Exploring evaluative, emotive and persuasive strategies in discourse. AAVV

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СКАЧАТЬ and environment have something to do with this issue. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate. (EO_EXP_020)

      A further meaning within Entertain that could not be accommodated in the subcategories mentioned above concerns the cases where the writer indicates that what s/he is communicating is his/her own opinion, which may well coexist with other opinions. These cases, signalled with the category Opine, differ from Estimate and Infer in that the truth of the proposition is treated as non-verifiable; that is, the utterance has no objective truth and consequently the writer’s opinion may well coexist with other different opinions (Carretero and Zamorano-Mansilla 2013: 324-325). Some expressions of Opine are arguably, in my opinion or to my mind.

      Martin and White also include deontic modality as part of Entertain (2005: 110-111) but, as was stated above, the deontic category expresses effective stance and is therefore excluded from the analysis. Therefore, the Entertain system devised for this research consists of four categories: Estimate, Infer, Speculate and Opine.

      The other subcategory of Expansion is Attribute, which covers the representations of the proposition as grounded in the subjectivity of an external voice, thus situating it within a range of possible positions (Martin and White 2005: 98). In other words, the information is attributed to an external source and the writer does not express a high degree of commitment (the cases in which the writer subscribes to the information belong to Contraction, subcategory Endorse, as will be seen in 4.2.1.). I adopt Martin and White’s (2005) division of Attribute into the subcategories of Acknowledge and Distance.

      Acknowledge comprises the cases in which the source of the information is specified, but the writer gives no clues about his/her own position. The expressions of Acknowledge include verbs of saying and of thinking with persons different from the first (he/she thinks, they say, it is said… X reports / states / declares / announces / believes / thinks…), and expressions of opinion by persons different from the writer (in X’s opinion / view…, according to X…). Distance differs from Acknowledge in that the authorial voice explicitly distances itself from the information transmitted by the specified source (Martin and White 2005: 113), by expressing or implying that this information is false or at least unreliable. Examples of Distance are (12), as well as (13) and its English translation (14):

      (12)In other words, we are producing and consuming much more than our economic indicators suggest – and the creators of many of those products are not being adequately compensated. (EO_ESS_006)

      (13)Sólo faltaban mil años para que los fuegos purificadores del juicio final arrasaran el mundo, según creían los hombres del siglo XV (SO_EXP_003)

      (14)According to fifteenth-century man, only 1,000 years remained before the purifying flames of the Last Judgment would destroy the world (ETrans_EXP_003)

       2.2.2 Contraction

      Contraction differs from Expansion in that, even if it also admits the existence of alternative positions, “the utterances challenge, fend off or restrict the scope of the alternative positions and voices” (Martin and White 2005: 102). That is to say, the writer supports only one of these positions. Expressions of Contraction are used when the writer feels the need to lay emphasis on commitment to the truth of the information that s/he is transmitting because it is not obvious to others and hence challengeable. Therefore, Contraction seems out of place when there is no room for challenge: for example, certainly would be odd in I’m certainly wearing a green coat in a face-to-face conversation. Contraction is divided into two subtypes: Proclaim and Disclaim.

      The subcategories of Proclaim are Concur, Pronounce and Endorse. Concur “involves formulations which overtly announce the speaker / writer as agreeing with, or having the same knowledge as, some projected dialogic partner”. (Martin and White 2005: 122). That is, the statement is presented as agreeing with, or having the potential to agree with, the majority of voices. Expressions of Concur include adverbials that express agreement with previous expectations (of course, naturally, not surprisingly, admittedly…), strong evidential expressions such as clear, evident, obvious and the derived adverbs, and other ways of indicating agreement with other opinions (as everyone knows, it is well-known that, it is acknowledged that, no-one would deny that…), as well as the Spanish equivalents of these expressions. Concur also includes those expository questions that assume an obvious answer (Martin and White 2005: 123), such as (15) and its Spanish translation (16):

      (15)Does anyone in their right mind think that any country would willingly put itself through what Greece has gone through, just to get a free ride from its creditors? (EO_ESS_001)

      (16)Alguien en su sano juicio cree que algún país estará dispuesto a atravesar voluntariamente lo que Grecia ha tenido que atravesar, sólo por conseguir ventajas de sus acreedores? (STrans_ ESS_001)

      The second subtype of Proclaim, Pronounce, “covers formulations which involve authorial emphases or explicit authorial interventions or interpolations” (Martin and White 2005: 127). That is, the author expresses that his/her opinion is firm, without referring to other opinions. Realisations of Pronounce include emphatic affirmation, expressions of epistemic certainty (certainly, definitely, really, surely, for sure…), lexical verbs referring to speech acts or mental states of certainty, in the first person (I know, I say…), other expressions which insist that the facts are real (the fact is that…), and even parallelisms or repetition of words.

      The third subtype, Endorse, “refer[s] to those formulations by which propositions sourced to external sources are construed by the authorial voice as correct, valid or undeniable or otherwise maximally warrantable” (Martin and White 2005: 126). Endorse resembles Attribute in that an external source is mentioned, but in this case the writer supports only the position expressed by the source, thus expressing high commitment to the information transmitted. Expressions of Endorse include verbs such as show, prove, demonstrate, find or point out with different persons from the first.

      The Disclaim category challenges some contrary position, by openly rejecting it or by positioning itself at odds with it. Its subcategories are Deny and Counter. Deny consists in the overt negation of a proposition. Cases in which negation affects only part of the clause, as in (17), have also been included, since the writer’s intention is still to reject the idea that Greece should bear the consequences. Verbs with negative meaning such as lack, fail or neglect have also been considered as cases of Deny, following Mora (2011: 65).

      (17)If Europe has allowed these debts to move from the private sector to the public sector – a well-established pattern over the past half century – it is Europe, not Greece, that should bear the consequences. (EO_ESS_001)

      The other subcategory, Counter, “includes formulations which represent the current proposition as replacing or supplanting, and thereby ‘countering’, a proposition which would have been expected in its place” (Martin and White 2005: 120). In short, this category concerns counter-expectation. Among the many realisations of Counter, the most frequent are conjunctions and connectives of contrast such as although, however, yet, but, adverbials such as even, only, just, still, already or yet, and the Spanish equivalents of all these expressions. Counter also includes the adverbials actually and in fact and Spanish correlates such as en realidad or de hecho.

3 The Research Hypotheses

      Before embarking on the actual Engagement analysis of the texts, three hypotheses were set. The first was that expressions of Engagement tend to be faithfully translated; in order to check this hypothesis, the texts analysed (see Section 4) include English and Spanish originals СКАЧАТЬ