issues, and the notion that the magazine itself has an ideology is
reinforced by the practice of not ascribing individual authorship to its articles.
Its readership increased dramatically since the end of World War Two, and by
2005 the publication claimed to have approximately one million subscribers
(The Economist, n.d.). The Economist has been an opinion leader in advancing
the cause of globalization, to the extent that the editor for the period of this study
claimed the magazine was the house magazine of globalization (Emmott, 1998).
To sum up, The Economist is essentially produced in London through a global
network of contributing correspondents, but is available to and is read by a glob-
al audience of elites (e.g. leaders in government, business, finance, and academia)
and aspiring elites.
Stephen Moore
5.2 PPPosts contexts of creation and reception
The PPPost, for its part, was established in Phnom Penh in 1992 by an American,
Michael Hayes, with no background in journalism but with a strong desire to be
the first to establish a quality English newspaper in post-civil war Cambodia
(Hayes, 2008). Throughout the time period of the present study, Hayes was owner,
publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper, which was published on a fort-
nightly basis. The PPPost is an independent (i.e. not politically aligned) newspaper
with no dogma on economic or social issues. Its reporters and writers are usually
named, and the publication quickly established a reputation for quality news re-
porting. The PPPost is read by local expatriates, tourists, Cambodian readers of
English, and Cambodia watchers around the world. During most of the period
of this study, the newspaper had a print run of around 4,000 copies per issue. To
sum up, the PPPost is produced in Phnom Penh by a small team of Cambodian
and expatriate reporters, for a mostly local audience of English readers. However,
through subscriptions and its website, it too is available to a worldwide audience,
albeit via a relatively low profile of visibility.
6. The what of contextualization
With a basic understanding of the contexts of creation and reception to hand, it is

now appropriate to consider the content of the two publications investigated in
this study. Figure 2 provides further details of the linkage in the theory of SFL be-
tween language stratification and actual texts. For example, the figure shows how
the notion of genre is linked to the notion of context of culture. Martin (1984: 23)
defines genre as a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers
engage as members of our culture. Thus, genre is closely linked to social purpose.
Whether or not genre is the most suitable term to describe various kinds of news-
paper articles is far from certain. A strong case can be made that newspaper articles
actually consist of mixed genres (i.e. blending description, explanation, exposi-
tion, narrative etc.) and therefore the notion of text types which combine pure
genres in various ways is actually a more appropriate unit of analysis for media text
comparisons. Moreover, text types as well as genres, can be thought of as artefacts
of culture since they differ from culture to culture. Hereafter in this chapter, text
type will be used in favour of genre where it is desirable to make an explicit dis-
tinction between the two terms.
In Figure 2 we also see that context of situation is reflected in the notion of
register, which refers to paradigmatic differences between field (i.e. what the top-
ic is about), tenor (i.e. the relationship between the writer and reader), and mode
Context of culture genre/text types
Context of situation register
Discourse semantics moves
Lexicogrammar wordings
Figure 2. Stratification and textual implications
(i.e. whether text is spoken or written discourse). Furthermore, we see that dis-
course semantics is reflected in rhetorical moves; and lexicogrammar is con-
cerned with wordings at clause level.
As we shall see in the remainder of this chapter, there are significant differ-
ences between The Economists reporting and the PPPosts reporting across all of
these levels of stratification. In particular, major differences are found in reporting
on Cambodia in terms of (1) the variety of text types used; (2) the field and tenor
settings; (3) the moves of long news reports; and (4) the lexicogrammar of speech
reports within articles. Each of these aspects will now be considered in turn.
7. Comparing and contrasting text types in reporting Cambodia
As noted above, text types are cultural artefacts in media discourse, and reflect to
some extent the cultures within which they have been created and for whom they
are intended to be consumed. As with genres, the salient feature of text types is
their syntagmatic orientation. In other words, text types orient the reader to a
linear structure that unfolds as the reading progresses. In a pure narrative struc-
ture, for example, the stages are usually: orientation, conflict, conflict resolution,
and (optionally) coda. Looking at the corpora of The Economist and the PPPost
used in this study, we see clear differences in text types. In The Economist, there are
only three basic types: (1) leader/editorial; (2) long news report; and (3) short
boxed report. (The incidence of letters to the editor and book reviews relevant to
Cambodia was so low as to warrant exclusion from the corpus). In the PPPost, by
contrast, nine main text types were found: (1) commentary; (2) long news report;
(3) short news report; (4) historical report; (5) human interest story; (6) advertise-
ments (relevant to Cambodia); (7) events; (8) letters to the editor; and (9) book
reviews. This difference in scope of text types is to be expected when comparing on
the one hand a newsmagazine which reports on events throughout the world with,
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on the other, a newspaper which is only focused on one country, Cambodia. One
can, therefore, already appreciate at this stage that The Economist is more limited
in how it is able to represent Cambodia, whereas the PPPost has many more op-
tions available to it in its representations.
8. Comparing and contrasting registers in reporting Cambodia
As mentioned above, registers relate to the context of situation in which language

is used and, more specifically, to the register settings of field, tenor and mode.
Again, The Economist and the PPPost show differences in their settings of these
variables, especially the first two of these. In The Economists reporting, field is al-
most exclusively restricted to issues of democracy, rule of law, and free markets,
whereas in the PPPost, there are essentially unrestricted field settings, meaning
that virtually any and all topics are covered (or at least coverable). With regard to
tenor, as we shall see later when actual texts are examined, The Economist seems to
adopt a stance of writer as knower, who explains to the reader, whereas the PPPost
seems to adopt a stance of writer as reporter, who informs the reader. Another
feature of tenor is that in The Economist texts, the voices heard are predominantly
Western, whereas in the PPPost the voices heard are predominantly Cambodian.
In terms of mode, the differences between the two publications are more nuanced
and concern page layout, the use of images and colour to enhance textual mean-
ing, but a comparative analysis of these features is beyond the scope of this chapter.
To sum up the comparison of registers we see, as with text types, a clear trend in
the Economist to constrain reporting (i.e. both what is reported and, to some ex-
tent, how it is reported); whereas in PPPost texts we find an openness concerning
both what is reported and the willingness to let local voices be heard.
9. Comparing and contrasting moves in reporting Cambodia: August 1996
At the discourse semantics level of stratification, it is easier to explain what differ-

ences exist between the global and local publications by focusing on specific texts
and the moves manifest within them. For this purpose, two Ieng Sary texts are
explored, one from The Economist, the other from the PPPost2. (These texts report
the historic defection of a key rebel leader, the Khmer Rouges Ieng Sary, and his
2. Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, the full texts cannot be appended to this article.
troops to the government side). The semantic moves in the articles openings, body
and closings will be examined and compared for each of the articles.3
The Economists Ieng Sary article consists of 12 paragraphs comprising 1002
words. The discourse is essentially expository in nature, and begins with an initiat-
ing move (in paragraph 1) of gambit:
Anywhere other than Cambodia, the very idea behind the negotiations under way
this month near the Thai border would be too grotesque to credit.
The PPPosts Ieng Sary article, by contrast, consists of 35 paragraphs comprising

1025 words. Its discourse, essentially a recount in nature, begins with an initiat-
ing move (in paragraph 1) of orientation:
After a tense stand-off over the future of Khmer Rouge chief Ieng Sary, Hun Sen
appears to have offered an olive branch to Prince Norodom Ranariddh to help
control a potentially explosive situation.
These openings indicate that a different approach is being taken in the reporting of
the same event. The point of departure for each article is clearly quite different, and
reflects the different purpose of each article. The Economist is piquing reader inter-
est through an abstract and moral appeal in order to provide an account which can
satisfactorily explain the situation. PPPost, by contrast, is establishing the key par-
ticipants and their relationships to one another in order to provide concrete infor-
mation to the reader.
The body of the Economists article (paragraphs 2 through 11) consists of two
cycles of sequent moves, each involving an event, an excursus and then a
culmination. The first cycle is provided below, with the first paragraph compris-
ing event; the second paragraph comprising excursus and the third comprising
culmination. (See Moore 2006 for more detail, including an extensive description
of semantic move elements in SFL).
They have been brought about by a split in the Khmers Rouges ranks. Those
talking peace are loyal to Ieng Sary, the man known as Brother Number Two
when the party ruled Cambodia, but now reviled as a traitor and puppet in
the broadcast rants of the Khmers Rouges central command. Against them are
ranged hardliners, including, perhaps, Brother Number One, Pol Pot if he is
still alive: the latest of many rumours of his death circulated in June.
But for a brief interlude under UN supervision in 199193, Cambodia has en-
dured civil war since 1979, when the Khmers Rouges 45-month reign of terror
was ended by a Vietnamese invasion. Every year, during the early dry months of
3. It is worth noting here that there are a number of publications that explore news reporting
analysis, such as van Dijk, 1988; Bell, 1991; and Feez et al. 2008. However, none has exemplified
an SFL semantic moves analysis as set out in this section.
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the year, government troops try to capture areas controlled by the Khmers Rouges,
in the north and west of the country. Come the rains, the Khmers Rouges attempt
to expand their influence again.
Since UN-sponsored elections in 1993, which the Khmers Rouges boycotted, they
have been much weakened partly by military defeat, partly by a loss of exter-
nal support, and, more seriously, by defections. The government estimates that
there are now no more than about 5,000 Khmers Rouges soldiers. That is prob-
ably over-optimistic. But they are a dwindling and now divided force. The faction
that wants to join mainstream politics includes military commanders from Pailin
and Phnom Malai, two of the Khmers Rouges strongholds. They command up to
3,000 soldiers. If the talks succeed, such a deal might break the back of the Khmers
Rouges forever.
By contrast, the body of the PPPosts article (paragraphs 4 through 32) consists of
a chain of sequents, each comprised of a natural order and excursus compo-
nent. To illustrate this, one chain link is depicted below. The first two paragraphs
from the PPPost article comprise natural order, while the subsequent three para-
graphs comprise excursus.
The Prime Ministers have mended their fences, said Fun-cinpec General Nhek
Bun Chhay, closely involved with negotiations with the KR in northwestern
Cambodia.
Asked about a rumoured fresh agreement on power-sharing, he said: Yes, but
they did not say precisely about the 5050 sharing of the districts... but they agreed
to solve the problems that have not been solved.
Foreign diplomats have privately and persuasively suggested to both leaders about
what a great opportunity they now have to jointly forge a peace fearing that if
the delicate issue is mishandled or misunderstood in any way the result could be
irreparable.
Long-standing divisions between Funcinpec and CPP have been added to
by the breakaway of thousands of KR troops and their families in Pailin and
Phnom Malai.
Sources say the dramatic KR rebellion which potentially could lead to a fatal
weakening of the guerrilla movement has revived political and military divi-
sions within the government coalition.
The body structure moves in each publication, though similar, are configured dif-
ferently: there are a few cycles of sequent moves in the Economists article in con-
trast to a chain of multiple sequent moves in the PPPosts article. Moreover, the
constituent components in the cycle and chain are somewhat different, with the
Economist alone invoking culminations.
The closing moves of each article again betray the different text types. The
Economist closes (in paragraph 12) with prospection and moralising:
Many Cambodians would be horrified were the government to make a deal with
Ieng Sary. Foreigners too may feel squeamish about the return of the Khmers
Rouges, in any form, to Cambodian politics. But foreigners do not have to live
there, nor pay the price of peace, if that is what it turns out to be.
The PPPost article closes (in paragraphs 32 through 35) with simply another se-
quent in the chain:
According to Bun Chhay, Y Chhean asked for the Royal government to give an
official position on the case of Ieng Sary. Sok Pheap had earlier told Thai journal-
ists that the breakaway group wanted to be given the right to start a political party
under the leadership of Sary. Bun Chhay said he had relayed Chheans request to
Phnom Penh and was awaiting a response from the Prime Ministers.
As in the openings, we see again how the closing of the Economist article deals in
abstraction and speculation, in contrast to the closing of PPPosts article, which deals
in concrete here and now reality. The former completes an explanation whilst the
latter simply provides information about who said what to whom, and why.
From the above descriptions and illustrations, it is clear that the two publica-
tions differ at the discourse semantic level in terms of the moves found in their
respective texts. Bearing in mind that these two articles are essentially reporting
the same news event (i.e. the defection to the government side, of a major insur-
gent leader and his faction of guerrilla fighters), it is evident that they are going
about the task in a very different way. Indeed, the textually salient openings and
closings reveal The Economist to be professing a very strong point of view, while
the PPPosts opening and closing seem only to provide information without any
indication of the writers point of view. In other words, The Economist seems to be
engaging the reader in an interpretation of an event whereas the PPPost seems to
be simply reporting the event. The former is more subjective; the latter more ob-
jective. The notion that The Economist is explaining whilst the PPPost is reporting
is clearly evident from the text examples given above.
10. Comparing and contrasting lexicogrammar in reporting

Cambodia: August 1996
Let us now consider the fourth and, for the purposes of this chapter, final level of
language stratification in Hallidays SFL model, namely the lexicogrammar. Here
we need to focus on a specific aspect of the sample texts in order to draw the clear-
est possible distinctions between them at the lexicogrammatical level. Recalling
the previously noted point that each publication differs in terms of tenor and the
voices that are heard in the texts (see Bakhtin, 1981), it is useful to investigate
Stephen Moore
this claim more closely. Thus, we shall explore and compare the extent to which
voices are used in the two sample texts, and how these instances of use are typi-
cally realised lexicogrammatically. (It should be noted here that Appraisal theory
(Martin and White, 2005), though useful for evaluating issues of voice from an
SFL perspective, requires explanation and analyses beyond the scope of this chap-
ter. It has therefore not been used here in order to maintain an appropriate balance
with the analyses in preceding sections).
Table 1 shows a summary4 of how within the two articles, the treatment of
voice at a macro level is markedly different. First, bearing in mind that the articles
are almost the same length, The Economist article contains only 14 reports of
speech, while the PPPost article contains almost twice that number (24). Second,
the speech found in The Economist is mainly indirect reports, while the speech
found in the PPPost is mainly reported directly. Third, where direct speech is re-
ported, the reports in The Economist are short (19 words in total, across all 14 re-
ports of speech) whereas in the PPPost they are long (65 words in total, across all
24 reports of speech). Last, out of all projections (i.e. of speech, thought and writ-
ing), thought projections in The Economist are a sizeable proportion of the total
(9 thought projections out of 23 projections in total) whereas in the PPPost, they
comprise a low proportion of the total (8 thought projections out of 32 projections
in total). (Thought projections are important because, unlike speech projections
which might be traceable to a broadcast or a written transcript, they are virtually
impossible for the reader to verify). The trends of this macro analysis of voice pro-
jection in the two publications are clear: The Economist seems to constrain and
control its reporting in comparison to the reporting of the PPPost. Indeed, the
editor Emmott (1998) proudly admits that The Economist style of writing requires
the writer to work in a particular manner:
Table 1. Summary comparison of voice at macro level in Ieng Sary articles
The Economist Phnom Penh Post
Relatively few speech reports (14) Relatively more speech reports (24)
Speech mainly reported indirectly Speech largely reported directly
Direct speech reports are short Direct speech reports are long
(19 words in total) (65 words in total)
Medium proportion of thought projections Low proportion of thought projections
39% (9/23) 25% (8/32)
4. The full texts are needed to be able to reconcile the summary to actual instantiations, how-
ever some instances are exemplified in excerpts provided in this section.
The point about quotations and sources is quite important in The Economist.
The excellent American discipline of journalism emphasises sources, emphasises
quotations, emphasises the use of hard evidence to create the framework around
which the story is built, and that has many virtues to it, but we reject it almost
totally at The Economist. We dont like quotations because theyre very often, we
think, banal, and interrupt the flow of the writing. What we try to do is encourage
the reporter to talk to hundreds of people, to take their views, but then to distill it
into the report of their own view without interrupting it with saying the econo-
my is in a mess, says Bill Emmott. We dont want that. We want our reporters to
speak to these people, decide that the economy is a mess and write in a straight
line rather than building their article around a whole lot of sources that theyve
gone out and collected. (Bill Emmott, cited in Abrahamson, 1998)
Let us now consider at a more micro-level specific illustrations of the lexicogram-

mar of voice projections in the two publications. The excerpts below are essen-
tially reporting the same news of what prime minister Hun Sen said about the Ieng
Sary defection. First are the six instances of Hun Sens projected speech in the
PPPost article, followed by the one instance of Hun Sens projected speech in the
Economist article. For clarity in the excerpts, the speaker (or voice projector) has
been highlighted in bold, the voice projecting verb is in bold italics, and the verbal
projection is underlined).
PPPost excerpts (23rd August 1996, p. 1)
Paragraphs 1013:
Hun Sen publicly declared that thousands of KR troops had defectedthey later
said they had broken away from the old guard of the KR but had not defected to
the governmentafter negotiations personally controlled by him. He pledged to
protect Ieng Sary, the breakaway leader, which some politicians interpreted as
entertaining the possibility of permitting the former KR chief to defect to the
government. Ranariddh, meanwhile, echoing private consultations he had with
his father King Sihanouk, declared that Ieng Sary was a mass murderer who should
be punished. At the heart of the dispute appeared to be Hun Sens attempt to claim
public credit for provoking the KR split.
Paragraphs 2124:
The next day Hun Sen declared that thousands of KR troopsheaded by divisional
commanders loyal to Ieng Saryhad defected. Hun Sen said he and the CPP Min-
ister of Defence Tea Banh had been negotiating with the defectors for two months.
He later said he was prepared to talk to the KR chief at any time. If we can avoid
bloodshed and the deaths of thousands of lives because of his leadership [in breaking
away], we must welcome him, said Hun Sen, though he stopped short of saying
that Sary should be permitted to return to Phnom Penh.
Stephen Moore
Economist excerpt (17th August 1996, p. 21)

Paragraph 8:
Now Hun Sen, the more powerful of Cambodias two joint prime ministers (and
once a Khmer Rouge himself), has thanked Ieng Sary for a good job that may
save thousands of lives, and said past mistakes should be forgotten though he
does seem to be drawing the line at offering Ieng Sary a cabinet post. As prime
minister in the Vietnamese-backed government of 197992, Hun Sen led the fight
against the Khmers Rouges. Now he seems to be using the negotiations with them
to bolster his own prestige.
These excerpts from the two articles show key differences in their contextualiza-
tion of people and events, and in the lexicogrammatical features of Hun Sens pro-
jected speech. First, whilst The Economist (negatively) contextualises Hun Sen in
terms of power and his past as a member of the Khmer Rouge (see also Moore,
2005b), the PPPost does not have to contextualise him at all since its readers al-
ready know who he is. (Moreover, a more subtle point about Hun Sens behaviour
is actually made in the PPPost in its juxtapositioning of Hun Sens activities with
the comment by Ranariddh that Ieng Sary was a mass murderer who should be
punished).
Second, the PPPost excerpts are more informative about what was said by whom
and in what context. The players themselves are given more voice projection than in
The Economist. Indeed, the PPPost gives Hun Sen much more speech projection and
also allows him to speak for himself through an extended direct quote which bears
further comparison with The Economists reporting of the same speech.
PPPost excerpt:
If we can avoid bloodshed and the deaths of thousands of lives because of his
leadership [in breaking away], we must welcome him, said Hun Sen, though he
stopped short of saying that Sary should be permitted to return to Phnom Penh.
Economist excerpt:
Now Hun Sen, the more powerful of Cambodias two joint prime ministers (and
once a Khmer Rouge himself), has thanked Ieng Sary for a good job that may
save thousands of lives, and said past mistakes should be forgotten though he
does seem to be drawing the line at offering Ieng Sary a cabinet post.
In these two reports focused on exactly what Hun Sen said about Ieng Sary, we see
that the PPPost gives salience to the message itself through foregrounding it in
thematic position at the start of the sentence. By contrast, The Economist fore-
grounds the speaker. Also, while the PPPost uses the extended direct quote to allow
Hun Sen to speak for himself, The Economist uses minimal direct quotes and then
only with scare quotes (e.g. good job) to distance itself from the truthfulness of
the statements. Whilst the PPPost reports the apparent pragmatic approach of Hun
Sen with regard to saving thousands of lives through Ieng Sarys defection, The
Economist seems to mock this by attributing Hun Sen with saying that mistakes
in the past (i.e. the deaths of nearly two million people during KR rule) should be
forgotten. Curiously, both excerpts end with a qualifying statement ascribed to
Hun Sen about Ieng Sarys likely future. In the PPPost article, it speculates whether
Ieng Sary might relocate to the countrys capital, whereas in the Economist article,
it suggests the (ominous) possibility that Ieng Sary could even enter government
as a cabinet minister.
The excerpts in this section have illustrated a defining difference between the
two publications approaches to reporting on Cambodia. The PPPost favours a
style that is transparent and allows the reader to weigh up the evidence of events
by reporting them as factually as possible, often using extensive reporting of
speech. The Economist, on the other hand, favours the approach of writing in a
straight line in which the reader is positioned to simply absorb the explanation
for events that is (persuasively) provided by the writer.
11. Discussion
This chapter has compared the coverage of Cambodia by The Economist and the
Phnom Penh Post during the decade and a half since peace accords were formally
signed in 1991 to end Cambodias twenty-year civil war. The Economist, a weekly
magazine, reports on news and events from around the world, with Cambodia
competing in the Asian region as merely one potential site to be reported on
amongst many others. Indeed, as can be seen in Table 2, the magazines coverage of
Cambodia during the period from late 1991 to 2005 ranged from an average fre-
quency of just 3 times p.a. to as high as 21 times p.a. Against this restricted set of
reports on Cambodia from The Economist, we have compared the PPPost, a fort-
nightly newspaper during this same period, whose mission consists of reporting
exclusively on news and events in Cambodia. In other words, there is virtually noth-
ing in the PPPost which is not centred on Cambodia as its topic. It is worth stating
here that the comparison of a magazine with a newspaper is not a proper depic-
tion of this study since the Economist actually claims to be a newspaper and the
PPPost is only published every two weeks. What this study has set out to compare is
two authoritative publications which report regularly but not on a daily basis.
While it is easy to accept that The Economist is a global magazine, the status of
the PPPost as a local publication is less clear cut. Indeed, whether the PPPost is best
Stephen Moore
Table 2. Frequency of Cambodian reports in The Economist
19911993 21 reports p.a. on average

1999 9 reports
described as a local or a national newspaper is open to debate. Its news cover-

age is certainly national in scope, however its mode of production, frequency of
publication, advertising and name are suggestive of a local publication. In any
case, for the purpose of this research the important distinction is local to
Cambodia rather than local to Phnom Penh. Furthermore, what is essential in
this global/local comparison is that both publications are in English, for this al-
lows us to see how the resources of one language are selectively used to make
(similar or different) meanings about the same topics. Indeed, the linguistic selec-
tions made by each publication are shaped by their respective contexts of culture.
The concept of culture is not explicitly defined in Hallidays SFL theory, but
is understood as something which exists and within which language use is nested.
Butt et al. (2000: 3) note the following:
When you think of the differences in forms of address, in ceremonies, in polite-
ness and in significant activities between one culture and another, you get some
idea of the importance of context of culture in shaping meanings. The context
of culture is sometimes described as the sum of all the meanings it is possible to
mean in that particular culture.
Given this perspective on culture and language as system, it would be incorrect

(in SFL terms) to say that language use establishes cultures; rather it is the case
that language use reveals cultures (i.e. through wordings of lexicogrammar; set-
tings of field, tenor and mode; and generic structures). Thus, with regard to the is-
sue of whether the corpus design in the present study has defined the dimensions
of global and local and therefore the issue of cultural boundness in the texts
analysed above, it is rather the case that the instantiations (or actualisations) of the
potential that constitutes the culture-bound linguistic system determines the sys-
tem choices of what is actually said/written. Hence, what is written by the Econo-
mist team in London is culturally different from what is written by the PPPost team
in Phnom Penh due, to some extent, to how their different contexts of culture shape
their meanings. Some linguists (e.g. van Dijk, 2008) take issue with the vagueness
of how SFL describes context, and this is a valid criticism. However, notwithstanding
the ambiguity in its treatment of culture, SFL is still in wide use amongst linguists
for its ability, above all else, to connect linguistic choices to social contexts.
One of the key differences between the two publications concerns the issue of
contextualization. As a global publication, The Economist has to spell out back-
ground history and define key participants for virtually every report it provides on
Cambodia, whereas the PPPost is able to assume a higher degree of shared knowl-
edge amongst its readership and, therefore, it needs to provide less contextualiza-
tion of this kind. In providing the contextualization of a news event, the point of
view of The Economist is immediately foregrounded, as we have seen in the analy-
ses above. This reporting practice contrasts sharply with that of the PPPost, which
typically does not include a particular point of view in its reporting on Cambodia.
The notion of voice and whose voice the reader hears is in fact another key
issue highlighted in the analyses of this study. As we have seen, The Economist ap-
proach to using sources in a way that permits a clear, succinct and persuasive story
to emerge involves manipulating and controlling voices in order to fit the constraints
of this style of writing. The constraints of space available to report on Cambodia and
the need to contextualise every story about Cambodia further reduce what The
Economist can actually say about the country in any given report. By contrast, the
PPPost has the luxury of space and the local resources (e.g. interpreters and transla-
tors) to engage with a wide range of sources when investigating a newsworthy event.
Moreover, its approach to using sources to let local newsmakers speak for them-
selves through extended direct speech (including lengthy direct quotations), aligns
with Blommaerts (2005) call for local voices to be heard in global debates.
In a sense, through its style of reporting, every Economist report on Cambodia
seems distillable to a central overall message that this publication wants the reader
to absorb from reading the report. This message is largely a worldview (see, for
example, Simpson 1993; Fowler 1996) that explains Cambodia in a bad light be-
cause the benchmarks against which its performance is measured (i.e. democracy,
rule of law and free markets) are established Western concepts which are relatively
new and alien to Cambodia (Moore 2008). Indeed, one could well describe The
Economists reports on Cambodia as a discourse of despair. By contrast, the PPPost
does not attempt to lead opinion through its reporting on Cambodia, but rather
seems to inform through letting events and newsmakers speak for themselves as
far as possible. This approach, together with reporting a wide variety of sub-topics
about Cambodia such as human interest stories, paints a different picture, repre-
senting Cambodia through what could even be termed a discourse of hope.
Beyond showing that The Economist and the PPPost report on Cambodia in
fundamentally different ways, it is important to consider the consequences of the
findings of the present study. Relying on The Economist to interpret events and add
value to news reporting, a reader is persuaded of its representations of Cambodia
Stephen Moore
as being valid. Relying on the PPPost to report events from multiple perspectives
without spelling out an interpretation of them, a reader is informed in a way that
permits a personal interpretation to be conceived. Whichever media outlet is relied
upon, there are potential consequences for foreign aid, tourism and development
in Cambodia if the decision makers (ranging from diplomats to foreign tourists)
perceive Cambodia to be a place of despair rather than a place of hope.
12. Summary
The research reported in this chapter has attempted to deal with media reporting
from a perspective not previously seen in the literature (i.e. a comparison of global
and local publications). The chapter has covered a range of relevant issues through
adhering to an SFL framework which, by theorising language as social semiotics,
explicitly links social and discursive domains. Figure 3 summarises diagrammati-
cally what the chapter has shown.
Different cultural contexts:

Context of creation (London vs Phnom Penh)
Context of reception (World vs Cambodia)

Different voices valued:
Western
Cambodian

Different text types (e.g. human interest)
and mix of genres (e.g. reporting vs evaluating)

Different topics, tone and rhetorical moves

Different lexis and grammar of voice projection:
Indirect
Direct

Different meanings

Different understanding
Figure 3. Summary of comparative contexts, texts and lexicogrammar

13. Conclusion
This chapter has been concerned with print media and the contrast between dis-
courses of a global newsmagazine and a local newspaper in their reporting of
news, issues and current affairs in Cambodia. It has addressed three key aspects of
contrastive media analysis: (1) relating the macro phenomenon of culture to the
micro analysis of text structures; (2) determining the equivalence of texts for inter-
cultural comparisons; and (3) deciding which aspects of such texts can be
compared.
The current study has focused on only one global and one local publication,
and therefore its findings might not be consistent with a larger sampling of these
media types, nor indeed with similar comparisons of media in languages other
than English. Also, the study has only explored print media; and further contras-
tive studies of radio and television broadcasting, for example, could yield important
understandings about how they differ or align in terms of reporting homogenous
or diverse worldviews. Despite these limitations, the current chapter has shone a
light on issues concerning the quality of information available to readers of global
and local mass circulation print media, and identified that more research on this
topic is clearly warranted.
Acknowledgement
This research was partly funded by a Macquarie University New Staff Grant, No. 9200728710.
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Contrastive news discourse analysis
from a pragmatic perspective
Context, ideology and representation in press
coverage about Kenyas crisis
Roel Coesemans
University of Antwerpen, Belgium
This paper explores the possibilities of a combined methodology of contrastive

pragmatic ideology research and critical news discourse analysis. Concrete
methodological tools from social actors analysis, as designed by Van Leeuwen
(2008), are integrated into a framework of linguistic pragmatics, proposed by
Verschueren (1999, 2008, 2012). By contrasting topically-related news reports
concerning the Kenyan post-election crisis from American, British, and Kenyan
newspapers salient patterns of unquestioned meaning are scrutinized via an
analysis of the representation of social actors. The differences in representational
strategies are given ideological interpretations, as they result from different
worldviews and contribute to a tribal versus political frame of interpretation.
Finally these (sometimes evaluative) interpretations are nuanced and tentatively
explained by aspects of the context.
1. Introduction
Tribal rage tears at diverse Kenyan city (The Washington Post 03/01/2008) and
Tribal strife leaves Kenya on brink of humanitarian disaster (The Independent
06/01/2008) were typical headlines in international news coverage at the onset of
2008. Kenya came into the medias spotlight, when the East African country tum-
bled into a post-election crisis after the presidential elections had gone awry,
causing political and social unrest with increasing forms of violence. However,
instead of illuminating the multiple facets of Kenyas troubles, the world press only
shed light on a few limited aspects of the crisis. That becomes clear after compari-
son with the local Kenyan press. The titles on the front pages of the two largest
Kenyan newspapers on the corresponding days read: Suspicion, mistrust as PNU
Roel Coesemans
and ODM dig in (The Standard 03/01/2008) and Kibaki opens the door for coali-
tion (Daily Nation 06/01/2008). This superficial contrastive media analysis is
already quite revealing. The same events are reported on, but from different per-
spectives, so that distinct interpretive frames arise. While the foreign media seem
to focus on the tribal aspects of the conflicts in Kenya, the local press rather nar-
rows the news down to politics, concentrating on the struggle for power between
the incumbent president Mwai Kibaki, leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU)
and Raila Odinga from the oppositional Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
In this paper, the observation that American and British newspapers primarily
ethnicized the events, while they tended to be politicized in the Kenyan newspa-
pers will be explored in more depth by contrastively analyzing representations of
social actors in the news discourse.
The current research started from three observations. First, although the glob-
al village we live in has become more and more multicultural, for a vast majority
of people the mass media still are a major source of information. Peoples imagina-
tions and conceptions of African countries are influenced by news reporting.
Second, when comparing topically-related news in different newspapers, the dis-
crepancy in the news stories suggests that readers do not get to see the whole pic-
ture. By definition a newspaper article is restricted to a limited number of views on
the reported events. This becomes problematic only when certain perspectives are
systematically obscured. Third, as readership figures drop, newspapers are not
only under siege of economic and commercial pressures, but they are also increas-
ingly confronted with readers who question the quality of contemporary journal-
ism. However, the best horseman is always on his feet. Journalists are expected to
explain as accurately as possible what is happening in the world by capturing com-
plex realities in fairly concise news texts that are attractive to and understandable
for as many people as possible. At the same time news reports are to be thorough
and easily interpretable for all readers, whether or not they are familiar with the
context of the events. This tension underlies a lot of dilemmas in journalism.
News can never be a truly objective representation of reality, nor can it be
neutrally interpreted. Readers are differentially and subjectively positioned to-
wards texts and contexts. The way news reports are written is crucial for their
meanings. However, the generation of meaning1 is an interactive process between
writer and reader. Readers can derive various meanings on the basis of the lan-
guage used in newspaper reports, depending on their intentions and expectations,
background knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, etc. That is why news reporting will
1. Following the pragmatic framework, sketched below, meaning is seen as being generated
rather than constructed. Construction implies an active and conscious process, while generation
also allows for more spontaneous activation or emergence of meanings beyond intentionality.
Contrastive news discourse analysis from a pragmatic perspective
always carry the potential to spark off criticism. This does not make the study of
meanings in news through contrastive discourse analysis an impossible
undertaking. Although objectivity can only be an ideal, given the provisional and
contingent nature of news, journalists have a will to facticity (Allan 2010), which
means that they use strategies and devices to lend their accounts a factual status.
Notwithstanding readers ability to interpret news texts differently, journalists an-
ticipate on how their texts will be interpreted by the implied readership. Journalistic
language use can promote preferred readings (Reah 1998). Moreover, as will be-
come clear below, explicitly communicated meanings are always rooted in ideo-
logical assumptions and implicit background knowledge which must be taken into
account to make sense of the news reports. This paper broadly aims at identifying
the lenses through which the Kenyan post-election crisis was interpreted and re-
ported as well as some of the salient meanings that guided the readers interpretations
of the events by contrasting news reports from The Times and The Independent
(UK), The New York Times and The Washington Post (US), and the Daily Nation
and The Standard (Kenya). An analysis of the representation of the main social
actors serves as an access point to the different meaning constructs and their un-
derlying worldview. To explain differences in language use, generating different
meanings, notions of ideology and context will be applied. Thus, ideological as-
pects of journalistic, discursive choices will be touched upon.
2. A pragmatic perspective to language use in newspapers
2.1 Contextualization in a theory of linguistic pragmatics
As context is essential to produce and interpret language use, it is a crucial concept

for any theory of pragmatics. Communication can be seen as the exchange of in-
formation in context. Also facts put forward in newspaper coverage are not con-
text-free, because they always hang together with the context in which they are
found and with the people that are at their origins (Mey 2003: 335). The more
newspaper readers know about the context or the better they can identify (with)
the context, the better they can judge the facts of news reports. A frequent criti-
cism of news reporting, also passed on the newspaper coverage of the Kenyan
post-election crisis, is that a lack or deficiency of contextual information leads to a
distorted presentation and inaccurate interpretation of reality (see e.g. Somerville
2009 and Iraki 2010 or opinion articles such as Furedi 2008 or Kircher-Allen 2008).
Nevertheless, in discourse analysis context is often taken for granted without be-
ing theorized or clearly specified (Fowler 1996, Wodak 2007). Frequently context
is conceived of as the sociocultural situation or environment of language use.
Roel Coesemans
Liddicoat (2009), for instance, views communication as a culturally contexted

practice. Without denying the role of culture in language use, a more dynamic and
complex notion of context will here be elaborated.
Before outlining the context of language use in the chosen framework of lin-
guistic pragmatics as the social, cognitive and cultural study of language in use
(Verschueren 1996, 1999, 2008, 2012), it must be elucidated how using language is
understood:
Language use is viewed as a process of interactive meaning generation em-
ploying as its tool a set of production and interpretation choices from a vari-
able and varying range of options, made in a negotiable manner, inter-adapting
with communicative needs, and making full use of the reflexivity of the human
mind (Verschueren 2008: 14).
Using language, for instance to create a news article, is a kind of social practice that
is interactively achieved. This view corresponds to how language use is conceived
within critical discourse analysis (CDA)2, in which Van Leeuwens work on the
representation of social actors is situated (see 3.2). In CDA discourse is seen as an
intervention in the social and economic order [which] works by the reproduction
of (socially originating) ideology (Fowler 1996: 3). Van Leeuwen (1993, 2008)
considers discourse as recontextualized social practice. It is a linguistic (or other-
wise semiotic) social practice that represents other (communicative or non-
communicative) social practices, whereby the original social practice is taken out
of its context and inserted into a new discursive context following the purposes,
priorities, preferences and possibilities of the communicative event. Van Leeuwen
(2008) notes that the way in which social practices are recontextualized in dis-
course is usually not fully known to the participants involved, because it is done
automatically as a matter of common sense. Taking a social constructionist stance,
Mehan remarks, [b]ecause discourse, use of language, is action, different dis-
courses constitute the world differently, which means that [e]vents in the world
do not exist for people independently of the representations people use to make
sense of them (1996: 273). This is too strong a claim, but it is clear that representa-
tions in discourse have an impact on how people view and experience the world
(cf. Harris 2004). The relation between language and society is dialectical in that
[t]exts are socioculturally shaped but they also constitute society and culture, in
ways which may be transformative as well as reproductive (Fairclough 1995: 34).
2. The presented linguistic pragmatic approach shares several assumptions with critical dis-
course analysis. Due to length restrictions I cannot elaborate on where they converge and di-
verge. However, see Verschueren (2001) and Wodak (2007) for interesting comparisons between
linguistic pragmatics and CDA.
Newspaper journalists and their readers are constantly making linguistic and
language-external choices (consciously and unconsciously) in the recursive pro-
cesses of discourse production or interpretation, which is characterized by vari-
ability, negotiability and adaptability (Verschueren 1999: 5961). Variability refers
to the wide range of linguistic possibilities to capture real-life events in discourse.
From variable and various options the Washington Post journalist of the above
mentioned article chose to describe the protests, skirmishes and violent outbursts
during Kenyas post-election crisis as tribal rage, thus lumping together a series of
different conflicts. Possible alternatives could have been post-election violence,
political violence or social unrest (see 4.1.3 for more examples and discussion).
Whether she intended to express that tribe was the driving force behind the vio-
lence or just that some people whose primary identification is tribe membership
are enraged with each other, the meanings invoked in the article are negotiated
between writer and reader. Some readers will be offended by the label of tribal
rage, while others will take it for granted. Neither production nor interpretation
choices are made mechanically according to fixed form-function relationships.
The word tribe does not always have a pejorative connotation and the linguistic
form tears does not automatically function as the third person singular of the verb
to tear. Ultimately the journalist tries to adapt her language use to the (idealized)
reader by rooting the discourse into what she believes to be common ground and
by creating a presumably shared, accessible or appropriable frame of interpreta-
tion. The reader in turn is to arrive at negotiated interpretations from a range of
variable possibilities by adapting all ingredients of the speech event in such a way
as to approach relative satisfaction for the purposes of the communication.
Central to the processes of (inter)adaptation in language use [...] is the dy-
namic generation of meaning, Verschueren contends (1999: 147). Meaning is not
considered to be stable, but it is dynamically generated through the interplay be-
tween structure and context. Here structure refers to any element of linguistic
form or organization, ranging from code and style over sounds, morphemes,
words, clauses and whole utterances to building principles such as coherence or
information structuring. Context is broadly conceived as any (combination of)
ingredient(s) of a communicative event [...] with which linguistic choices are in-
teradaptable (Verschueren 2008: 18). When choosing forms of expression to de-
scribe news events journalists take certain aspects of the context into account and
activate other contextual aspects in their language use, while readers also orient at
concrete aspects of the context. Thus context is the product of contextualization:
aspects of external reality are made into context in the service of the overall pro-
cess of meaning generation; they derive their relevance from the language users
orientation (Verschueren 2008). Before listing the specific ingredients of the
Roel Coesemans
communicative event that can be context, the consequences of this view on lan-
guage use in context are in need of explication.
First of all, structure and context cannot be treated separately. Linguistic struc-
ture and context are geared to one another. In combination, they constitute the
locus of dynamic meaning-generating processes (Verschueren 1999, 2008).
Secondly, a dynamic view emerges in which using language is conceptualized as a
communicative dynamics [that] consists of movement through consecutive and/
or overlapping contexts and alternating focus on different levels of structure
(Verschueren 2008: 16). Thirdly, meaning is more than intentions. When language
use comes about through the interaction between context and structure, both pro-
duction and interpretation choices are involved. So, the language producer does
not have a monopoly on meaning. Rather meaning generation is a context-
dependent joint action. Finally, it follows that, next to structure, also context is
largely a matter of choice. From an infinite range of possibilities a concrete context
of language use comes into being in the dynamics of meaning generation through
the interaction between utterer and interpreter, where both focus on, react to, in-
corporate or make relevant certain aspects of an outside reality (Verschueren
1999: 75ff). As a consequence, context has unstable, negotiable boundaries.
If context is not a stable, objective reality-out-there, what exactly is it? The ac-
tual context of language use is a varying constellation which comprises the language
users, the co-text and the communication medium as well as [a]spects of physical,
social and mental reality [that] get activated by the utterer and the interpreter in
their respective choice-making practices, and that is how they become part of lan-
guage use as elements with which the making of choices is interadaptable
(Verschueren 1999: 8788). Whereas the mental world refers to cognitive or emo-
tive elements of language use, the physical world pertains to time, space and mate-
rial circumstances or physical conditions. The social world has to do with (i) social
settings, e.g. (oral vs. literate) societies, (professional) institutions, (urban vs. rural)
environments; (ii) social identities, e.g. social class, ethnicity, nationality; and
(iii) social relations, e.g. kinship, gender, authority, power, solidarity, dependence.
Much of these social world aspects of context can be considered as culture.
Since contrastive newspaper analyses often result in comparisons between cul-
tures (e.g. Berkowitz & Eko 2011), a few comments about culture in relation to
context are in order. Culture tends to be used an easy explanator of human
(communicative) behaviour. However, culture is a complex concept with a wide
variety of possible conceptualizations and definitions (see e.g. Blommaert 1991 or
Sarangi 2009 for critical overviews of approaches to culture). Culture is common-
ly associated with a way of life or a way of interacting, involving social practices,
communicative norms as well as visions of the world, which are perceived to be
typical of a certain community (cf. Kramsch 1998). Scollon & Scollon, for instance,
define culture as any of the customs, world view, language, kinship system, social
organisation, and other taken-for-granted day-to-day practices of a people which
set that group apart as a distinctive group (2001: 126). Such treatments of culture
assume that there are properties that are so typical of a certain group of people that
they allow for a clear distinction from other groups and that attribute a distinctive
identity with almost essential characteristics to the group members. Such a con-
cept of culture easily leads to a generalizing and idealizing fixation of social groups,
ignoring that they are the result of social interactions between individuals and that
in real life culture involves a dynamic, variable and heterogeneous complex of
practices, subject to negotiation and contextual adaptation. In addition, most con-
temporary societies are characterized by a growing multiculturalism, so that some
sociologists even speak of a global multiculture (Nederveen Pieterse 2007). Such
multiculturalism is not only characteristic of so called western nations, it can also
be found in the multi-ethnic Republic of Kenya. Another aspect of global multi-
culture is that cultural products are consumed by more than one cultural group.
As will become clear in 4, the studied newspaper texts are a case in point.
Instead of taking (a common, but abstract understanding of) culture for
granted, Sarangi suggests that discourse-oriented research should deal with how
and when concrete cultural elements play an active role in our meaning-making
processes (2009: 100). In this respect, culture can best be treated as a repertoire of
concepts and practices that serve as conventionalized orienting frameworks for
the production, reception, and circulation of discourse (cf. Bauman 2004: 2). From
a pragmatic perspective, culture is always characterized by continuity, change and
variability, the source of which is not an idealized group, but the individual with
adaptable social identities (Verschueren 1999: 92). Undeniably, cultural elements
exist outside of discourse, but only in concrete contexts of social (inter)action do
they become relevant. Cultural traits can emphasise or blur distinctions between
social groups, depending on the specific context and goals of the communication.
Close to this view is Knoblauchs conception of culture as contexts, constructed by
interactive processes of language use. He argues that culture is essentially com-
municative since culture is not only enacted, it is to be seen as a continuous pro-
cess of meaning construction through communicative action (Knoblauch 2001: 24).
A similar view is held by Day (2006) who argues that a cultural group comes into
being when a social group constitutes itself or is constituted by others as a cultural
group. It is a subtype of social group which has undergone a kind of institutionali-
sation. Similarly, an ethnic group is seen as a sub-type of cultural group distin-
guished by an institutionalization process following from the common knowledge
amongst a collection of individuals that they (presumably) share common origins,
beliefs, discursive and other social practices to organise and make sense of reality
(Day 2006: 220222).
Roel Coesemans
2.2 Ideology in a contrastive pragmatic methodology
As was indicated in 2.1, language use is always rooted in an ideologically shaped

