Concordance Analysis in Discourse: Unveiling Newspaper Narratives
Understanding Concordance and Its Significance
A concordance is an alphabetical list of the principal words used in a book or body of work, listing each instance of each word with its immediate context. In corpus linguistics, it is a list of all the occurrences of a particular search term in a corpus, presented within the context in which they occur, usually a few words to the left and right of the search term. A concordance is also referred to as KWIC (Key Word In Context), where the “key word” is the word currently under examination. This can be any word that interests the researcher.
Newspaper Articles: A Rich Source for Discourse Analysis
Paul Baker, a prominent researcher in the field, highlights the value of examining newspaper articles for discourse analysis. Newspaper articles are one of the easiest text types to collect, thanks to the existence of numerous searchable internet archives. This accessibility makes newspapers a useful resource for studying the production and reproduction of discourses.
Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches
Frequency lists can be helpful in determining the focus of a text, but care must be taken not to make presuppositions about the way words are actually used within it. Therefore, it is necessary to take an approach that combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. This approach is more productive than simply relying on quantitative methods alone. As Paul Baker asserts, “a concordance analysis is one of the most effective techniques that allow researchers to carry out this sort of close examination.“
The Power Dynamics in Newspaper Discourse
Journalists can influence their readers by producing their own discourses or helping to reshape existing ones. These discourses are often shaped by citing the opinions of those in powerful and privileged positions. This is referred to as the “hierarchy of credibility,” whereby powerful individuals’ opinions are accepted because they are perceived to have access to more accurate information on particular topics than others.
Audience Reception and Interaction
However, audiences are not passive. Meaning is created through the interaction between a text and its readers. Texts can only take on meaning when consumers interact with them. For example, readers of traditional women’s magazines may view them as a marker of low status, using them as an activity that fills time and does not require much attention.
The readership of a newspaper also has the opportunity to respond via its letters page, although only a proportion of letters are published. The newspaper has the capacity to veto, edit, or prioritize those which it decides to print. Readers may also refuse to buy a newspaper if they disagree strongly enough with the discourses it regularly employs. For instance, the Daily Mirror’s circulation fell below two million for the first time in 70 years during its coverage of the 2003 war on Iraq, which was linked to its anti-war stance.
Collaboration in Newspaper Discourses
Discourses within newspapers are usually the result of collaboration between multiple contributors.