world view and inevitably relies on common ground, bearing in mind that com-
mon ground is never really common, since language users are positioned differ-
ently towards and in the text and context (Verschueren 1999: 77). Language use is
also ideological in that it creates a framework of interpretation that can always be
contested or disclaimed. Note that language users orientation to contextual as-
pects, among which elements of culture, can be seen to have an ideological dimen-
sion as well. Culture can be said to be ideological in two ways. First, culture in
language use is ideological because it concerns certain aspects of the social world
which are made culturally relevant by the language users in the specific communi-
cative dynamics in which they are engaged. Second, when specific cultural aspects
of social reality are attributed to all members of a social group and generalized
to distinguish between stable cultures, culture is an ideological construct
(cf. Eelen 1999). Then, the labelling of social world aspects as culture is a discur-
sive choice, for such aspects do not amount to necessary and sufficient clusters of
features constituting identifiable, let alone separable, coherent entities.
Prior to presenting the contrastive pragmatic methodology, the intricate con-
cept of ideology must be defined. In this paper, ideology is associated with
underlying patterns of meaning, frames of interpretation, world views, or forms of
everyday thinking and explanation (cf. Verschueren 2012). Ideology is broadly
defined as:
any constellation of fundamental or commonsensical, and often normative, beliefs
and ideas related to some aspect(s) of (social) reality (Verschueren 1999: 238).
Verschueren (ibid.) adds that the commonsense nature of ideas and beliefs is
manifested in the fact that they are rarely questioned within a specific group of
people in a given society or community. An insight into ideological aspects of
news reports can be gained by studying the taken-for-granted patterns of unques-
tioned meaning, which are often carried along implicitly in the news discourse.
Being inherent to the generation of meaning, ideology determines how events in
the world are entextualised and interpreted. Albeit not negative per se, ideology in
this paper will relate to, often one-sided or biased, media representations of social
reality, which contribute to the frames of interpretation of newspaper reports.
The concrete methodology of this study is a combination of social actors anal-
ysis from CDA (Van Leeuwen 2008), which will be elaborated in 3.2, and
contrastive pragmatic ideology research (Verschueren 1996, 1999, 2011). Within
the latter framework, a discourse analysis that focuses on ideological aspects of
language use derives its strength from the recurrence of the observed phenomena
and from the coherence between the observed patterns of meaning. This does not
mean that ideology itself has to be coherent, but it does mean that even contradic-
tory empirical observations have to emerge coherently from the data (Verschueren
1996: 592; 1999: 245). It is inadmissible to draw wide-ranging ideological conclu-
sions from isolated examples. In this methodology, three research stages can be
distinguished: a propaedeutic stage, an analytical stage and a reflective stage. Note
that these stages are not so clear-cut as the description below suggests; in real-time
research they overlap and are often performed simultaneously or recursively.
During the preliminary, propaedeutic stage the foundations of the research are
laid. This is the stage of immersion into theory and methodology, delimitation and
contextualization of the topic, familiarisation with the field and corpus collection,
all essential for the following analytical phase, in which the in-depth discourse
analysis is carried out. A huge amount of background information has to be pro-
cessed, because (news) discourse, cannot be accurately interpreted without thor-
ough contextual knowledge about topic and field. This entails both theoretical and
practical knowledge. That is why considerable time was spent to reviewing the
literature about Kenyan politics, (international) news reporting, news production
and selection, etc. The societal context and professional practices were further
investigated during fieldwork through visits to news desks, interviews with jour-
nalists and study of internal, editorial policy documents. Another step in the prep-
aration of the research concerns the sampling of data (see 3.1). For contrastive
pragmatic analysis Verschueren (1999, 1996) recommends a horizontal and verti-
cal variation of the data. In order to prevent misguided conclusions, on the one
hand a fairly extensive corpus should consist of different kinds of texts, discourses
and genres from different authors, to be investigated simultaneously; on the other
hand different layers of linguistic structure, such as topic selection, word choice,
grammatical relations and argumentation strategies, must be taken into account.
In the analytical stage three kinds of analysis are concurrently and recursively
performed. The textual analysis scrutinizes the language used in the individual
newspaper reports on a micro-level. After identifying what kind of words or
phrases are used to describe news events and participants and examining how the
relations between actors and actions are (grammatically and semantically) ren-
dered, what are the connotations and ambiguities, etc., the search can be broadened
to patterns of unquestioned meaning that emerge from the texts. Here already the
importance of contrastive analysis can be proclaimed. Only through comparative
close (re)reading, ideological aspects of language use can be revealed, both at the
explicit and implicit levels of the news discourse. So the textual analysis gradually
turns into an intertextual analysis. In order to arrive at founded interpretations, it
is essential to analyze contrastively. Through contrasting the newspaper reports it
becomes clear what aspects of the events are shrouded, how certain interpretations
Roel Coesemans
are highlighted while others are de-emphasised or even withheld. Textual and in-
tertextual analyses are to be complemented by a contextual analysis of the corpus
where linguistic observations are linked to macro-processes on a societal level.
Following Carvalho (2008), the contextual analysis consists of both a historical-
diachronic and a comparative-synchronic analysis. This means that first the
historical, political, social and economic context is taken into account. Secondly,
attention must be paid to the discursive context and the various representations of
an issue at the time of production and interpretation. Granted, it is difficult to de-
limit context, but texts always contain pointers to relevant aspects of context which
can be further explored. Moreover, information from ethnographic fieldwork is
useful for contextualized interpretations as will be shown in the fourth section of
this paper.
At the final reflective stage of the research the results are to be critically evalu-
ated and nuanced, or adjusted if necessary. The results have to be double-checked
and field-tested. The better the results are triangulated, the more credible and
convincing the news discourse analysis is. Two methods of triangulation are rec-
ommended. Firstly, since interference with ones own ideology is to be expected,
the research requires a phase of counterscreening during which meaning con-
structions incompatible with the tentative research conclusions are systematically
searched for, in spite of the fact that it would be a mistake to think that all bias can
(or should) be eliminated (Verschueren 1996: 593). Secondly, it is important to
get back to the language users involved, viz. to get feedback from some of the
journalists about the findings. This helps to put the research results into perspec-
tive and to avoid over- or underinterpretation.
3. Context of corpus and representation of social actors
3.1 Newspapers and ideology
Before the contrastive news discourse analysis can be illustrated and discussed in
4.1 and 4.2, the analytical toolkit has to be introduced. However, to understand the
examples of analytical categories by which the representation of social actors can
be examined, some context about the corpus and the topic of the newspaper arti-
cles comes in handy. Next to the building of the corpus, acquiring the following
background information is part of the propaedeutic stage in the methodology.
To start with, a few details can be provided about the corpus. The basic input
of the contrastive news discourse analysis at hand consists of all the hard news
reports about the first 10 days after Kenyas General Election, spanning the period
of 27 December 2007 till 6 January 2008, taken from the print versions of The New
York Times (9), The Washington Post (10), The Times (15), The Independent (11),
the Daily Nation (72) and The Standard (70).3 Notice that the Kenyan subpart of
the corpus is lexically twice the size of the American/British part. However, the
article length somewhat compensates this imbalance. The American and British
newspaper reports together have an average word count of 852, while the average
Kenyan article consists of 531 words. These newspaper articles are fit for compari-
son, since they can be considered as intralingual parallel texts in Hartmanns
sense, more specifically as intertexts, i.e. thematically, contextually and function-
ally related texts (Hartmann 1996). Although the discourse analysis focused on
hard news reports, the whole co-text of editorials, commentary and opinion arti-
cles is taken into account in keeping with Verschuerens guidelines for contrastive
pragmatic ideology research and the theory about the functioning of context in
language use (cf. 2.1 and 2.2).
Newspapers, as commercial enterprises, do not just reflect the ideology of the
majority of their readers, they also add to the establishment, domination or modi-
fication of ideology:
Newspapers are not simply vehicles for delivering information. They present the
reader with aspects of the news, and present it often in a way that intends to guide
the ideological stance of the reader (Reah 1998: 50).
Newspaper articles are important sites of ideology production in so far as they

strategically situate events existing in social reality into a chosen discursive con-
text, thereby indicating the preferred way(s) of interpreting these news events. In
that respect newspaper journalists can be called ideology brokers (Blommaert
1999). Through recontextualization in discourse, reality is framed and a particular
ideological representation/interpretation is promoted. Milani (2007: 114) argues
that this, together with the authoritative status typically accorded to newspaper
discourses, means that print media have a powerful influence on peoples under-
standing of, and attitudes to, the social world (recall 2.1).
The social world of the case study pertains to the Kenyan post-election crisis.
In spite of its reputation as a tourist safe haven, Kenya faced and still faces multiple
problems including poverty, unemployment, periods of drought and unequal dis-
tribution of economic and natural resources over its more than 42 ethnic groups.
Such problems regularly cause tensions between individual Kenyans or whole
communities. At election times these tensions can rise, because Kenyan society is
easily polarized by politics. After all, politics has become a lucrative business in
Kenya, where the state dominates the distribution of power and resources. Political
3. The numbers between brackets refer to the number of hard news reports culled from the
newspapers.
Roel Coesemans
parties are seldom based on ideology, rather on social cleavages, as numerous pol-
iticians are not motivated by party principles or constructive policy commit-
ments, but instead are more concerned with the quest for raw power, perceived
as attainable by relying on the ethnic card (Oloo 2007: 111). Furthermore, in
Kenyas single-member-district first-past-the-post winner-takes-all kind of
electoral system ethnic support is indispensable (Oloo 2007: 121). The capricious
careers of Kibaki and Odinga are illustrative of the opportunism that is deeply
rooted in Kenyan politics.
3.2 Historical and socio-political context
In the build-up to the General Election of Thursday 27 December 2007, which

comprised presidential, parliamentary and civic elections, the Kenyan electorate
became ethnically polarized. This polarization, expressed in harsh oppositional
campaigns against Kibakis Kikuyu government, can partly be explained by devel-
opments previous to the elections. Mwai Kibaki, who belongs to the Kikuyu ethnic
group, is the third president after Jomo Kenyatta (19641978), a Kikuyu, and
Daniel arap Moi (19782002), who hails from the Kalenjin community. He won
the elections in 2002 as the leader of an alliance of the main opposition parties,
called the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), from Uhuru Kenyatta, also a
Kikuyu, who was launched by the former single ruling party, the Kenya African
National Union (KANU), as the successor of Moi.4 Kibakis main challenger in the
2007 presidential election was Raila Odinga. As the second man of NARC, Odinga
had helped Kibaki into State House. However, when the president neglected his
promise to make him prime minister, Odinga as Minister of Roads, Public Works
and Housing left the government out of disagreement with the poor constitutional
reform process. Together with other dissidents he founded the Orange Demo-
cratic Movement. Through the subsequent reshuffle the government, which had
already been weakened by major corruption scandals, lost its ethnic diversity.
Consequently Kibakis cabinet came to be perceived as an organ of cronyism
(Ogola 2009). While ODM presented itself as a coalition of minority tribes (though
dominated by Luo, Kalenjin, Luhya and Mijikenda) and promised an equal distri-
bution of wealth by a tribally-mixed, corruption-free government in a federal
state, Kibaki not only personally installed five new judges to the Court of Appeal,
but also appointed 19 of the 22 commissioners of the Electoral Commission of
4. The ethnicity of the politicians is stressed to show that Kenyas president has not always
been from the same community and to point to the fact that one community does not always
automatically support the same presidential candidate, although this was often suggested in the
foreign press, as will become clear in 4.1.
Kenya (ECK), which was interpreted as a means through which he would use
state institutions to stay in power (Ogola 2009: 61).
Election day was a success with a voter turnout of 72%. Official reports de-
scribe the largely peaceful voting process as free, fair and transparent.5 Contrary to
the civic and parliamentary results, which indicated that the people had opted for
change by voting for novices or underdogs, irrespective of their party or ethnicity,
the presidential results kept everyone waiting and the ECK lost control of the tal-
lying process. Anxiety grew as rumours of rigging spread. Odinga seemed to be
winning with a wide margin, but when the gap with Kibaki was suddenly only a
few thousand votes, protests and conflicts broke out between party members and
ECK officials. Most disputes revolved around fraudulent augmentation of votes.
For example, for the constituencies of Molo (Rift Valley Province) and Kieni
(Central Province), Kibaki had 20,000 respectively 17,000 more votes in the final
announcement of the results at the ECK headquarters in Nairobi, compared to the
results announced on the spot by the returning officers in the presence of EU ob-
servers (EU EOM 2008: 34). Despite an incomplete vote tally, ECK chairman
Samuel Kivuitu released final results on Sunday 30 December 2007: Mwai Kibaki
of PNU would have managed 4,584000 votes, Raila Odinga of ODM 4,352000.
Minutes later Kibaki was sworn in during a private ceremony. Different domestic
and international observer groups branded the presidential elections as deeply
flawed. The election observers of the European Union concluded that these elec-
tions leave a legacy of uncertainty as to who was actually elected as President by
the Kenyan people, resulting in an unprecedented situation in the country char-
acterised by deep ethnic rifts and civil unrest as well as a political stand-off
(EU EOM 2008: 37). This outcome immediately triggered mass demonstrations by
opposition supporters, but also rioting by degenerated youths, looting by criminal
gangs and excessive use of force by the police in response. When on New Years
Day ECK boss Kivuitu publicly admitted that he did not know for sure who had
won the elections, popular anger grew and chaos spread. Most outrages took place
in and around the slums of five provinces: Central, Nairobi, Nyanza, Rift Valley
and Western. This already hints at the importance of the specific locality and the
socio-economic aspect of the various forms of violence during the crisis (cf. 4.2).
Eventually, it took a lot of (inter)national pressure and mediation to resolve
the political stalemate and end the societal crisis. On 28 February 2008 chief me-
diator Kofi Annan brokered a power-sharing deal, resulting in a government of
5. Among others, the final report of the European Union Election Observer Mission
(EU EOM), the report of the fact-finding mission by the United Nations High Commissioner of
Human Rights (OHCHR) and the final report from the Kenya National Commission on Human
Rights (KNCHR), from which the figure of the voter turnout is taken. See references for complete
bibliographical information.
Roel Coesemans
National Unity. A total of 40 ministers, equally taken from ODM and PNU, were
sworn in on 17 April 2008, when president Mwai Kibakis cabinet finally became
operative with Raila Odinga as prime minister. However, the political climate re-
mains volatile. Up to 1,200 Kenyans died as a direct consequence of the post-elec-
tion crisis and more than 300,000 became internally displaced without a home.
3.3 Categories for the analysis of represented social actors
This section completes the methodological part of the paper and at the same time
it starts to show how theory and methodology can be applied in a contrastive news
discourse analysis. Representation refers to the non-neutrality of discursive de-
scriptions. The idea of news as a representation of the world in language implies
a selective construction and the possibility of an alternative representation, yield-
ing a totally different interpretive frame (Fowler 1991: 4). In this study, the notion
of frame refers to the way in which journalists see, organize, interpret and entex-
tualize (cf. Silverstein & Urban 1996) events in the world to make them meaning-
ful and presentable to the public in the format of newspaper articles. It involves
perceptions, judgments, perspectives, (world) views and ways of thinking. What
in this text is called interpretive frame is related to Gitlins conception of frames as
principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theo-
ries about what exists, what happens, and what matters (1980: 6). As such, frames
of interpretation can be seen to have an ideological potential. This can be com-
pared to an understanding of news frames as tools for power, involving news slant
and bias (Entman 2010).6
In the politics of representation there is always competition over the meaning
of events and people in the world (Mehan 1996). On the one hand, newspaper
reports usually have an overriding frame of reference inspired by an underlying
ideology. Even impartial reports in which opposite views are incorporated, tend
to guide the readership into a direction of interpretation. On the other hand, jour-
nalists hardly close off their topics completely, for they are aware of the provi-
sional nature of news, and they want to provide some interpretative leeway for
people who disagree with the dominant reading of reality so as not to push them
away from the newspaper. As such they leave openings for different interpretive
communities to potentially recast the truth claims of the news account in light of
their lived experiences and knowledge. That explains the often found paradoxical-
ity in news reports, to which we will return in 4.2.1. Representational strategies
play an important role in the naturalization and legitimation of (interpretations
6. See DAngelo and Kuypers (2010) for more information on framing and news frames in the
context of news media studies.
of) news events. They help the reader to reinterpret contradictions or inconsisten-
cies, and make the appropriate, rational or commonsensical inferences keeping
with the dominant frame of interpretation (Allan 2010: 119120).
The representation of the social actors is pivotal for the activation of relevant
background knowledge and contributes to the overall frame of interpretation.
Therefore, an investigation of the representation of social actors is a good starting
point in the search for patterns of unquestioned meaning and ideological aspects
of news discourse. The present analysis departs from three research questions:
(i) In which newspapers do which key actors occur and what is their function in
the news articles? (ii) By which linguistic-pragmatic strategies are the social ac-
tors represented? (iii) What is the impact of representational choices on the whole
interpretive frame of the discourse, i.e. what are the ideological implications of
the specific representations of the social actors? These questions can be tackled by
integrating Van Leeuwens social actors analysis (2008: 2354) into the general
pragmatic framework, sketched in 2.1 and 2.2. This readily applicable toolkit is
chosen, because it is compatible with the promoted pragmatic perspective, but
not all of Van Leeuwens theoretical underpinnings are taken over. His socio-
semantic approach to the analysis of social actors seems to suggest that social
meanings are pre-existing independent entities which can be poured into lan-
guage (cf. KhosraviNik 2010: 58). Such an assumption does not tally with our
pragmatic approach.
Only a limited set of analytical categories is selected from Van Leeuwens prac-
tical framework to avoid complication and ambiguity (see Figure 1).
Focus will be on the representation of four main social actors involved: Mwai
Kibaki, Raila Odinga and Kenyans as victims or perpetrators of violence.
Before we can investigate how these social actors are represented, we need to
know whether or not they are present in the newspaper articles. As Van Leeuwen
puts it, [r]epresentations include or exclude social actors to suit their interests
and purposes in relation to the readers for whom they are intended (2008: 28).
While some exclusions are unavoidable or negligible in the recontextualization
process of journalistic writing, many exclusions pertain to details which readers
are assumed to know already or which are deemed irrelevant to them, and
Suppression
Exclusion
Backgrounding
Nomination Functionalization
Individualization Determination Classification
Inclusion Categorization Identification
Collectivization Indetermination Appraisement Relational id.
Aggregation
Figure 1. Analytical categories for the representation of social actors

Roel Coesemans
sometimes the social actors are excluded for strategic reasons. In the latter cases,
ideology is at stake. Consider example (1):
(1) Desmond Tutu of South Africa called for peace, Amnesty International
condemned the violence between rival tribes and throngs of diplomats, in-
cluding U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, urged a political solution.
(Washington Post 04/01/2008: Major protest in Kenya postponed as frus-
trations build)
When social actors are excluded, they are either suppressed, which means that
they are fully absent from the news text, or they are backgrounded, i.e. they are
not mentioned but can be inferred from the text, context or background knowl-
edge. In (1) Kibaki and Odinga are backgrounded as the principal actors in-
volved in the action of seeking a political solution. This can be inferred from
previous reports in which the political conflict was explained as revolving around
the two tenors of Kenyan politics. Note that backgrounding and suppression is
often linguistically achieved by means of nominalization (see also the following
examples).
Furthermore, a comparison with the other news reports on this news event
reveals that also a number of urging actors are backgrounded, e.g. then British
Foreign Secretary David Miliband or the Danish ambassador Bo Jensen. Readers
with the right foreknowledge could infer that Miliband and Jensen belong to the
throngs of diplomats, but only through comparison with respectively British and
Kenyan newspaper coverage can we know that Miliband and Jensen were among
the diplomats that urged for a solution. However, other actors involved in recon-
ciliation and mediation are not referred to at all. Diverse Kenyan politicians,
African political leaders, including John Kufuor, the Ghanaian president and then
chairman of the African Union, called for peace, as did many different NGOs, re-
ligious, academic and civil society organizations in Kenya, e.g. the Council of
Imams and Preachers, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions or the Universities
Academic Staff Union (e.g. Lawyers, ODM send an appeal for peace, Cotu urges
Kibaki to start talks, Resign, Uasu tells Kibaki, Leaders appeal for peace from The
Standard or MPs-elect in move to restore peace, Preach peace, NGOs tell leaders
from Daily Nation). These influential public peace brokers are suppressed in the
American and British news reports.
When the social actors are included, they can be represented as distinct indi-
viduals or they can be referred to as groups and this can be done in an unspecified,
anonymous manner or by means of specific reference. Hence the contrasting cat-
egories of individualization versus collectivization and indetermination versus de-
termination, which are illustrated in (2).
(2) The Commissioner of Police, Maj Gen Hussein Ali, said there were few
cases of deaths reported following incidents of hooliganism soon after Pres-
ident Kibaki was announced the winner [...] The deaths were occasioned
either in clashes between police and protesters, or by gangs of attackers who
targeted members of some communities. And yesterday, other reports indi-
cated that at least 10 people had been shot dead in Kericho by police.
(Standard 01/01/2008: Death, chaos as ECK chiefs break ranks over
results)
Both the commissioner and the president are individualized, while individual po-
lice persons, protesters and attackers are collectivized by the use of groups nouns
(e.g. police) or plural nouns (e.g. protesters, gangs). The latter are clear examples
of indetermination, as they are referred to in a generic, impersonal and unspeci-
fied way. A special case of collectivization is aggregation when groups of social
actors are quantified as in 10 people.
In the case of determination a further distinction can be drawn between nom-
ination and categorization. Social actors can be represented in terms of their unique
identity or in terms of identities and functions they share with others. The follow-
ing extract constitutes an example.
(3) Mr Odinga, the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the trade-unionist inde-
pendence hero and first vice-president of Kenya, was educated in East
Germany and called his first son Fidel. Like all Kenyan politicians he is a
wealthy businessman and dropped the socialist rhetoric long ago. Never-
theless, as a Luo from the poor Lake Victoria region of Western Kenya, he
appeals to marginalised communities much more than the elitist Mr
Kibaki, who is a Kikuyu.
(Times 27/12/2007: Democracy comes out fighting as Kenyan voters take
off the gloves)
Nomination is typically realized by proper names, whether or not complemented
by titles or other kinds of honorifics. Odinga is nominated with introductory hon-
orific; his father by his given name and surname. Additionally, both are catego-
rized. Van Leeuwen (2008: 4045) distinguishes three kinds of categorization:
functionalization, appraisement and identification. The latter is again subdivided
into classification and relational identification. Functionalization refers to the rep-
resentation of social actors in terms of something they do, an occupation or role in
society, e.g. the representation of Odinga as a Kenyan politician and a wealthy
businessman. When the social actors are represented in evaluative terms by using
words that express positive or negative attitudes, e.g. Jaramogis representation as
a hero, this is called appraisement. Identification means that the social actors are
Roel Coesemans
defined by what they, more or less permanently or unavoidably, are. The represen-
tations of Odinga as a Luo and Kibaki as a Kikuyu are examples of classification.
That is the representation of social actors in terms of the major categories by which
a given society differentiates between groups of people, such as age, gender, prov-
enance, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality and so on. Identification based on personal,
kinship or work relations is termed relational identification. An example is the
son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in (3).
4. Contrastive pragmatic analysis of actor representations

and ideological meanings
4.1 Three general findings of the contrastive news discourse analysis
Thanks to a contrastive analysis of topically-related news reports from different

newspapers it becomes clear what kind of meanings are generated about the news
events, in casu the Kenyan post-election crisis. It also reveals that a few aspects of
the events are highlighted in the individual newspapers, resulting in simple, in-
complete frames of interpretation. The analysis resulted in three general findings,
which can be illuminated by taking contextual elements into account, in line with
the presented theory of linguistic pragmatics, in which language use was seen as
an interaction between linguistic structure and context and as a choice-making
practice, where every choice presupposes that other choices could have been made
resulting in different meanings (cf. 2.1). The following results are the outcome of
the textual, intertextual and contextual analysis, part of the analytical stage of the
methodology (cf. 2.2). The contextual analysis is continued in 4.2, which also con-
tains the outcome of the reflective stage.
4.1.1 The representation of political actors

Looking at who is included reveals that the Kenyan newspapers represented more
social actors in their news stories than the American/British newspapers. Of
course, in the dailies from the UK and the US less space is reserved for news about
Kenya, but that does not explain why even in relative terms the American and
British news reports contain fewer voices than the Kenyan ones. Through com-
parison it becomes clear how the international press promotes a simplified reading
of the events by including only a limited number of social actors, typically Odinga
and Kibaki, an occasional street witness or vox pop and high profile international
diplomats, such as US ambassador Michael Ranneberger or Alexander Graf
Lambsdorff, the leader of the EU election observer mission. Moreover, the Kenyan
politicians as well as the street witnesses are usually tribally identified, mostly
pitting Luos against Kikuyus. Consequently, a hasty reader might get the impres-
sion that the problems in Kenya, which seemingly can only be evaluated and
advanced by international (read Western) actors, lie in the struggle for power be-
tween two rivalling tribes.
Contrastive analysis also reveals discursive absences (KhosraviNik 2010),
i.e. who is excluded. In the Kenyan press due attention goes to the successful par-
liamentary and civic elections and their candidates. Moreover, a voice is given to
the other seven presidential candidates from different opposition parties as well as
to a variety of regional, national and international political leaders, local human
rights activists, civil society spokespersons, religious leaders and many others,
which are systematically suppressed in the British and American newspapers of
the corpus. Yet note that both domestic and international newspapers share a
preference for the explicit representation of elite persons, while common people
are excluded or implicitly presented and backgrounded (see 4.1.2), so that they are
marginalized. Also the election officials are often excluded from the American/
British news coverage, while they played an important role in the organization of
the elections, the tallying and the declaration of Kibaki as the winner. If men-
tioned at all, the election officials are collectivized as the electoral commission.
In the Kenyan newspapers ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu, is prominent and also
other high electoral commissioners are individualized (e.g. Four electoral com-
missioners call for inquiry, Kivuitus alarm over altered election forms from Daily
Nation, or Kivuitu: We wont nullify poll results, In the hands of ECK, I acted
under a lot of pressure, says Kivuitu from The Standard). However, lower-ranking
election officials, like returning officers from the different constituencies, do not
get a voice, which is a lacuna. The responsibility of the ECK and its individual
members for the crisis is one of the facets that is underexposed in the British and
American press.
The main social actors in the whole of the corpus are the two pretenders to the
presidency, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. A quantitative study by Rambaud
(2008) showed that Kibaki as the incumbent was given slightly more attention
than Odinga in the Kenyan media. This also holds for the American and British
newspapers. However, the way the participants are represented is more insightful
than their quantification. By contrastively looking at the representations of Kibaki
and Odinga, it becomes clear that they are depicted as tribal politicians in the UK
and the US, whereas they are presented as political leaders in Kenya. Although
some representations in the foreign press are quite coloured and can raise ques-
tions of relevancy (see Odingas implicit characterization as communist turned
capitalist in example 3), references to their ethnicity are a constant. Extract (4) is
illustrative.
Roel Coesemans
(4) With the president, Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu and Mr. Odinga a Luo, the
election seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal tension that
always lay beneath the surface in Kenya.
(New York Times 31/12/2007: Disputed vote plunges Kenya into bloodshed)
In addition to these classifications, both the American/British and the Kenyan
newspapers use the representational strategy of functionalization, to introduce the
main contenders for the presidency. However, the functionalizations in the
American/British news reports often focus on past positions, regularly accompa-
nied by appraisements, e.g. Kibakis representation as a courtly gentleman and
economics whiz but also as a tribal politician (New York Times 28/12/2007:
Kenyans vote in test of democracy) or Odingas representation as a populist
known as the Warrior and as a political prisoner (Washington Post 28/12/2007:
Kenyans vote in presidential elections). The functionalizations in Daily Nation and
The Standard refer to recent political functions and carry less evaluative connota-
tions. See (5).
(5) Counting of votes began in earnest last evening with early results showing
a close battle between President Kibaki and his main challenger, ODMs
Raila Odinga. [...] ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu had to rush to Langata
constituency of ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga to resolve the
issue of registers where names starting with A, R and O were alleged to
have been missing. [...] President Kibaki, who is seeking reelection on a
PNU ticket, and the ODM Kenya presidential candidate, Mr Kalonzo
Musyoka, were among the first voters in Othaya and Mwingi North con-
stituencies, respectively.
(Daily Nation 28/12/2007: Results trickle in after record voter turnout)
In the Kenyan press, Kibaki is mostly represented as president or as the leader of
the PNU, while Odinga is mostly functionalized as ODM presidential candidate
or the Langata MP.
4.1.2 The representation of Kenyans as victims or perpetrators of violence

The second result relates to the people involved in acts of violence in the wake of
the Kenyan elections. If not excluded or backgrounded, these social actors tend to
be collectivized in an unspecified way in the Kenyan press. Perpetrators of vio-
lence are mostly represented as criminals, viz. looters, arsonists, rioters, or by
means of indeterminate mass nouns, such as gangs or mob. Less frequently
they are represented as political supporters or protesters, without categorizing or
classifying them. When aggressors are individualized, they are just nominated and
occasionally localized. Similarly, the victims of violence tend to be represented
without specific reference, e.g. a man, some people, most of those killed. They
are often aggregated as in Police yesterday said 199 people have been killed, tens of
thousands evicted from their homes and 100 arrested in the post-election violence
(Daily Nation 06/01/2008: Kibaki opens the door for coalition). Sometimes both
perpetrators and victims of violence are vaguely identified as youths or a young
man, again in general unspecific terms. Such representational strategies anony-
mize and depersonalize the social actors who are only attributed an indeterminate,
collective identity. These representations have a distancing effect and do not pro-
mote a better understanding of peoples actions or anxieties. Moreover, the
tendency to avoid nomination of the perpetrators of violence contributed to the
climate of secrecy and impunity.
Throughout the corpus The Standard and Daily Nation steered clear of ethnic
references, even in reports about conflicts where ethnicity was hard to ignore. For
instance, on 1 January 2008 a church was set alight, reportedly by a gang of Kalenjin
young men, while a group of Kikuyu refugees were locked inside. Although eth-
nicity played a role in this tragedy, ethnic references are avoided in the Kenyan
newspaper coverage. In contrast, the American and British news reports almost
always classify both victims and perpetrators of violence by their ethnicity.
Compare (6) to (7).
(6) At least 35 people, most of them women and children, died yesterday in
Eldoret in the most bizarre killing yet in the ongoing post-election vio-
lence. They were killed when more than 200 youths burnt down a church
where residents of two villages in Eldoret South constituency had sought
refuge.
(Daily Nation 02/01/2008: Raid on church leaves 35 dead as chaos
spreads)
(7) More than 200 people, mainly Kikuyus, the same tribe as President Mwai
Kibaki, were sheltering for safety in the Kenya Assemblies of God church
five miles outside Eldoret in the Rift Valley. An armed gang of young men
drawn from the Kalenjin, Luhya and Luo tribes [...] which backed the
beaten presidential candidate Raila Odinga stormed the church com-
pound yesterday morning and set it alight.
(Independent 02/01/2008: 80 children massacred in Kenyan church)
The latter report leaves open the interpretation that the violence is politically insti-
gated by establishing a link with Kibaki and Odinga.7 But the emphasis on tribal
7. In the Kenyan press, Kibaki and Odinga are not directly associated with ethnic violence,
despite their aggressive rhetoric, inciting different ethnic groups against each other (cf. Rambaud
2008).
Roel Coesemans
identity suggests the ideological interpretation that tribe is the main problem. Such
reports discredit the numerous Kenyans who abstained from violence, helped
their neighbors and kept on living together peacefully. Furthermore, by implicitly
indicating that all Kikuyus and all Luos voted for the same candidate homoge-
neous ethnic groups are discursively constructed (cf. Days position on group for-
mation in 2.1.), thus denying internal diversity that can be found in reality. Not
only is a representation as in (7) a gross generalization, it reduces multiple com-
plex conflicts to a simplified, primordial battle between tribes. As Ray remarks, the
reckless usage of the term tribe [...] hinders the ability of readers to understand
how ethnic identities have evolved and interacted with one another in Kenya over
time, and in relation to such factors as state and class formation; economic, social
and political change; as well as more mundane facts of life such as migration and
intermarriage (2008: 8).
When explicit references to ethnic group membership are inevitable, the
Kenyan newspapers resort to the more neutral and positive sounding word com-
munity as in (2) above or (8).
(8) A survey by The Saturday Standard in refuge centres established that those
seeking safety are drawn from all communities inhabiting Uasin Gishu
District, whose headquarters is Eldoret. Ms Margaret Atandi from Kisii
and her five children are seeking refuge at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church
in Langas, where close to 20 people lost their lives in the ongoing violence.
Those who died were not from one community. All of us are affected. We
lost relatives, friends and neighbours as well as property.
(Standard 05/01/2008: Violence hurting women and children in Eldoret)
Background knowledge and the context, notably the setting or place names, such
as Eldoret, enable many Kenyans to infer who is talked about. For other readers,
however, such a description is rather opaque. So this representational strategy
too can be questioned. Furthermore, Ogola finds that the deliberate deletion of
ethnic references merely reified the framing of the conflict as unambiguously
ethnic (2009: 68). When ethnic motives clearly played a role in certain conflicts,
the striking omission of references to ethnicity can have a reverse effect. According
to Ogola, in some cases the ethnic frame became conspicuous by its absence.
4.1.3 Representation of social actors and frames of interpretation

The way social actors are represented is not arbitrary or trivial. Representations
contribute to the creation of a frame of interpretation. When Kenyas leading poli-
ticians are constantly classified by tribe membership and when also aggressors and
victims are categorized by their tribe, their actions are likewise placed into a tribal
frame of interpretation. Hence, the numerous descriptions of various violent
conflicts in different parts of the country as ethnic fighting, tribal violence, or

even tribal war as in (9).
(9) the first signs of a tribal war flared up in Nairobi, with Luo gangs sweeping
into a shantytown called Mathare and stoning several Kikuyu residents.
(New York Times 30/12/2007: Riots batter Kenya as rivals declare victory)
Such discursive journalistic choices have ideological implications in that readers
might start to interpret all conflicts in Kenya by means of the tribal frame of
reference, suggested in the language use and presented as common ground to be
taken for granted. In reality, there were also other reasons, or rather, multiple
causes for the different violent incidents. The OHCHR (2008), for instance, dis-
tinguished three main categories of violence: spontaneous violence by disap-
pointed voters as a result of the elections and the political deadlock, organised
attacks against targeted communities following unresolved disputes or long-
standing grievances (e.g. about land rights) and organised retaliations. The
KNCHR (2008), in turn, made a distinction between politically-instigated vio-
lence, violent protest, verbal violence, criminal acts of killing, looting and de-
struction of property, pre-planned ethnic violence, sexual and gender-based
violence.
In the international press different forms of violence were often lumped to-
gether and labeled as tribal. When conflicts are thus essentialized, socio-economic
factors pass unnoticed. Or as Ogola puts it, by primarily focusing on ethnic expla-
nations, the international news media disregarded that inequitable allocation of
resources, the failure to undertake comprehensive constitutional reforms, the mo-
nopolization of the political process by the elite, the arbitrary exercise of state
power [...] together provided conditions for political instability which ultimately
contributed to the 2007 election crisis (2009: 62). In the Kenyan press, on the
other hand, the violence tends to be linked to the rigged election and the political
impasse, yielding labels such as electoral violence or political violence, but most-
ly the violence, if referred to in general, is called post-election violence. Consider
(10), which is about the same event as examples (6) and (7).
(10) This came on a day the post-election violence that has rocked parts of the
country took serious proportions when at least 30 children and 10 adults
who had sought refuge in a church were burnt to death in acts of violence
linked to protests against the Presidents re-election.
(Standard 02/01/2008: Peace calls amid continued bloodletting)
Like the American/British press which simplified and generalized a multitude of
conflicts to tribal violence, the Kenyan press also displays distortion, because there
is no doubt that some of the conflicts had a tribal dimension or gradually turned
Roel Coesemans
into ethnic conflicts. So they also failed to provide an accurate account of the
Kenyan post-election crisis.
To end, this qualitative analysis is supported by quantitative data. Table 1 is
constructed on the basis of a collocation search for crisis, violence and conflict in
order to determine how these keywords are explicitly qualified. The results in
Table 1 present the relative numbers in percentages of explicit qualifications of the
crisis, violence and conflict as post-election (or election-related), ethnic (or tribal)
and political. For instance, 40% of all explicit references to crisis, violence or con-
flict in The Independent were described as ethnic or tribal, compared to only one
percent in The Standard and Daily Nation. When these newspapers explicitly qual-
ify the mentioned keywords they prefer the label of (post)election. However, they
most often avoid explicit qualification, which explains the high scores in the rest
category. This category contains all other explicit qualifications of the keywords
(e.g. humanitarian, economic, current, Kenyas, the ongoing, worst crisis or
widespread, senseless, escalating, gender-based, bloody, ongoing violence), in-
cluding non-qualifications, i.e. when the keywords occurred without adjective or
other modifying phrase.
The qualitative analysis, as presented in the previous sections, also receives
quantitative support from text mining. By a combination of text classification
techniques, such as decision tree learning and contrastive keyword detection,
Pollak et al. (2011) show that the patterns of contrast between the international
and the local press are due to different frames of reporting. So, also on the basis
of a larger dataset, explicitly ethnic interpretations of the events were computa-
tionally found to be more typical of the international than the Kenyan printed
media.
Table 1. Relative distribution of explicit qualifications of crisis, violence, conflict (in %)
Qualification (post-)election ethnic political rest
Newspaper
Independent 32 40 8 20
Times 25 26 17 32
New York Times 20 30 17 33
Washington Post 32 36 24 8
Daily Nation 14 1 8 77
Standard 19 1 7 73
4.2 Reflections on results and research
4.2.1 Counterscreening to nuance results

The conclusion of the contrastive pragmatic analysis that an ethnic or even tribal
frame of interpretation is dominant in the American/British newspapers, while
the Kenyan newspapers reported on the post-election crisis from a political angle
should be double-checked. Counterscreening, as explained in 2.2, reveals that the
first results need nuancing. The actual news discourse is more complex.
It is not hard to find examples in the UK and US newspapers which seem to
contradict the above analyses. In the Independent article of 6 January 2008, Tribal
strife leaves Kenya on brink of humanitarian disaster, also heavily criticized for its
tribal lens by Somerville (2008: 538), first the image of genocide is implicitly
evoked in a sentence like (11), but later the counterbalancing remark of (12) can
be found.
(11) In Eldoret, the scene of the church massacre, Kikuyus are running for
their lives, their houses burned down by gangs of Kalenjins, Luhyas and
Luos, as neighbour turns on neighbour.
(12) But amid the violence, there have been signs that Kenya has what it takes
to stop the slide towards tribal divisions. As the week went on, the vast
majority of Kenyans refused to turn on each other. Instead, they turned on
their leaders. Kikuyus, Luos, Kalenjins and Luhyas have openly criticised
their own leaders. These politicians, said one Kikuyu man in Eldoret, all
drinking coffee in the InterContinental. They are not the ones fighting. It
is the common man who is suffering.
The idea that the poor are suffering for the benefit of the manipulating and unreli-
able rich elite is a common theme in the Kenyan press (e.g. Preach peace, NGOs
tell leaders, Police break up another ODM demo from Daily Nation or UN, Moi
appeal for calm, restraint in The Standard). Extracts such as (12) show that the
American/British press reports are less one-sided than they seem to be at first
sight. This can partly be explained by the inherent contradictoriness of news
reports which is often a consequence of journalists will to facticity. To achieve
factuality they present different viewpoints. Besides, as was hinted at in 3.2, jour-
nalists never close off the interpretive frame and try to keep alternative interpreta-
tions open so as to hold as many readers as possible. This does not deny the
existence of a dominant frame of interpretation. The remark in (12) does not break
with the overall tribal frame of interpretation. The expression stop the slide to-
wards tribal divisions contains the presupposition that Kenyans are sliding to-
wards tribal divisions and people are still identified by their tribal affiliation.
Roel Coesemans
Although the dominant explanations of the conflicts clearly are ethnic, spo-
radically other socio-economic reasons for the violent crisis, such as the issue of
land rights, are given in the American/British press. An example is (13).
(13) In Eldoret, though some of the gangs are composed of Odingas ethnic Luo
community, the mobs are overwhelmingly made up of Kalenjin, who
consider the land here historically theirs and appear to be waging a war
against what they consider to be entrenched Kikuyu power.
(Washington Post 03/01/2008: Tribal rage tears at diverse Kenyan city)
Even so, again the ethnic frame is still present. Historical wrongs, some dating
back to colonial times, and contemporary socio-economic problems, such as job-
lessness and inequality, are overshadowed by the ethnic focus.
Neither is the thesis about the Kenyan medias politicization of the events can-
celed by the counterscreening. The word tribe only occurred three times in the
Kenyan subpart of the corpus, each time clearly attributed to the source by means
of quotes. Derivations of tribe, such as tribal or tribalism, are also rare (only 7).
They can be found in a report from the Canadian freelancer Arno Kopecky in
Daily Nation, in literal news agency reports (e.g. Pope calls for end to violence
from Reuters in The Standard), or in negative sentences, where the tribal aspect of
the events is explicitly denied, as in (14).
(14) Unlike in the previous elections where tribalism was the main factor, the
ongoing insecurity being witnessed in the region is more of land politics.
(Daily Nation 05/01/2008: The land factor in violence that has rocked
North Rift)
Used as a kind of triangulation, information from interviews with journalists,
opinion articles and comments to the news articles also support the conclusions of
the contrastive analysis.
4.2.2 Voices of the language users: reader comments and explanations

from the newsroom
So far we have seen how elements from the co-text, the (inter)discursive context,
the political and historical context (as ingredients of the context of language use)
contribute to the creation of frames of meaning. Attention to another aspect of the
context, viz. the language users, can nuance and refine the analyses. To begin with
the receivers of the American/British news texts, a lot of readers not only picked
up the tribal frame of interpretation, but they took umbrage at the so called racist
reporting and heavily criticized the language use. Tribal Rage!? I guess we only
get Ethnic conflicts in the whiter parts of the globe, a reader nicknamed sweeneyo-
gede reacted to the online publication of the Washington Post article Tribal rage
tears at diverse Kenyan city, while forjarigirlonly shouts it out: Please, stop
calling it tribal war, tribal rage, because it is not.8 In a letter to The Standard
(17/01/2008) reader Njeri Kiarie faults the foreign media for referring to Kenya as
a war-torn country, indicating that there wont be light at the end of the tunnel.
Also opinion makers and analysts took part in this debate. Kenyan writer Rasna
Warah, for instance, criticized the readiness of foreign press to describe what was
happening in Kenya as ethnic cleansing in the opinion piece Kenyans are fighting
inequality, not ethnicity (Daily Nation 14/01/2008). It is clear that for many read-
ers the international press reports generated tribal meanings.
Not only the international but also the national newspapers received heavy
criticism. In a letter to the editor, published in The Sunday Standard (06/01/2008),
J. Momanyi from Zrich, Switzerland, accused the Kenyan news media of with-
holding information adding that [t]he coverage of the results of the elections was
the most disappointing ever. British journalist Michela Wrong denounced the
hypocritical coverage in the Kenyan press: By repudiating the notion of tribe,
the Kenyan media have essentially refused to cover the biggest story on their patch
(Wrong 2008: 23).
Many of these criticisms have to do with the reluctance to explicitly refer to
ethnicity, which was manifest in the use of strategies of collectivization or indeter-
mination to represent victims or perpetrators of violence. However, these repre-
sentational strategies are not only applied when the writer treats the social actors
identity as irrelevant, as Van Leeuwen claims (2008: 40), they can have other, con-
textual reasons. To explain this feature of the discourse yet another aspect of the
context, viz. the professional context, has to be brought in. Kenyan journalists are
instructed to be careful with specific identity references. Discretion about peoples
ethnicity is advised in several policy documents and editorial guidelines. Espe-
cially at volatile times of elections the standard practice is to conceal ethnic affilia-
tion. As a Daily Nation journalist told during a fieldwork interview:
We try as much as possible not to say this tribe is killing that tribe for the simple
reason that...when, for example, you write a story and say Luos yesterday killed
hundred Kikuyus, we believe that Kikuyus in different parts of the country, who
read this story tomorrow will retaliate and maybe they will want to kill one hun-
dred Luos. So we will not be helping the public, we will not be helping solving the
problem and that is why we try to be careful, just say maybe one hundred people
were killed in this place.
Even though it is beyond the scope of this paper to deal with all contextual factors
that are relevant for the generation of meaning in the studied newspaper discourse,
8. From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR200801020
2971_Comments.html [28/06/2010].
Roel Coesemans
we touched upon several salient aspects of the context that interact with linguistic
structure in the production and interpretation of the news discourse.
5. Conclusion
This paper presented a sample of contrastive news discourse analysis from a prag-
matic perspective. Based on a theory of linguistic pragmatics, in which language
use is seen as social action, characterized by variability, negotiability and adaptabil-
ity, where all discursive choices potentially carry an ideological load, a methodol-
ogy was sketched to analyze international as opposed to national newspaper reports
about the Kenyan post-election crisis. The representation of the social actors in-
volved in the news stories was taken as the specific focus to open up different layers
of meaning, creating interpretive frames. Through contrastive analysis it becomes
clear how the events are placed in a dominant frame of interpretation, while other
facets of reality are obscured. The contrastive angle is necessary to study processes
of meaning generation in different news outlets, but should not be limited to con-
trastive textual analysis. This pragmatic news discourse analysis has shown that the
contrastive analysis can extend to levels of context. Aspects of both production and
interpretation contexts can be taken into account as well as the language users in-
volved, so as not to deny their agency. This paper intended to be an exploration of
possibilities, acknowledging that much work remains to be done.
Nevertheless, some tentative conclusions about the news discourses under
scrutiny can be drawn from the contrastive pragmatic analysis after counterscreen-
ing and refining by what can be called ethnographic information. Two different
frames of interpretation were exposed after analyzing the meanings related to the
representation of the social actors. The newspapers from the UK and the US often
put the Kenyan post-election crisis in a tribal frame of meaning, while the Kenyan
newspapers tended to report on the events from a (socio)political perspective.
These differences were then interpreted and explained in light of specific as-
pects of the context of language use. Although some of the observations could be
linked to culture, be it societal culture or professional culture, we opted for a no-
tion of ideology, associated with underlying patterns of meaning, world views and
frames of interpretation, to make sense of the differing discourses.9 First, choices
9. One anonymous reviewer rightly observed that some of the findings could also be inter-
preted by drawing on news values, such as consonance and negativity. Indeed, news values play
an important role in journalism practice. However, news values are not objective guidelines for
journalistic decision, but also have an ideological impact, both on the selection and the writing
of news stories, whether a discursive or cognitive a perspective is taken (cf. Bednarek & Caple
2012 and Cotter 2010).
of language use, such as those related to the representations of social actors, are
partly ideologically inspired and have ideological implications. They are rooted in,
appeal to and further develop certain world views and patterns of thought that can
guide peoples actions in the world. Second, the theoretical point was made that
language can be contexted in other than cultural ways (see 2.1). This point is re-
inforced by the observation that readers from different cultural backgrounds have
become critical consumers of newspaper texts which have become global prod-
ucts. Newspapers have heterogeneous audiences, especially in our contemporary,
interconnected, multicultural world. A reader from Zrich comments on the
Kenyan press coverage, while African readers react against a news article from The
Washington Post. Obviously, a dynamic and specific notion of culture can be im-
plemented into the present methodology, allowing for a focus on relevant aspects
of culture at work in concrete contexts of language use. However, that would re-
quire another study.
It was argued that none of the corpus newspapers succeeded in providing an
accurate account of the events by employing a narrow perspective. The British and
American dailies distorted reality by concentrating on ethnic interpretations, while
the Kenyan newspapers did not help stop the conflicts by hiding the identity of
perpetrators of violence and remaining vague about certain violent acts that took
on an ethnic dimension. All newspapers analyzed would have benefited from mul-
tiperspectival and multidimensional reporting and a deeper insight into the diverse
causes of the various conflicts constituting the Kenyan post-election crisis. This is
an important concluding remark since news discourse can have effects on a wider
societal level. Frames of interpretation can transcend news texts. Representations
of social actors, for instance, do not only add to the interpretive frame and possibly
reinforce already existing stereotypes, but they also have ideological implications
when they are internalized by the readers and become a part of their world view, on
the basis of which they (inter)act in the world. At the same time they could provide
a context for the interpretation of future events (cf. WaNjogu 2009).
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section 2
Culture in communication culture

as communication?
Film subtitles and the conundrum
of linguistic and cultural representation
A methodological blind spot
Marie-Nolle Guillot
University of East Anglia, UK
This article focuses on linguistic and cultural representation in interlingual film

subtitles, as a platform for considering methodological issues associated with
comparative approaches in audiovisual translation research and contrastive
textology. A main argument is that subtitles have a capacity to generate their
own modes of representation and interpretation and to sensitize audiences to
linguistic and cultural differences, a capacity that deserves to be acknowledged
in its own terms, and that tends to be obscured in face-value textual comparison
routinely highlighting loss in translation. The questions about comparability
that the idiosyncrasies of the relationship between film subtitles and their source
dialogues bring to the fore extend to broader textual contexts, and to contrastive
media analysis.
1. Introduction
This chapter focuses on film subtitles, and in particular on questions of linguistic

and cultural representation in films subtitled interlingually for foreign audiences.
Given the widespread availability of film DVDs with multiple language options,
the subject has urgent implications from an intercultural point of view. As Ramire
notes with reference to film mediation in general:
Translation for the cinema, because of its tremendous social impact and visibility
as a mode of intercultural exchange may affect cultural representations to a greater
extent than any other form, both in the way national cinema is perceived abroad
and in how cultures perceive each other and themselves. (Ramire 2006: 153)
The relevance of the chapter to the concerns of this volume as a whole also derives,
however, from questions about comparative methodology that researching subti-
tles from an intercultural perspective brings to the fore. Studying subtitles to assess
Marie-Nolle Guillot
what linguistic and cultural representations they convey does not necessarily en-
tail textual comparison: since overt comparison is not an option for audiences
with no linguistic access to original dialogues, subtitles should arguably be ap-
praised on their own merit. This is a methodological point in its own right and will
be taken up later. Comparison is nevertheless a standard methodological tool in
intercultural studies of subtitles and raises other issues, not least basic questions
about what is being compared, and what it is reasonable or justifiable to compare.
These questions are prominent in contrastive media research and cross-cul-
tural media analysis generally, where attendant issues of data selection and
comparability have long been a mainstay of methodological debates (see Hallin
and Mancini 2004, Hanitzsch 2008, Hartmann 1980, Scollon 2000, Yakhontova
2006, inter alia). But the study of film subtitles has distinctive features. The objects
of comparison, in this case, are imposed de facto:
a set of orally produced source dialogues relating to a particular visual and
aural culturally embedded context;
a corresponding set of written subtitles representing the source dialogues in
another language but relating to the same visual and aural culturally embed-
ded context, and intended for audiences with no (or limited) access to source
dialogues.
The question of data selection is thus pre-empted, but issues of comparability are
not, as indeed the features just identified, i.e. shift from speech to writing and cul-
tural a-synchrony, are enough to suggest. If anything, they are even more pressing
as a consequence of the underlying and unverifiable assumption, for audiences
with no access to source dialogues, that the apparently parallel text of subtitles
willy nilly provides a mirror image of the source dialogues. They are also exacer-
bated by other specificities of subtitles (e.g. space and time constraints; see below),
and by the paradoxical tensions that arise, from the point of view of analysis, when
audience factors are built into the equation.
These features make film dialogues and their subtitles something of a special
case in the broader context of contrastive textology in its application to the mass
media. But the different angles of approach that their analysis requires may for this
very reason add to ongoing debates, and help to address some of the questions at
the core of this volume, about the comparability of genres and texts across differ-
ent cultural contexts, and about functional equivalence and the grounds on which
it can be postulated. This particular question has also been topical in translation
studies, where the notion of equivalence has its own set of associations and is par-
ticularly problematic when it comes to subtitling, and to linguistic and cultural
representation. These issues are taken up in the final section of the paper. Earlier
sections concentrate more specifically on film subtitles.
Film subtitles and the conundrum of linguistic and cultural representation
The first section uses an example to document features of subtitles and associ-
ated issues in terms of representation, from a cross-cultural and methodological
point of view, with particular emphasis on audience factors. The second revisits
the lost in translation leitmotiv and argues for tempering the discourse of loss
prominent in studies of subtitles and for paying greater attention to their texts
expressive capacities: it takes up the twofold argument, based on Fowlers Theory
of Mode (Fowler 1991, 2000) and developed in earlier work (Guillot 2007, 2008,
2010), (i) that the (inevitable) losses regularly commented on in studies of subtitles
are relative, and (ii) that subtitles, as a construct generating their own systems of
multi-modal representation and modes of interpretation, have their own potential
to alert audiences to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural specificities. Like the first,
this section draws on examples previously discussed in a case study of linguistic
and cultural representation in the English subtitles of the French film Sur mes
lvres (Audiard 2001; henceforth SML), of which only a brief account is given by
way of illustration (see Guillot 2010 for the full discussion). The concluding sec-
tion brings the discussion back to methodological debates, in translations studies
and contrastive textology more generally.
Throughout, the discussion deals primarily with text alone, and with prag-
matic aspects of language use and conversational practices, rather than with the
more extensively studied topic of culturally specific references.
2. Methodological issues in the study of subtitles: Text, responses to text,

features of subtitles and cross-cultural representation
2.1 Text and responses to text
What is at stake in subtitles, from both a cross-cultural and a methodological point

of view, is illustrated in example (1) below of a subtitle line in SML, intentionally
shown out of context for the moment:
(1) Source text Carla/je vous demandais o tait Le Henry/
Literal translation [Carla/I was asking you where Le Henry was/]
Subtitle Carla? Wheres le Henry?
In this example, the propositional content and perlocutionary intent of the line are
essentially the same in both the source dialogue and its subtitle: the question, a
reiteration of a question asked just before, is meant to elicit information about a
third partys whereabouts. Its form, however, is not. The shift from a mitigated to
an unmitigated request produced by the deletion of mitigating features in the sub-
title (indirect form of the question, past tense of its verb) raises questions about the
Marie-Nolle Guillot
perception, for (British) English speaking audiences, of verbal habits in French.

What appears to be projected, if the subtitle is taken at its face value in this delib-
erately limited context, is a directness in expressing requests that is belied by the
original dialogue line. The issue is that this directness might be deemed to convey
a misguided representation of practices in French, as a consequence of the cul-
tural mismatch between the (English) language of the subtitles, the communica-
tive preference for mitigation normally associated with it, and what is heard and
seen on screen, i.e. French native speakers in a French setting. But this need not be
so, as the hypotheses that underpin the discussion in this paper will already have
made clear. I will return to this example later to explain why and how.
The broader point to which the example draws attention, however, is the po-
tential impact, from a cross-cultural point of view, of the cross-over of different
frames of reference in responses to subtitles, irrespective of the relationship be-
tween subtitles and source dialogues. Viewers unfamiliar with the language of a
films original dialogue may not have the option of overt textual comparison, but
contextual factors make the viewers covert comparators all the same in their re-
sponses to subtitles. As for all viewers generally, there are at least three different
frames of linguistic and cultural reference involved: the frame(s) of reference pro-
jected by the film and rooted in the foreign (e.g. things French in the above ex-
ample), viewers own frames of reference, rooted in their native linguistic and cul-
tural practices (e.g. English communicative preferences in expressing requests), as
well as the frames of reference of whatever assumptions viewers may have about
the foreign language and culture that is represented second-hand in subtitles
(e.g. perception of French people as possessing certain kinds of negative or posi-
tive characteristics). If responses to subtitles are mediated through the interaction
of these and probably other individual frames of references (as Compte and
Daugeron 2008 suggest for films themselves and Lethonen 2000 for text in general,
for example; see also discussions of uncertainty in Pym 2010 and others in Trans-
lation Studies), they are bound to be infinitely variable. This variability makes it
difficult to pin down a locus of comparison, and to assess the implications of lin-
guistic choices and cultural a-synchrony for linguistic and cultural representa-
tions: audiences are heterogeneous and their responses are likewise heterogeneous
and changeable, as also pointed out in Hervey and Higgins (1992: 22), Ramire
2010 and others, but in practice often overlooked.
This is the audience end of the conundrum, and it is critical: it makes audience
factors a key parameter in any attempt to account for subtitles in terms of cross-
cultural impact.
2.2 Features of subtitles
There are other aspects to consider, however, still from the vantage point of both
representation and methodology, in relation to text itself and the features that in-
flect linguistic choice and strategies in subtitling. The focus is now back on the
relationship between source dialogues and subtitles. Two main types of factor need
to be taken into account, in addition to the intersemiotic shift from oral to written
mentioned in the introduction: technical constraints and filmic and narrative con-
siderations, all well documented in the literature on audio-visual translation
(see, for example, de Linde and Kay 1999, Daz Cintas and Remael 2007, Gambier
2001, 2003, Prez-Gonzlez 2009, inter alia)
The first is illustrated in the text reduction and adaptation manifest in the
subtitle line in example (1), where the deletion of mitigating features makes the
line both shorter and simpler to process. Subtitling is governed by constraints of
space, time and (speech unit/subtitle/visual) synchronization which inevitably af-
fect linguistic choice (no more than 40 characters per line of text and two lines at
any one time, short display time making it imperative to enhance readability, add-
ed pressure on viewers short-term memory to respond to other visual and aural
signals complementarily generating or modulating meaning). The dual interlin-
gual and speech-to-writing shift and concomitant transpositions (e.g. of registers,
connotations, cultural specific features, phonostylistic features) is challenging in
itself, but these constraints further inflect linguistic options and are reflected in the
text of standard subtitles1 in their concision and their simple paratactic mode of
expression in stand-alone units, as in example (1).
Textually speaking, it would in this sense be misguided to expect subtitles to
be anything other than highly stylized in relation to source dialogue. So on what
terms can or should they be compared? The methodological problem of defining a
locus of comparison again becomes salient. It is exacerbated from the point of
view of representation by the fact that film dialogues are themselves representa-
tions, and by distinctive features of the film medium. Film dialogues are acknowl-
edged to provide insights into native speakers perceptions of their own practices,
in many different contexts (see for example Compte and Daugeron 2008: 29; also
Kerbrat-Orrechioni 2005: 31217 for fictional dialogues generally). They are in
this sense a potentially valuable source of linguistic and cultural information for
foreign viewers, but with the important proviso that their specificities as fictional
1. I.e. subtitles produced in keeping with recognised guidelines (e.g. Ivarsson and Carroll
1998), in contrast with amateur subtitles, for example: in amateur on-line subtitling or fansub-
bing, a practice that developed around Japanese animation, fans pay limited heed to conven-
tional guidelines and have used the medium with a great deal of creativity (Nornes 2007 [first
published 1999], Prez-Gonzlez 2006).
Marie-Nolle Guillot
dialogues should be recognised (see Compte and Daugeron 2008, for example, on
their use for foreign language teaching). This proviso extends to their relationship
with subtitles. This is the second point, taken up below.
2.3 Subtitles as interlingual representations of intralingual representations
Film dialogues are themselves representations, albeit intralingual, and they, too,
give a streamlined picture of communicative practices in naturally occurring in-
teractions. Like dialogues in fiction generally, they are fabricated discourse, and
make-believe speech. Their text is projected orally, but usually from a written
script in which structural and narrative considerations, and concerns of efficiency,
loom large and leave little place for features integral to live verbal negotiation and
the construction or co-construction of discourse.2 They are expressly designed for
an overhearing audience and the idiosyncrasies of cinematic text. Film dialogues
overtly portray the interaction of characters, but they covertly address the audi-
ence (i.e. are, according to Vanoye (1985) organised along a horizontal and ver-
tical dimension; see also Bell 1984, 2001). They are furthermore subordinated
both to the structure and development of film plots and to cinematic structure,
camera work, editing and montage, the latter acting as a filter that selects and
frames the way fictional conversation between characters is presented to its ulti-
mate addressee, the film audience (Prez-Gonzlez 2007: 6). As Prez-Gonzlez
goes on to show with reference to the sequential negotiation of interpersonal
meaning in film dialogues, this inevitably impacts on discourse representations
(see also Compte et Daugeron 2008; Remael 2004). Prez-Gonzlezs point relates
to dubbing, but it extends to subtitling.
In example (1) above, the text is presented out of context so that there is no
direct evidence of the relationship between language choice and overall narrative
or cinematic considerations. But the choice of the first name Carla as a term of
address in fact stands out in this respect when the line is re-set in its textual and
cinematic environment: it marks a shift from the title + surname mode of address
used by the locutor up to this point (Mademoiselle Behm [Miss Behm]) and has
recognizable narrative functions. Significantly, the value of the shift is dependent
on patterns of use already established within the film dialogue, for narrative and
structural reasons as much as a reflection of communicative practices. The point is
critical for subtitles and will be returned to in the next section.
2. They are uncharacteristically devoid of repetitions, pauses, speech overlaps or interrup-

tions, for example, all integral features of speech (see e.g. Blanche-Benveniste 1997 for French,
Halliday 1987 for English), unless these have a function in the discourse, including the function
of making them sound more realistic (Pavesi 2005, quoted in Prez-Gonzlez 2007: 4). (See also
Freddi and Pavesi 2009, and Piazza, Bednarek and Rossi 2011).
As interlingual representations of intralingual representations, subtitles are

thus linguistically twice removed from their source, and shaped by a range of tech-
nical and other constraints which inevitably affect their form, before the linguistic
or pragmatic specificities of the languages involved even come into the equation
(greater or lesser directness, for example, evidenced in the use or non-use of mod-
erating features, or use of terms of address, both of which are of relevance for the
analysis of example (1) above), and before the interaction with other sign systems
is even considered (i.e. other visual and aural signals). Taking the stylized text of
subtitles at its face value and in short, decontextualised segments is, in other words,
bound to give a limited view of linguistic and cultural representation. Considering
it from the angle of representation itself underscores the crucial relevance for com-
parative methodology of factors that are acknowledged, it is true, in preambles to
discussions of subtitles, yet are barely acknowledged in analytical practice. The is-
sue of representation in subtitles is significant in its own right, however. While
aspects and constraints of subtitling are generally well documented, the question
of the cross-cultural impact of subtitles has been unevenly addressed, despite its
potentially significant implications as regards multilingual and multicultural com-
munication. As Gambier notes, audio-visual translation should be seen not as a
constellation of problems, but as a valuable asset addressing the need for multilin-
gual and multicultural communication in the international arena (2008: 12).
There has been a good deal of work on culture-specific items or references, one of
the two main text-related issues observed in subtitles (e.g. references to the British
public school system or the connotations of names in Harry Potter), with a range
of studies identifying issues and strategies to deal with them (Gottlieb 2009,
Pedersen 2007, 2008, Pettit 2009, Ramire 2006, Tomaszkiewicz 2001, Wyler 2003
[for Harry Potter], among many others). Work on the pragmatic differences in
language use and conversational practices, the main focus here, has been less ex-
tensive but nonetheless important. It has shown, for example, how cross-linguistic
differences can affect the depiction and perception of characters and interpersonal
relationships (Hatim and Mason 1997, 2000) or how linguistic and pragmatic dif-
ferences in interactional discourse practices across languages can be exposed in
subtitles (Baumgarten 2003, Bruti 2006). There are occasional references to the
questions of linguistic and cultural representation and audience responses implic-
it in this kind of work (see Skuggevik 2009, for example). But these questions have
not been high on the research agenda of audiovisual translation, as Gambier also
notes (2008), or addressed head-on even in studies in which this might be most
expected (e.g. studies of speech acts in subtitles from a politeness theory perspec-
tive; see Bruti 2009, Gartzonika and erban 2009, for instance). Pintos recent
(2010) case study of advice in the English subtitles of Spanish films is an exception.
Research in other fields and the ever-increasing circulation of foreign films suggest
Marie-Nolle Guillot
that a great deal could be at stake: work in cross-cultural pragmatics has shown
differing expectations about norms of interaction or communicative preferences
to be a potential source of misunderstanding and tension across linguistic/cultural
groups in various contexts (see e.g. Bargiela 2009, Crawshaw et al. 20036,
Spencer-Oatey 2008), and the ever-increasing number of DVD consumers world-
wide makes the role of films in shaping audiences sense of verbal behaviour in
communities other than their own potentially very significant
3. Beyond the lost in translation leitmotiv: subtitles as a system

of representation in its own right
3.1 On loss in subtitles
In view of all the factors that affect linguistic choice in subtitling, it is not surpris-
ing that subtitles should not do all that source dialogues do, let alone emulate
naturally occurring interactions. The alternative is to look at what they do do or
can do, and how their particularities may enhance their expressive capacity and
their capacity for representation.
It is not surprising that a good deal of work on subtitles should have concen-
trated on documenting losses in subtitles (loss of orality, loss of cultural references
and connotations, loss of humour, etc.) and strategies for circumventing or mini-
mizing them. The paradoxical assumption, implicit in the notion of loss itself,
that a match of sorts should be achieved, or striven for, is nonetheless ultimately
fraught with the kind of methodological difficulty already broached about compa-
rability. This difficulty is magnified when audience factors and questions of cross-
cultural representations are also taken into account.
The argument about loss and its caveats is echoed in Ramires contention, in
a discussion restricted to culturally bound references, that the textual and cultural
transfer of films to new environments does not systematically involve losses in
translation (Ramire 2010: 100). Ramires discussion is in part rooted in the very
notion that she is exposing, however, and this limits its potential: the main argu-
ment revolves around the idea of compensation, which itself presupposes loss,
whatever the nature of the compensation the co-text (i.e. the linguistic environ-
ment of references), the polysemiotic context (visual elements, sound, dialogue,
costumes, montage and so on) or narrative situations depicted. The argument does
make room for gains in translation, i.e. translation solutions that improve on the
source text by increasing coherence or cohesion, for example, but this too is an-
chored in a self-limiting good/bad dichotomy.
From the broader point of view of linguistic and cultural representation, how-
ever, it is the audience end of Ramires discussion that peculiarly exposes the pos-
sible limitations of the assumption of loss. Ramire argues that viewers do not
usually experience translation solutions as losses since they generally have no
point of comparison with the source text (Ramire 2010: 112). The point applies to
culturally bound references, which makes loss relative, but does not extend to lan-
guage features of subtitles more generally: as suggested earlier, the intersection of
linguistic and cultural frames of reference does make room for viewers to engage
in comparison, albeit covertly, even when they have no access at all to the source
language represented interlingually in subtitles. The implications of the interplay
of interpretative frames for linguistic and cultural representation are driven home
by Ramires two final arguments relativizing loss: that not all original viewers get
everything in any case (i.e. original audiences are not homogeneous and do not
necessarily have access to the same references, to which might be added that they
do not necessarily respond to them in the same way, as previously suggested3); and
that not everything needs to make sense for films to work, to the extent that what
is not understood may in fact add to the pleasure of experiencing the foreign
(Ramire 2010: 112). By emphasizing the individuality of responses to both origi-
nal dialogues and subtitles, the gloss of these last two arguments highlights once
again just how critical audience factors are in modulating responses despite their
incommensurability, and how central they must therefore be in assessing subtitles
potential for expressivity or their (cross-) cultural and linguistic impact, above and
beyond text features. This is where Fowlers Theory of Mode comes into play.
3.2 Subtitles and the Theory of Mode triggers for integrated

modes of interpretation
The Theory of Mode was not originally designed to apply to subtitles, but has two
features that make it particularly useful for dealing with methodological issues
outlined in earlier sections: its focus on multimodality at the level of text itself, and
its cognitive dimension, i.e. its taking into account the interaction of text features
and readers perception rather than text features alone. It was intended to account
for multimodality in those written texts that produce the illusion of orality,
i.e. written texts encoded and responded to as though they were speech, first with
application to discourse in the press and later to advertising (Fowler 1991, 2000).
3. As Cronin notes: Indeed, it is arguably part of the success of films that have come to dom-
inated mainstream popular culture that they are not quite as univocal as is often assumed and
that they lend themselves to a rich plurality of readings which explains, in part, their appeal
(Cronin 2009: xvii).
Marie-Nolle Guillot
Subtitles are another archetypal example of this type of text, however, and Fowlers
main principle extends to features beyond orality.
In brief, the basic theory runs like this: as speech and writing cannot, strictly
speaking, co-exist within the same text4, Fowler suggests theorizing oral and writ-
ten not as categories of text or structure, but as categories of experience, triggered
by cues in the text, i.e. linguistic features such as words or expressions or syntactic
or morphological details (see list in Fowler 2000: 34 and examples below). Given
the knowledge that we all have, if only passively as part of our communicative com-
petence (in Hymes 1972 sense), of the modes and registers of communication, we
only need to encounter certain cues for a particular mode or register to be activated.
For Fowler, orality is thus experienced in the mind (2000: 32): a few cues of orality
in a written text are enough for the text to be perceived and responded to as speech,
provided, however, that the interplay of cues is integrated, i.e. non-random.
The relevance of textual multimodality to subtitling is clear to see: by consid-
ering the interaction between text features and readers perception rather than text
features alone (with or without reference to other semiotic resources), the theory
makes it possible to transcend some of the limitations of taking text at its face
value, and to circumvent the assumption of loss that has permeated approaches to
subtitling5. This potential was demonstrated with reference to orality and to the
expressive value of punctuation for subtitling in earlier work (Guillot 2007, 2008).
4. since the two modes use different channels and are different phenomena
5. The following interesting example, of a line from the film Smoke referring to another char-
acters smoking practices, discussed by Pettit in an article about cultural transfer in (English into
French) subtitling and dubbing, illustrates both these points.
(2) Source dialogue And so he huffed and he puffed.
Subtitled version Et il fuma, fuma.
[And he smoked, smoked.]
Dubbed version Donc il fuma, refuma.
[So he smoke, re-smoked] (Pettit 2009: 47)
Pettit notes that the cultural allusion to the well-known childrens story The three little pigs in the
source text disappears in both versions of the line in French and that the subtitler and the dub-
ber have used the same strategy of omission. Her comment relates to referential content, not to
form. Taking form into account produces an alternative analysis: while the subtitle in French
does not integrate the reference to the story of The three little pigs specifically, its form activates
a children story frame: the form [and + verb (past historic), same verb (past historic)] has be-
come archetypal of children stories in French. The dubbed version does no such thing: there is
no intertextuality in its form, and the line fails to trigger this experience. The contrast thus ex-
poses the choices of the subtitler and the dubber as different strategies and, by the same token,
illustrates the point about the cueing of modes of experience. Pettit makes no reference to the
broader narrative and cinematic context, however, so the function of the reference cannot be
ascertained, nor can the desirability of its being conveyed in full, or cued in the way described.
It will be illustrated here with a summary account of work on linguistic and cul-
tural representations in SML (see Guillot 2010 for the full case study). The discus-
sion will apply to text alone. An important leitmotiv in work on screen translation
has been the attention to be paid to the multi-semiotic nature of audiovisual prod-
ucts (e.g. Baumgarten 2005, Taylor 2003) and there are broader accounts of multi-
modality extending beyond text (e.g. Ventola et al. 2004). However, Fowlers focus
on multimodality within text itself is heuristically helpful for appraising subtitles
in their own terms in the first instance visual and aural semiotic information is
critical for conveying meanings in subtitles, but will for reasons of space not be
considered here, or only in passing. The objective is to illustrate how the principles
of Fowlers theory and the integration of a cognitive dimension into the analysis of
the text of subtitles give scope to do justice to their specificities and to their capac-
ity for representation. Implications from the point of view of methodology are
then considered in the final section.
In what follows, the first two examples relate to two different types of verbal
practice, types for which there are variations across languages, that is the expres-
sion of face threatening acts as represented in example (1), and features of the
source language not observed in the target language, conspicuous, for example, in
the T/V system of pronominal address found in languages like French, German,
Spanish, etc. (i.e. second person singular and plural pronouns tu/vous in French,
du/Sie in German, t/usted/(vos) in Spanish), but not in English).
3.3 Text and beyond: insights into subtitles potential

for interlingual representation
3.3.1 Representations and interlingual variations: an alternative

explanation for example (1)
The issue with example (1) as outlined in the first section of this paper was that the
formal directness of the subtitle Carla? Wheres Le Henry? could be conducive to
misguided perceptions of communicative practices in French. The argument taken
up here is that the conspicuous shift to the first-name term of address Carla and
punctuation work together as the trigger for a response that does not reflect ad-
versely on French.
Out of context and from the point of view of a native speaker of (British) Eng-
lish, the request Wheres Le Henry is marked, that is out of line with standard
politeness expectations that requests, as face threatening acts, should be mitigated
(as it is indeed in the source text). The subtitle represents the speech of a French
speaker in a French context, so that the verbal behaviour portrayed could risk be-
ing associated with French and promote or reinforce unhelpful stereotypes. The
Carla? preface and its form in the subtitle makes all the difference, however.
Marie-Nolle Guillot
As noted earlier, the Christian name address marks a shift from the distance-
maintaining title + surname (Miss Behm) mode of address used by the locutor
to address Carla in all other contexts up to this scene, and stands out by contrast.
Other contextual features reinforce the markedness of the shift. The request is ut-
tered by Carlas boss during a staff meeting at the architectural practice where she
works as his private assistant and where she is exploited by all her male colleagues
apart from him, the only one to acknowledge her stress condition. His use of her
Christian name at this point cues that she is addressed on a personal level, and not
as a PA or an employee: it indexes Carlas bosss solicitude for her, shown in the
mitigation of the request in the source dialogue line. In the subtitle, the shift to the
Christian name, and the interpersonal empathy that it cues, fulfills an additional
key function: it projects the request as a non-threatening act, despite the absence
of mitigating features. Punctuation is critical. The question mark after Carla cues
a rising intonation and concomitant considerate tentativeness in the call to atten-
tion, and this helps to pre-moderate the subsequent request. It also sets the term of
address apart in a separate tonal group at the beginning of the line, i.e. produces a
de facto pause which prevents Carla being caught unaware and gives her time to
compose herself, and likewise pre-moderates what follows. (Compare with the po-
tential for peremptoriness of Carla, wheres Le Henry?). The text of the request
in the subtitle is overtly direct, but its perlocutionary impact is not: it is primed as
non face-threatening by the empathetic use of Carla and the impact of punctua-
tion. Carla? thus works as a trigger that activates a particular frame of interpreta-
tion, in line with the general principle of the Theory of Mode, and sets the value of
the linguistic features within it. Accordingly, directness is not projected as an at-
tribute of French per se. It is, rather, an attribute of the subtitle itself, defined in the
responses that it produces by settings in the broader context.
If particular responses can be pre-empted in this way, equally particular re-
sponses can be generated in the same way. This will be taken up below, with the
question of the linguistic and cultural representation of T/V variations. It should
be further noted that there is no question here of compensation for loss: indeed
the analysis can be undertaken independently of the source text, in this example as
it will be in the next. It is, rather, a matter of the subtitles working as an integrated
system dynamically generating its own meanings.
3.3.2 Representations and TL absent features: The example

of pronominal address
The second example is the example, also in SML, of variations in T/V pronominal
address in the interactions between the two main protagonists in the film, Carla
and Paul Angli. The issue in this case is the representation of these variations in
the subtitles in English, a language with no such distinction, and more generally
the representation of certain linguistic features of a source language in a target
language devoid of such features. Here again the Theory of Mode provides helpful
insights: it shows how the interplay of different types of cues enables the functions
fulfilled by T/V variations in the source dialogues to be activated in the subtitles,
in an argument which extends to all such features more broadly and encompasses
linguistic and cultural representations. A first step is to identify the functions of
such features in the source-text dialogues, since if they have none it does not mat-
ter much whether they are represented or not. The example of T/V variations in
SML is striking in this respect.
There are in the film nine scenes between Carla and Paul involving shifts be-
tween the two forms. These shifts are conspicuous and fulfill conspicuous narra-
tive and structural functions: with shifts in register, they reflect the development of
the relationship between the two characters and their own personal development.
No less significantly for foreign viewers, they provide a remarkable birds eye rep-
resentation of the T/V system in French, i.e. of the complex sociolinguistic and
pragmatic factors that govern uses of tu and vous, and of how these factors index
or inflect relationships (see Morford 1997, Peeters and Ramire 2009, for exam-
ple). That they should do so is an indication of how stylized linguistic representa-
tions are in film dialogues themselves. The toing-and-froing between the two
forms by the same two individuals as occurs in the film, to serve narrative and
structural ends, would be unlikely in naturally occurring verbal interactions: shifts
from one form to the other, normally V to T, typically occur only once, and shifts
back can be deemed offensive. They are nonetheless true to type in what they de-
pict of the factors governing shifts in French, and provide a window not just on
real life practices, but also on the negotiation of interpersonal relationships that
these practices reflect (see full discussion in Guillot 2010).
When it comes to the subtitles, the question that arises is thus twofold: wheth-
er the narrative and structural functions of the T/V variations in the film are
fulfilled and how, and, from the point of view of linguistic and cultural representa-
tions, whether the subtitles have the capacity to alert audiences to features of lan-
guage use and communicative practice in French, as the source dialogues do, de-
spite the absence of second-person pronominal differentiation in English.
As demonstrated in the full case study of T/V variations in SML (Guillot 2010),
the answer to this question is potentially yes on both counts. The study shows how
the interplay of different types of cue triggers the experience of shifts correspond-
ing to T/V shifts in the source dialogue and what they convey, again in line with
the general principles of the Theory of Mode. These cues include register, linguistic
form and punctuation cues, but also, significantly, features of subtitling: the terse-
ness of the lines resulting from message reduction and formal simplicity, for
Marie-Nolle Guillot
example; or omissions and the toning down of non-standard language, which

heighten contrast when items that could be omitted are not, or where non-stan-
dard language does occur. These features all play an integral part in the interplay
and in meaning generation: stylization in this sense does not breed loss, it is a re-
source in its own right.
One of the two most critical T/V shifts in the film is thus signposted by an
exclamatory statement and the other by a tactical shift in register, as shown in ex-
amples (3) and (4) below from different scenes6:
(3) Thats not true!
(4) Then you split, is that it?
Other prompts are involved, however: in both instances, the signposting is the
product of a build-up of interrelated cues that cumulatively prepare the ground for
the exclamation in the first example, and the register shift in the second, to signal
a shift in interpersonal rapport at these two points.
In the example (3), the exclamatory statement (Thats not true!) needs to be
interpreted as impulsive and emotionally loaded in order to cue the shift in the
source dialogue, i.e. a shift to tu by Carla that exposes her hitherto covert emo-
tional dependency on Paul and shifts the balance of power to him. This is pro-
duced by a gradual shift in Carlas register, that shows her going from anger and
colloquial language at the beginning of the scene to mounting emotional panic,
reflected in the subsequent neutral queries put to Paul in short paratactic spurts
(e.g. How will you cope?//Working here and there?, where syntactic fragmenta-
tion mirrors the additive construction of speech and Carlas thought processes, in
contrast with How will you cope//working here and there?, for example, i.e. a
single question with a fact-eliciting function). There are other features involved,
including features confirming and reinforcing the shift after its occurrence (again
form, punctuation and register shifts, in Carlas but also in Pauls utterances, and
heightening of contrasts by deletion of some non-standard items7), all meshing
into the integrated network of cues (see full case study). The comparative simplic-
ity of the text belies the complexity of the modes of interpretation that it has the
potential to generate.
6. These examples occur in structurally critical scenes which mark the end of the first and
second parts of the film respectively and a shift of power between the two characters.
7. A shift in Pauls register after Carlas outcry exposes his response to it and confirms that the
exclamation indeed reveals Carlas covert feelings, as the tu shift does in the source dialogue
(from I cant do both.//I have to leave here.// before Carlas exclamation to the propositionally
equivalent but colloquial I told you I dont give a shit/Dont sweat it. I have no choice.// after,
exposing his disquiet at what Carla has inadvertently disclosed of her feelings).
In example (4) the shift is cued in just one word (split in Then you split, is
that it?, where split marks a register shift corresponding to a shift to tu by Carla
in the source dialogue (here indexing distance); there is no register shift in the
source text, i.e. Aprs tu ten vas, cest a [afterwards youT form go, is that it?], and this
confirms its value in the subtitle. It is thus highly stylized, and remarkable by its
economy. Its impact is compounded by other features, including the cursoriness of
Carlas other lines in the scene, for example; but little is needed by then, i.e. to-
wards the end of the film, to trigger a shift in experience; minimal prompts are
enough once a particular modus operandi has been set up.
All in all, the interplay of cues in the films subtitles is enough to achieve the
mapping of the relationship between Carla and Paul shown by T/V shifts in the
source dialogues, and to fulfill their narrative and structural functions, with other
sign systems providing helpful back-up in the more complex second part (i.e. aural
and visual signs like tone of voice, facial expression, body behaviour). Linguisti-
cally, it is also effective in charting the relationship between the characters per-
sonal development and their control of language, an important feature in the
source dialogues and partly embodied in T/V variations.
The T/V system cannot, on the other hand, be represented per se. As noted with
example (1), there is, however, scope for the system to generate its own variations
and differentiations, and thus to draw attention to cultural otherness and linguistic
difference by other means, including to aspects of interpersonal negotiation in
French, through other features. To take another, albeit intuitive, example, the subti-
tles of Japanese or Chinese films may not be able to convey the complexities of ad-
dress in these languages and cultures, but they are able to trigger the experience of a
system that is profoundly other from your own in the way relationships are negoti-
ated, interpersonally and linguistically, whatever the specifics of the source text.
3.3.3 Beyond text-level multimodality
In these examples and overall, the discussion has focused on multimodality within
text itself, but by way of conclusion to this section we can perhaps briefly project
beyond text, by referring to a study of the influence of English on communicative
preferences in German within a broader multimodal framework (Baumgarten
2005). The study applies to dubbing, but has interesting possible implications for
the case made here. It shows overall that text-induced language variation observed
in German in the film studied does not reflect an English influence on the linguis-
tic system of German, one of the main research questions addressed. On the other
hand, the German translation shows more frequent and more explicit expression
of speakers stance and speakers interpersonal involvement than is observed in
German language use. The communicative behavior depicted is thus atypical of
Marie-Nolle Guillot
German (see House 2006 on this point), yet cannot be traced to the presence of
linguistic structures in the English source text. Baumgarten interprets this as an
indication of the influence of English communicative practices reflecting the
source culture and raises the question of whether the fact that films involve an
unalterable visual representation of the source texts culture [...] might be respon-
sible for source-text induced effects on the language used in the translations
(2005: 245). This is an unusual perspective on visual information as a trigger for
linguistic variation, as she suggests, and an interesting by-product of linguistic and
cultural a-synchrony, in terms of the dubbing process and impact on audiences.
On the other hand, Baumgartens findings could also be hypothesized to pro-
vide evidence that particular pragmatic responses to text can be cued in the
translated text irrespective of the linguistic form of the source text, and promote
representations commensurate with source language and culture practices, in line
with the argument pursued here.
4. Concluding comments
The foregoing discussion of subtitles has drawn attention to a range of issues. It has
in particular led to the consideration of their linguistic and pragmatic features in
different ways: not just in terms of the values already assigned to them in particu-
lar languages and cultures, but also in terms of the flexible values that they may
take on within particular film contexts as a function of the interplay of textual trig-
gers and features of subtitles, in line with the principles of the Theory of Mode. As
a construct generating their own system of multi-modal representations at the
level of text itself, subtitles thus arguably have a significant capacity for linguistic
and cultural representation, whatever may otherwise be lost in translation. This
claim can ultimately only be put to the test with empirical audience reception
studies, the application of which to linguistic and cultural representations is com-
plex, and still pending: reception studies are few, and often limited to studies of the
impact of such features as humor using questionnaire data. Information about
representation is less easy to capture because it is experienced more covertly and is
more elusive but focus groups could perhaps be a first step towards devising elici-
tation instruments. However, the inevitable need to take audience factors into
account when considering subtitles from the perspective of cultural and linguistic
representation, and the conundrum that linguistic and cultural a-synchrony pro-
duces in this respect, is a reminder of the methodological challenges of compara-
tive approaches in studies of subtitles, and in contrastive textology more broadly.
In a study that concludes with a call for caution in selecting data for contras-
tive analysis, Scollon asks the following questions as the underpinning of a
cross-cultural analysis of generic variability in news stories: how similar must two
texts be to be considered the same text?; or, alternatively, how much variation
between one text and another is sufficient to determine that the two are different
texts? (Scollon 2000: 762).8 The questions relate to the use of parallel texts in
contrastive research, and take us back to the themes of functional equivalence
and textual comparability highlighted in this volume.
Film dialogues and their subtitles are not parallel texts in a contrastive re-
search sense9 and give no answers to these questions: their text is neither the same
nor can it be , nor is it (normally) entirely different. They are intricately linked,
however, not so much because the text of one is normally (though not necessarily)
a representation of the text of the other, but because they inevitably invite covert
comparison, by dint of the juxtaposition and intersection of linguistic and cultural
frames. This idiosyncratic feature makes it imperative to take into account over-
looked factors associated with the processing of text, and this casts a completely
different light on text itself, as we have seen. There is not necessarily any overt jux-
taposition of frames where parallel texts for contrastive interlingual study are con-
cerned (e.g. news reports in different national newspapers, as in Scollons study),
but their covert juxtaposition and intersection is unavoidable. In some texts, nota-
bly the account of the words of foreign speakers in the news, this is as critical as it
is for subtitles, and implications are perhaps even more far-reaching: the occa-
sional flaring up and exposure of misunderstandings are enough to confirm this, as
are the questions raised in the very few studies devoted to translation in the news
(see Bassnet (2005) for example, and her discussion of the transcripts and report-
ing of Saddam Husseins first court appearance; also Bielsa and Bassnett 2009).
And this brings us finally to the question of equivalence, a central but conten-
tious concept in translation studies (see Kenny 2008), where much discussion has
revolved around the so-called principle of equivalent effect, described in brief as
stipulating that the TT [target text] should produce the same effects on its audi-
ence as those produced by the ST [source text] on its original readers (Hervey and
Higgins 1992: 22). The notion has hung over the discussion all along. If it has been
avoided, it is because it is of limited value in the context of subtitles. There is no
space here to engage in a full discussion of the principle, but Hervey and Higgins
early account of its limitations for translation more generally speaks for itself.
8. Scollon then goes on to demonstrate that large degrees of variation can be produced within
the same stories or even the same newspapers by reasonably unified ideological communities
of journalists, i.e. within assumed parallel texts of the kind used in interlingual textual com-
parison for grounding contrastive analysis in the observable, as advocated by Hartmann (1980),
for example.
9. The term parallel corpora is used in corpus linguistics to refer to texts that are translations
of each other, but this is not what is meant here.
Marie-Nolle Guillot
Having demonstrated that even a relatively objective assessment of equivalent

effect is hard to envisage (1992: 23), Hervey and Higgins go on to conclude:
More fundamentally still, unlike intralingual translation, translation proper has
the task of bridging the cultural gap between monolingual speakers of different
languages. The backgrounds, shared knowledge, cultural assumptions and learnt
responses of monolingual TL speakers are inevitably culture-bound. Given this
fact, SL speakers responses to the ST are never likely to be replicated exactly by
effects on members of a different culture. Even a small cultural distance between
the ST audience and TT audience is bound to produce a fundamental dissimilar-
ity between the effects of the ST and those of the TT such effects can at best be
similar in a global and limited sense; they can never be the same. (1992: 23)
In so far as it implies sameness, the principle of equivalent effect is inoperant for

subtitling, and unhelpful to the same tune as the notion of loss. The richness of a
construct able to generate its own system of multi-modal representations is not a
capacity to achieve sameness, but a capacity to diversify the dialectics of difference.
It is a capacity to rise above what Nornes denounces as corrupt subtitling, i.e. sub-
titling that conforms the foreign to the framework of the target language and its
cultural codes (Nornes 2007: 178 [first published 1999]), and to promote instead a
subtitling that avoids the erasure of difference, and seeks to intensify the interac-
tion between the reader and the foreign (ibid: 1789). Nornes describes the latter
as abusive subtitling to highlight the transgressive nature of the strategies he advo-
cates. Raising awareness and tolerance of difference is not abusive. It is necessary.
The translation studies concept of equivalence embodied in the principle of
equivalent effect bears limited relation to the notion of functional equivalence in
contrastive textology. But just as the idiosyncrasies of the relationship between
film dialogues and subtitles bring to the fore questions about comparability which
in the end extend to much broader textual contexts, likewise the specificities of
equivalence in this context invite a broader critical outlook on the nature of func-
tional equivalence generally, thus in contrastive media analysis.
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Linguistic, intercultural and semiotic
contrasts of obituaries
Bernd Spillner
University Duisburg Essen, Germany
This paper is a contribution to contrastive textology of media discourse. After

linguistic definitions of text type (Textsorte) and bimodal texts (constituted by
verbal and non-verbal elements) the text type obituary is characterized as an
advertisement in a daily newspaper announcing death of a person normally
before the funeral. The examples are analysed and compared by linguistic and
semiotic methods, showing textual, intercultural and semiotic particularities.
1. The concept of Textsorten (text types)
This study aims to be a contribution to Contrastive Textology, a joint domain of

contrastive linguistics and comparative cultural studies which does not need to be
defined any more (Spillner 1978, Spillner 1981, Hartmann 1982, Pckl 2005). It
should only be precised that the approach chosen among different possible meth-
ods (Spillner 2005: 282288) is the contrastive and intercultural analysis of text
types. Text types are understood here in the sense of the German notion of Text-
sorten; it is to say texts in everyday language and in languages for special pur-
poses, which are produced according to verbal, stylistic, typographic, pragmatic,
semiotic and cultural conventions. The notion of Textsorten may correspond more
or less to the research object of studies undertaken in recent years under the title
of genre analysis (e. g. Swales 1990). But the term genre is avoided here, because it
is traditionally used in philology for literary texts determined by strict formal and
thematic rules in poetics and in rhetoric. It seems to be more convenient to re-
spect the traditional distinction instead of creating unnecessary terminological
ambiguity.
The choice of Textsorten as empirical base for contrastive analysis has some
important advantages in comparison with other approaches, such as:
Bernd Spillner
It allows a strict and clear definition of a communicative tertium comparatio-

nis, the indispensable requirement for any scientific comparison (Spillner
2005: 270271).
In contrast with the comparison of translations or with most of the approach-
es called analysis of parallel texts where only one example of L1 is contrasted
with another example in L2, this method permits to contrast corpora of texts
from different languages.
A supplementary argument to apply this approach to the analysis of obituaries
(and not the approach of comparison of so called parallel texts as results of
translation) is that obituaries are never translated from one language to an-
other one (in any case there is no example in our corpus of more than 4500
obituaries from 38 languages).
2. Contrasting media texts
So far as the contrastive analysis of media text is intended, the text type of obituar-
ies has been chosen as they appear in many countries regularly in daily newspa-
pers. Even more, in recent years obituaries in some cultures have been completed
by illustrations of different types. In this way they belong to the category of bime-
dial or bimodal texts, the analysis of which can only be done by a semiotic and
often an intercultural approach. Previous works on obituaries, even if they have
provided good contrastive comparison (Rei 1977/78), have analysed only the
verbal part of texts and ignored non-verbal parts of the texts.
Both, verbal and non-verbal elements are part of the text, and have
intra-textual relations of cohesion and coherence. Therefore they are not com-
plementary parts of texts and picture, but verbal and non-verbal parts of a text.
Non-verbal elements and pragmatic settings have to be included in the notion of
text as well.
3. Text type obituary
Before analysing or contrasting obituaries, a terminological notice has to be made.

It seems that the term obituary is ambiguous in English. It refers to two different
types of texts:
Linguistic, intercultural and semiotic contrasts of obituaries
Obituary
obituary notice
written notice published as paid appreciation in some periodical

advertisement in (mostly daily) of a late prestigious personality
newspapers, ordered by family some time after his death
members, friends, colleagues or
institutions, informing about the
recent death of a person, published
normally before the funeral
In German both Textsorten are clearly distinguished by different terms:
Todesanzeige Nachruf
and in a similar way in French
avis de dcs ncrologie
Only the first text type (Todesanzeige) is a media text in the semiotic sense, and
only this one will be dealt with in this research paper. It should be clear that the
main communicative function of an obituary, it is to say, giving information of the
recent death of a person, may be realized also by other communicative means:
phone calls, in a traditional way by letters (hand written or printed), in some coun-
tries, and especially in rural regions, by poster on a wall, in some countries by TV
etc. On the other hand, obituaries in newspapers are clearly distinguished from
other thematically related text types, for example thanks for condolences, com-
memorative advertisements (40 days or a year after the death), distributed folders
in catholic regions during the requiem/mass for the dead (in German Totenkrt
chen), the so-called internet cemetery.
4. Contrastive textology of obituaries
Contrastive analyses of obituaries in the sense of the definition as announcements

of the recent death of a person in a daily newspaper giving different information
about the person, the relatives, date and place of burial etc. may be done according
to the (pertinent) classical categories of existence, function, distribution, realiza-
tion (Spillner 2005). The usage of illustrations, cultural settings and special com-
munication devices are analysed separately as follow.
Bernd Spillner
4.1 Existence
Apparently obituaries in daily newspapers do not exist in some countries (e.g. in

Russia). In other countries such obituaries are in general only published for per-
sons of renowned political, social or scientific class (e.g. in China):
Figure 1. Huaxi Doshi 13/6/2009
It may be noticed that in China a picture of the deceased person is mostly part of
the text and the time of death is indicated very precisely (hour and minutes).
4.2 Realization
Even if printed in similar daily newspapers, the obituaries may be realized in dif-
ferent forms. This is the case especially in printing and typography. In Germany
obituaries in daily newspapers may be published in very various sizes, but they are
in most cases boarded on all four sides by thick black lines which distinguish and
differentiate them from the journalistic part of the newspapers.
In other countries like France, Italy or Great Britain the obituaries are printed
in columns having the same typography like editorial texts.
The only indication distinguishing obituaries from journalistic texts are titles
like Necrologie (Il Giornale, Gazzetta del Sud, Messina), Deuils (Le Figaro),
Figure 2. WAZ 8/4/99, 101/11
Dcs (Le Monde, Libration, La Presse, Montral, El Watan, Alger, Le Soleil,

Dakar), Avis de Dcs (Le Parisien, LEst Rpublicain, Togo-Presse, La Nouvelle
Marche, Lom), Avis dobsques (Sud Ouest, Charente libre), Avis Mortuaires
(FAN-LExpress, Neuchtel), Deaths (The Times, London, New York Times, The
Irish Times, The Gazette, Montreal, The Globe and Mail, Toronto), Death Notices
(Washington Post), Dda (Svenska Dagbladed, Dagens Nyheter), Ddsfall
(Sydsvenskan).
In the French national daily newspaper Le Figaro the page of obituaries is even
introduced by the notice On nous prie dannoncer ... (Le Figaro 12.11.2005, 17)
[We are asked to announce...], as if the following information might have been
written by the journalists of the newspapers.
4.3 Functions
When defining a tertium comparationis for contrasting obituaries in different lan-

guages/countries/cultures the communicative function of announcing the recent
death of a person in a newspaper and giving information of live data, circum-
stances of the death and pragmatic data of the funerals can be considered as a suf-
ficient starting point for inter-lingual and intercultural comparison. In fact this
communicative function is a convenient invariable for contrastive textology.
Bernd Spillner
Figure 3. The Times 21/5/99, 28
But during the analysis, secondary functions may arise. One of them is the desire
of the bereaved persons (family, friends, business companies, social associations
etc.) to enlighten the social reputation and popularity of the deceased. In Germany
this purpose is realized (especially for politicians, famous artists, important
businessmen) by the size of the advertisement (up to one entire page in the news-
paper). In France the same effect is realized by the choice of an important national
newspaper (Le Monde, Le Figaro). In Italy a campaign of as many small obituaries
as possible is organized:
Figure 4. Corriere della Sera 5/11/99, 46

Bernd Spillner
Sometimes the number of such obituaries for one and the same person may in-
crease to more than 200. The information concerning the death and the deceased
person are almost the same. Terms of address and parental relations, and stylistic
devices are different. The common effect is a high scale of social importance and
consideration of a personality.
5. Non-verbal elements
5.1 Historical aspects
So far as in the historical evolution of obituaries is concerned, it might be men-

tioned that this text type in newspapers is attested in Germany since 1798 (Spillner
2002: 458). At this time, and for a long period of time afterwards, obituaries were
published as verbal messages only.
Nevertheless the text type may have additional non-verbal parts (pictures,
symbols, illustrative designs), which need a semiotic analysis. In German obituar-
ies of the twentieth century, there has been a small number of traditional symbols,
such as the cross (significant concepts like death or Christian faith), floral branch
and the famous picture Praying hands from a painting of Drer:
Figure 5. WAZ 17/4/99, 101/12

Figure 6. WAZ 19/9/98, 101/25
Figure 7. WAZ 4/4/98, 101/27

Bernd Spillner
The traditional use of these three symbols/visual elements is to be explained by the

fact that obituaries had often been chosen according to the models available in the
newspaper agencies or in the offices of funeral homes.
5.2 Bimodal text structure
In recent years, German obituaries have developed towards bimedial texts. Vari-
ous types of pictures and symbols have been added to the verbal part of the texts.
This has been enabled by the new facilities of downloading visual elements from
the Internet. Consequently, symbols expressing death and mourning have become
rather frequent in obituaries, such as the picture of an open gate as emblem for the
transition to the other world.
Sometimes only a semiotic analysis of both verbal and pictorial parts of the
text can reveal the relationship of these components.
Figure 8. WAZ 9/3/2000, D117/02

Figure 9. NRZ 10/3/2000, 101/29
In this example there is a textual cohesion among the word Trauer (engl: mourn-
ing) and of the inherent concept of the obituaries notice and the name of the
represented tree: Trauerweide (engl: weeping willow. Literally: mourning willow).
In other obituaries the sense of the picture is fully explained by a verbal
comment.
The pictorially symbolized notion of separation of a single unit from the whole/
of an individual from the social union, of the ideas end of life/organic transforma-
tion is fully described in a verbal way by the cited poem:
So wie ein Blatt vom Baume fllt, [Like a leaf falling from a tree,
so geht ein Leben aus der Welt, a life leaves the world.
die Vglein singen weiter. The little birds continue singing.]
Bernd Spillner
Figure 10. WAZ 17/4/99, 101/12
Of course, there are many different possibilities to combine visual elements with
verbal information in a text. In obituaries, an often used procedure consists of vi-
sualizing professional characteristics of the deceased person in order to emphasize
important aspects of his life, for example:
Figure 11. WAZ 6/3/98, 101/12

The death of a boatman is symbolized by the typical instrument of his professional

life (the anchor). Moreover the picture is related by textual cohesion with the word
anchor, taken in his metaphorical sense of the fix point of the course of life:
Ich habe nun [Now I have found the base,
den Grund gefunden, which holds my anchor forever.]
der meinen
Anker ewig hlt.
(The English translation doesnt render the double sense of Grund).
The same semiotic procedure is used for the obituary of a musician, where there is
a textual cohesion between the verbal remark Deine Liebe ... zur Musik and the
extract of the musical score of the Goldbergvariationen by Bach:
Figure 12. WAZ 21/08/2000, 101/62

Bernd Spillner
In the last example an obituary is motivated by the profession of a late coal miner.
Firstly, there is a semiotic cohesion to the traditional symbol of mining in Germany
and secondly an allusion to the traditional and well known miners song Der
Steiger kommt:
Figure 13. WAZ 8/9/98, 101/51
Such bimodal relationships to the late person are rather easy in professional as-
pects. In other cases pictures refer to personal activities, age, adhesion to private
clubs, hobbies of the late person and so on.
In some few examples cohesions are utilized between the family name of the
person and a picture, such as below:
Figure 14. WAZ 9/7/98, 101/22
Schiff family is rendered in a corresponding picture showing a sinking ship. The

metonymy is combined with the allegoric sinking of a ship ~ dying of a man. Of
course, it is only possible in few cases to use a direct illustration of a persons name.
6. Intercultural analysis
When contrasting the existence, the functions and the realization of obituaries in
different languages/cultures, certain intercultural differences have already been
analysed. Those intercultural contrasts not only concern the way of printing, sty-
listic devices, terms of expressing mourning or the benefits done by the bereaved
persons, typographic presentation, usage of metaphor, but also the semiotics of
the bimedial text type. Often linguistic descriptions of obituaries have only dealt
with texts in one language, mostly based on a very small corpus (Rudolf 1949,
Grzesiak 1991, Petrov 1994, Bertrand 1995, Bultinck 1998, Barrera Linares 1999,
Haus 2007). Some contrastive analyses have taken into account only the verbal
part of the text (e.g. Rei 1977/78, Piitulainen 1990, Sironi-Bonefai 1995,
Drescher 2000), very few including also cultural aspects (Spillner 2006,
Eckkrammer 1996). The development of obituaries towards bimodal texts needs
a textual analysis and interlingual comparison including cultural and semiotic
methods. This approach should be continued, even if in some cases the results of
the contrastive analysis cannot exactly be interpreted. One interesting example is
the integration of a photo of the deceased person into the obituary notice. This is
normally practised in countries like Singapore, Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia, often in
Portugal, but no photo in obituaries from Spain is attested in the corpus:
Bernd Spillner
Figure 15. Sunday Times (Singapore) 6/2/2005, 33
Figure 16. Trud (Bulgaria) 26/4/2001, 25

Such pictures are very rarely used in France (and appear only in the regional press,
never in national newspapers), but rather often in French speaking Canada. In the
German speaking countries it is traditionally used in Southern Tyrol. In Germany
there has been a taboo to use photos in obituaries, but since about six years photos
appear from time to time and in different regions (Spillner 2002). Even if there
might be some religious reasons for this different intercultural custom, there is no
sufficient explanation.
The peculiarities of other bimodal obituaries can be more easily explained ei-
ther by geographical/climatic differences or by national cultural contrast.
Figure 17. Dagens Nyheter 10/9/98, 36

Bernd Spillner
Figure 18. WAZ 14/4/99, 101/12
In Scandinavia very often pictures of little birds and springtime flowers are
used, connoting the hope for resurrection like the rebirth of nature after a long
winter.
The German flame symbol indicates a funeral of cremation. It is related to the
socialist labour tradition and the movement of free-thinking, and may be inter-
preted as a manifestation against the catholic church which like in Islam and in
Judaism had strictly forbidden the act of cremation from 1886 to 1964. If in this
example it is easily possible to find a cultural or religious explanation for the choice
of the non-verbal illustration, in other cases bimodal contrast between obituaries
from different countries may depend on pure traditional circumstances. So, in
European countries traditional conventional Christian emblems are used as illus-
trations (see Figure 19), whereas in South America obituaries published by com-
panies include often the logo of the company (Figure 20), giving the text an aspect
of PR.
Figure 19. La Libert (Fribourg, Switzerland) 22/6/1984, 9
Figure 20. El Comercio (Quito, Ecuador) 4/7/1999, D7

Bernd Spillner
The non-verbal parts of obituaries are able to contribute to contrastive and inter-
cultural differences. A semiotic and contrastive analysis of such bimodal texts can
reveal as well verbal and pictorial cohesion within the text, as intercultural tradi-
tions and conventions in the use of this text type.
Abbreviations
NRZ = Neue Ruhr/Neue Rhein Zeitung

WAZ = Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
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Language and culture in minor media
text types
A diachronic, intralinguistic analysis
from fanzines to webzines
Viviana Gaballo
University of Macerata, Italy
The aim of this study is to focus on the relationship between the macro
phenomenon culture and the micro analysis of text structures of a specific
genre fanzines to provide empirical evidence of how the genre ascribed
to a social group reflects specific, culturally shaped world views. The study
also investigates the diachronic, intermedia dimensions of a specific genre
punkzines providing evidence of anticipated forms of the language used in
current text messaging and arguing whether the virtualization of the cultural
and social spaces related to the evolution of fanzines into webzines has left their
social function unchanged while affecting our understanding of culture.
1. Introduction
Several scholars and experts have discussed fanzines as a genre and explored the
specific relationship that they form with their readership; however, few have ex-
plored individual publications in depth and investigated how these take part in
ascribing notions of genuine membership within music cultural scenes and using
language to construct social identities, relationships, issues, and events.
This study addresses this gap by conducting a diachronic, intermedia, intralin-
guistic analysis of a print punkzine, Sniffin Glue the first UK punkzine, pub-
lished in 1976, and considered a legend since (in Perry and Baker 2000) and a
web zine, Scanner Zine one of the few still active online punkzines that take full
advantage of the features of the new medium (see www.scannerzine.com) while
drawing on discussions of music cultural scenes from the fields of media and cul-
tural studies.
Viviana Gaballo
By exploring how the internal textual dynamics within the two publications
constructs notions of authenticity, this study aims both at uncovering the role of
language in constructing social identities and relationships, and at helping to un-
ravel how particular discourses, rooted in particular socio-cultural contexts, con-
struct reality, social identities and social relationships (Fairclough 1992: 64).
The methodology used includes interdiscursive analysis of texts, linguistic
analysis and analysis of non-linguistic, semiotic modalities such as visual images.
Interdiscursive analysis, a distinctive feature of CDA as interpreted by Fairclough
(2003: 3), allows the investigator to incorporate elements of context into the
analysis of texts, to show innovation and change in texts, and it has a mediating
role in facilitating the connection of detailed linguistic and semiotic features of
texts with processes of social change on a broader scale. (Fairclough 2005: 290).
The approach used in this chapter is intended to implement the methods nor-
mally used in CDA, i.e. qualitative and quantitative techniques are combined, the
quantitative component being limited to surface indicators like coverage fre-
quency and size as well as basic content analytic categories like the presence/
absence of certain topics and value judgments, or the frequency of quotations
(van Dijk 1988: 66).
Two research questions were developed to investigate the diachronic, interme-
dia perspective: one that sees the language used in fanzines as the forerunner of
the language used in current text messaging; and the other that argues whether the
evolution of the fanzines into webzines has kept their social function unchanged.
These at first apparently unrelated research questions are however strictly in-
terdependent from the methodological point of view, at both levels of linguistic
and sociolinguistic investigation, since the research develops on the same specific
context (i.e. the punkzines analyzed), and the intralinguistic analysis provides use-
ful data to read the diachronic evolution of punk language and culture, accounting
for both the connection with current texting and the changed social function.
2. Theoretical framework
A cursory glance at the literature on the notion of culture suggests that there is
little agreement as to its exact nature. Various branches of inquiry (e.g. anthropol-
ogy, sociology, linguistics, psychology) continue to be divided in the way they con-
ceptualize culture. Whether interpreted according to Tylors mentalist approach
(1891: 7) which depicts culture as a mental map capable of making sense of the
world around us or Boas behaviourist approach (1940: 629) which sees culture
as a preference for those patterns of communicative behaviour which are valued
within a social group or Geertzs semiotic approach (1973: 89) which emphasizes
Language and culture in minor media text types
how culture is not about explaining mental phenomena or social behaviour, but
about understanding social practices in context any definition of culture is nec-
essarily reductionist.
A typical, more inclusive definition which encompasses the totality implied
in the culture concept, the organizing principle underlying the social structure,
and the determined and determining aspects of culture pertaining to individual
behaviour is offered by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 357):
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired
and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human
groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture con-
sists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their
attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products
of action, on the other as conditioning influences upon further action.
Kroeber and Kluckhohn compiled a list of 165 available definitions of culture or-
ganizing them according to descriptive, historical, normative, psychological,
structural and genetic lines. Their all-inclusive definition is contrasted two de-
cades later by anthropologist James Spradleys (1972: 6) epigrammatic definition
of culture:
Culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate
behavior.
Although most definitions of culture do not explicitly mention language as an or-

ganizing principle, the interrelationship between language and culture has long
been debated during the past century, the two ends of the debate being the notions
of cultural determinism and cultural relativism. From the so-called Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis (Whorf 1956: 27) which views language as providing the means for
thought and perception, and world view, through to Lvi-Strausss (1973: 68) argu-
mentation that language is a condition of culture because it is through language
that ones culture is learned and sustained, to the Newspeak theorized by George
Orwell in his 1984 (1954: 241251), the limitations of such theoretical positions are
apparent as they overrely on language neglecting the non-linguistic elements and
other non-verbal aspects of communication. These, on the contrary, are given spe-
cial focus in Halls pioneering work (1959: 29), which underlines the elusive nature
of the culture concept: culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely
enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.
Not only is language as a model being questioned but also language as the ve-
hicle or medium of culture. The debate on the interrelationship between language
and culture is enriched by the contributions of anthropologists such as Street
(1993: 25), who claims that culture is a verb (an active process of meaning
Viviana Gaballo
making) consequently, research should focus not on what culture is, but on
what it does as regards peoples ways of making sense of the world and linguists
such as Holliday (1999: 240), who shows that different approaches to culture will
lead to important differences in the ways individuals conceptualize human inter-
action. Holliday argues that the dominion held by a mainstream large culture
paradigm has generated often prescriptive ideas about how certain groups of peo-
ple behave, how they use language, how they represent reality. For this reason, he
advocates a small culture paradigm which looks at cultures as dynamic, complex
and ever-changing processes.
Sociological explanations of the relationship between youth, style and musical
taste rely heavily upon the subcultural theory developed by the Birmingham Cen-
tre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (BCCCS), which attempted to analyze
(sub)cultural expressions in terms of power and class-based experience through
semiotic readings of particular youth lifestyles. While the essential tenets of this
theory have been variously criticized and largely abandoned, the concept of sub-
culture (Hebdige 1979) survives in much sociological work on the relationship
between youth, music and style. In an interview given ten years after the publica-
tion of his first book, Hebdige himself (Gatti 1990) suggested that the idea of a
subculture contrasting with a dominant culture was no longer sustainable due to
the rapid and continuous circulation of new trends and styles.
A series of concepts have been posited as alternatives to subculture, namely
neo-tribe (Bennett 1999), post-subculture (Muggleton 2000), and scene
(Harris 2000), each portraying individuals as more reflexive in their appropria-
tion and use of particular musical and stylistic resources.
Bennett (1999: 614) argued that the concept of subculture is essentially flawed
due to its attempt to impose a hermeneutic seal around the relationship between
musical and stylistic preference. He suggested that the Maffesolian concept of neo-
tribalism provides a much more adequate framework as it allows for the shifting
nature of youths musical and stylistic preferences and the essential fluidity of
youth cultural groups. Bennetts central contention is that youths musical tastes
and stylistic preferences, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subcul-
ture maintains, are in fact examples of the late modern lifestyles in which notions
of identity are constructed rather than given, and fluid rather than fixed.
The three-tier model of scenes developed by Bennett and Peterson (2004:
612) consisting of local, trans-local, and virtual scenes offers new insights
into the variety of practices through which individuals show and retain a commit-
ment to music.
In their view, music scenes refer to the contexts in which clusters of producers,
musicians, and fans collectively share their common musical tastes and collectively
distinguish themselves from others (Bennett and Peterson 2004: 1). Music scenes
usually focus on a specific genre of music, and are said to be local scenes when the
clusters exhibit distinctive cultural signs and lifestyle elements associated with the
locale in which the scene is embedded. Trans-local scenes, instead, involve widely
scattered local scenes that are drawn into regular communication around a distinc-
tive form of music and lifestyle (Bennett and Peterson 2004: 6), e.g. temporary
communities of music festivals and traveling music caravans; while virtual scenes
connect physically separated people to create a sense of scene via fanzines and,
increasingly, through the Internet (Bennett and Peterson 2004: 7).
3. Fanzines as access aesthetics
Fanzines (a blend of the words fanatic and magazines) are a particular kind of self-
produced magazines. A more articulate definition from the British Library website1
defines fanzines, or simply zines, as a form of independent personal publishing
that does not rely on any publisher or mainstream distributor, nor is motivated by
profit or filtered through an editorial or regulatory board, and sees them as an
ideal space for free, uninhibited expression.
The term fanzine was coined by Luis Russel Russ Chauvenet2 in the October
1940 issue of his fanzine Detours to replace the terms fanzines were then called:
fanmags or fanags. Yet, the first fanzine ever to be published was The Comet, cre-
ated in May 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club. Several scholars contributed
to the debate about the term and its definition: Atton (2002), Duncombe (1997),
Haegele (2007), Jacovides (2003), Jenkins (1992), McLaughlin (1996), and Poletti
(2008) among others. Cheryl Zobel (1999) aptly synthesized the concept in her
three-part definition of fanzines: self-edited, self-financed, and self-published,
with its mantric self permeating all stages of the making of zine culture (Atton
2002: 68).
US fanzine expert Mike Gunderloy, the founding editor of the zine review
publication Factsheet Five, is often credited with popularizing the term. Gunderloy
(1988: 8) categorized amateur press based upon zine content: genzines (general
interest zines) were usually developed in collaboration, while perzines (personal
zines) were created by individual authors. The former had a more professional
style by their very nature: in many cases they were structured as real magazines,
with a summary, editorials, articles, reviews, etc., and dealt with various topics,
1. http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/counterculture/doityourself/doityourself.html
2. We hereby protest against the un-euphonious word fanag and announce our intention to
plug fanzine as the best short form of fan-magazine. Chauvenet in Detours Oct. 6, 1940. From
Science Fiction Citations: http://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/186 (accessed December 31, 2010)
Viviana Gaballo
ranging from general contents such as science fiction, comics, music to more spe-
cific ones, as in the case of fanzines produced by fan club members. In his catego-
rization Gunderloy also distinguished between Pfanzines and Sfanzines, grouping
all music fanzines, particularly punk music fanzines, under the former category,
and science fiction fanzines under the latter (Gunderloy, 1988: 10, 8990).
Fanzines offered alternative insights and perspectives that were not likely to be
represented in other media. They were valuable because they provided a forum for
underrepresented voices. They embodied the crack in the impenetrable wall of
the system: a culture spawning the next wave of meaningful resistance (Duncombe,
1997: 3). Their value did not lie in any individual issue, but in the network and
community that they were capable of building and representing.
In the true spirit of the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) philosophy, fanzines were pro-
duced in the form of bricolage. Hand-lettered and badly reproduced, they were
authentic expression of raw emotion; their cut-and-paste look was a graphic ex-
plosion free of all rules of design. The availability of photocopiers allowed anyone
with just some glue, a pair of scissors and a typewriter to create their own zines.
Anyone with a few pounds and a basic knowledge of the English language could
produce their statement, and enjoy free access to the world of underground publi-
cations: a perfect example of access aesthetics. But the true aesthetics of zines re-
lates to the issue of control, as Duncombe suggests (1997: 97): in a world in which
zinesters feel there is too much control, zines offer their makers a place where the
creator has only his or her own restrictions to heed. In a way, the form zines are
given by their creators becomes part of their message to their audience.
The dynamic relationships of the networks and community created by zines,
and the embodiment of the access aesthetics as it materializes in the form zines are
given both linguistically and visually are the main objects of investigation in this
study.
Understanding zines as more than a static set of artefacts reflecting a static
cultural group influences the methodological approach and outcomes. Zine cul-
tures, in fact, present unique sites of research and practice: they are spaces where
ideology and practice are intertwined and unidentifiable, where there is no clear
distinction between producer and consumer, where the hierarchical division of
labor is challenged and everyone is encouraged to create (Duncombe, 2002: 68). It
is not just the content, but the way zines are produced, consumed, re-produced
and used that make them a radical site of culture.
An example of the embodiment of the access aesthetics and the intertwining
of ideology and practice suggested by Duncombe (2002: 68) came to being some
forty years after the first fanzine was published, when fans of punk rock music
largely ignored by and critical of the mainstream music press began printing
fanzines about their music and cultural scenes. These fanzines, called punkzines,
developed in the second half of the 70s as a spontaneous and amateurish form of
music journalism based on the DIY ethic budding out of the success of the first
English punk movement.
The desire to find new means of expression, different from the mainstream
forms of publication and distribution, resulted in a type of press whose rules were
swept away by the use of a new language, unusual fonts and font sizes, and unex-
pected page layouts and patterns which made the underground publications
stand out at first sight (See examples in Figure 1 taken from Sniffin Glue: the first
and most famous punkzine, published in 197677).
Through their innovative and provocative style these publications transcended
the mere diffusion of news or contents, often ignored or distorted by other media,
and overturned the traditional schemes of journalism.
Some of the strategies used by zine editors who wished to express a dissent-
ing, anti-mainstream point of view to obscure their social and cultural legiti-
macy included using an old typewriter, writing by hand, leaving mistakes partially
uncorrected. Such practices therefore protected marginal rarity by making these
publications unreadable by the uninitiated. (ONeil, 2004: 6).
Unlike mainstream journalism, which is produced in order to attract and be
easily comprehensible to a very large number of subscribers (and their audiences),
representing different cultures, ideologies and interests, punkzines were basically
directed to all those identifying themselves with or interested in punk culture.
They were distributed primarily person-to-person via the mail, at punk rock gigs
or conventions, and disseminated a free-spirited, independent counter-culture,
Figure 1. Examples of layout from Sniffin Glue: (left) Issue # 3 (1976), cover (right)
Issue # 8 (1977), page 14
Viviana Gaballo
sometimes serving as a launch pad for aspiring journalists, yet always keeping
faithful to the principle of self-production, based on a totally unconstrained ex-
pressive autonomy.
Zines were not expected to bring material reward: the very idea of making
profit from a zine would sound awkward in punk culture. What zines were ex-
pected to provide was an outlet for unfiltered expression and a connection to the
larger underground world of publishers who did the same (Duncombe, 1997: 14).
Zine writers were marginalized people (freaks, geeks, nerds) with little power
over their status in a society that rewarded interests they didnt share and strengths
they didnt have; yet, they were capable of redefining the value of being a loser,
turning it into an asset, by creating a new identity (the Cool Loser)3 and wearing
their loserdom like a badge of honor (Duncombe, 1997: 18).
While the winners are celebrated with power, wealth and media representa-
tion, the losers are invisible. Zines make them visible. An example of this is pro-
vided in the first issue of Sniffin Glue (Figure 2) where the writer scolds about the
dumb attitude of the mainstream reviewers of the Ramones concert who treat it
like some kind of freak-show to be laughed at while debunking their claims to
Figure 2. Extract from the last page of Sniffin Glue Issue # 1
3. Cool Loser is also the title of a punkzine.

reporting on the new musical scene (The weeklys [sic] are so far away from the
kids that they cant possibly say anything of any importance to punk-rock fans.).
The cool loser stance materializes in the closure: I cant spell, I wouldnt win any
award for literature but at least I dont write down to yer!
In a way, this stance was also acknowledged by observers, if even NME
(New Musical Express 1999)4 while reviewing Mark Perrys achievements as a
punk rocker would pitilessly call the editor of seminal fanzine Sniffin Glue A loser.
A failure. A true punk rock superstar.
The negative coverage of punk by traditional magazines was spearheaded by
mainstream misinterpretation of the social norms within the punk culture. The
zine world then became a place where losers could have a voice, a home, and others
to talk to. Together they gave the word loser a new meaning, transforming per-
sonal failure into an indictment of the alienating aspects of society (Duncombe,
1997: 21).
With the explosion of the punk movement in 1976 punkzines started to play a
central role as a channel for information in the decentralized, radically participa-
tory, do-it-yourself underground culture.
With their expressive chaos, and uncompromising, non-mediated, libertarian
creativity Stephen Duncombe (1997: 1) described zines as rantings of high weird-
ness and exploding with chaotic design punkzines subverted preexisting modes
of artistic and political communication. Frequently irreverent in attitude, they used
to deal with various punk rock bands who shared the common attribute of being
ignored or overlooked by mainstream media. Punkzines were the place where all
the radical thoughts that were condensed in song lyrics were explained in greater
detail, and they showed that punk was much more than music: It was a vernacular
radicalism, an indigenous strain of utopian thought (Duncombe 1997: 3).
Punkzines seemed to exemplify a daring writing alternative. Their linguistic
form lay somewhere between a personal letter and a magazine, with functions of
the conversational frame typical of more current genres (e.g. emails and forum
messages). The rant editorials that opened each zine were the spontaneous, un-
filtered replication of whatever the editors had on their minds, even self-reflective
thoughts as in Mark Perrys editorial in Figure 3.
The summer of 1976 is taken as the official birth date of the punk movement.
At the end of 1976 the Punk was still neglected by the press, and the mainstream
media were impermeable to it; fanzine editors took advantage of this exclusion
and used it to say whatever they wanted without any worries about censorship or
other press limits: The result was a new language. The most interesting fanzines
4. See The image has cracked, NME Reviews, 1999. http://www.nme.com/reviews/artist-

Keyname/536 (accessed December 31, 2010).
Viviana Gaballo
Figure 3. Extract from the first page of Sniffin Glue Issue # 8 (1977)
were verbal and visual rants about whatever took their collators fancy (Savage,
1991: 279). However, by the end of 1977, the exponential growth of punk fanzines
had produced a situation of saturation and approval of the phenomenon, similar
to the one that was involving lots of music bands, absorbed by the major record
companies. Over the years since its inauguration, the musical genre and the cul-
ture had moved further apart. Even though the punk culture was meant to be an
autonomous culture breaking the norms of mainstream society and owning the
means of production, the culture industry still managed to subsume it. Punk lost
its original rebellious, angry spirit, and eventually became institutionalized and
commodified. The Punk ideology was coerced by the economy to eventually
shift toward commercialization and to sameness.
There is a most strikingly deterministic feature in punk culture, though,
which is summarized in one shout: Youre a sell-out. To social scientists selling
out would appear as the expected evolution for a band that has gained some noto-
riety and attracted the attention of some major label. To fellow punks, it would
sound like a betrayal of the values shared by the punk community, and that would
justify withdrawing what TV theorist John Hartley calls the DIY [Do It Yourself]
citizenship (1999: 178).
The gate-keeping attitude of punk culture reached its highest peak when Dead
Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra accused punk magazine Maximum RocknRoll of
punk fundamentalism as they refused to advertise Alternative Tentacles records
because they said the records werent punk. Issues of authenticity and identity
come into play when the thin line is crossed between what is considered to be true
punk and its commercial evolution. Commercially successful punk bands are the
very antithesis of a punk business ethic centered on independent production and
independent control of music because they do not follow the anti-industry eco-
nomic ethic of DIY.
In one of his editorials (Sniffin Glue # 5; 1976: 2), Mark Perry, Sniffin Glues
publisher, mocks the commodification of punk fanzines (Writing about punk
rock is the thing to do at the moment.) and draws a line between genuine involve-
ment and trend-following (I hope the fashion soon dies out, then youll be able
to find out who really believed in the bands!).
John Charles Goshert (2000: 85), one of the few academics to have addressed
what punk has been since the late 1970s and early 1980s, suggested that it was
precisely when punk became popular culture that it ceased to be punk: in other
words, what is commercially successful cannot be punk. Some commentators
including Mark Perry argue that punk died because of the selling-out of bands
like The Clash (to CBS) or The Pistols (to EMI and Virgin), which opened the road
for successive punk bands to sign with music label giants.
As Duncombe (1997: 155) argues, once the commercial industry recognizes
that some form of underground punk media starts to become influential within
the punk scene, they will attempt to incorporate them into the system through a
cooption process. Ideally, gatekeepers should maintain independent status for
their opinion to be considered as a trusted source. Some, however, might turn into
the commercial counterpart to which they were created in opposition. The conse-
quences of deviating from the punk culture could include losing support from the
punk community.
Viviana Gaballo
In his Punk Manifesto, James Bradshaw (2007: 6) comments that punk as we

know it died in 1978 when it became a tourist attraction, and adds in a quintes-
sential sublimation of punk: I have put together a manifesto in an attempt to de-
fine where punk is today but in reality the most punk thing that you can do is
ignore the whole thing.
4. Synchronic and diachronic insights
Research into fanzines (BCCCS scholars) has tended to consider them as subcul-
tural artifacts. Consequently, they have mostly been interpreted as acts of political
resistance, and little or no attention was paid to their inherent content. In con-
trast, by considering fanzines as a type of genre, we can think of the amateur writ-
ing they contain as not providing overt opposition but contributions to the critical
discourse of popular culture.
This study includes data collected from all 14 issues of the first and most fa-
mous punkzine, Sniffin Glue published in the UK in 19767 and materials
(reviews, interviews, tour diaries, etc.) available on the web pages of Scanner Zine
the online version of an A5 print punkzine, originally published in the UK in
1998, later moved to New Zealand along with its author.
Sniffin Glue has been chosen due to its particularity and complexity; in com-
parison to other punkzines in the UK punk scene, Sniffin Glue is primarily con-
cerned with issues of authentic identity, and is therefore a rich source for the
exploration of authentic punk culture. The same concerns, although in a lower
tone, are targeted by Scanner Zine, which has been chosen for its successful distri-
bution as a web zine and its full exploitation of the new medium, in comparison to
other zine publishers who use the web only to advertise print zines, or to fill in the
gap between print issues.
One of the social practices used by young punks to disgust and shock society,
and express their anti-corporatist DIY credo was glue sniffing. Substance abuse
was more than often a topic in punk music, and became synonymous with the
genre. In fact, Sniffin Glue punkzine owes its name to this practice, and specifi-
cally to the song Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue by The Ramones.
Sniffin Glue is an A4 format black and white photocopied fanzine, made with
low quality paper. Its 14 issues represent an affront to the cultural norms and prac-
tices of the mainstream culture and language used by upper classes. The amateur-
ish approach of the zine, with spelling and grammatical errors, emphasizes the
rejection of traditional conventions. The main texts were written with an old type-
writer, the titles and the limited graphics scrawled with a black felt tip pen, the rest
being put together without any particular care.
Figure 4. Sniffin Glue issue #1 (1976)
Figure 5. Screenshot from a web page of Scanner Zine (2011)
Sniffin Glue was acclaimed by NME as The nastiest, healthiest and funniest piece
of press in the history of rocknroll habits. What we know for sure is that it has been
the pioneer of the DIY punk ethic and a contributor to the distinctive punk graph-
ic design style in the UK.
Viviana Gaballo
Following Piagets (1959) and Vygotskys (1978) theories on the social func-
tion of language, this can be considered a socially meaningful behavior, meaning-
ful in the sense that there are identity implications for many aspects of language
use. Through language a social bond is created between the community of users of
that language and its associated culture: accent, dialect, linguistic style, all serve to
indicate membership in social groups, an identification that can greatly influence
the person-perception process.
This study also aims at bringing to the foreground those aspects of the lan-
guage used in punkzines that prove how punks have succeeded in using language
to socially demarcate themselves as a group.
To this purpose, the analysis that follows is meant to highlight a peculiar trait
of Sniffin Glue: changing subtitles. This apparently insignificant practice will dis-
close more on punks metaphorical territory marking habit. Only the first two
issues retain their original title, i.e. Sniffin Glue + other rocknroll habits, for punks,
while the final parts of the subtitles of the remaining issues appear to have been
customized. For example, issue # 3 is titled Sniffin Glue ... and other rocknroll hab-
its, for girls (where the word punks has been visibly crossed out, and replaced by
the word girls). The following table shows the full titles for all 14 issues, where the
underlined elements, which constitute the variable parts of the titles/subtitles, pro-
vide some sort of preview of the contents of the specific issue.
Table 1. Titles and subtitles of the 14 issues of Sniffin Glue
Issue # Title + subtitle
1 Sniffin Glue + other rocknroll habits, for punks

2 Sniffin Glue + other rocknroll habits, for punks
3 Sniffin Glue... and other rocknroll habits, for girls
3 Sniffin Glue + other rocknroll habits, for who cares
4 Sniffin Glue... and other rocknroll habits, for the new-wave
5 Sniffin Glue... and other rocknroll habits, for a bunch of bleedin idiots
Xmas Sniffin Snow...and other seasonal habits for snowmen
issue
6 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits for anybody who cares about
7 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits for pinheads and surfers
8 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits for people who think its hip to read the in mag
9 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits and anything to cause an uproar
10 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits for Deptford yobs
11 Sniffin Glue...and other self-defence habits...
12 Sniffin Glue...and other rocknroll habits for around Aug/Sept77
With the only exception of the 3-page Christmas special, a close analysis of the
evolution of Sniffin Glue subtitles will uncover its entire story, as well as the entire
story of the related punk community: from a statement of group identity (for
punks) and the opening up to female participation (for girls) through a generic
appeal to all supporters (for who cares and for anybody who cares about) and the
associated call for action (and anything to cause an uproar), the central issues are
devoted to establish relative otherness from those who were not enough punk or
no punks at all (for the new-wave, for a bunch of bleedin idiots, for pinheads and
surfers) reflecting the never-changing need to prove true punkness. In Black-
White Interview with Don Letts, Issue #7 p. 8 (Feb 1977), the reggae DJ equates
reggae and punk saying that its just the black version and the white version. He
continues: The kids [punks] are singing about change, they wanna do away with
the establishment. Same thing the niggers [rasta people] are talkin about, Chant
down Babylon, its the same thing. Our Babylon is your establishment, same fuckin
thing. If we beat it, then you beat it and vice versa. Although Mark Perry decided
to publish the interview in Sniffin Glue because he reckoned Dons ideas on the
punk scene very very interesting, nothing more than a simple invitation to listen
to Reggae music resulted from Dons call to arms and implicit call to unite.
Coming back to the subtitles in order to incorporate this into the descending
line of punk rock, and of Sniffin Glue in particular, we can notice how the subtitle
in issue # 10 restores the focus on punks themselves, who after a surge in unem-
ployment get back to the streets as Deptford yobs, while issue # 11 (it was July 1977,
practically a year after the first issue had come out) focuses on self-defense habits,
as processes of commodification had already started to affect punk culture (o.k.
stick safety pins in yer nose, I dont care if you stick them up your arse. What I do
care about is everyone of you motherfuckers should be a potential
h-bomb, not a fucking clothes hanger. Youre the victim of yourself., p. 5)
and criticism of inarticulate journalism writing supposedly punk articles (p. 2)
was profuse. By the time Sniffin Glue celebrated its first anniversary in issue # 12,
around Aug/Sept 77, Mark Perry had decided to give up editing Sniffin Glue and
be totally involved in his punk rock band Alternative TV. In this last issue, al-
though this move is not apparent yet, signs of uneasiness multiply as the identity
leit-motif resonates with bitter comments at the way punk was being swallowed up
by mainstream culture and commodified (see Figure 2).
The very last lions roar is reserved to Ripped n Torn5 fanzines accusation of
acting out the working class type while on stage and to the poncy NME letters
5. From Tony Draytons recollection of Ripped & Torn issues 5 and 6 Summer 1977. Me mov-
ing to London. In R&T5 I mention that Mark P. has given up the editorship of Sniffin Glue (it
folds shortly after). From issue six I am using the same printer as Sniffin Glue out in Cambridge,
Viviana Gaballo
Figure 6. Extract from page 21 of Sniffin Glue Issue # 12 (1977)
about new elites addressing him as an obvious case of socio-bollocko fuckism

caused by a disillusioned shit: them type of people are gonna kill punk, which
together with the final remark gut level rock reaction ... is gone (SG #12) testifies
to the irreversible involution of punk rock culture.
Besides subtitles, which alone nicely depict the rise and fall of Sniffin Glue
and, to some extent, punk in general, also decks (subheadlines) on Sniffin Glue
front cover pages provide extra information about the identity struggle that punks
were constantly fighting. Some examples: the mag6 that doesnt like giving
you up to date news on the music scene (SG #3); If you actually like is rag
you must be one of the idiots we write it for (SG #5); steve micks got the
sack and we get back to the streets. the glue: still deptford yobs!
(SG #10); stuff your cheap comments ....... cause we know what we feel ...
(SG #11). The picture we get from analyzing these decks confirms the attempt at
construing punk identity in negative terms, i.e. with light and shade reversed:
we are what you are not, we care for what you dont care, we are proud of our
otherness.
and am typing up the words on the Sniffin Glue typewriter in the Sniffin Glue office on Oxford
Street. Harry Murlowski has set this up. Theres also the first appearance of Step Forward/Faulty
Products adverts appearing. Looking at this now I see a big break slipping through my fingers,
Miles Copeland who financed all this office space mustve been looking R&T over as a suc-
cessor to SG. But I was too snotty to know better. http://rippedandtorn.co.uk/background/the-
black-white-years-speed-issues-5-9/
6. The use of the abbreviation mag for magazine instead of zine testifies to the fact that the
latter term, although its use has been attested since 1965, most probably developed later, after
circulation of fanzines grew exponentially.
mag. 1731, short for magazine. The original sense is almost obsolete; meaning periodical jour-
nal dates from the publication of the first one, Gentlemans Magazine, in 1731. Dictionary.
com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/
browse/mag (accessed: Dec 31, 2011).
zine. 1965, short for fanzine. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper,
Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zine (accessed: Dec 31, 2011).
A major aim of print zines in general, and of punkzines in particular, is to

culturally and socially distinguish those who produce and consume them. As
Sniffin Glue is targeted at a specific readership, the punkzine is characterized by
marked unconventionality, at both a textual and visual level. Zinesters employ a
variety of means to communicate their alternative discourse, which can be consid-
ered to be both inclusive and exclusive, since it serves to authenticate the emotions
expressed, to establish a direct connection between the author and the reader, to
signify distance from the mainstream, and to restrict the readership of those who
are prepared to accept such messages.
As a rule, zines reject the bland objectivity and neutrality of mainstream
media, and favor a more enthusiastic tone, and the use of slang. The language used
in Sniffin Glue can be defined as a basic street level, non-intellectual language based
on informal and colloquial English. All texts are written in the first person and are
directly addressed to the readers, in a conversational tone: e.g. utterances such as
do you get what I mean?, if ya see what I mean or you see, which are typical of
spoken interaction, are commonly found in Sniffin Glue issues.
Other features of the typical transcribed (written-as-spoken) language of
punkzines include contractions (e.g. g-clippings, as in sniffin, boppin, yellin, jeerin)
and abbreviations (e.g. amp for amplifier, mag for magazine, fave for favorite).
However, there is one linguistic feature of punkzine language that defines it as
the forerunner of current instant messaging: the use of spelling as a creative re-
source. Based on the accurate and thorough analysis conducted by Caroline Tagg
(2012) on a corpus of 11,000 messages from adult British English speakers (approx.
200,000 words) aiming to determine how people text on a day-to-day basis, cases
of respelling in Sniffin Glue issues have been isolated and compared with the list of
respelling found by Tagg in her texting corpus. Some of the mutual occurrences
(in bold) are listed in Table 2.
An example of phonetic spelling is the variant form bin to replace been (been/
bin/> bin/bn/) e.g., in the sentences already bin said or we bin screwing it up
(issues no.10 and 12) which also appear in Taggs corpus. One particular variant
form the phonetic spelling wiv shows an incoherent behavior as it relates to the
headword with in Taggs corpus, and to the group weve (we have) in Sniffin Glue
issues.
A special case of respelling is the verb suppose which appears in three different
variants in Sniffin Glue issues: spose, spose, and pose, whereas it does not even ap-
pear in the top two hundred and fifty most frequent headwords in Taggs corpus.
As Shortis (2007) argues, the apparently unconventional language of texting
follows and extends traditional patterns of spelling variation found in fanzines
(Androutsopoulos, 2000), and other forms of electronic communication.
Viviana Gaballo
Table 2. Most frequent 10 headwords and related variants co-occurring

in Sniffin Glue issues and in Taggs texting corpus
Headword Variant forms
1 you Yer, ya, yaself

2 your yer
3 know no (see example below)
4 about bout
5 no na (nah in Taggs corpus)
6 its its, tis
7 hello allo
8 really realy
9 because cas, cause
10 them em
Figure 7. Example of respelling (know/n~~/>no/n~~ from Sniffin Glue, Issue # 1,

page 4 (1976)
Respelling plays a part in the performance of both texted and punk identity, as it is
seen as conveying meaning, through communicating informality, defining group
boundaries, and thus construing identity in culturally-determined ways shaped by
the medium.
Phonetic spelling not only affirms group identity but creates deviance by
marking the punk cultural scene as distinct and opposed to mainstream culture.
Similarly, texters adopting these forms of respellings affirm membership of texting
networks by performing deviance from expected norms (Thurlow and Brown
2003, Tagg 2012).
One of the peculiarities of Sniffin Glue consisted in printing not regularly,
though some of the lyrics from the albums being reviewed. The educational
operation was particularly effective considering that song lyrics were not included
in the punk rock albums sold at the time and could hardly be listened to thoroughly
at gigs: printing the lyrics in the punkzine contributed to shed light on the message
punk culture was delivering and to increase punk readers self-consciousness and
sense of belonging. The reviewers comments to lyrics by The Clash, Sex Pistols,
Buzzcocks, Ramones added contextualization (e.g. These guys live up in
Manchester, thats what makes their music so vital; SG #7, p. 11) and replicated
the omnipresent, uncompromising, either in or out idea of punkzine affiliation:
This group is the new-wave. Buy it, if you dont you shouldnt be reading this
mag (SG #7, p. 11).
At times lyrics reached unexpected poetic heights, as this passage from Break-
down in Buzzcocks album Spiral Scratch (1977) proves (see Figure 8).
Here the figurative use of language (I wander loaded as a crowd)7, new word
coinage (nowherewolf)8 and disused or rarely used expressions (my nevermind)9
create a poetic effect that is in no way inferior to the play on words by well-known
poets.
7. Intertextual reference to William Wordsworths poem The Daffodils (I wandered lonely as

a cloud).
8. Punning on werewolf.
9. Also the name of an Oklahoma City band.
Viviana Gaballo
Puns on words are also used in less poetic contexts, such as the one below (SG #10,
p. 2), in which Danny Baker, one of the later editors of Sniffin Glue, was called to
pinpoint a number of issues in response to readers questions and doubts, the first
of which was the form and function of a punkzine.
The topic was discussed in various issues of Sniffin Glue, as this was the inter-
face between the individual and the punk community, but was dismissed in the
last issue in Mark Perrys lucidly delirious invitation to burn all copies of Sniffin
Glue, and stop writing at all: if you want to fight, really fight, dont bullshit yer way
through print. Fearing absorption into the mainstream music press (Sniffin Glue
had gone from a print run of 50 to 15,000), Perry decided it was time to stop pub-
lishing, and continued to play music with his band. Sniffin Glue had already be-
come a myth in the UK punk scene.
5. The evolution/involution of a genre
Print fanzines provide a record of what everyday people were thinking and dis-
cussing before the Internet, and a key to understanding trends in fandom over the
period from about 1970 to the mid-1990s when access to computers and the inter-
net became available, and in some cases a given.
With their point-to-point (or rather, person-to-person) distribution, the fan-
zines of the 70s and 80s can be said to have created to a certain degree an In-
ternet-like structure years before the electronic revolution.
As in the case of websites, each fanzine is constructed separately, but is part of
a collective group through its connections to other fanzines. For this reason zine
communities can be said to have been mini-webs without an Internet, and zine
writers can be considered ante-litteram bloggers. We will expand on this simili-
tude further on in this section.
An important feature shared by fanzines and the web is that both are con-
cerned with freedom of expression. Potentially, the Internet provides far more
opportunities for those without power to express themselves, offering a far larger
readership than any paper fanzine producer would ever be able to reach.
However, in spite of the potential extension of the e-zine phenomenon, what
actually happened, as Wright (2001: 157) reports in his study of 512 e-zines and
zine websites, is that only some e-zine publishers have drifted away from the zine
publishing community, which on the contrary not only continues to exist but
seems to be even better organized. Paradoxically, what seems to have changed in
the e-shift is the relationship with the reader, who regardless of the interactive
opportunities offered by the Internet has become a passive surfer, the phantom
of an IP log (Wright, 2001: 158), having little or nothing in common with the ac-
tive/interactive reader of the print zine culture, which is a participatory culture. In
the zine world, print connections have proved to be stronger than those formed
through online publishing.
In the pre-Internet days of zinedom, it was much harder to come across zines,
and one became introduced to zine culture usually through friends. With the Web,
stumbling on zine culture seemed to be much easier since everything on the Web
was just a mouse click away. As a result of the e-shift, some zine publishers found
that not only had some of their audience remained the same as it was in print, but
they had also attracted new readers from around the world that they didnt think
they would have ever reached through print publishing. Some other e-zine publish-
ers reported old friendships being rekindled through the Internet (Wright,
2001: 161). E-zine publishers can keep track of their international audience by using
a mapping tool such as the one in the figure below, which provides a snapshot of the
geographical distribution of the hits corresponding to visitors of the zine web site.
Figure 10. Scanner Zine: Geographical distribution of visitors and hits as at December 31,
2011 since October 2009
Viviana Gaballo
The e-zine in the example Scanner Zine is the online evolution of an A5 print
zine published by Steve Scanner in Suffolk, UK, since 1998 which attained a fair
circulation. From a small 40-page publication with limited distribution the zine
grew into a final print of over 1,000 with a distribution throughout the UK, various
parts of Europe and America plus Australia and New Zealand with further readers
in Japan and South Africa. The paper version of Scanner Zine stopped being print-
ed in 2003 because of a life-changing move: the author moved to New Zealand,
and considering the success of the print zine he decided to set up the website to
continue where the zine left off.
Scanner Zine represents an example of the successful evolution of a print zine
into a web zine. Its structure is very simple: its web pages are divided into two
columns with the navigation menu on the left and the relevant contents in the
main column (see Figure 5). At the top of the page there is the heading with the
fixed image of pogoers on the background and the webzine title Scanner Zine:
larger than life and twice as natural. The Place for Punk Rock, Hardcore, Anarcho
and scuzzy Garage Rock n Roll. Where punk rock is more than a passing fad.
What strikes most in the comparison with a print zine like Sniffin Glue is its
neatness. The patchwork-styled, disordered, obscure (to non-adepts) and at times
ambiguous Sniffin Glue appears straightened up in Scanner Zine. This neat way of
making a web zine somewhat clashes with the chaotic layout of print punkzines.
However, the punk style of Scanner Zine can still be recognized from the general
untidy quality of its graphics consisting of a background image formed by a collage
of pictures in the typical cut-and-paste punk style, which change in the different
sections of the web site (Home, Interviews, Columns/Articles, Top Sounds, TV Par-
ty, Reading Matter, Tour Diaries, Podcasts, Web Links, Blog, Mailing List). Evidence
of communicative constraints superimposed on the layout of the webzine by pre-
set web site formats is quite clear. Although this may be limited to the reduced use
of visual effects e.g. no overlapped or edited pictures as in the case of the famous
picture of the Queen with the safety-pin, no voluntarily corrected or crossed-out
and replaced words, no texts scribbled in felt-tip pen (see Figure 1) visual neat-
ness is also reflected in the language used in the web zine.
The highly idiosyncratic language used to communicate an alternative dis-
course in Sniffin Glue which served a varied range of purposes, e.g. to authen-
ticate the emotions expressed, to establish a direct connection between the
author and the reader, to signify distance from the mainstream and to restrict
the readership of those who are prepared to accept such messages seems to
have been neutralized for a more honed, even polished, at times professional
expression which, if decontextualized, would invariably be ascribed to main-
stream publications.
An example is the lack of verbal violence, which on the contrary is overabun-

dant in Mark Perrys print zine (against mainstream culture, against selling out,
against poseur punks, etc.), while it is conspicuously missing in Steve Scanners
web zine, although the themes addressed are exactly the same. In addition, the lat-
ter confines foul language (with the only exception for the 4-letter word) mainly
to the Interview section, in which the interviewees are quoted verbatim. The result
is a purged language purged of almost all unorthodox vocabulary which still
retains the contents and visuals that define punk identity and culture and that can
be recognized and shared by the punk community. Considering the increasing
popularity of Scanner Zine across the years (see Figure 10), the deliberate choice of
its editor to opt for a more educated language may account for a strategic move to
enlarge readership, but it certainly proves that the modes and forms of punk cul-
ture no longer need to be expressed through the register of the basic street level
language of the 70s.
Scanners texts can reach unparalleled peaks of formalism (e.g. Ive abstained
from writing anything prior to this because ..., It just seemed to be more respect-
ful to me than penning something hastily thrown together in the immediate wake
of ..., Ive never made a secret that my opinion of ... is nothing short of contempt-
ible) especially, yet unexpectedly, in the blog section which is also used to host
obituaries (Scanners are unrivalled samples of this particular type of genre).
The age difference between zine editors Mark Perry (20 in 1977) [see Figure 3]
and Steve Scanner (40 in 2009) [see extract below]10 would not account alone for
the different registers used: historical, geographical and social contexts should be
taken into account as well. But the main reason still lies in the intrinsic quality of
their writing: goal-directed in the case of Mark Perry, and self-directed in the case
of Steve Scanner. In Sniffin Glue Mark Perry is constantly addressing to and in-
volving his readers in a compulsorily asynchronous dialogue with the aim of con-
struing his own (punk) identity in contrast with the identity of (non-punk) others.
Mark Perry is a speaker, and uses speech-like writing to support his arguments in
synchronic perspective. In Scanner Zine Steve Scanner engages more in a mono-
logue rather than a dialogue with his readers drawing them into his detailed out-
look and mature interpretation of punk music and culture. Steve Scanner is a
writer, and uses story-telling techniques to take a comprehensive snapshot of con-
temporary punk music scene and depict it in diachronic perspective.
10. from All this and More by Steve Scanner, Suspect Device #51, January 2010
(...) and many of those who had doubts about their own personal increasing age are still in-
volved in this Punk thang having reached 40 (and beyond) with their CRASS and RAMONES
records intact! That includes myself I hit 40 in August 2009 and made the trip back to Ips-
wich from New Zealand to spend it with my Mum, friends and family.
Viviana Gaballo
When discussing the language of chat groups, David Crystal (2006: 176) com-
mented that they are the nearest we are likely to get to seeing written dialogue in
its spontaneous, unedited, naked state. (Blogging provides the analogous effect in
written monologue). If we were asked to write an equation relating chat groups
and blogging to the mentioned print and web zines, we would say that Sniffin Glue
stands to Chatgroups as Scanner Zine stands to Blogging. The equation can be
explained by further exploring the dialogic or monologic nature of print zines and
web zines. Paradoxically, from a formal point of view, one would expect web zines
to be ascribed a dialogic quality due to their opening to interactivity (e.g. com-
ments to blogs); however, a thorough perusal of Scanner Zine web pages makes it
quite clear that all of them, including the blog section, are far from involving the
readers into exchanging their viewpoints: the more so, if we consider that even
blogs have been almost totally deserted by readers (only seven comments to the
editors blogs were posted altogether since 2006).
The dialogic (speech-like)/monologic (story-telling) quality of the print/web
zines under scrutiny can be confirmed by a fine-grained analysis of the lexico-
grammatical structure of their language.
For example, studying the wordlist (in descending order of frequency) obtained
from the Scanner Zine corpus11, it can be noticed that only three out of the ten most
frequent words in Sniffin Glue (as reported in Table 3) actually match its web coun-
terpart. This accounts for the presence of more formal texts in the web zine, in spite
of the regular use of 1st and 2nd person pronouns (you and I)12, which in other
text types would alone mark the language as highly colloquial, or at least informal.
A quick look at the most frequent slang words in Scanner Zine corpus
(see Table 4) will highlight an unusual fact (for a punkzine): the frequency of the
four-letter word (f**k) is unexpectedly lower (188 occurrences) than that of the
first most frequent slang term, kinda (232 occurrences), which again underlines
the editors deliberate choice to avoid overindulgence into foul language.
As John Sinclair (2003) used to say in his corpus linguistics workshops at the
Tuscan Word Centre in Italy, what is missing in a corpus is as important as what
is found. As a matter of fact, a contrastive analysis of the zines under scrutiny can
only be accomplished if missing items are also brought to light. First, when analyz-
ing the language of Sniffin Glue, we mentioned how important respelling was in
the performance of punk identity, as it communicates informality and defines
group boundaries, thus construing punk identity in a culturally-determined way.
In Scanner Zine, apart from the items already mentioned, no other creative
11. Scanner Zine corpus contains 32114 words.

12. You occurs 6829 times, followed by I with 6498 occurrences. They are the first pronouns
to appear in the word list of Scanner Zine corpus.
Table 3. Co-occurrence of headwords and variants in Sniffin Glue and Scanner Zine
based on Table 2
Headword Variant forms in Sniffin Glue Variant forms in Scanner Zine
1 you yer, ya, yaself ya

2 your yer yer
3 know no
4 about bout
5 no na
6 its its, tis *
7 hello allo
8 really realy
9 because cos, cause cos,
10 them em
*One only exception has filtered through: Add to that instruments as diverse as acoustic guitar, bagpipes (on
the fist-throwing, exultant title track), mandolin, double bass and even a harpsichord and you are left with
something that every third album should establish for the band in question: its own sound and identity.
Table 4. Most frequent slang words/phrases in Scanner Zine corpus
Headword Variant form Frequency
1 kind of kinda 232

2 out of outta 173
3 you ya, Ya 85
4 because cos 17
resources are used to convey meaning in an unconventional way. Even in the case
of respelling which appeared in three different variants in Sniffin Glue issues
(the verb suppose: spose, spose, and pose), not even one instance of any of the
variants appears in Scanner Zine corpus.
The most striking observation, though, concerns the total disappearance of the
term punkzine from Steve Scanners language: he never uses it to refer either to
his own zine, or to any other zines, preferring the hypernym fanzine. Linguisti-
cally the use of hypernyms is accepted practice, but conceptually the missing term
arouses a number of questions as to whether and why Steve Scanner is consciously
avoiding the use of the term, and if so, whether this decision is associated to the
minimization of slang and foul language in the zine, with the consequent neutral-
ization of the register: much of what contributes to make punk identity through
language is missing (no vernacular radicalism, no verbal and visual rants), yet the
zine is not denied punk identity as long as the DIY punk ethic is preserved.
Viviana Gaballo
Quantitative evidence thus confirms that there really is a case for regarding the
web zine language as distinctive compared to the print zine investigated: although
accepted by the punk community, its potential for social innovation has been de-
activated.
Many commentators believe that the advent of the Internet marked the dis-
solution of constraints on freedom of expression and on the monopoly of publish-
ing and distribution. Copyright is one of the biggest issues in this regard. Fanzines
have always acted in part as an oppositional force to the mainstream record indus-
try and media. As zine publishers moved their zines onto the web and accepted the
challenges of the new multimedia environment by creating for instance Podcast
sections or video sections, as in the case with Scanner Zine, the copyright issue
began to impose restrictions that could not be approached as they were in the first
issue of Sniffin Glue (See Figure 10).
This migration in media has affected the zine community and the zine itself.
Traditionally, one of the peculiar features of the social practice of zine publishing
has been the activity of trading zines, in which zine publishers exchange their cre-
ations with one another. As such exchange is operated automatically in the e-zine
world (through cookies, mailing lists, etc.), the online trading activity has been
deprived of its most essential features: human contact.
One of the drawbacks of the Internet is the lack of a soul any sort of per-
sonality or direct communication with zine writers, which is of course a consider-
able part of what constitutes fanzine culture. Consequently, theres no longer the
Figure 11. Sniffin Glue Copyright: Last page of Issue 1

same sense of commitment as with paper publishing. In addition, as zine publish-

ers tend to dislike the mainstream in general, and want their publications to be
quite distinctive and immediately recognizable, they find it less compelling to pub-
lish online because standing out from 40 million web sites would be an impossible
challenge.
Furthermore, punk publishers and readers response to the materiality of
print, i.e. their embodied experience, may have kept them away from the online
world. Many zine readers seem to find the experience of holding the zine in their
hands and flipping the pages with their fingers a much more rewarding experience
than browsing an e-zine (Wright 2001: 168).
A host of striking uses of both print and electronic publishing have been ob-
served in time:
1. Publishers start publishing online and then as a result also start publishing in
print.
2. Out-of-print publications are archived online.
3. Publications are published online and in print concurrently.
4. Publishers publish online in-between print editions.
5. Online publications function as an advert for the tangible zine.
6. Electronic publishers collect best-of compilations in print.
Evidence suggests that the e-zine is not an equal replacement for its printed pre-
cursor. To confirm that, Wright (2001) reported to have found no sign that fewer
print zines are being published. On the contrary, the reverse may be said to be true.
As the Internet becomes an integral part of our lives, it may not matter much
whether zines are published in print or online. Zine publishers have learnt to take
the most out of the online medium without selling out. Therefore, there is no rea-
son why online publishing should be seen as the death of zinedom.
6. Conclusions
This study described and analysed the language and culture of a minor media text
type fanzines and its evolution into its electronic version e-zines.
Zines stand out amongst other publications as an example of access aesthetics,
as a medium for young people to freely express their opinions, thoughts, creativity
and to demonstrate they clearly are not passive culture consumers, but active cul-
ture makers. Fanzine writers based on a culture permeated by the mantric self
(self-editing, self-financing and self-publishing) (Zobel 1999; Atton 2002: 68)
show that everyone can do art and information on their own: this results in fan-
zines as varied visually and content-wise as their producers.
Viviana Gaballo
In spite of commonplace assumptions about the function of fanzines, at the

heart of zine culture is not the study of the other (celebrity, cultural object or
activity) but the study of self, of personal expression, sociality and the building of
community. Monological in practice, yet dialogical in intent, the zine has proved to
offer itself as a token for social relations. Zines actually function as virtual commu-
nities, bringing together fans geographically and socially distant from one another.
The validation of a marginalized cultural activity, the formation of community
and publishing as political action are the main features that can most visibly be
found in the punk fanzines of the 70s. This particular genre, the punkzine, which
developed as a spontaneous and amateurish form of music journalism based on
the DIY (do-it-yourself) ethic of the first English punk movement is the focus of
analysis throughout the study.
The 1970s punkzines provided an early model of handmade appearance with
cut-n-paste lettering, typewritten texts, photo collages and total absence of main-
stream publishing conventions: typos, spelling mistakes, etc, were all part of the
mix, and helped to express something akin to the immediacy of punk music. Like
the music it promoted, the punk fanzines prime interest was in the destruction of
existing codes and the formulation of new ones (Hebdige 1979: 119).
While zine structure suggests other monological periodicals such as maga-
zines and newspapers, it contains a powerful mechanism for enabling communi-
cation between individuals. Zine writing is construed as a kind of letter-writing,
which prompts dialogue far better than any other type of periodicals. At the same
time it presents an individuals declaration and construction of self-identity and
invites others to engage in a dialogue about that identity. It is an identity con-
structed by social actors who find themselves marginalized, devalued and stigma-
tized by dominant forces in society and culture. These actors form communities as
expressions of the exclusion of the excluders by the excluded (Castells 1997: 9),
i.e. of their loserdom, which the cool loser can wear like a badge of honor
(Duncombe 1997: 18). Independently on the fact that webzines may be acted upon
by a more subtle process of commodification than their predecessors, there ap-
pears to be a rift between the inclusive e-zine culture and the exclusive nature of
printed zine culture.
This chapter focused on the particular form of language highly contami-
nated by slang and vernacular radicalism used in punkzines, and investigated
the sociolinguistic evolution of fanzines into webzines. An example of the former
is the use of spelling as a creative resource, while testimonial to the latter is the
almost total absence thereof.
Techniques of interdiscursive and text analysis were used to identify, describe
and interpret the forms of communication that feature in the data collected, which
included all 14 issues of the first and most well-known punkzine, Sniffin
Glue type-written and xeroxed on A4 black-and-white low quality paper, and

materials (interviews, articles, tour diaries) available on the web site of Scanner
webzine the online version of an A5 print zine that migrated, together with its
author, from the UK to New Zealand.
The study concluded that there is evidence of a close relationship between the
language used in the fanzines of the 70s and the language used in current instant
messaging, which substantiates the idea of fanzines as linguistic precursors of text
messaging, as anticipated by Shortis and Androutsopoulos (Tagg; 2012).
In this chapter we have also shown that the language used in webzines has
restored the use of a standard register (with only limited exceptions), which seen
from the Hallidayan theory of language as social semiotics (Halliday 1978) has
contributed to the apparent loss of the social and cultural impact fanzines had on
the young generation of the late 70s. Although the spirit that led to their produc-
tion still continues, and zines still represent an undercurrent of free expression,
considering the fanzine simply as a medium of communication within a (large or
small) group of people with the same interests and passions, it is easy to find its
modern successor in the webzine; yet, considering the sociocultural meaning that
had characterized the fanzines in the 70s, we can go as far as to say that these no
longer exist, as their modern versions do not seem to possess the same strong
spirit and, most importantly, do not impact on society in the same way.
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section 3
Does nation matter?

Italianicity goes global
National and transcultural strategies
in advertising discourse
Eva L. Wyss
University of Zurich, Switzerland
This paper represents an attempt to position pragmatics and language functions

in a context of narrative analysis. Applying the theoretical frame proposed
by Theodore Levitt, this article uses four TV commercials as case studies to
demonstrate how linguistic and pictorial codes are employed to communicate
national-cultural product identities. Focussing on Italianicity I show how
businesses develop transcultural strategies and how they handle the predicament
of transcultural advertising strategies. These strategies, I argue, are not innocent:
once a brand that is based on national stereotypes has been established, a change
of product identity to encompass the risks the introduction of a conflict in which
the brand identity can be simply damaged rather than transformed.
1. Introduction: Globalization vs. commercial nationalism
Theodore Levitts understanding of cultural globalization is of fundamental rele-

vance for contrastive media analysis: he linked economic progress to cultural
development, arguing that globalization could succeed in overcoming local cul-
tural differences and thus chauvinism and discrimination worldwide. Levitt pro-
claimed this utopia first in a famous paper in the Harvard Business Review in 1983.
He was convinced that:
Cosmopolitanism is no longer the monopoly of the intellectual and leisure classes;
it is becoming the established property and defining characteristic of all sectors
everywhere in the world. Gradually and irresistibly it breaks down the walls of
economic insularity, nationalism, and chauvinism. What we see today as escalat-
ing commercial nationalism is simply the last violent death rattle of an obsolete
institution. (Levitt 2006: 146)
Eva L. Wyss
Levitt admits that nationalism and chauvinism have yet to be eliminated, and his
claim that commercial nationalism was on its deathbed in the early to mid-80s was
overly optimistic. It seems as if advertising discourse (Cook, 1992) has remained
until now a playground far removed from modern civilised codes, where chau-
vinism is publicly presented and widely accepted. This relegates advertising to a
sort of no-mans-land where the rules of civilisation do not apply. One of these
old habits of traditional kinds of advertising the linking of a product with a
clearly identified, and stereotypically presented, nation or culture (Edensor, 2002)
is encoded in the pragmatics of advertising. The nationalising construction of
Italianicity, for instance, endows the products with an identity, a sort of specific
anthropomorphic ontology. There is no adequate substitution for the sense of be-
longing to a particular nation; a transnational belonging does not produce the
same sort of connection. There is nothing, as yet, that works as well when it comes
to valorising a product as giving it a national identity.
Nonetheless, in the course of globalization, conventional communication
strategies for advertising products of global brands were established which were
not explicitly linked to an identifiable region or culture, but rather to a brand
(Klein 2000). However, not all products could be successfully promoted in such a
way. To avoid the risk of a product being rejected by the market, advertisers have
adopted a strategy of convergent branding in combination with a strategy of iden-
tifying products with local preferences and varying the pragmatics and therefore
the texts and narratives of advertisements to suit local conditions. This is called
glocal advertising (cf. De Mooji 1994; Onkvisit 2004), which is a global and a
local strategy in one.1
This complexity can also be seen in every-day language use, which is resistant
to recent global developments of manufacturing. In fact, language use is often
committed to a pre-globalised, nationalised and chauvinist discourse. People for
instance speak of Swiss chocolate, German cars and Italian pasta, even when they
know that such exclusive national attribution is hardly correct. But why do prod-
ucts of global complexity need to be linked to one single nation and to this and not
another one? The connection to a single country is obviously not only a territorial
linking. Rather advertising uses territorial discourse as an instrument to give ori-
entation and to establish authenticity and value to the product. It seems as if a
products national identity is constructed to bring it not only into a well-known
order of things in the sense of Foucault (1966), but also to add a measure of good
economic impact by creating an identification with the product. I will use the
1. The differentiation is required not only for marketing purposes but also, as the product has
to be adapted to local tastes and standards. Therefore often even the product name needs to be
changed.
following case studies consisting of four TV commercials to explore the way in

which the more traditional notion of Italianicity is put into play with newer com-
peting notions that accompany transcultural identity formations. I will argue that
even as newer ideas replace more traditional constructions, the myth of national
affiliation remains.
2. Nationalising strategies in advertising discourse
I have chosen the example of Italianicity, i.e. the expression of what is coded as
Italian, to describe how a firm plays with and combines well-known shapes and
popular models of cultural stereotypes. Playing to four different audiences the
Swiss, US-American, Italian, and German it attempts to the extent that the audi-
ence allows, to establish a more or less globalised Italianicity, adopting transcul-
tural strategies in contrast to nationalist strategies.
This shows how such stereotypes determine the narrative practices of TV
commercials from the bottom up and on all levels, rendering the entire ad a stage
for the use of linguistic and pictorial advertising codes. In general such all-encom-
passing practices are not only lucrative and effective but also necessary in order to
match the constructs of Italianicity expected by the addressees in particular broad-
casting area.
The common and favoured product + nation formula is well known to adver-
tising professionals as country-of-origin advertising strategy, a strategy that has
proven its value over decades. By applying it the advertiser deliberately overlooks
the important discrepancy between the origin of the product (Made in Germany)
and the promoted product affiliation to a country, intentionally hiding any changes
of ownership and ignoring the complexity of national and cultural affiliations in a
globalised corporation. This is achieved and fixed by repeated, mediated advertis-
ing communication (sometimes over years).2 Once established, this strategy can-
not easily be changed. This is the reason why a consumerly product continues to be
promoted as national, even though they are not owned by a corporation in that
country any longer. The once Swiss-owned Swiss Airlines which was sold to the
German-owned Lufthansa in March 2005 is a good example for this.
2. This genuinely nationalistic advertising code became established in promotional textuality

as functioning in implicit quality grading, comparing competing products in terms of their ori-
gins. From a marketing perspective, country of origin is a way of differentiating a product from
that of its competitors. Schooler (1965) found that products, identical in every respect except for
their country of origin, were perceived differently by consumers. Usuniers (2006) research
shows that country of origin has an impact on consumers perceptions of the quality of a prod-
uct, as well as ultimately on their preference for a product and their willingness to buy it.
Eva L. Wyss
In advertising discourse the narrative attribution to an origin is thus semi-

otically encoded as a valorisation. Therefore Italian or German does not
necessarily mean from Italy or Germany but rather of superior quality. This
transformation of linguistic usage in advertising texts converts the ostensible link
to a nation into one that no longer functions as a descriptive term of a territorial
feature, but becomes with this upgrading a chauvinistic attribute.
3. Italianicity goes (almost) global: A comparative case study

of Barilla commercials
I turn now to four TV commercials for Barilla noodles that have been internation-
ally promoted in different campaigns, to compare the different ways in which the
Italian company tries to design its core quality Italianicity for different national
markets.3 Regardless of the context or of the audience these commercials of course
tell a story about the advantage of their pasta. What interests me here specifically
are the following questions: how do they use Italianicity in the telling? Which It-
aly, and what sort of Italians are portrayed? What are the ideas and fantasies
about Italy mentioned in the discourse? How does Barilla handle its own foreign-
ness to sell its products in Europe and the US? And how from the non-Italians
point of view does Barilla presents itself in its country of origin, in Italy? What
are the images of ethnic, national and cultural traditions and heritage that are pre-
sented within the commercial short stories of TV advertisements? My aim in con-
sidering these issues is to tease out the details about the challenging and modern
transnational and global economic concepts that are limited by the former strate-
gies of national consumer product concepts.
3.1 A touristic Italianicity for the Swiss audience
Viewers of Swiss TV commercials are presented with the following story: a moth-
er holds two pieces of Farfalle pastry in her palm, offering them to her daughter:
the traditional large version of the pasta and a tiny one. In the next shots we follow
the whole family both parents with son and daughter on a trip to Rome.4 There,
3. The commercials were produced between 2004 and 2008. The first was a commercial for an
Italian audience (Ponte Trevi in 2004), which was subsequently adapted for the public TV
channels in Switzerland in German and French versions in 2006. For the Italian market a new
commercial (Ispirazione in 2005) was produced one year later as a part of a series of TV com-
mercials, where the leading roles were taken by family members working at Barilla. In 2008 a
commercial was produced for a US audience (Surprise in 2008).
4. This slice-of-life commercial was first screened in Italy in 2004, and subsequently adapted
and aired in 2006 in Switzerland, see Appendix 1.
the daughter flicks a coin over her shoulder into the famous Trevi Fountain, where
the coin is in a moment of magic instantly transformed into a Piccolini5 pasta
butterfly piece, which moves up and down in the boiling water. In the final shot,
the happy family is having lunch together, eating this Farfalle pasta, which is then
presented in a product shot.
Italianicity is constructed here through several linguistic elements, such as ac-
cent, stereotyped Italian-sounding voice, designation of product and name, and
visual effects. The whole Italian touch in this video story is accentuated by an
Italian-sounding off-screen voice, telling us in a strong Italian accent how genuine
the small size Italian pasta is. The Italian accent demonstrates that the speaker is an
authentic Italian and this legitimises her to speak about Italian food. This legitimi-
sation is founded on the myth that all Italians know to cook and that Italian food
has to be cooked the superior Italian way.
An Italian or Mediterranean stereotype is then expressed by a feminine voice
commonly used for emotional contents6. Finally the slogan is repeated in a for-
mulaic way followed by the Italian product name Piccolini and the Italian brand
name, i.e., Barilla: Piccolini Barilla, small in size, great in taste. (orig. German:
klein im Format, gross im Geschmack). The play with accents indicates that Italian
must be considered alien to Germanic Swiss culture, even if it is not so in reality
since Italian is spoken in some parts of Switzerland in addition to German, French
and Romansch.
The story is set in Rome, the capital of Italy, at the site of the well-known Trevi
Fountain where visitors traditionally toss a coin in the fountain for good luck.
While for Italian viewers the story depicts a family on a Sunday trip, for Swiss
viewers Italy is presented from a foreigners perspective, with its culinary
Figure 1.14. Barilla Piccolini Trevi Fountain 2006 (Switzerland)
5. From piccolo (Engl. small).

6. In TV semiotics voices can be classified into different types: the normal neutral voice usu-
ally being a male voice, relative to which deviations are defined. Female voices were considered
for a long time to be appropriate only to emotional media contents. This gendered voice typol-
ogy has been applied in TV commercials until recently (cf. Troehler 1995).
Eva L. Wyss
peculiarities and as a tourist destination where families spend their holidays.7 This
planned spontaneity refers to a popular touristic practice of pleasure, that is fre-
quently used in advertising discourse (cf. Jaworski & Thurlow 2010).
3.2 A sweet romance: Italianicity for an US audience
In the commercial for the US audience (see credits in Appendix 1) an Italian moth-
er and her little daughter walk through Cortonas piazza, the central square of a
small Tuscan town, stopping at a quaint, al fresco restaurant. As they walk in, the
head chef shares a flirty glance with the beautiful Italian mother. Watching them
from the kitchen, he catches a glimpse of the young girl and decides to make a plate
of Piccolini Miniature Farfalle pasta just for her. The little girl is delighted to receive
the dish. As she embraces the chef and exclaims Papa! Ciao! the audience is sur-
prised to realise he is actually her father and the beautiful womans husband. The
female voice-over says (with Italian accent): Introducing a miniature version of
Barilla Pasta. New Barilla Piccolini. In all your favourite shapes. (...) Piccolini, its
miniature. Its Barilla. The last claim is spoken with a strong Italian accent, which
must be considered as exotic as alien, but pleasing to the audience. Shot in soft
focus, an Italian tenor is heard singing the ballad mille lune mille onde (one
thousand moons, one thousand waves) designed to create a romantic atmosphere.
This is underlined with a text displayed on the screen in an ornate style.
Obviously there are parallels between camera, music and graphic representa-
tion of text, designed to convey an image of romanticism and Italianicity. Roman-
tic is what one might call the flirting between a beautiful woman and a handsome
man, sweetness is demonstrated by the surprise staged for the little girl and
Italianicity imbues the setting and the scene. Italianicity is designed as the place
and space of romance and sweetness.
This dream world has a positive surface with implications for our conception
of Italy as its picture of Italianicity is a stereotype: Italy has been turned into an
idealised space and culture, a locus amoenus that brings luck and happiness to
Figure 2.14. Barilla Piccolini Surprise 2008 (US)
7. Cf. Thurlow & Jaworski (2009) and Jaworski & Thurlow (2010).
people, an exoticised site far removed from the usual, normal life, both desirable
and strange an effect that is even noticed in husband and wife. This narrative, in
other words, is quite far-fetched.
3.3 An urban Italianicity for the Italian audience
The commercial aimed at the Italian audience marks a sharp contrast to the
romance concocted for the American audience. This Barilla TV commercial
was screened from 2005 to 2008 in Italy as part of a series of TV commercials
(see credits in Appendix 1), in which members of a family are seen providing tes-
timonials during their daily work routines at Barillas as employees and at home. In
the commercial I focus on here, the main protagonist is a woman working in
Barillas product development department. A food engineer, she is the putative
creator of the Piccolini. After her shift at the company, she picks up her child at the
kindergarten and rides a bicycle through a historical pedestrian area in an Italian
town. At home mother and daughter play around until the mother hugs her daugh-
ter affectionately. Finally, they share a Piccolini meal with the father.8
The story of the invention of the Piccolini is told by the girl in a voiceover and
becomes a family affair:
Mia mamma ha pi fantasia di tutti. Lei lavora alla Barilla e ha fatto i piccolini:
una pasta come quella grande ma pi piccola, che tutti i bambini possono man-
giare insieme ai grandi. Dice che lho ispirata io, e anche se non so cosa vuol dire:
anchio da grande mi voglio ispirare! (My mother has the most fantasy. She works
for Barilla and invented the Piccolini: A noodle like the big one, but smaller that
children can eat together with the big people. She said that I inspired her. And
even if I do not know what this means: when Im big I want to be inspired too.)
The emotional highpoint of the commercial is the child, bubbling with pride, tell-
ing the audience that she wants to become like her mother. The commercial ends
with the claim, Where there is Barilla, there is home. On the one hand, Barilla
Figure 3.14. Barilla Piccolini Ispirazione 2005 (Italy)
8. The scene is set to Il Campo di Pallone, composed by Nicola Piovani, which was used in
the 2001 movie La stanza del Figlio, directed by Nanni Moretti.
Eva L. Wyss
throws its doors open to us, letting us have a look inside the firm. On the other
hand, it is an attempt to bring Barilla closer to the people, the consumers, by intro-
ducing Barilla into peoples everyday lives.
The code word needed to decipher the story is obviously home. Home is the
place where Barilla sets its trap for the consumer. Barilla, the producer of the noo-
dles, is depicted from within; it is called our Barilla. However, Italian pasta is
promoted as home-made in a double sense: the pasta is prepared at home within
the family and it is designed by the embodiment of home the mother who is
apparently working as a noodle designer at Barilla Corporation. As this is a sort of
home, too, there will be no conflict, in fact, it is even better: the company shows
that they do what every mother would do, provide good food and inspiration
for all Italian children (see Barbieri 2007).
This leads to coherence through the use of the national standard Italian lan-
guage; the girl has a smooth, positively perceived Roman accent. Even though
Barilla is screened in Italy they follow a strategy that intimates transnational or
even global dimensions. The mother reveals herself to be more of a European, ur-
ban woman than a stereotypical Italian mamma. She is depicted as a working
mother with a profession, but still representing home.
With the Piccolini pasta Barilla seeks to replace the rather local types of pasta
and local sauce specialties, although there is no standard pasta in Italy and the
Italian pasta culture is not a homogeneous one found in every region of Italy. This
new pasta is shown as the specially designed product of a progressive company,
whose products are the result of industrial design and development. In other words
it aims to re-conceptualize home within the national context. Barilla offers a gaze
into the interior and melds it with the normality of the urban even transnational
one-child-family with parents who are both passionate professionals. Progress
is linked to invention and has the aim to find a way that does not harm the post-
industrial expectations of compatibility of family and work.
This positive non-idealised reception of pasta is only possible since Italian
macaroni or spaghetti have lost their stigma of rural culture in Italy and of low
migrant culture or migrant food outside of Italy.9 The historical change of this
concept can be observed since the end of the Second World War. In the 1960s and
70s Italians still perceived the cooking of pasta as an indicator of a stubbornly
enduring culinary illiteracy. The cooking and eating of pasta was the epitome of
backwardness and thereby belonged to a kind of folklore (in contrast to the eating
of meat or mozzarella) that was seen as being low in prestige, plebeian and fatten-
ing (cf. Barbieri 2007). Only since the 1980s have the manufacturers of pasta been
9. A symptom of the change was the invention of more sophisticated pasta types in addition
to the simple macaroni, spaghetti and lasagne as the Farfalle (Engl. butterfly).
able to tap into the slowly spreading myth of the particularly healthy Mediterra-
nean diet. This change can be traced in a number of statistics: in 1985 in Italy
pasta received support from 31.6% of the population, and in 1993 from 43.3%.10
Consequently, a new starting point was established in the 1980s: now and in the
globalised kitchen, pasta is part of a healthy diet.11
3.4 The Italian friend: International friendship as a transcultural strategy
An entirely different strategy is adopted in a German TV commercial for a Barilla

noodles type with sauce (Penne und Ricotta Sauce) in 2007 (see credits in
Appendix 1). This TV commercial represents a transculturalising strategy that
goes beyond the national stereotyping.
The commercial commences with a scene in which two children are having
fun playing tennis with a racket and a pan and joking about Steffis and Brunos
mastery.12 The scene is located in a globalised upper middle class home. Before
they have dinner the audience enters the kitchen where Bruno is cooking a penne
and ricotta sauce dish.
Close-ups of tomato and ricotta give a colourful and sensual impression of the
products; clearly products of superior quality. When Steffis friends are having din-
ner we see happy faces and laughter, and the atmosphere seems relaxed and fun
the kind that is known as Italian conviviality. The ad ends with the product shot,
showing a globalised corporate box with the standard Barilla logo.
The German and the Italian worlds are merged here using a strategy of per-
sonification of the two nations or cultures: the tennis star Steffi Graf13, who actu-
ally lives in the US with her family, plays the German who is giving a party. Since
this scene takes place in Germany, the language of the commercial is German.
Steffi explains that the children already know Bruno and his excellent cooking:
Ever since Bruno has been cooking penne with ricotta for them, he has been their
idol. (Seit Bruno ihnen Penne mit Ricotta gekocht hat, ist er ihr Idol.)
10. People expressed their liking for pasta by saying La pastasciutta una delle cose che mi
piacciono di pi (pasta is something that I prefer).
11. At the same time there were also indicators in other countries that Italian pasta is gaining
ground. Tanner (1996) shows that in the 1980s Swiss noodle producers were linking their prod-
ucts with an assertion of Italianicity (tipo napoli) to indicate a better quality. With this strategy
they made the alien part of the local product of Swiss macaroni to suggest high quality.
12. Steffi Graf is a former German tennis champion while Bruno is a professional Italian Barilla
cook, who is well known to German audiences.
13. Steffi Graf has been the face of Barilla in Germany, with interruptions, since 1991.
Eva L. Wyss
Figure 4.14. Barilla Piccolini Steffis Party 2006 (Germany)
His expertise is based on Barilla products. He prepares the dinner, an Italian dish
with Barilla products. The trans-culturality of the two European parts is construct-
ed and personalised through the friendship between the two leads who in turn are
enabled to cross national (and cultural) boundaries through a cultural practice:
Steffi and Bruno behave as friends.
The setting, Steffis home, has a standard upper middle class interior. It is only
on a cultural and obviously also on a linguistic level where the two nations, the
two countries are put together: Steffi Graf uses Italianisms like penne or ricotta
but pronounces them in a distinctly German way, i.e., in a phonetically German
way. The initial sound in penne is aspirated as [ph7n+] instead of the Italian fast
[pen ne]), and she pronounces ricotta as [rikota] with a guttural r instead of
r in [riktta] that is more common in a truly Italian pronunciation. As a well-
known celebrity Steffi Graf embodies for her TV audience the German consumer
who is typical for the area in which the commercial is shown. But at the same time
Steffi Graf represents the Italian producer Barilla.
A humorous scene of national border crossing is performed by two children in
the final dialogue sequence, playing the roles of Steffi and Bruno, using ironically
Germanised Italian expressions. A girl uses the idiomatic Bravo Bruno to iron-
ically applaud a boy who is playing the cook. The boy thanks her for the compli-
ment in a strong German accent, saying, Grazie, Steffi.
Finally a voiceover by a male German voice with a strong Italian accent ends
the commercial with the product claim: Barilla the taste of Italy (orig. German:
der Geschmack Italiens (Barilla). This final claim then makes explicit that this is
about creating Italianicity at German tables.
Under the pretences of friendship Barilla comes across as a most virtuous pur-
veyor of a quality product. The personifications14 of Germany and Barilla-Italy are
even crossed within the VIP Steffi Graf who personifies the German and connects
it with Barilla.
14. Different types of antrophomorphisation of products in commercial films is described by

Trhler (1995).
4. Ambivalent national and transnational identities in commercial contexts:

Cultural adaptation and the historical process of normality construction
The stereotype often is suggested as a certain simple but accessible form of re-
stricted reality that provides a pre-structured categorization which can be assimi-
lated easily by an audience (Bausinger 1998: 161). That is not the only interesting
point about stereotyping in advertising. The effect of stereotyping textual practices
is rather ambivalent. In Barthes explication (1977: 33) of French ads that depict
Italian food culture, he explains the cultural shaping of stereotypes with respect to
a familiarity with certain tourist stereotypes. On one hand, within this narrative
framework (Propp, 1970) of the ad, Italy becomes familiar, but on the other hand,
it remains strange. It is strange because it is seen from the outside, and familiar as
it is known through the stereotypes the commercial cues into. This implies that the
analysis from a national-cultural point of view presupposes a very specific social-
cultural knowledge of Italianicity and the attitudes adopted towards it. The so-
called Italianicity of the prod\uct then becomes a well-known strangeness that is
identifiable to the audience.
The figure of the stranger in this conceptualization is given a lot of play and
this play can be exploited in narratives. The stranger is not only presented as the
good, but also if it seems convenient to the story (or the story teller) as the
other, the bad (cf. Luginbhl, Schwab & Burger 2004). In the narrative of a TV
commercial, the figure of the stranger can therefore also reflect the partition of
different social spaces. The consequence of this double framing is a re-construction
of the strange on the social as well as the ideological level. To speak with Homi K.
Bhabha (1990) the story is constructing though a sort of third type of identity.
The narrative limits and shapes by its communication setting the possibilities
and the boundaries of global advertising. The local and global communication
crosses the lines of identity. Bhabha summarizes it to the meanwhile idiomatic
phrase the global village it has its natives too (see Rollin 1989). The idea of
third space goes hand in hand with the strangeness of the advertising itself that is
called a sort of semiotic nowhere land which runs into the danger of not being
taken seriously. The aim of transnational or transcultural communication though
is obviously delicate to achieve and constitutes a challenge to transnational com-
munication. In this manner, the advertiser achieves an artificial but specific con-
struction of authenticity and appropriateness.15
15. This artificiality can also be explained by the figure of the stranger in advertising: Hausendorf
(2002) explains this ambiguosity with reference to Simmels (1908) studies on strangeness.
Simmel (1908) notes that the attributes of a stranger were not only the differences of time and
place of his origin, but also the social differences within the host society (where the I is situ-
ated, and with it the audience). This fact is connected to a strangers independence in moving
Eva L. Wyss
One of the core reasons for aligning advertising with an international strategy
is the development of global markets in which a small number of corporations
trade worldwide and produce the majority of consumer products. This trading it-
self is reinforced by an increase in cultural interchange, tourism and the standardi-
sation of consumer behaviour (Berndt et al. 2005: 174). Therefore firms are using
one single but transnational advertising strategy16 that the trading advertising
message for a product stays the same no matter where it is being promoted.
The sample of Barilla commercials illustrates the same variations that all TV
commercials show. Such variations could be summed up as a methodology of
cultural adapations. Such variations are classified along two poles. On the one
hand, TV commercials show variations along the auditory and visual channel, i.e.,
they use different linguistic, pictorial and musical codes that go beyond
simple dubbing or subtitling.(Garncarz 1992; Herbst 1994; De Mooij 1994;
Wyss 1998).17 The specificity of the target region and culture as well as the target
group and milieu has to be considered as much as possible to achieve a successful
campaign. If the communication process is designed to convey a certain message
that is situated in a communication strategy which is defined by the advertiser, the
so-called cultural adaptation. The translation of advertising texts must therefore
be in line with the experience of the target community.18
away from or staying within the strange region and to his way of behaviour compared to the
rest of society.
16. By using a single advertising concept companies achieve substantial cost advantages, be-
cause this will greatly reduce the cost of production.
17. The variation can be classified along two poles. On the one hand, TV commercials are var-
ied along the auditory and visual channel, i.e., varying their linguistic, pictorial and musical
codes. On the other hand, advertisers produce one global, standardised commercial that is the
same everywhere.
However, the TV advertisement usually undergoes at least one significant linguistic variation,
i.e., a translation of the spoken and written texts, but often also an adaptation of product names,
lyrics, claims and voices, and even of visual elements. If the commercial is varied, it is usually
partially adapted to the advertising commodities of each country. TV commercials are often not
reflected within an international cultural production, even when they cross national borders eas-
ily, frequently and commonly via the Internet. If they are translated, their appellative function
demands a more focused form of translation, called adaptation, that requires a plausible antici-
pation of re-construction of the advertising message by the audience. The communication pro-
cess is designed to convey a certain message that is situated in a communication strategy and
which is defined by the advertiser.
18. There are further substitutions, omissions, transposition, additions and edits made to the
locally adapted audiovisual text, and these are made for political, legal, ideological or economic
reasons, such as to comply with regulations regarding comparative advertising, advertising pro-
hibitions, prescribed terminology and language policies, or with different norms and values,
moral concepts, attitudes, traditions, customs, practices and lifestyles. These are obviously the
Companies seek to standardise and improve their corporate image to achieve

a particular corporate identity. As we can see in the Barilla commercials the
national stereotypes, the Italianity, were adapted along the narrative frames of
tourism, romance, urban motherhood or international friendship as a means of ex-
pressing the corporate identity.
The commercials show that the concept of Italianity and its upgrading and
valorisation needs a semantical contexualisation and negotiation that is carried
out (publicly) but that is not fully controllable. In this sense advertising texts oper-
ate as public communication frames that allow for the negotiation of ideas and
concepts between the public and the corporation. Ideally a commercial serves as a
space in which messages can be perceived, accepted and absorbed by the public
in a dynamic process that co-constructs and regulates the production of public
meaning and everyday concepts, such as home, gender and national belonging.
The strategy of nationalizing or trans-nationalizing of identities (of products or
brands) therefore depends crucially on audience perception(s). However, the find-
ings in the field of historical marketing communication (Rossfeld 2007) show us
that the advertising goals are achieved only with enormous effort.
The verbal Italianisation of wheat noodle products for instance is an on-going
effort that involves a semantic transformation of the concept of pasta respectively
noodle. This process is accompanied by a transformation of the frequency with
which word pasta, which is commonly found after 1990 in the German DWDS
corpus, increasingly replaces the German word Nudeln (noodles) (cf. charts in
DWDS corpus in Appendix 2).19
At the same time as companies become transnational, multinational or inter-
national, they are dissociating from the former national identity. This is also true
for Barilla.20 The corporation is a large food company that controls not only the
multinational Barilla21. It knows that people might doubt that its pasta is really
result of social, historical, demographic and economic developments. For example, the world-
wide strategy of the McDonalds Corporation is to adapt its product line to the tastes and eating
habits of the target culture: in Spain McDonalds serve, besides their standard products, also the
McPepito, in the Middle East the McShoarma and in Japan the Gurakoro, a well-known local
potato croquette.
19. A glance at corporations names shows that even here change is on-going. Companies are
renamed, such as Fabrique de ptes alimentaires Morges was changed to Pasta Gala SA in
1988, or they stay the same, like Buitoni did although it had actually become Nstle in 1988.
20. Barilla Pasta (a company of the Barilla Corporation S.A.) is the worlds leading pasta maker,
with 4045% of the Italian and 25% of the US market. As The Economist (21 June 2007) said,
Big portions. Americas role in the rise of the worlds biggest pasta-maker.
21. The Barilla Group operates several production plants and mills and offices all over the world.
While its central office is in Parma, Italy, it has corporate offices in several other countries as well,
Eva L. Wyss
Made in Italy. Conscious of this the company tries to address these doubts on its
US website with a FAQ page, where it informs the readers frankly about the pro-
duction situation (Where is Barilla pasta made in the United States or Italy?):
With a few exceptions, Barilla pasta that is sold in the United States is made in our
plant in Ames, Iowa. Barilla Tortellini and Barilla Oven Ready Lasagne are made
in Italy. Our Barilla Italy products state Product of Italy, Distributed by Barilla
America, Inc. on the packaging.
Barilla opened the Ames plant in the fall of 1998. The Barilla family was very con-
cerned about maintaining Barillas high quality standards in the new plant. Con-
sequently, the machines used in our Ames plant are the same as used in our plant
in Parma, Italy. The recipe and the wheat blend are the same as that used in Parma,
Italy. Barilla purchases its wheat from around the world, ending up with the best
wheat available. (http://www.barillaus.com/Pages/FAQ.aspx, December 2010)
This information seeks to protect the brand that would be affected by doubts over
national affiliations. Obviously the co-constructed spaces emerge as Lefebvre
(1991) points out through the interaction of conceived mental and
perceived material space. The narrative pragmatic positioning of Italianicity
makes clear that social space is then a quality that is connected with the territorial
or cultural space. This means that the construction of identity through space is
much more complex than Barthes explanation of touristic stereotyping leads one
to believe. Frenchness as such does not exist either. Rather, identity the concept of
space itself is associated with local, global and, the cultural constructions of the
Italian is built up of from different levels of intertwining realms of spatial experi-
ences: national, cultural, social, material-territorial and regional. All of them be-
come then transposed to the linguistic space of language use and construction of
narrative.
Within this matrix of social and linguistic functionality its clearly defined or
imaginative context establishes a narrow geopolitical construction of normality.22
If the ads or the everyday discourse reveals inconsistencies (as for example
with the US-pasta that is obviously does not originate in Italy itself) the products
image and identity can easily be compromised and its quality would be called into
question. However, this traditional construction of a national product identity is
the reason why it is difficult to give the globalised product a transcultural or trans-
local identity.
such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovenia,
Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, US, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Japan; cf. http://www.barilla.com.
22. This is a space that is shaped even by the medias format and by the area into which TV is
being broadcast (Chalaby 2005).
Today we have evidence that enterprises must have had an inkling of the po-
tentially strong impact of nationalistic marketing strategies form the beginning of
advertising, a fact that is revealed by historical studies of effective post-colonial
promotional strategies that sought to create national affiliation historically. Rossfeld
(2007: 389), for example, shows in his study of the promotional strategies em-
ployed to market Swiss chocolate in the 19th century that at the beginning of choc-
olate marketing it was linked to stereotypical images of colonial history. These
images were simplistic and colonialist pictures of undefined African plantation
workers carrying fruit of the cocoa tree, or African butlers serving hot chocolate
in porcelain cups on a silver platter.
In the 19th century, after 1860, Swiss enterprises undertook several steps to
narrow the general meaning of chocolate to Swiss milk chocolate (bars). At the
same time as they distributed their products widely they launched intensive adver-
tising campaigns. The advertising featured folkloristic settings in a world of white-
ness, comprising snowy alps, white milk kettles and cows, to create a specific
national identification of milk chocolate with Switzerland. Constructing this spe-
cific image of Swiss milk chocolate was part of a long process of a profitable, na-
tional post-colonial annexation undertaken not only by one brand and only once,
but by several brands over many years (cf. Rossfeld 2007: 368).
The act of giving a product a cultural or national identity therefore needs a
long-term strategic information campaign that might even differ among individu-
al target audiences, their attitudes as demonstrated by their preferred stereotype
concept compositions as observed today in the examples of noodle and pasta
commercials.
5. Conclusions
Obviously commercials share their audiovisual, animated mediality with the film
genre and television formats. Though films and video clips are part of an interna-
tional film culture and industry (Oren & Shahaf 2011) and considered a transcul-
tural genre, commercials are more generally considered to be specifically produced
for a certain area or for a well-defined audience.
To construct an Italian fictional space in an advertising story, stereotypical ele-
ments of Italianicity are practiced23 using linguistic (and pictorial) features such as
Italianisms, the use of the Italian language or an Italian accent, Italian names,
23. Thurlow & Jaworski (2011) characterise the mode of entextualisation citing Bauman &
Briggs (1990), and Blommaert (2005): Each entextualizing moment also exposes the cultural
values and ideologies of producers and audiences.
Eva L. Wyss
Italian-looking people, places in Italy, or by musical signs such as Italian songs and
Opera music.
As TV commercials are screened not only on national TV channels but also
run on the homepages of corporations, they are available to be re-broadcasted on
YouTube and so become re-contextualised in a variety of Internet contexts. This
practice changes the function of TV commercials. They become more and more a
genre of an international culture wherein the constructions of meaning and iden-
tity, as for instance Italianicity, are linked to an international audiovisual adver-
tising culture. However, advertisers and PR consultants are facing a challenge from
a conservative nationalist tradition of identity construction to the creation of im-
ages of international and global corporate communications.
According to the above argumentation, it is evident that TV commercials do
not transmit advertising messages only, but also construct product identities, im-
ages of brands and advertisers; in short, their clients understanding of the world
(Willems, 2002). The multimodal and complex ensemble of textuality and signs is
not a predefined construction and production of meaning, but a multimodal per-
ception that invites its audience to read it (Fiske, 1987; Morley, 1992) and to con-
struct meanings that go far beyond the advertisory message (Wyss, 1998). With
Zurstiege (2002) we can conclude that the overall co-construction of meaning in
advertising discourse can be considered a self-reflective activity that consists in
advertisers observing how advertising observes society. We can also see that ad-
vertisers not any longer stage narrow-minded, stereotypical pasta-cooking mam-
mas or dumb Latin lovers stammering some phrases in a broad Italian accent for
TV viewers could be embarrassed by such ideological plots. Such stereotypical
images are not necessarily perceived as nationalistic but can be interpreted as in-
appropriate, and at best as old-fashioned, revealing the ability of readers and view-
ers to reflect critically on the language they are being presented in advertisements
as well as their meta-communicative or meta-pragmatic24 knowledge. The audi-
ence could be likely to label the producers ideology as limited and thereby devalue
both the product being advertised and its corporate identity.
Hand in hand with this transcultural shift a change of attitude is taking place
towards a more respectful handling of national attributes that also takes into con-
sideration the meta-pragmatic communicative level that leads advertising discourse
to increase the moral aspects of public communication. And indeed, advertisers
take into consideration that a meta-pragmatic knowledge emerges with the effect
that certain audiences no longer accept overly simplistic nationalistic features
(Wyss, 2002).
24. This means that the reader is aware of the politeness respectively inappropriateness (or other
meta-pragmatic functions) of a certain utterance.
Theodore Levitts thoughts were very general and related to a utopian macro-
sociological approach. However, globalization brings into being new forms of so-
cial interaction (Blommaert, 2003) that lead to a media and language awareness, a
wisdom about meta-pragmatic issues, for instance, regarding the insulting nature
of stereotypical, national, evaluative identifications. With this, the question arises
as to how much the meta-pragmatic knowledge, and with it the mental and cogni-
tive changes or audience expectations, will intensify the pressure on the producers
communicative attitudes and advertising practices.
The game with stereotypes so important to the representation of quality is a
considerable challenge for transcultural adverstisements. On the one hand the
goal is a stronger standardisation which, despite the regional specificity of the ste-
reotypes, leads to difficulties in the readability, or better presumed authenticity of
the ads (Wyss, 2010). This presumed lack of cultural affiliation of the commercial
narratives in turn weakens their emotional appeal. Global and non chauvinistic
transcultural advertising thus leads to TV commercials which turn in the end as
less effective. Levitts utopian ideals with which I began this article seem to be un-
tenable. The vigilant firms thus are concious of this predicament and foster there-
fore their transcultural campaigns by a series of on-site happenings with give-
aways to confront the risk of fiasco with the too assimilated Italianity constructions
that do not convey a clear cut quickly perceived distinction.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: TV commercials
a. Commercial for Italian and Swiss Audience Ponte Trevi 2004

http://www.publisuisse.ch/index.cfm?event=check_free_publispot_list#
(Date: 10/04/2006, No.: 180089)
b. Commercial for Italian Audience Ispirazione 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmQQOrOIUbU
c. Commercial for the US-Audience: Surprise 2008
http://www.eurorscgchicago.com/Barilla-Surprise.php
Appendix 2: Occurrences of Nudeln and Pasta in the corpus of DWDS
a. Nudeln
Verlaufsstatistik fr Nudeln im DWDSKerncorpus
56
52
48
44
40
36
Frequenz
32 Gebrauchsliteratur
Zeitung
28 Wissenschaft
Belletristik
24
20
16
12
8
4
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Dekade
b. Pasta
Verlaufsstatistik fr Pasta im DWDSKerncorpus
28
26
24
22
20
18
Frequenz
16 Gebrauchsliteratur
Zeitung
14 Wissenschaft
Belletristik
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Dekade
What defines news culture?
Insights from multifactorial parallel text analysis
Martin Luginbhl
University of Neuchtel, Switzerland
Studies on the adaptation of mass media texts for different spatial areas have so
far mostly been focusing on linguistic and national spaces. This article revisits
the language-space-relationship by taking an in-depth look at TV news stories
and the question if their corresponding styles can be detected on a regional,
local, translocal or even global scale. By juxtaposing TV news stories from the
US and various European countries with a selection of different Swiss stories, the
following analysis reveals the relevance of other factors beyond the correlative
nation or language. These factors can be associated with a variety of dimensions
of journalistic cultures, thus going beyond the concept of only locally diffused
practices. From a methodological point of view, a multifactorial parallel text
analysis takes into account exactly these findings.
1. Introduction: Language, nation, culture
There is a long-established tradition in linguistics and in media studies when it

comes to the relationship between different cultures, nations or languages. In lin-
guistics, this tradition goes back to as far as Johann Gottfried Herder, who wrote
in 1772: Every nation speaks [...] according to the way it thinks and thinks ac-
cording to the way it speaks. (Herder 1985: 372, my translation). This idea can
also be found in the work of Alexander von Humboldt who wrote in 1836: There
is a characteristic weltanschauung residing in every language. (Humboldt 1836
[1963]: 224, my translation). Looking at works of comparative textology or com-
parative media studies, nations and language areas have for a long time remained
the pivotal points of comparison, carrying two implications: first, language use in
a national/language space is homogeneous; second, culture in these spaces is ho-
mogeneous. In this case, the concept of culture at work is an essentialistic one:
culture appears to be a static system, or more precisely a static world view that is a
fixed feature of human identity, which is reproduced by language and bound to a
Martin Luginbhl
spatial dimension that is conceptualized either nationally or linguistically. In con-

trastive textology it is thus often assumed that texts are adapted according to the
specific conventions of a nation or a language. The corpora analyzed are composed
with that assumption in mind despite the fact that already in the first theoretical
works on contrastive textology by Hartmann (1980) and Spillner (1981) variations
within a language area and within a nation are mentioned.
During the last few years, such an essentialistic view of culture has been ques-
tioned in contrastive textology as well as in media studies. Above all, new concepts
of culture, as developed in anthropology and cultural studies, have been taken up
and more dynamic notions of culture have been applied. This can be observed in
fairly recent works of comparative textology (cf. Scollon 2000, Drescher 2002,
Eckkrammer 2002 or Yakhontova 2006), where next to nation and language area
other aspects such as market orientation, local cultures beyond the nation/lan-
guage level, media-related phenomena or the (translocal) traditions of a scientific
discipline are taken into account. In addition, the culturalistic approach in linguis-
tic text analysis perceives culture as a semiotic process in which norms and values
of any social formation are not only transmitted, but negotiated.
If we conceptualize culture as a dynamic, semiotically based practice serving
the production, tradition and change of social membership, then cultural artifacts
become essential, because it is through artifacts and the correlative semiosis that
social formations communicate, adjust and negotiate collective norms and ideas
(Linke 2009: 1137). In addition, language use is conceptualized as a stylistic re-
source relevant for social formations going beyond the entire group of inhabitants
of a nation or speakers of a certain language. In the case of media language, the
celebration of local identity and culture (Androutsopoulos 2010: 742) can gain
priority, especially under pressures of globalization.
Analyzing language use as a cultural resource demands a holistic concept of
style, such as the one of Sandig (2006). If we understand style being not only
related to word choice, but as a holistic concept, including multimodal aspects of
texts, sound and picture (cf. Kress/van Leeuwen 2006), we additionally have an
analytical tool to get hold of the cultural-stylistic meaning of genres or text types
and to go one step further to the repertoire of realized genres of any social
formation (Textsortenhaushalt, cf. Luckmann 1988).
In addition to my remarks on the culturalistic approach of this article, I will
discuss the concepts journalistic culture and news culture, as well as their rela-
tion to linguistic style (Section 2). I will further focus on multifactorial parallel
text analysis as a promising method to grasp cultural-specific features of genres
(Section 3) and report on the results of TV news stories comparisons in three dif-
ferent constellations: on a diachronic and bi-national level (Section 4), on a syn-
chronic and international level (Section 5) and finally, I will compare the coverage
of one event on a synchronic and intranational level (Section 6). This will lead to
results on a methodological level, as the analysis emphasizes the strength of a mul-
tifactorial parallel text analysis. It will also lead to results in matters of different
news cultures in the compared TV news shows (Section 7).
2. Journalistic culture, news culture and linguistic style
In recent media studies, concepts such as network or flow (cf. Hepp 2008) have
highlighted the observation that there are other determinants next to nation or
language that have an impact on the style and design of media texts. The concepts
of network and flow are developed in the context of a globalization theory in which
globalization is not understood as a linear process leading to increased homogene-
ity, but in which the diversity of local and regional characteristics under the
circumstances of globalization is stressed (cf. Hafez 2005). Globalization is con-
ceptualized as an increase of communicative connectivities in form of real articu-
lations, but also in form of comprehensive discourses and formations (Hepp
2006: 159). These connectivities can have a homogenizing effect, may however
also lead to an increased cultural fragmentation. The main effect of globalization
is thus not homogenization but hybridization (cf. Hepp/Krotz/Winter 2005). With
a translocal perspective, even cultures existing across homogeneous as well as lo-
calized national cultures can be considered. They are not defined by local anchor-
age, but by common norms and values realized in common practices (cf. also Alim
2009 and Androutsopoulos 2001 discussing translocal fan cultures).
In this context, the notion of journalistic culture and more recently of news
culture (cf. Esser 2008) play an integral role. The notion of journalistic culture
(e.g. Djerf-Pierre 2000, Zelizer 2005, Hanitzsch 2007, Hahn/Schrder 2008) usu-
ally focuses on norms, ideas and professional standards of journalists and their
relevance for the practices of news text production.
Hanitzsch (2007) distinguishes between three constituents of journalism cul-
ture: institutional role, epistemologies and ethical ideologies.
Institutional roles Epistemologies Ethical ideologies
Interven- Power Market Objectivism Empiricism Relativism Idealism

tionism distance orientation
Correspon-
Intervention (+) Adversarial (+) Consumers (+) dence (+) Empirical (+) Contextual (+) Means (+)
passive () Loyal () Citizens () subjectivity () Analytical () Universal () Outcome ()
Graphic 1. Dimensions of journalistic culture after Hanitzsch (2007: 371)

Martin Luginbhl
In the constituent institutional role the journalists role perceptions are addressed.
Hanitzsch (2007: 372375) conceptualizes three basic dimensions within this con-
stituent: intervention, power distance and market orientation. Intervention re-
flects the extent to which journalists pursue a particular mission and promote
certain values (ibid.: 372), with two ideal-typical (and therefore seldom realized)
extremes: the socially committed interventionist aiming at getting involved and
promoting change, as opposed to the neutral disseminator aiming at absolute neu-
trality and detachment. Power distance refers to the journalists position toward
loci of power in society (ibid.: 373). Journalists can at one end of a scale adver-
sarially and openly challenge power, playing the role of watchdogs. At the other
end of the scale, they can be loyal to a government or a party, serving as their
mouthpiece. The third dimension of interventionism, the market orientation, is
reflective of the primary social focus that guides news production (ibid.: 374).
News production can be subordinated to the market logic or it can aim at the pub-
lic interest.
The second constituent, epistemologies, addresses philosophical underpin-
nings that are prevalent in news production, regarding claims of knowledge and
truth. It raises the question of whether or not the news can provide an objective
and value-free account of the truth and, if so, how such truth claims are to be justi-
fied (ibid.: 376). Two dimensions are relevant in this context, objectivism and
empiricism. The dimension of objectivism again has two poles: on the one hand,
one can assume that there is a concordance between news text and events, that the
news text is mirroring an objective truth out there. Accordingly, news events will
be presented in an unquestionable way, e.g. without naming any sources or au-
thors of the story and without relativizing the truth-claim of the story. On the
other hand, subjectivist journalists understand their texts as inevitably selective
and therefore never value-free representations of the world; e.g. sources and au-
thors will be named, the dependency of the information given from the process of
investigation will be stressed etc. Empiricism is concerned with the means by
which a truth claim is ultimately justified by the journalist (ibid.: 377). Truth
claims can be justified empirically or analytically. Empirical justifications are usu-
ally based on facts, a proper reporting by investigating and fact-checking are es-
sential; the facts should speak for themselves. Analytical justification is based on
reason, values and opinions, as well as on credibility roots in the journalists ability
to persuade.
The third constituent, ethical ideologies, addresses the question how journal-
ists respond to ethical problems (ibid.: 378). In the discussion of relativism,
Hanitzsch distinguishes between journalists that tend to reject the possibility of
relying on universal moral rules and those who believe in and make use of mor-
al absolutes (ibid.). Idealism finally refers to idealistic journalists who aim at
obtaining outcomes with the right action (idib.), and to less idealistic journal-
ists who sometimes accept harm in order to produce good (ibid.).
Journalistic culture is concerned with journalists norms, ideas and profes-
sional standards, as well as with the relevance for the practices of news text pro-
duction. News culture (Esser 2008) on the other hand focuses on journalistic
texts and cultural artifacts as manifestations of journalistic norms and ideas. As
mentioned above, it is through artifacts and the corresponding semiosis that social
formations elaborate their norms and values. In matters of a news culture analysis,
this means that a linguistic analysis of the style of news texts becomes the key ele-
ment for analyzing not only news culture, but also essential aspects of journalistic
culture.
While studies on journalistic culture are predominantly based on surveys
(Esser 2008: 406), a linguistic analysis of news text culture may be able to describe
norms and values that are not conscious to the journalists or that will not be of-
ficially mentioned by journalists. Culture, as Hall articulates, hides much more
than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from
its own participants1. Cultural practices are habitual, self-evident and seem to be
natural; therefore they can remain invisible and unconscious. Further, it must be
taken into account that text styles may not only reflect pre-existing norms and
values, but that they also have the ability to establish new ones. Text styles do not
emerge as logical consequences out of the context, they rely on the interpretation
and reception of this context by the journalists (cf. Linke 1998: 150) and there-
fore text forms are certainly influenced but not predetermined by this context. The
following analysis of news texts shall point out the norms and values at work, be
they conscious or not, officially mentioned or not.
3. Multifactorial parallel text analysis
As stated above, corpora in contrastive textology are often composed along na-
tional and language borders. And, as numerous studies in this field confine them-
selves to describing differences and parallels between the sub corpora from the
different language areas, it is suggested that the differences are rooted in the differ-
ent cultures of the languages and/or nations.
Culture in this sense not only is an empty concept and the explanation of the
differences and parallels not only remains circular, but the possibility that culture
roots in social formations beyond the language/nation level is neglected. Instead
1. Hall, Edward T. (1959): The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Cit. in: Sarangi
(2009: 99).
Martin Luginbhl
of speaking vaguely of cultural differences when interpreting stylistic differences,

we must not forget the norms and values that are promoted in the analyzed texts,
considering other aspects in addition to factors such as language or nation when
composing our corpora and interpreting our data.
Hauser/Luginbhl (2011) suggest a multifactorial parallel text analysis in order
to stimulate new developments in the study of culture, linguistics and media stud-
ies. In the traditional parallel text analysis (cf. Hartmann 1980, Spillner 1981) texts
are compared that belong to the same genre (i.e. similar topic, similar communica-
tive situation, similar textual functions, similar form), but come from two coun-
tries with different languages. Taking up corpus design criteria from corpus
linguistics (such as balance and representativeness, cf. McEnery/Hardie 2012: 10f.),
we suggest to consider more than two languages and more than two countries; we
also suggest to compare different realizations of a genre within one country,
whereas these realizations from one nation can (and if possible should) be realized
in more than one language. We further suggest to compare different realizations of
a genre verbalized in the same language, but coming from different countries. In
order to trace changes in text culture, we also suggest to complete the synchronic
view on texts with a diachronic view.
Valid results regarding cultural characteristics of genres and possible language
or nation specific genre patterns can only be achieved with a multifactorial parallel
text analysis. Comparing texts from e.g. two newspapers from two countries (like
in Sandahl 2008, Schmitt 2008, de Zarobe 2008 an many others) are not enough to
provide us with valid information regarding language or nation-specific aspects,
as it is not exactly clear whether other newspapers in the same country report dif-
ferently or not or whether newspapers from other countries be it in the same
language or not do it differently or not. But if we agree on the assumption of a
transcultural perspective (cf. Welsch 2000), we see national spaces and therefore
national cultures as externally linked and internally characterized through hetero-
geneous social formations. Thus national spaces are internally characterized
through a pluralization of possible identities and externally through transbound-
ary contours (Welsch 1995: 42). Our multifactorial parallel text analysis gives way
for compiling corpora that can deliver valid results regarding news culture and the
cultural characteristics of genres in general.
4. Diachronic and bi-national comparison
It is commonly assumed that TV news shows around the globe are becoming
americanized as a consequence of an ongoing globalization of the news exchange
and media companies. This peculiarity is usually referred to as a continuous trend
of the respective shows towards a broader range of entertainment features (cf. for
example Thussu 2007). Often, changes of this kind are ascribed to changes in na-
tional media systems (cf. Hallin/Mancini 2004). It is also often assumed that TV
news shows have nation or language-specific characteristics (cf. Landbeck 1991).
While all these observations and explanations certainly are relevant for the
comprehension of different news cultures, a diachronic an bi-national comparison
of the American TV news show CBS Evening News with the Swiss show Tagess-
chau proves that these factors are not sufficient to capture all aspects that can be
observed (cf Luginbhl 2009a, 2009b, 2010) despite the corpus of this compari-
son is still limited to only one show per country and to quality news.2
The news items were transcribed and analyzed regarding different aspects of
genre analysis (cf. Bhatia 2004, Swales 2004, Adamzik 2004, Hausendorf/Kessel-
heim 2008), such as framing elements, order of the news items, studio design,
identification of genres realized regarding their communicative constellation, top-
ic development, genre structure, stylistic realization of speech acts, evaluative ele-
ments, staging of distance/closeness and of current reporting. The analysis focused
on linguistic means, but also on the footage.
In the case of the Swiss Tagesschau, no continuous change from a prosaic-
unemotional way of reporting towards a more attractive way and thus no continu-
ous trend from low to high market orientation has been observed. On the contrary,
the show began in the 1950s with a format that in most of its stories (54% of the
shows duration) aimed at entertaining, reporting mostly about soft news events in
a diverting manner (e.g. about children playing TV, a car slalom on a frozen lake
or a Russian animal tamer in the circus, taking a bath with a tiger). The impor-
tance of human interest stories and the fact that most of the film items in the 1950s
did not follow the inverted pyramid-style but rather preferred a more popular
narrative pattern that resembles a story told chronologically, indicate that enter-
tainment and the demonstration of oddities from all over the world played a cru-
cial role.
In the 1960s and 1970s a phase of unemotional and detached reporting fol-
lowed. The newsreader who could be seen in a fixed camera frame looking at his
manuscript was reading news stories monotonously, the film items predominantly
followed the inverted pyramid style and aimed both at the verbal and the footage
level at a maximum of distance to the audience. Hard news prevailed (more than
60% of the shows duration).
2. My analysis is based on 76 TV news shows comprising more than 2000 news items dating
from 1949 to 2005. In each decade, one week or in case of a format change two weeks was
selected and the news shows of each station was included in the corpus. The weeks were chosen
according to an event that was extensively reported over several days and in both shows, e.g. the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 or the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.
Martin Luginbhl
In 1980 a new format with an anchor aiming at an increased audience attrac-

tion had been introduced. The anchors function was to establish a more informal
style when addressing the audience, by addressing it several times, using of an in-
clusive we, colloquial language, smiling at the camera etc. He started to lead in
stories with an almost didactic impetus (this event has to be understood like this;
we have to envision the following number 2 May 1986). The anchors role be-
came that of a host. Also, the genres realized underwent several changes. Instead
of film items and stories read by a newsreader, the at the time newly realized, so-
called packages (often with a visible correspondent on location talking to the
audience) became the most important genre, jumping from 0% of the shows dura-
tion to 16% in the 1970s to 31% in the 1980s.
This trend was gradually intensified until the newest format had been intro-
duced in 2005, where some aspects of the old fashioned, detached way of report-
ing were re-introduced. While the news presentation became even more dynamic
(combining footage and lead-ins with the anchor on screen), the correspondents
could no longer be seen in the packages in nearly all cases (96%) and the design
of the graphics returned to a simple style, renouncing at animated computer
graphics etc.
An understanding of these changes as americanization would seem to be
reductionist given the mentioned findings. Moreover, the paradigm shift in the
Tagesschau format of 1980 does not coincide with a change in the media sys-
tem; the dual system with private and public national TV stations was only intro-
duced in 1998, almost 20 years after the introduction of an anchor-based format.
Other private TV stations broadcasting from Germany did not play a significant
role as competitors until the early 1990s. As a corollary, the paradigm shift cannot
be solely attributed to economic changes in the media market, as it is often sug-
gested in the context of americanization.
In the case of the CBS Evening News things developed more continuously,
featuring a rather constant trend to more interpretation and evaluation, an inten-
sified staging of closeness to the audience by accentuating emotions, showing cor-
respondents on location, reporting live etc. Since the early 1960s, it was common
to show correspondents on location and talking to the audience. While current
reporting was marked by text inserts, such as via satellite, an updated version of
the package the so-called donut (Tuggle/Huffman 2001) showing the corre-
spondent live on location at the beginning and at the end of the package had
been introduced in the 1990s. Nowadays correspondents are often presented as
embedded journalists in the middle of the reported event (wearing bulletproof
vests, walking between protesters and police etc.). The anchors function changed
from announcing and summarizing news stories to framing and evaluating events,
often only hinting at the content of the following story and thus building up
suspense. Even if we can argue in this case with an ongoing, intensifying process
of creating entertainment in TV news shows, and even if we can understand this
by referring to the US media system and media market, the question remains if
these genre features are specific to this nation or only to the specific show ana-
lyzed here, or to an even wider area than just the USA. Nevertheless, the market
orientation as a dimension of journalistic culture can be regarded as a key element
of the CBS Evening News news culture.
However, in order to see if the features mentioned are specific to a certain
country, a certain language area or an even wider area, we have to broaden the basis
of our comparison referring to different factors regarding language and nation.
5. Synchronic international comparison
In the comparison of the TV news show coverage on an airplane crash in Brazil of

July 18th 2007, I analyzed nine TV news show stories from two continents, includ-
ing seven countries from five different language areas (cf. Luginbhl 2008):
English: Great Britain (Ten oclock news, BBC) and USA (CBS Evening
News, ABC World News, NBC Nigthly News)
German: Germany (Tagesschau, ARD) and German speaking part of Swit-
zerland (Tagesschau, SF)
Swedish: Sweden (aktuellt, SVT)
Danish: Denmark (TV avisen, DR)
Dutch: Netherlands (NOS journaal, NOS)
The European shows were all produced by public TV stations, as these are the
most successful and influential shows. The stories analyzed have been chosen from
the main evening show during the prime time.
Although there are of course differences between the stories of the compared
shows, there are similar features in the stories of the European public TV stations
on the one hand and in the stories of the American network news shows on the
other. Given the constituents and dimensions of journalistic cultures mentioned
above, significant differences as to the journalists institutional role, particularly in
terms of market orientation, the degree of intervention, epistemologies, objectiv-
ism as well as empiricism have been observed.
The stories of European public TV stations focus their coverage on the facts of
the event itself and its course. Central to all these stories is the answer to the
common w-questions, as well as illustrating the event or its result, respectively. In
sharp contrast to the US network stories, none of these stories makes any reference
to the country of the show itself. In addition, there are common stylistic features:
Martin Luginbhl
In the stories from European public TV stations, the shot frequency lies well above
four seconds, in the case of the NOS journaal and the Ten oclock news at about
5.5 seconds, in the case of the German Tagesschau even at 7.5 seconds. If zooms
or camera pans are used, they are slow. Also, in these stories the name of a journal-
ist is mentioned, but she/he cannot be seen in the footage; there is no live report-
ing, the stories are told in retrospect (the only exception is the BBC story, see
below). The market orientation despite the highly competitive media market in
Europe seems to be rather low as there is no connection made to the home coun-
try of the audience and no framing as a scary story. In addition, the film items
tend to give the illusion of showing the truth out there unchanged by reading
and telling the story in a detached, fact-centered manner, by choosing footage
without distinctive formal features, by hiding the process of text creation and thus
naturalizing the entire story. These film items tend to present their content as an
unmediated truth, empirically justified by unquestionable facts.
In the stories of the American network news shows the crash in Brazil be-
comes a peg for reporting on the situation in the US. Thus the crucial issue of these
stories is the current situation and preventive measures in domestic airports of the
US. As the packages of the American network news suggest that there ought to be
something done on numerous domestic airports, the correspondents have a slight-
ly more interventionist role compared to the journalists of European public TV
stations; not in the sense that they would become biased or partial, but in the sense
that they push a certain claim. Compared to the analyzed stories from Europe, the
American network news stories have a clearly more dynamic style, they can be
characterized as rapid fire narration (Grabe et al. 2000: 586). The shot frequency
observed in these stories lies at about 3.5 seconds; shots that last longer than
2 seconds usually feature a zoom or a fast camera pan. Different dynamics can
further be found in distinctive intonation patterns and prosodic features: In the
stories of the European public TV stations, the text is read in a detached or slight-
ly grave manner. In the American network stories the texts are articulated with a
variety of distinctive stresses even in words that are not crucial for the meaning
of an utterance (cf. Luginbhl 2011). The market orientation does not only leave
its traces in the story content but also in its form, be it in the shot frequency, the
dynamic of single shots or the prosodic realization of the text.
In all American network stories a correspondent can be seen reporting, al-
though not a single network actually had a correspondent on location. The corre-
spondents are reporting live, thus current reporting is staged, and they can be
seen in other news studios than the anchor or in front of a domestic airport (cf. the
caption in the story of ABC: Lisa Stark, abc-NEWS Washington D. C.). This
visibility of the correspondents promotes a certain kind of objectivity and empiri-
cism: well-known correspondents can be seen reporting, thus the author of a story
is shown during her or his work. This points at the fact that the story has been real-
ized by the correspondent shown, it does not present itself as an unmediated re-
flection of reality but as a consciously produced and created text and therefore it
refers to the selective representation of reality. Objectivity appears as ever chang-
ing, the story itself reports just the current state of knowledge. While the news
footage justifies the story empirically, the analytical justification of the correspon-
dents can become important, too. In the case of the ABC package we could even
speak of some kind of pseudo-empiricism: Obviously, it is not only important to
show the author of a story, but also to show her or him in the news field
(Montgomery 2007: 89), even if it is not the scene of the event. This refers to the
role of the correspondents as eyewitnesses or at least to their role as investigators
in the news field, which points at empirical justifications of their truth claims.
To sum up: The American network news stories promote investigative report-
ing and the role of journalists as (pseudo-)eyewitnesses who are live on air and
report the current state of knowledge. In the stories of the European public TV
stations the announcement of an objective truth is staged by a non-visible speak-
er who is reporting the key and seemingly unquestionable facts in retrospect. Not
only differ the stories from American network news regarding their market orien-
tation, but also regarding their objectivism and empiricism.
The only story that can be referred to as a kind of mixture of the two styles
mentioned is the BBC story. While the first part bears a strong resemblance to
other stories from European public TV stations, the audience can actually see the
correspondent on location in the last part, placed in front of the fuming debris.
The BBC probably was the only TV station of the examples analyzed here with a
correspondent in So Paolo at that time. While the American network news tend
to always show their correspondents in their stories (be they on location or not),
the European public TV stations only show them in the stories when they really
are at the place of the event. But even in the latter case, the way the event is re-
ported stays detached and the forms remain naturalized.
6. Synchronic national/international comparison
When comparing TV news stories on a international scale, one can notice a trans-
national style in the case of public TV stations from Europe as opposed to another
style we can find in American network news stories. Nevertheless, these translocal
styles refer to a rather general level of comparison. In detail, there are of course
differences. Given the two traditional determinants that are generally thought to
influence text style language and nation the Swiss stories are a case in point as
Martin Luginbhl
they are produced by one TV company (the Swiss public TV company) for an
entire nation, but for three different languages (German, French, Italian) by three
different TV stations (SF1 for the German speaking part, TSR for the French and
RSI for the Italian speaking part). In the following section I will compare three
stories covering the plane crash in Brazil from the three Swiss shows (Tagesschau,
20 heures and Telegiornale).
It can be stated that the three stories conform to the style that seems to be
typical for stories from European public TV stations: All stories from the public
Swiss TV stations report in an event-centered manner (w-questions), the stories
follow the inverted pyramid-style, none of the stories make any reference to
Switzerland or its airports, they report as if telling an absolute, objective truth and
their way of reporting is quite low-pace (shot frequency between 5 and 7.3 sec-
onds/shot). So what can be stated regarding the TV news stories from different
European countries is also true regarding the stories within one country: The
truth is reported in a detached manner, letting the facts speak for themselves,
thus realizing the dimension of objectivity and empiricism in a certain way.
Nonetheless, some differences arise regarding other aspects of the reporting
style. In the show for the German speaking part (Tagesschau) an accentuated,
distanced way of reporting can be observed. The story is extremely fact-centered:
only 6 seconds of a total of 2 minutes and 16 seconds are devoted to possible
causes, no possibly responsible persons in question are named, the soundbites re-
peat and thereby prove what already had been mentioned by the journalist, and
the footage is presented as a mirror of real world events, which seem to speak for
themselves (Bilder nach dem Aufprall des Flugzeugs, Here are pictures of the
scene after the crash). With respect to other text features, the reporting style is
decisively distanced: The event is named accident, there is only one sentence
about family members of the victims, the speech rate is rather slow and the jour-
nalists name is mentioned only in a short caption. Most shots selected are without
camera pan.
In the story of the Swiss station for the French speaking part, the story accen-
tuates current reporting not only in the story itself (ce soir la terrible accusation,
this evening the terrible accusation), but above all in the following telephone in-
terview with a journalist on scene (Pascal Roger-Praud, vous tes sur place, P.
R.-P., you are on site; Pascal, merci davoir tre avec nous en direct, Pascal, thanks
for having been live with us; caption: par tlphone en direct, live on the phone).
But the coverage is not only brought near to the audience in a temporal and geo-
graphic sense (by a journalist on location), but also in an emotional sense by using
corresponding vocabulary (tragdie, tragedy; horreur, horror; cest le choc et la
colre, its the shock and the anger; embrasement total, total blast; catastrophe,
catastrophy). The journalists name is not only mentioned in a caption, but also by
the anchor. This is not the only text feature pointing at a slightly different role of
the journalist. In addition, the story for the French speaking part is not as much
restricted to reporting facts as it its counterpart for the German speaking area. In
the news story of TSR, a certain cause for the accident is suggested very strongly,
especially by using a soundbite of an airport worker as argument.3 In addition to
the facts, the story conveys some kind of analysis of the event which is told like
factual information, not as analysis.
In the story of the public Swiss station for the Italian speaking part of
Switzerland we can find a rather distanced way of reporting, but in comparison to
the story for the German speaking part, footage of family members of the victims
is depicted at the beginning (emotional closeness), and, as in the story for the
French speaking part, possible causes are discussed, but none of the discussed
causes is suggested as the actual one.
While the stories from the three public Swiss TV stations have some features
in common, a range of differences can be detected, especially regarding the insti-
tutional role of the journalists and the empiricism. All three stories stick to a way
of reporting that presents the information given as objective, unquestionable and
unchangeable news. The market orientation however seems to be slightly different,
as especially the story of the TV station for the French speaking part of Switzerland
stages emotional closeness, and it also seems to be of a higher market orientation,
as it accentuates the currency of reporting.
In order to better understand these differences I compared them with the re-
lating stories from TV stations from France (TF 1) and Germany (ARD). No story
from Italy was available.
With respect to the institutional role of the journalist, there are common traits
in the story for the French speaking part of Switzerland and the story from France.
As in the story of TSR, TF 1 induces closeness to the event and does not delimit
itself to reporting the facts. As in the TSR story, we can also find emotional vo-
cabulary (choc, shock; catastrophe, catastrophy) in the TF 1-story, and a French
aviation expert induces closeness to the audience. In addition, as in the TSR-story,
a certain cause for the accident is strongly suggested and the journalists name is
mentioned by the anchor. The reported facts and suggestions appear in a more
explicit manner as a result of the journalists investigation and his analysis. The
stories for the French speaking part of Switzerland and for France seem to have a
higher market orientation and their empiricism is more of an analytical kind.
As to the stories for the German speaking part and the story for Germany, a
fact-centered, distanced way of reporting prevails. Especially the family members
of the victims are only mentioned and shown shortly; the vocabulary used is not
3. As it turned out a few days later, this suggested cause was not the actual one.
Martin Luginbhl
emotional, the journalists name can only be read in a short caption, speech and
shot rates are low. The story of the ARD discusses possible causes but explicitly
marks them as possibilities discussed in Brazil. Thus both stories show a lower
market orientation and their empiricism is of a more empirical kind.
7. Conclusions
What defines news culture? There are two possible readings for this question:
Which textual features have to be taken into account when analyzing and de-
scribing news texts and which factors are influencing news culture. Regarding
the first reading, I argued that aspects of journalistic culture can be related to as-
pects of a holistic understanding of genre style. All textual features that somehow
can be formed be it in terms of prosodic realization, lexical choices or narrative
structure of an entire text can be interpreted as bearing stylistic sense and thus
communicating certain norms and values of a social formation, as in our case the
journalistic staffs of TV news shows. I also argued that the constituents and di-
mensions of journalistic culture can be helpful when interpreting journalistic
texts culturalistically.
The second reading (influencing factors) reveals that nation and language do
matter. There are however other influencing factors, and the most important one
lies in the (changing) interpretations of these factors by the authors, i. e. the jour-
nalists. Another observation I made is that there obviously is no global news cul-
ture. On the other hand it would be too simple to state that there are national news
cultures or news cultures specific to a certain language area. The Swiss example
shows that the language area can be more important than the national belonging.
And yet, nation matters as the comparison of the BBC story and the US network
news stories shows. From a more abstract point of view, all stories from European
public stations analyzed in this article share some common traits, which can be
seen as a hint to translocal news culture.
Given the results of my analysis we can conclude that all elements in the mul-
tifactorial parallel text analysis do indeed matter: language, nation, supranational
regions. Therefore, the news culture of a single TV news show must be understood
as a hybrid style that is influenced by cultural practices that are prevalent within a
language area, a nation and a supranational region or a translocal formation. While
the Swiss TV news stories of public TV stations share some journalistic practices
and values (especially a certain kind of staging objectivity), they differ from others
(market orientation, empiricism, interventionism) that they share with shows
from public TV stations of other European countries.
This complex set of factors confirms that the view of (journalistic) genre style
in a wide range of comparative works is simplistic and it suggests that the genre
style of a certain show cannot be predicted as the influence of a single factor proves
far from possible to estimate. Also, journalists are no passive puppets
(de Kok 2008: 888) simply delivered to their context. Linguistically speaking, in-
stead of focusing on the influence of single factors it is more helpful to ask what
meanings and functions are realized with a specific genre style; which norms and
values are expressed and established by a certain news culture. And as we have to
take into account the possibility of establishing new norms and values by realizing
new genre styles, the point of reference has to be an individual news show not
the shows of an entire nation or an entire language area. This also means to under-
stand the form of news and its stylistic meaning as determined by the choices of
the journalists; the style of TV news shows seems to be determined by different
journalistic cultures of single news shows, which are hybrid formations and influ-
enced by local, regional, translocal and global factors.
Further research shall broaden the data basis in order to see the relevance of
single factors more clearly. Not only do nation and language matter, but also or-
ganizations matter (Esser 2008: 407), especially the difference between private
and public broadcasters. I did not neglect this factor, but in my corpus it coincides
with the data from the US (private TV networks) and from Europe (public broad-
casters). The reasearch in this area points at the fact that there are differences be-
tween public and private broadcasters in Europe regarding news culture, but the
relations are changing with the time and news shows of private broadcasters
from Europe can by no means be described as copies of the US network news
(cf. Krger 1998).
Further research should take into account news shows from other European
countries with media systems that differ from the ones that have been analyzed in
this study, e.g. TV news shows from Southern and Eastern Europe. In order to find
out how American or European the news cultures described really are, it would
further be necessary to take a detailed look at shows from South America, Africa
and Asia. Also, a closer look at transnationally diffused TV news shows would be
interesting in order to see which style features are realized.
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Genre matters
Theoretical and methodological issues of a
genre-based approach to contrastive media analysis
Stefan Hauser
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Contrastive media analysis is a vast field of academic research that

metaphorically speaking comes in many shapes and sizes and therefore
is confronted by manifold theoretical and methodological challenges. This
contribution focuses on two interrelated aspects: a) the problem of equivalence
as a prerequisite of comparison and b) the comparative constellation and its
effects on the interpretation of cultural variance. It is important to mention
that the discussion in this paper is set against the backdrop of a genre-based
approach. Starting from the initially rather unspectacular observation that
we find intercultural variations in generic realizations (Bhatia 2002: 11), this
paper aims at highlighting certain basic theoretical and methodological issues
that, in my view, are still often underestimated or overseen in contrastive media
analyses. I will illustrate my considerations by presenting a comparison of a
newspaper genre, the interview, in different cultural contexts.
1. Genre matters
This paper argues along the lines of a genre-based approach and aims at discuss-
ing several theoretical and methodological issues that need to be accounted for
when referring to genres as an analytic category of contrastive media analysis.
First of all, it is important to point out that the term and concept genre is wide-
ly used in various disciplines such as rhetoric, literary theory, sociology, cognitive
science, communication studies, media theory and linguistics, to name only a
few. Accordingly, the understanding of genre, as well as the conception of genre
analysis, varies quite substantially. However diverse the concepts may be, the
idea of genre being not only a descriptive but also an analytic category is at the
core of most current genre theories (e.g. Unger 2006, Linke 2007). While for a
long period of time genre study has been primarily nomological and typological
Stefan Hauser
in function (Chandler 1997: 1), the focus of many current approaches has shifted
towards a socio-cultural interpretation of genres. This is why genre analysis has
proven to be a promising as well as challenging approach within contrastive me-
dia analysis. For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to Bhatias (2002) charac-
terization of genre analysis, according to which
analyzing genre means investigating instances of conventionalized or institution-
alized textual artefacts in the context of specific institutional and disciplinary
practices, procedures and cultures in order to understand how members of spe-
cific discourse communities construct, interpret and use these genres to achieve
their community goals (...). (Bhatia 2002: 6)
In this paper, the term genre refers to a distinctive type of text that is known and
used by members of a community or social group as a routinized linguistic prac-
tice to achieve recurrent and socially recognized communicative tasks. I will use
the terms genre and text type as synonyms being aware of the fact that some
researchers (i.e. Diller 2002) use the two terms to refer to different typologies.
Here, the common aspects and not the differences are brought to the fore. The
ubiquity of genres (or text types) in the organization of interaction, and thus the
social and cultural significance of genres, is highlighted by Frow (2005: 10):
No speaking or writing or any other symbolically organized action takes place oth-
er than through the shapings of generic codes, where shaping means both shap-
ing by and shaping of : acts and structures work upon and modify each other.
To express the idea of interdependency, whereby genres are understood to be

shaped by cultural phenomena and at the same time are involved in the shaping of
cultural phenomena, the term culture-boundness (Sabban 2007) will be used in
this paper.
Generally speaking, the significance of genres is to be seen on an individual as
well as on a collective level. On the one hand, genres are crucial to particular indi-
viduals in particular situations as a kind of cognitive blueprint for dealing with
communicative tasks (Linke 2007: 476). That makes them an indispensable ele-
ment of our communicative pragmatic knowledge which we achieve in the process
of socialization. Here the idea of individuals having repertoires of genres comes
into play (cf. Swales 1990: 58). On the other hand, on a collective level, genres bear
significance as culturally shaped patterns of organizing recurrent social interac-
tion. Using the term speech genre Bakhtin (1986) highlights the flexibility and
plasticity of genres in the individual use, but he also points at the normative sig-
nificance of speech genres and thus makes an explicit link between the collective
and the individual level:
Genre matters
Speech genres are much more changeable, flexible, and plastic than language
forms are, but they have a normative significance for the speaking individuum,
and they are not created by him but are given to him. (Bakhtin 1986: 80f.)
However, the acting individuals are not necessarily aware of the socio-cultural sig-
nificance of the genres they rely upon. As Chandler (1997: 3) points out, a substan-
tial part of our genre knowledge is likely to be tacit. This view is supported by
Linke (2007: 477) who, referring to an historical genre, states that practical genre
knowledge does not necessarily comprise an awareness of the cultural and semi-
otic significance for the relevant genre (Linke 2007: 477). From the point of view
of a culturally oriented genre analysis, it is therefore an important task to analyze
and to explain intercultural variations in generic realizations in terms of socio-
cultural significance.
An important reference point for the following considerations are the studies
in Contrastive Textology where differences between text types have been system-
atically studied since the early 1980s (Hartmann 1980, Spillner 1981, Clyne 1987,
Arntz 1990, Pckl 1999, Drescher 2002, Yakhontova 2006). At the beginning, Con-
trastive Textology was closely related to translation studies, which is why intercul-
tural variations of similar text types initially were either explained in terms of
national or linguistic differences. It was only later that thinking in cultural terms
led to new interpretations of the compared texts as cultural artifacts (Adamzik
2000, Fix 2006). These more recent approaches in Contrastive Textology refer to a
renewed discussion of the relationship of language and culture and its conceptual-
izations (Gumperz/Levinson 1996, Gnthner/Linke 2006).
2. Theoretical and methodological issues in contrastive textology
The following considerations aim at highlighting the interdependencies of theo-

retical assumptions and methodological aspects in the context of contrastive me-
dia analysis. This is a central argument of this paper; that the interdependence of
theory and methodology, as a crucial point of contrastive media analysis, should
be taken into account carefully when culturalistic explanations are intended.
2.1 Culturalistic explanation or circular argumentation?
Most of the current culturally oriented media studies show a high degree of aware-
ness of theoretical problems, whereas the awareness of methodological issues is not
always equally developed. One of the core issues to start with, concerns comparison
as a method of communication studies (cf. Schulz 2008). Benigers (1992) statement
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that [a]ll social science research is comparative and that [a]ll analysis is com-
parative (Beniger 1992: 35) is open to discussion but it would certainly be mislead-
ing to assume that comparison is a self-evident and presuppositionless activity.
Among the issues which need to be considered is the problem of comparability:
Those who see comparison as a special activity also tend to have set ideas about
the special categories of things that social scientists ought to compare. This
problem is most succinctly expressed in the injunction, often issued to stu-
dents, that one cannot compare apples and oranges. In fact, it is through just
such comparison of disparate things that social science has made its greatest
advances. (Beniger 1992: 36)
Here, one of the fundamental problems of comparative research is addressed:

What should be compared, under what premises and with what result? From the
point of view of heuristics, the comparison of disparate things is not a problem in
itself on the contrary, one might say following Benigers argument. A certain
degree of dissimilarity is, in fact, a prerequisite of a meaningful analysis, as the
comparison of identical things is worthless. What is a methodological problem
however, is that apples and oranges should not be compared under the premise
that they are the same. From a basic heuristic point of view, that implies a para-
doxical situation; namely that we have to possess a sufficient knowledge of apples
and oranges to be able to compare them. This however raises the following
question: How are we supposed to use comparison as a heuristic means to gain
insight into the characteristics of apples and oranges if the prerequisite of the
comparison is that we (more or less) already need to know what the constitutive
characteristics of apples and oranges are?1
If we look at this basic predicament of comparative research in the light of the
cultural study of mass media communication, two problems become evident: the
problem of bias and the problem of circular argumentation. This can be illustrated
by a critical look at a definition of comparative research:
We may call a study comparative if two or more a priori defined cultural populations
are compared according to at least one functionally equivalent concept. (Hanitzsch
2008: 95; italics in the original)
From the point of view of compiling data material, it may seem inevitable to a pri-
ori define two or more culturally distinct populations as Hanitzsch (2008) suggests.
From a theoretical point of view however, this is a delicate issue as the criteria for
1. In the context of film studies, this kind of problem has been termed empiricist dilemma
(cf. Chandler 1997: 2). The problem is that a group of items are preselected for generic analysis
to determine shared characteristics, although their common features should be identified only
after they have been analyzed.
Genre matters
declaring two populations as culturally distinct need to be known. It is a well-known

fact, across various fields of cultural research, that the very definition of culture is
by no means simple. Methodologically speaking, it would have to be the aim of any
comparative study to minimize or, ideally, to avoid, the risk of a biased approach to
the objects of interest. How this can be achieved under the premise that two a prio-
ri defined cultural populations are identified is not a negligible problem.
The second point refers to the danger of circular argumentation. If media texts
of two a priori defined cultural populations are compared to one another, the re-
sulting differences need to be explicated and cannot simply be posited. The con-
clusion, that the observed divergences are indicative of their differing cultural
origins, is circular and thus insignificant. To avoid any misunderstandings, my
argument is not that cultural comparisons are categorically biased or circular.
Rather, the point is that, in order to avoid simplistic interpretations, the discussion
of basic methodological problems should not be neglected. In the context of and
in addition to the above-mentioned, it seems to me that two questions need to be
accounted for when doing cultural media studies: a) What kind of knowledge is
necessary to be able to adequately interpret differences of mass media communi-
cation as culturally relevant?; and b) What kind of insight into a given culture can
be gained by comparing mass media texts?
Another critical issue that is mentioned in Hanitzschs definition, is the prereq-
uisite of functional equivalence. This problem is discussed in the following section.
2.2 Functional equivalence as a prerequisite for comparative research
The most prominent comparative method of Contrastive Textology to gain insight

into aspects of cultural variance of text types is the so called parallel text analysis
(cf. Arntz 1990, Pckl 1999). According to the definition of Hartmann (1996: 950),
parallel text analysis compares texts
that are not translationally equivalent, but functionally similar in situational mo-
tivation and rhetorical structure, e.g. cooking recipes, wedding announcements,
obituary notices, encyclopedia articles on related topics, and the like, from any
pair or multiple of languages. (Hartmann 1996: 950)
In this general description of parallel text analysis, an important point is men-

tioned that deserves a closer look: the prerequisite that the compared texts are
functionally equivalent. The call for equivalence is generally seen as crucial in
comparative research:
Equivalence should be seen as the major problem in comparative research (...) and
when the problem of equivalence is ignored, investigators expose their studies to
the danger of bias. (Hanitzsch 2008: 98)
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Even though the requirement of functional equivalence appears as highly legiti-

mate, there is, from a methodological perspective, the question of how functional
equivalence can be ascertained in the process of compiling data material without
ascribing characteristics to the data before the analysis is completed. In other
words: How do we know that the necessary equivalence is given before we have
analyzed the respective data material? The compilation of the corpus is further
complicated by the fact that seemingly similar texts can vary substantially at the
functional level. To accentuate this problem even more, one could put forward the
argument that, in a strict sense, functional equivalence cannot be determined be-
fore the analysis. Rather, it would have to be part of the result of the comparison.
Moreover, from the point of view of data collection, it is obvious that, ulti-
mately, parallel text corpora can only be assembled on the assumption that the
texts in case show a satisfying degree of comparability. Therefore, functional
equivalence is firstly an assumption that allows the compilation of data material.
However, the assumed functional equivalence has to be confirmed in the process
of the analysis. As is convincingly demonstrated in Drescher (2002), the re-evalu-
ation of the presumed functional equivalence can lead to a fundamentally new
judgement of the compared data. In her comparative study on Spanish and French
obituary notices, she hints at the possibility that what initially appeared to be
equivalent texts might represent different text types after all.
2.3 Sample structures and their impact on the outcome
Among the leading assumptions in cultural analysis of media communication is

the assumption that the comparison of items from different cultural origins re-
veals culturally relevant differences.2 From a methodological point of view, one
has to bear in mind that the composition of the sample structure has a decisive
influence on which aspects of culture-boundness are highlighted in the process of
the comparison.
Zima (2000: 22) has made a strong case for the claim that all comparisons are
constructions that enable us to see things which we would not have been able to
observe without comparison. This, in turn, means that what can be seen by means
of comparison is restricted by the comparative constellation we rely upon. To refer
back to the above mentioned metaphor of apples and oranges: Whether apples
and oranges or apples and melons are compared is crucial for the resulting
2. In globalization studies there are researchers who observe that former differences between
cultures tend to diminish as a consequence of globalization processes (cf. Thussu 2006). Others,
however, point out that globalization is often accompanied by a complementary effect called
glocalization which can cause a reinvention of differences (Machin/van Leeuwen 2007).
Genre matters
characterization of the compared items. While certain aspects may be highlighted

in a specific comparative arrangement, others may be obscured. With regard to
cultural media analysis, both what turns out to be different in cultural compari-
sons, and what is typically the starting point for cultural interpretations, is, to a
considerable degree, affected by the respective sample structure. Thoma (2007)
points out that comparing media cultures always requires a decision as to what
kind of observation is intended because each comparison depends on data mate-
rial that needs to be actively selected. Therefore, a neutral point of observation is
an idealistic concept as is the idea that comparison enables an impartial or even
objective look at differences between cultures. To accentuate this problem even
more, one could argue that composing a parallel text corpus actually means that
the differences are produced by the comparative constellation and that they are,
in the first instance, an effect of comparison rather than a reliable index of cultural
peculiarity. Irrespective of whether one shares such a radical point of view, it be-
comes evident that the generic differences which an intercultural comparison
yields are not self-explanatory. If a culturalistic interpretation is intended, a basic
awareness of how the findings came about is indispensable.
Furthermore, parallel text analysis is not only affected by what kinds of data
(i.e. from what origin) are being compared but also by how many different parts
(i.e. sets of data) the corpus consists of. Most studies in Contrastive Textology use
bipartite parallel text corpora. This means that the data material consists of two
sets of texts which represent two different origins. With regard to a cultural analy-
sis, this is not without consequences, as a bipartite corpus only enables differences
between the two sets of data involved to be highlighted. However, a bipartite com-
parative constellation is not suitable for revealing whether the characteristics
found by comparison are restricted to the respective sets of data or if they also oc-
cur in other contexts which are not part of the comparison. Thus, in a bilateral
comparison, insights into the reach of specific elements are limited. Consequently,
the question as to whether certain characteristics are peculiar to one of the two
parts of the corpus cannot be answered. Even in a multilateral comparison, this
problem cannot be fully eliminated. Nevertheless, if the corpus is based on a great-
er number of different parts, a more precise picture can be obtained as to whether
or not a certain feature or a certain constellation of features is peculiar to one part
of the sample.
2.4 What culture stands for in Contrastive Textology
A common procedure in Contrastive Textology is to compile texts from different

nations with different languages and then to compare systematically occurring dif-
ferences in the composition and the style of the texts. An important, but not always
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entirely clarified, issue is what the compared texts represent. Even in current stu
dies, it sometimes remains unclear whether the corpora that are used represent
different languages, different language communities or different nations. Simply
referring to culture, is not actually solving the problem but rather shifting it to a
terminological level.
Traditionally, a substantial part of comparative research in communication
studies was based on the implicit idea of culture, nation, language and territory
being one entity.3 Along with this understanding, often comes the notion of cul-
ture as a homogeneous and static whole. In recent years, these concepts have
increasingly been contested theoretically and empirically in various fields of
research:
The simple association of one tribe, one culture, one language, which was im-
plicit in the older Humboldtian and Sapir-Whorfian traditions, (...) breaks
down. We can have speakers of the same language fractionated by interpretive
subsystems associated with distinct social networks that transcend cultural and
grammatical systems to create shared interpretive systems beneath linguistic
diversity. (Gumperz 1996: 361)
This point of view is also expressed in the succinct formula that languages spread
across cultures, and cultures spread across languages (Risager 2006: 2). It is im-
portant to highlight that language and culture are not isomorphic but distinct,
though highly interrelated, phenomena (cf. Sabban 2007: 590).
Furthermore, not only the identification of culture with language and nation,
but also the spatial affiliation of language, nation and culture with territory has
increasingly become the object of criticism. In the context of current global media
studies, it is emphasized by numerous scholars that what is problematic for a
general territorial conceptualization of culture is that it refers to a container-thinking
of nation states that is not appropriate in times of globalization (Hepp/Couldry
2010: 10). Yet, even without referring to the times of globalization, the equation
of nation = language = culture has to be challenged. In view of the fact that numer-
ous languages are spread over several countries and continents, (cf. English or
Portuguese) or over several neighboring countries (cf. German), the identification
of language, nation and culture is questionable from the very beginning.
Among the manifold issues that need to be accounted for when discussing
conceptions of culture, two more aspects shall be mentioned here; both of which
play an important role in the following quote: What shapes the news and the
structures of journalism most? Is it politics, economy or culture? (Hanitzsch
2008: 95). The first point concerns the status of culture in relation to other levels of
3. A prominent hypothesis within this line of thinking was that national cultures are intrinsi-
cally connected with mental dispositions of the people in nation states (cf. Clyne 1987, 1993).
Genre matters
analysis: Is culture an all-encompassing phenomenon or is it rather one factor

among others? In the above quotation, the latter conception seems to be the guid-
ing principle: Politics, economy and culture are conceptualized as distinct
phenomena that are positioned on the same level. Thus, culture, in Hanitzschs
understanding, is an analytical category among others of the same kind. The sec-
ond point refers to the question of how cause and effect are related. The quotation
suggests the existence of a macro-level (i.e. politics, economy, and culture) shaping
aspects of the micro-level (i.e. the news and the structures of journalism) in an
unidirectional way. According to this understanding, the characteristics of mass
media communication are seen as top-down effects. The idea of a bidirectional
relationship between the macro-level and micro-level is not contained in
Hanitzschs concept. A bidirectional concept would imply a non-essentialistic no-
tion of culture, highlighting the performative idea of culture being a phenomenon
which is in constant need of being reproduced and stabilized by its members.
Among the manifold theoretical and methodological issues that are relevant
when dealing with matters of culture-boundness, only a selection have been touched
upon in this section. The idea is not that all the problems mentioned can be (or have
to be) solved, but the reason why these points have been put up for discussion is
that they should be taken into account when interpreting findings in contrastive
media analysis. In the next section, the analysis of an empirical example will be
presented accompanied by a discussion of potential conclusions to be drawn.
3. The interview empirical findings
The comparison of text types with regard to their culture-boundness is one of the
main interests of Contrastive Textology. Against the backdrop of the above-
mentioned theoretical and methodological issues, this section will present a
comparison of a single text type from different cultural origins. The object of com-
parison is the interview in the sports section of daily newspapers.4 It is not the aim
however, to provide a fully elaborated comparison of press interviews in this section.
The intention is to focus on certain structural characteristics of the interview, in
order to reflect a number of analytical issues which result from such a comparison.
Thus the aim of the following observations is not primarily to analyze the different
forms of the press in full detail, but to bring to the fore the questions which have to
be dealt with when comparing interviews in different cultural surroundings.
4. To address the above-mentioned problem of functional equivalence, the corpus was com-
piled by referring to the genre terms that are used by the journalists themselves. Even though the
requirement for functional equivalence cannot be eliminated by simply referring to the journal-
istic terminology, it nevertheless provides a possibility to compile a corpus without following a
preconceived idea of what the constituent features of genre are.
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3.1 The corpus
In this study, a modified version of parallel text analysis will be presented; the idea
being that the theoretical distinction between culture, language and nation should
also be accounted for on a methodological level. The comparative constellation
used in this study is quadripartite and comprises of four sets of texts in two differ-
ent languages (English and German) and from four different nations (Australia,
Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland). The reason for this specific multilateral
comparative constellation is that it allows to systematically differentiate between
factors that cannot be distinguished in studies working with bilateral corpora
(for reasons that were discussed in the previous chapter). Despite the fact that tra-
ditional categories of Contrastive Textology are applied for the compilation of the
corpus, the extended comparative constellation allows the differentiation and the
control of factors that in many comparative studies are mingled into one category.
Naturally, the corpus constellation that is used here, can offer only limited insights
into the reach of the characteristics that are studied, as neither the English nor the
German language community is fully covered. Nevertheless, in contrast to a bilat-
eral approach, this quadripartite corpus is a means that, albeit only partially, allows
one to empirically validate the reach of a feature or a combination of features more
precisely and therefore to account for different influencing factors more convinc-
ingly. What is interesting about this approach is that it leads to a number of insights
but also to several problems both of which will be discussed in due course.
3.2 The interview in the German and in the Swiss press
In the sports section of daily newspapers in Germany and Switzerland, it is a con-

stitutive feature of texts that are labeled as interviews, that the contributions of
both the interviewee and the interviewer occur in the text. It is a convention that the
interview, as a written representation of the original oral interaction, has the form
of a dialogue, which means that the questions of the journalist are alternated with
the answers of the interviewed person. This has the effect that the statements of
both people who were involved in the original interaction appear in the written text
in direct speech (cf. Skeland 2003, Binder 2005). Commonly, the dialogic interplay
between the two interlocutors is accompanied by a headline and, sometimes, a lead
text.5 The example shown below, an interview with Giovanni Trappatoni, the for-
mer football coach of the football club Red Bull Salzburg, illustrates these typical
features of the interview as it can be found in the German and Swiss press:
5. Furthermore, all interviews of the corpus at hand are accompanied by a picture of the in-
terviewed person. In the sports section of current newspapers, photographs seem to be an inte-
gral part of the genre.
Genre matters
Figure 1. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.08.2006
The textbody comprises a total of eleven questions and eleven responses. This il-
lustrates that, from a text structural point of view, the questions of the journalist
and the responses of the interviewee are equally important. The only editorial ele-
ments are the two headlines (one of which is a quote), a photograph with a caption
and a short comment at the end of the text stating the journalists name. As the
interview exclusively consists of quoted oral speech, without introductory report-
ing clause, no quotation marks are used.6 This is an example of what in the
German and Swiss context can be called a classic press interview as the text
body reproduces the dialogic interaction of the original situation without integrat-
ing any other editorial elements into the turn-by-turn sequence. It is a well-known
fact however, that interviews are neither full reports nor literal transcriptions of
what was said in the original situation. Rather, it is a common journalistic practice
to edit the dialogic interaction in various respects. On a formal level, many of the
typical elements of spoken language such as reformulations, elisions, or lexical
fillers (i.e. yes, well, anyway) are omitted. Despite the claim of accuracy in quot-
ing, when oral speech is put into writing, the main criterion from a journalistic
perspective is not authenticity, in the sense of a scientifically accurate transcrip-
tion, but rather readability (Binder 2005: 36). Often journalistic practice also in-
cludes editing on the level of content e.g. putting certain sequences of the original
interaction in a different order or omitting parts of the interaction altogether.
6. To avoid misinterpretation and to make sure that each turn can be identified accordingly,
the turns are typically differentiated by either typography (eg. italics, indention, interlines) or by
putting the names of the respective persons ahead of each statement.
Stefan Hauser
Figure 2. Tagesanzeiger, 25.6.2009 (only the first page of the interview is displayed)
Even though the classic form of the interview may be prevalent, a considerable
degree of variation is observable. There is a whole range of text elements that can
be used to accompany the turn-by-turnstructure. The interview above (Figure 2),
published in the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger is such an example. In addition
to the basic components of the interview (i.e. the headline, the dialogic interplay
between the two interlocutors, the photograph), there is an extended caption un-
derneath the photograph, a lead text (in italics), an inserted information box, as well
as an inserted quote. The two main functions of such integrated textual components
Genre matters
are firstly, to attract the readers attention and secondly, to contextualize the inter-
view by providing additional information on either the interviewed person or the
topic of the interview. Despite the various additional elements, the core characteris-
tic of this interview is still the turn-by-turn structure.7
Another type of variation is the insertion of short editorial comments into the
dialogue. Typically, such comments are put in brackets and refer either to the non-
verbal behavior of the interviewee (e.g. nodding) or to pragmatic aspects of the
interaction (e.g. interrupts). Occasionally, comments on behavioral characteris-
tics of an interviewees way of speaking (e.g. hastily) are inserted. In German and
in Swiss broadsheets, a preference for the classic form of the interview can be ob-
served whilst in tabloids, there is a tendency to include additional text elements, as
well as a tendency to comment on the statements of the interviewee more often.
Despite a quite substantial degree of variation, the core feature of the interview is
its dialogic structure. A comparison with the interview that can be found in the
British and in the Australian press reveals several differences.
3.3 The interview in the British and in the Australian press
In comparison to their counterparts in German, interviews in the sport sections of

British and Australian daily newspapers display a set of different features. Figure 3
shows the top section of the front page of the Melbourne-based daily newspaper
The Age, where an exclusive interview with Andy Roddick is announced:
Figure 3. Frontpage of The Age (upper section), 28.01. 2005
7. The fact that, in this interview, there are two journalists involved in the interaction
(cf. caption) is of no relevance for the structure of the text.
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While there are various elements which this interview (cf. Figure 4) has in com-
mon with the ones discussed above, there is one important difference the text
body is not organized as an alternation of turns but as a report of the interview.
The text contains quoted statements in direct speech as well, of course. However,
Roddicks answers are integrated into a narrative text in the form of a report. So
the core structural principle here is not the dialogue. Unlike in the two previous
interviews, the questions of the journalist do not appear in direct speech.
Unlike the two previous examples of interviews, this text is not structured as a
sequence of questions and answers. In this case, the journalist reports (among
other things) on what Andy Roddick said in the interview. While the interviewee
Figure 4. The Age, 28.01.2005

Genre matters
is quoted ten times in direct speech, the interviewers questions do not occur in
direct speech. So, direct speech in quotation marks is a privilege of the intervie-
wee. Another important point is that in seven of ten cases, there is no indication
whatsoever of what the interviewers question might have been. So we are pre-
sented with Roddicks statements without exactly knowing the corresponding con-
text. This means that, in more than two thirds of the quotations, the readers have
to infer what kind of input Roddick might be responding to. This indicates that
there is a different concept of the interview as a journalistic text type at work.8
In order to illustrate that Australian, as well as British, press interviews focus
on what the interviewee says rather than on how interviewer and interviewee
interact, there is another example of an interview, published in the British daily
The Guardian (cf. Figure 5, next page). With regard to text structure, the inter-
view with the Belgian tennis player Justine Henin-Hardenne displays the same
features as the interview with Andy Roddick. There are 14 quotes of the intervie-
wee, in sometimes longer stretches of direct speech. In 11 cases, we do not know
what the journalists question was, which means that what exactly the interviewee
is responding to, needs to be inferred from the narrative context. In terms of
contextual information, it is a fundamental pragmatic difference whether both
sides of a dialogic interaction are presented in direct speech or just one of the two
sides. However, this is not to say that the omission of the questions automatically
leads to a less accurate understanding of the interviewees statements. What it
means is that the two concepts of the interview use different textual and represen-
tational strategies.
In Australian and in British interviews, the questions of the interviewer may
often be absent but they are not omitted systematically. If they do occur in the text,
they are, in most cases, expressed in a form of indirect speech. The shift of indirect
speech in the journalists question to direct speech in the response of the intervie-
wee involves a shift of the deictic center. According to the conventions of transfor-
mation for indirect speech, there are changes on the grammatical, lexical and
typographical level to be made (cf. Brngel-Dittrich 2006).9
What needs to be mentioned when discussing different forms of interviews is
that, in the German and Swiss papers of the corpus, the English version of the
interview is known as well. However, it is not perceived as an interview but as a
8. While the underlying principle of the interview as an instrument of journalism to gather

information may be comparable, the resulting text types clearly differ.
9. One of the very rare examples of a journalists question being formulated in direct speech
and being put in quotation marks can be found in the interview with Justine Henin-Hardenne
in the Guardian. In the column on the very right, the direct quote of the journalist says: And
your dad? I wonder.
Stefan Hauser
Figure 5. The Guardian, 20.6.2006 (first page of the interview)
subtype of the report. In the terminology of journalism studies, this type of text,
which to a large degree consists of quotes, is called a quote story (Zitatenbericht).
3.4 An example of genre transfer
The finding, that the turn-by-turnstructure is not a common feature of interviews

in the Australian and in the British sports coverage, can be further substantiated
Genre matters
by referring to an example of an interview which, at first glance, seems to indicate

exactly the opposite. It is an interview with Jrgen Klinsmann, the former coach of
the German national soccer team. The text was published in the Guardian on
1.6.2006 in the run-up to the World Cup 2006 in Germany. The interview is pre-
sented in an abridged form here:
Klinsmann has to win battle with the enemy within [headline]
I would like to be remembered as a trainer. The player Klinsmann doesnt exist
anymore.
He has created tons of controversy in Germany but, in person, Jrgen Klinsmann
is slightly built. It is almost as if all the grief and doubt that has dogged the na-
tional coachs relationship with the German people has been gnawing at his body.
He looks as skinny as a runner as he enters the hotel lobby in jeans and a polo
shirt. To his left is Joachim Lw, the assistant coach, carrying a black briefcase. On
his right is Harald Stenger, head of communications at the German FA. Compared
to Klinsmann, he looks like a cuddly bear.
Herr Klinsmann, the World Cup is about to begin. Wed like to test your fitness.
What is your normal pulse rate?
About 48. It is so low that the team doctor already worries about me.
Are you doing yoga every morning now?
I go running on the treadmill.
Whats Costa Ricas centre forward called again?
Paulo Wanchope. I played against him myself in England.
[further questions]
[further replies]
While at first sight the turn-by-turnstructure of this interview seems to provide

counter-evidence to the findings discussed above, a glance at the end of the text
reveals that this interview is a translation from a German original. At the very
end of the text it states: This interview, by Moritz Mller-Wirth and Henning
Sussebach, appears by kind permission of Die Zeit newspaper. Translation by
Stephanie Kirchner.
What, from a genre-perspective, is interesting is that the content is translated
from the source language German to the target language English, whereas on the
generic level, the structural characteristics of the source text remain unchanged.
Thus, the translated text is published according to generic conventions that are not
common in the British press. What can be observed here is a sort of genre transfer
(cf. Kroly 2008). A closer look, however, reveals that the form of the source text is
not transferred 1:1. While the turn-by-turnstructure is adopted in the English ver-
sion, there is an important modification to be observed which is that only the re-
sponses, but not the questions, are put in quotation marks. Thus, only the turns of
Stefan Hauser
the interviewee are typographically marked as direct speech.10 The fact that, in the
target text, quotation marks are added is significant, but what is even more strik-
ing, is that they are only added on the part of the interviewee. This can be inter-
preted as additional, though indirect, evidence for the observation that in the
British and in the Australian press it is an exception rather than a rule that journal-
ists statements appear as typographically marked direct speech.
3.5 Different journalistic epistemologies as potential factors
In Section 2, it was pointed out that variation in the realization of genres has to be
explained and cannot simply be posited. How the differences in this study are best
explained, is open to discussion. What has become clear, however, is that the dif-
ferent genre realizations cannot be satisfactorily explained by the language or by
the national origin of the texts. An explanation of the observed variance has to
refer to journalistic convictions and to journalistic practices.11
In an attempt to contextualize and to interpret the findings above, I will refer
to Essers (1998) research on different journalistic epistemologies in Great Britain
and Germany.12 The question is if, and how, the observed differences in the realiza-
tion of interviews can be attributed to Esserss insights into different epistemolo-
gies of journalism. In his comparative study, Esser (1998) points to the existence
and the influence of different concepts of truth and objectivity in the two journal-
ism cultures.
According to Esser, the principle of separation of facts from values is deeply
rooted in the consciousness of British journalists. Furthermore, he mentions a
characteristic and historically founded orientation in British journalism towards
the philosophical position of positivism, which is related to ideals such as rational-
ity, realism and empiricism. Such basic orientations enhance a kind of journalism
that focuses on the idea of a neutral and faithful representation of reality. In the
German journalism, Esser (1998) finds a stronger orientation towards educational
ideas leading to a tendency to more openly and more pronouncedly included per-
sonal opinions. Based on the idea that there is no such thing as an objective reality
and that all representations are inevitably selective, a prevalent conviction in
German journalism culture is that the pursuit of truth is inseparable from
10. According to the German conventions, there are no quotation marks in the original inter-
view (i.e. the source text) which was published the same day in the German weekly Die Zeit.
11. For a discussion of basic aspects of journalistic epistemologies cf. Hanitzsch (2007).
12. When referring to Essers study, one has to bear in mind though, that his observations on
journalistic epistemolgies rely on an predominantly nationalistic interpretation of journalism
culture.
Genre matters
context(s) and from human subjectivity. Therefore, the observable reality requires
interpretation which is why, in the German context, the concept of looking behind
the scenes is more often and more explicitly associated with personal opinions of
the journalists. However, in the British context, the idea of factual reporting
(i.e. focusing on what happened and on what was said) is prevalent when it comes
to meeting truthfulness claims.
At first sight, an unambiguous interpretation of the generic variance of press
interviews along the lines of Essers findings seems to be difficult to achieve. This
is due to the fact that, theoretically, different journalistic epistemologies could be
represented by using the same genre realization. This needs explaining, as it might
be seen as a contradiction to what has been said above. My argument here is that,
on the one hand, there is a culturally relevant relation between formal aspects of
genre realizations and genre function(s). So, the idea is that there is a fairly stable,
yet not unchangeable, relation between routinized linguistic forms and socio-
culturally relevant functions. This is what a culturalistic genre analysis aims to
explain. On the other hand, however, there is no predetermined form-function-
relation that overrides cultural peculiarities. Therefore, how form and function of
a genre are related, and how a genre represents cultural values, is not a priori de-
fined but is a combination of communicative demands and stylistic choices. This
is why the same genre realization can represent different journalistic epistemolo-
gies (cf. Clayman/Heritage 2002). However, as we have seen in the previous sec-
tion, in the case of the press interviews at hand, the genre realizations are system-
atically different.
An explanation for the observable differences in press interviews could be that
in the British and in the Australian press, the idea that objectivity is mainly a mat-
ter of presenting what can be observed and what has been said prevails. This might
explain in part why journalists are not represented in the text as active participants
of the dialogic interaction. By only presenting in direct speech what the intervie-
wee has said, and by abstaining from playing an active part in the interview text,
the journalist appears more as an observer than as an involved participant. What
the question of neutrality in media interviews is concerned, the observations of
Greatbatch (1998) and of Clayman/Heritage (2002) show parallels to the observa-
tions made here. Greatbatch (1998) points out that interviewers
must attend to a constraint that bears on all broadcast journalists in the UK. This
is the legal requirement that they should maintain impartiality and balance in
their coverage of news and current affairs and should refrain from editorial com-
ment on matters of public policy. (Greatbatch 1998: 167)
The various strategies that broadcast interviewers have developed to escape for-
mal charges of bias are discussed in detail in Clayman/Heritage (2002). What
Stefan Hauser
Greatbatch (1998) as well as Clayman/Heritage (2002) call neutralistic stance

refers to different kinds of formal neutrality.
In the turn-by-turn version of the interview, which is common in the German
and in the Swiss dailies, the journalist appears as a highly involved interlocutor. In
this case, the journalist is not taking the role of a primarily neutral observer whose
main goal is to objectively report what the interviewee has said. Rather, the jour-
nalist appears as someone who actively and openly presents himself as being an
equally important part in the interaction with the interviewee.
4. Conclusions
There are several conclusions to be drawn from the findings discussed above. The
methodological issues and the theoretical consequences will be dealt with sepa-
rately below.
4.1 Methodological issues
What the comparison of different forms of the interview reveals is that the genre
conventions in the British and in the Australian press differ from the ones in
German and in Swiss newspapers. From an analytical point of view, it is crucial to
consider whether the two observed forms are interpreted as two variants of the
same text type or as two different text types.13 If the two forms are regarded as
variations or as subtypes of the same genre, then the fact is ignored that, in German
and Swiss papers, the two forms are commonly known as two different text types
is. On the other hand, if the two forms are interpreted as two distinct genres, then
the question would be what is the tertium comparationis of the two text types. As
this case illustrates, the claim for functional equivalence, which in comparative
research is commonly seen as a prerequisite for comparing so called parallel texts,
can become a tricky problem if there is no direct equivalent for a certain text type
in the other cultural context.
This problem of different genre constellations could (or should) consequently
lead to an opening of the scope of comparison and a focus on sets or systems of
genres instead of a comparison of single genres. Although this would, quite obvi-
ously, lead to new methodological challenges, it would be a possibility to account
13. It has already been mentioned that the English version of the interview exists in German
and Swiss newspapers along with the dialogic form of the interview. However, in the German
and Swiss newspapers the non dialogic version of the interview is not understood and not pre-
sented as an interview, but as a subtype of the report called quote story.
Genre matters
for the fact that genres are elements of genre systems in communicative domains
rather than isolated phenomena. Functional and formal variations of genres can
be explained in broader terms against the backdrop of systems of genres rather
than by a comparison of single genres.
4.2 Theoretical considerations
As the findings of this comparison indicate, there are systematically occurring dif-
ferences between the compared texts which cannot be explained by national fac-
tors only. To refer to the national origin of the data in order to account for the
observable difference, is neither theoretically convincing nor is it supported by the
empirical evidence at hand. To conclude that the different forms of the interview
can be explained by different languages is equally misleading, provided one agrees
that genre conventions are not determined by linguistic properties. It would hard-
ly be plausible to claim that the turn-by-turnstructure of the interview in the
German contexts is a direct effect of the German language. It is much more con-
vincing to assume that genre conventions are principally effects of stylistic choices
made by the producers of the texts.14 This is not to claim, however, that both na-
tion and language are irrelevant factors when it comes to explaining aspects of
culture-boundness. The appropriate conclusion would be that they are potentially
relevant factors among others (cf. Luginbhl 2010).
What is more promising than a purely national or language-based conception
of culture, is to refer to the idea of journalism cultures (Hanitzsch 2007; Hahn/
Schrder 2008; Melischek/Seethaler/Wilke 2008). The concept of journalism cul-
ture implies a comparative focus on phenomena below and beyond the level of
nations or language communities. It refers to professional cultures which entail
aspects of communities of practice on the one hand and discourse communities
on the other:
Journalism culture becomes manifest in the way journalists think and act; it can
be defined as a particular set of ideas and practices by which journalists, con-
sciously and unconsciously, legitimate their role in society and render their work
meaningful for themselves and others. (Hanitzsch 2007: 369)
With regard to the role of language in the concept of journalism culture, it is im-
portant to point out that language does not only mirror cultural affiliation but that
it is also a means of creating cultural belonging (cf. Androutsopoulos 2010). This
view is based on the assumption that social groups and communities of practice
14. What degree of consciousness is involved in the stylistic choices is yet another question. The
crucial argument here is that the stylistic choices which become manifest in specific textual char-
acteristics, can only be explained by a certain use of language, but not by a certain language itself.
Stefan Hauser
fundamentally depend on a variety of symbolic practices in order to build and

stabilize common values and norms (cf. Sarangi 2009). Therefore, this paper ar-
gues for a praxeological understanding of culture (cf. Linke 2009) that highlights
the semiotic as well as the performative dimension of culture. The concept is based
on the idea that the culture-boundness of mass media texts (e.g. in the daily press)
materializes in the way journalists make use of conventional and habitualized com-
municative forms (i.e. genres or text types). Journalistic practices and journalistic
products are shaped by cognitive and evaluative structures, and journalists
mostly unconsciously perpetuate these deep structures through professional per-
formance (Hanitzsch 2007: 369). Thus, from the point of view of a genre-based
approach within cultural media analysis, I argue that genres reflect and create
effects of reality and truth which are central to the different ways the world is per-
ceived and interpreted in different cultural surroundings. Therefore, genres, un-
derstood as performative structures that shape the world in the very process of
putting it into speech (Frow 2005: 18), offer an insightful analytical category for
the contrastive study of mass media communication. Yet, to account for all relevant
factors without following a biased line of argumentation, will remain among the
main theoretical and methodological challenges of contrastive media analysis.
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Index
A collectivization 82, 83, 93 diachronic 2, 5, 76, 145, 146, 156,

access aesthetics 149, 150, 171 commodification 155, 159, 172 167, 202, 206, 207
adaptability 71, 94 communicative constraints 166 dialogic 41, 65, 168, 228231, 233,
advertising communicative function 125, 237, 238
advert 171 127 dialogue 4, 5, 16, 27, 101,
advertisement 53, 119, 123, communicative genres 4, 6, 11, 103106, 108110, 112115,
125, 129, 180, 182, 190, 194 12, 14, 19, 41, 242 117121, 167, 168, 172, 188, 228,
advertising 1, 5, 62, 109, conflict 53, 65, 68, 71, 82, 8790, 231, 232
179182, 184, 189191, 92, 95, 179, 186 discourse community 4, 11, 12,
193196 context of creation 47, 51, 52 19, 2023, 3840, 220, 239
adverts 160 context of reception 51 discourse representations 106
advice-giving 4, 11, 1317, 19, contextualization 4, 51, 52, 60, discourse semantics 49, 53, 54
2225, 28, 33, 35, 3739, 41, 42 63, 69, 71, 75, 163 distribution 15, 77, 78, 90, 125,
American network contrastive media analysis 13, 151, 156, 164166, 170
news 209211 6, 12, 48, 65, 68, 101, 118, 179, DIY [Do It Yourself] 5, 150, 151,
appraisement 83, 86 219221, 227, 240 153, 155157, 169, 172
appropriation 13, 21, 148 contrastive textology 1, 4, 18, 19, DIY punk ethic 157, 169
artifacts 52, 53, 147, 150, 156, 202, 96, 101103, 116, 118, 120, 123, Dutch 209
205, 220, 221 125, 127, 142, 202, 205, 216, 221,
audience participation shows 15 223, 225, 227, 228, 241 E
audiovisual translation 101, 105, cool loser 152, 153, 172 Economist 4, 47, 4951, 5363,
107, 119121 counter-culture 149, 151 65, 66, 191
authentic identity 156 country-of-origin 181, 197 editor 47, 5153, 58, 93, 149, 151,
critical discourse analysis 66, 153, 164, 167, 168
B 70, 74, 9698, 146, 174 election 56, 67, 69, 71, 7680,
backgrounding 82 criticism 62, 66, 69, 93, 98, 8487, 8993, 9497
Barilla 182188, 190192, 198 159, 226 electronic revolution 164
Barthes 189, 192, 195 cross-cultural media embodied experience 171
behaviourist approach 146 analysis 11, 102 ethnic 73, 7779, 8793, 95,
bimodal texts 123, 124, 137, 142 cultural adaptation 189, 190 96, 182
blog cultural a-synchrony 102, 104, ethnicities 97
bloggers 164 116 ethnicity 72, 78, 79, 84, 85, 87,
blogging 168 cultural determinism 147 88, 93
Boas 146, 173 cultural mismatch 104 exclusion 53, 81, 153, 172, 174
cultural relativism 147 expert-layperson
C culture-boundness 6, 220, 224, communication 15
call-in radio 12, 16, 41 227, 239, 240, 242 e-zine 165, 166, 170172, 175
Cameroon 4, 1113, 21, 22, 38, 40 culture-specific items 107
categorization 35, 83, 96, 150, cut-and-paste 150, 166 F
189 fan 105, 127, 148150, 153, 172,
CBS Evening News 207209, D 174, 203
217 Danish 82, 119, 209 fanzine 5, 145, 146, 149, 150,
citizenship 155 determination 82, 83 153156, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165,
classification 37, 83, 84, 86, 90 deviance 163 169174
formalism 167 I journalistic

foul language 167169 identification 19, 20, 26, 32, 35, epistemologies 236, 237
frame 41, 67, 68, 71, 74, 80, 81, 40, 71, 83, 84, 158, 180, 193, 195, journalist 28, 57, 68, 69, 71,
84, 8892, 94, 95, 104, 106, 109, 207, 226 7577, 80, 9193, 117, 127, 152,
110, 112, 117, 153, 179, 191, 207 identity 5, 23, 2527, 30, 35, 42, 203205, 208215, 227229,
France 46, 11, 12, 2123, 28, 121, 72, 73, 83, 87, 88, 93, 95, 97, 231233, 236241
126, 129, 139, 192, 213, 216 98, 145, 146, 148, 152, 155, 156,
francophone world 11, 12, 14, 158160, 162, 163, 167169, 172, K
21, 23 173, 179181, 189, 191194, 196, Kenya 6769, 71, 73, 7679,
French 1113, 15, 2123, 26, 201, 202, 206 8291, 93, 96, 97
2831, 33, 3840, 103, 104, 106, ideology 4, 47, 51, 66, 6769, 70, Kluckhohn 147, 174
110113, 115, 120, 121, 125, 127, 7478, 80, 82, 9498, 119, 150, Kroeber 147, 174
139, 182, 183, 189, 212, 213, 224 151, 155, 193, 194, 203, 204
functional equivalence 3, 102, ideological assumptions 69 L
117, 118, 223, 224, 227, 238 ideological implications 81, language area 13, 5, 201, 202,
functionalization 83, 86 89, 95 205, 209, 214, 215
inclusion 174 language use 2, 4, 40, 62, 6975,
G indetermination 82, 83, 93 77, 84, 89, 92, 94, 95, 97, 98,
gatekeepers 155 individualization 82 103, 107, 113, 115, 119, 158, 180,
Geertz 146, 174 informality 162, 168 192, 201, 202, 218, 242
genre 16, 1114, 1623, 28, instant messaging 161, 173 Lvi-Strauss 147, 174
3841, 49, 52, 53, 66, 75, 97, interaction type 11, 1315, 38 lexicogrammar 4, 47, 49, 53, 57,
102, 123, 143, 145, 149, 153, 154, intercultural communication 1, 59, 62, 64
156, 164, 167, 172, 193, 194, 202, 7, 96, 97, 118, 119 linguistic pragmatics 67, 69, 70,
206209, 214221, 227, 228, intercultural differences 137, 142 84, 94
234243 (cf. also text type) interdiscursive analysis 146 linguistic stratification 49
genre analysis 123, 143, 207, interlingual representation 4, local 3, 4, 13, 21, 41, 47, 48, 51, 52,
219221, 237, 240, 242 106, 107, 111 54, 6168, 85, 90, 148, 149, 173,
genre transfer 19, 41, 234, 235, interlingual variations 111 174, 179, 180, 186, 187, 189, 191,
242 intermedia 2, 145, 146 192, 201203, 215, 242
genzines 149 interpretative frames 109 local scenes 149
German Tagesschau 210 frame of interpretation 67, loserdom 152, 172
global 4, 5, 7, 1113, 23, 26, 28, 71, 81, 88, 91, 92, 94, 112 loss in subtitles 108
35, 47, 48, 51, 54, 6165, 68, frame of interpretations
73, 95, 97, 118120, 174, 179, interpretive frame 80, 81, 91, 95 M
180, 182, 186, 189, 190, 192, interview 41, 65, 75, 92, 93, 148, magazine 4, 14, 15, 28, 47, 51, 61,
194196, 201, 214, 215, 218, 156, 159, 166, 167, 173, 174, 212, 149, 153, 155, 160, 161, 172, 174
226, 241243 219, 227239, 241, 242 media 17, 1118, 2123, 28, 33,
global communication 189 intralingual representations 5, 3742, 48, 49, 5153, 6468,
globalization 1, 3, 6, 7, 48, 51, 106, 107 74, 77, 80, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93,
120, 179, 180, 195, 196, 202, intralingual variation 21 9698, 101, 102, 118121,
203, 206, 215, 217, 224, 226 intralinguistic analysis 145, 146 123125, 145, 150153, 155, 161,
glue sniffing 156 Italianicity 5, 179185, 187189, 170, 171, 173, 174, 179, 183, 192,
goal-directed 167 192194 195, 196, 201203, 206210,
215227, 237, 240242
H J media format 4, 11, 1315, 33,
Hall 147, 174, 196, 205 journalism 1, 5, 7, 52, 59, 65, 66, 38, 39
Halliday 49, 51, 57, 62, 66, 106, 68, 94, 96, 120, 151, 159, 172, media formats 14, 15, 22
120, 173, 174 203, 216, 218, 226, 227, 233, media genre 14, 16, 22, 39
Herder 201, 217 234, 236, 239241 media genres 3, 11, 12, 18, 21,
Holliday 1, 7, 148, 174 journalism culture 7, 203, 23, 38, 40, 41
honorific 83 216, 236, 239, 241 media linguistics 5
Humboldt 201, 217 journalistic culture 1, 201, medium 11, 13, 14, 58, 72, 105,
hybridization 3, 14, 203 202, 203, 205, 209, 214, 215 145, 147, 156, 162, 171, 173
Index
mentalist approach 146 oral traditions 11 R

monologic 168 Orwell 147, 174 radio phone-in 4, 11, 14, 16, 21,
monologue 167, 168 23, 42
multifactorial parallel text P recontextualization 77, 81
analysis 5, 201203, 205, parallel text 4, 5, 19, 77, 96, 117, register 49, 52, 54, 66, 86, 105,
206, 214 124, 201203, 205, 206, 214, 110, 113115, 167, 169, 173
multimodality 109111, 115, 121 223225, 228, 238, 241 representation 4, 5, 47, 48, 54,
multi-modal representation 103, parallel text analysis 5, 63, 6770, 74, 76, 77, 80, 81,
116, 118 201203, 205, 206, 214, 223, 8388, 9498, 101109, 111113,
music bands 154 225, 228 116118, 120, 152, 184, 195, 204,
music cultural scenes 145 participatory culture 165, 174 211, 228, 236
pasta commercials 193 representation of social
N perzines 149 actors 67, 68, 70, 76, 81, 83,
nation 13, 5, 6, 12, 47, 68, 69, Pfanzines 150 84, 88, 95
73, 77, 79, 82, 8587, 9093, Phnom Penh Post 4, 47, 58, respelling 161, 162, 163, 168, 169
97, 177, 180182, 187, 188, 195, 61, 66
201203, 205207, 209, 211, phone-in 4, 11, 12, 1317, 19, 22, S
212, 214, 215, 225, 226, 228, 239 26, 28, 29, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 42 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 147
nationality 72 phonetic spelling 161, 163 Scanner Zine 145, 156, 157,
national stereotypes 179, 191 Piaget 158, 174 165170, 173
navigation 166 politics 6, 7, 56, 57, 68, 75, 77, self-directed 167
neatness 166 78, 80, 82, 92, 97, 173, 174, 216, self-edited 149
negotiability 71, 94 226, 227 self-financed 149
neo-tribe 148, 173 post-election crisis 67, 69, 71, 77, self-production 152
neutralization 169 80, 84, 90, 91, 94, 95 self-published 149
news 47, 28, 48, 50, 52, 53, post-subculture 148 semantic move 55
55, 57, 59, 6163, 6571, pragmatic perspective 4, 67, 69, semiotic 5, 41, 49, 64, 66, 70,
7477, 8082, 8487, 89, 9197, 73, 81, 94 110, 111, 120, 123125, 130, 132,
117119, 121, 151, 160, 175, pragmatic responses 116 135137, 142, 146, 148, 173, 174,
201218, 226, 227, 237, 241 presupposition 91 183, 189, 202, 221, 240
news culture 5, 6, 95, publisher 47, 52, 149, 155, 197 semiotic approach 146
201203, 205207, 209, publishers 152, 156, 165, 170, 171 Sfanzines 150
214216 punk 5, 146, 150160, 162164, Simmel 189, 196
news discourse 4, 67, 68, 166174 slice-of-life 182
7476, 80, 81, 84, 91, 94, 95 punk community 155, 159, small culture paradigm 148
newspaper 2, 4, 47, 48, 52, 54, 164, 167, 170 Sniffin Glue 145, 151164,
61, 62, 6569, 7177, 8082, punk culture 5, 151156, 159, 166170, 172, 174
8488, 90, 91, 9395, 97, 117, 163, 167 social actor 4, 6770, 74, 76,
121, 124127, 129, 130, 132, 139, punk identity 160, 162, 8088, 93, 94, 95, 172
172, 206, 218, 219, 227, 228, 167169 social change 146, 173
230, 231, 235, 238, 241, 242 punk ideology 155 social constructionist 70
Newspeak 147 punk language 146 social identities 72, 73, 145, 146
news values 94 punk movement 151, 153, 172 social practice 2, 70, 72, 73, 147,
NME [New Musical punk rock music 150 156, 170
Express] 153, 157, 159 punk style 166 social relationships 146
nomination 83, 87 punkzine 145, 151, 152, 156, 161, socio-cultural contexts 146
NOS journaal 209, 210 163, 164, 168, 169, 172 sociolinguistic 41, 113, 119, 120,
O punkzines 145, 146, 150, 151, 153, 146, 172, 173, 175, 195, 196
156, 158, 161, 166, 172 standardization 190, 195
obituary 5, 123127, 129, 130,
stereotype 95, 97, 111, 179, 181,
132137, 139, 140, 142, 167,
223, 224 Q 183, 184, 189, 191, 193, 195
qualitative 2, 90, 146 story-telling 167, 168
opening sequence 2327, 3032,
quantitative 2, 85, 90, 146, 170 street level language 167
40
style 1, 3, 5, 6, 20, 40, 58, 61, 63, texting 146, 161163 U

71, 119, 120, 148, 149, 151, 157, text messaging 145, 146, 173, 175 underground 5, 150153, 155,
158, 166, 173, 174, 184, 201203, text type 5, 18, 41, 47, 49, 5254, 173, 175
205, 207, 208, 210212, 214, 56, 123125, 130, 137, 142, unorthodox vocabulary 167
215, 225 145, 168, 171, 202, 220, 221,
stylization 114 223, 224, 227, 233, 238, 241 V
subcultural theory 148 (cf. also genre) variability 71, 73, 94, 104, 117,
subculture 148, 174 textual triggers 116 121, 218
subcultures 173 Theory of Mode 5, 103, 109, 112, vernacular radicalism 153, 169,
suppression 82 113, 116, 119 172
Swedish 209, 216 three-tier model 148 virtual scenes 148, 149
Swiss Tagesschau 207, 217 translation 13, 18, 19, 21, 24, 41, visual rants 154, 169
Switzerland 1, 5, 6, 93, 141, 179, 101105, 107109, 111, 115121, voice 4, 50, 54, 5860, 63, 84,
182, 183, 192, 193, 201, 209, 212, 124, 135, 190, 201, 221, 235, 242 85, 92, 115, 150, 153, 183, 184,
213, 219, 228 translation studies 102, 104, 117, 188, 190
systemic functional linguistic 4, 118, 120, 121, 221
47, 49 trans-local scenes 149 W
triadic communication 37 webzine 5, 145, 146, 166, 172, 173
T tribe 71, 78, 82, 85, 87, 88, 92, 93, Whorf 147, 175
Tagg 161163, 173, 175 97, 148, 173, 226
talk-back radio 12 TV commercial 5, 179, 181- Z
Telegiornale 212 183185, 187, 189, 190, 194, 195, zinedom 165, 171
Ten oclock news 209, 210 198 zine editors 151, 167
tertium comparationis 18, 124, TV news 5, 201203, 206, 207, zine publishers 156, 165, 170, 171
127, 238 209, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217
texters 163 typography 5, 126, 229

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Contrastive Media Analysis

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (P&BNS)

Editor Associate Editor

John Benjamins Publishing Company

theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2012 John Benjamins B.V.

Approaching contrastive media analysis 1

section 1. One language one culture?

Crosscultural perspectives on advice: The case of French

Global and local representations of Cambodia: Two tales of one country 47

Contrastive news discourse analysis from a pragmatic perspective:

section 2. Culture in communication culture as communication?

Film subtitles and the conundrum of linguistic and cultural representation:

Linguistic, intercultural and semiotic contrasts of obituaries 123

Language and culture in minor media text types: A diachronic,

section 3. Does nation matter?

Italianicity goes global: National and transcultural strategies

What defines news culture?: Insights from multifactorial

Genre matters: Theoretical and methodological issues

Stefan Hauser and Martin Luginbhl

historical and intercultural pragmatics (Jucker and Taavitsainen 2010, Trosberg

Martina Drescher, Cross-cultural Perspectives on Advice, compares the communi-

intralingual representations. Applying Fowlers Theory of Mode she then shows

Adamzik, Kirsten. 2001. Kontrastive Textologie. Untersuchungen am Beispiel deutscher und

One language one culture?

To date the media landscape of francophone Africa remains largely undiscovered.

2. Radio in the African context

In sub-Saharan Africa radio has exceptional significance. Nevertheless specific

3. Advice-giving type phone-ins

Radio phone-ins primarily concerned with advice display two characteristics: on

3.1 Advice-giving as an interaction type

Advising plays an important role in many private as well as institutional settings.

3.2 Media formats with audience participation

Phone-ins belong to the family of audience participation shows (Lauerbach &

3.3 The advice-giving type phone-in as a media genre

While advice-giving which is not institutionally reshaped is characterized by two

influence speech even in their absence. In media contexts, multiple addressing

6. Cf. Drescher (2010).

4. Theoretical and methodical considerations

4.1 The basis of comparison

4.2 Cultural vs. discourse community

8. Cf. Drescher (2002a) for a discussion of these aporia.

Another argument for a limitation to the intralingual comparison is the fact

10. Cf. Nowak (1994), Drescher & Glich (1996).

4.3 On determining the respective pattern

Advice-giving phone-ins are composed of a series of interactions between the rep-

5.1 The French data14

The French corpus comprises a programme produced by the public broadcaster

5.1.1 The opening sequence

02 M [oui bonjour madame] alain;

5.1.2 The global structure of the programme

5.2 The Cameroonian data

The Cameroonian data consists of an advising phone-in broadcast by the private

presented in both languages alternatingly, only French is used in Un autre monde.

5.2.1 The opening sequence

turn of phrase unusual in standard French20. As in most of the conversations, the

5.2.2 The global structure of the programme

6. French and Cameroonian programmes in comparison

the sequential structure of advice-giving, and which in an alternative shaping of

extensive greeting rituals, which play an important role in day-to-day interaction

(1) the eucalyptus

(3) the sick cherry tree