Development of a translation device for axiological-semantic density in political news articles: Wording and charging
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385311 , vital:68006 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-0156"
- Description: The concept of axiological-semantic density from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is extremely helpful in analysing political knowledge-building, as it describes the strength of relations between various people, political stances and moral judgements, enabling these to be positioned in relation to each other. We present a multi-level translation device designed to identify strengths of axiological-semantic density in political news articles from the Daily Sun, South Africa’s most popular tabloid newspaper. This translation device was devised through analysis of selected texts from a corpus of 516 articles published between January and June 2015. It was developed through a collaborative process involving the first author and a team of student research assistants. The final translation device has five tools, of which two, the wording and charging tools, are described in this article, and then illustrated using an example analysis of a Daily Sun political news article. Both tools reveal insights into South African political discourses and ways in which axiological-semantic density can be enacted in future research. Making axiological-semantic density visible using such a translation device also has practical applications in assisting readers to understand the ways in which publications such as the Daily Sun position political parties, enabling them to engage more constructively in discussions on the country’s future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385311 , vital:68006 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2020-0156"
- Description: The concept of axiological-semantic density from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is extremely helpful in analysing political knowledge-building, as it describes the strength of relations between various people, political stances and moral judgements, enabling these to be positioned in relation to each other. We present a multi-level translation device designed to identify strengths of axiological-semantic density in political news articles from the Daily Sun, South Africa’s most popular tabloid newspaper. This translation device was devised through analysis of selected texts from a corpus of 516 articles published between January and June 2015. It was developed through a collaborative process involving the first author and a team of student research assistants. The final translation device has five tools, of which two, the wording and charging tools, are described in this article, and then illustrated using an example analysis of a Daily Sun political news article. Both tools reveal insights into South African political discourses and ways in which axiological-semantic density can be enacted in future research. Making axiological-semantic density visible using such a translation device also has practical applications in assisting readers to understand the ways in which publications such as the Daily Sun position political parties, enabling them to engage more constructively in discussions on the country’s future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
Constellations, technicality, iconisation and Eskom: A case from South Africa’s Business Day
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385350 , vital:68010 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2022.2040369"
- Description: This article uses Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to explore interactions between various resources for building economic and political knowledge in a 2015 article from Business Day, a South African newspaper, concerning the country’s energy crisis. We use LCT to observe how three constellations are built in the article: a ‘developmental state’ constellation; a ‘neo-liberal’ constellation; and another underarticulated constellation that selectively draws ideas from both the preceding constellations. These constellations are built through the unfolding of the text using various linguistic resources, which we describe using SFL, including technicality and iconisation. We identify instances where words are charged with both ideational and axiological meaning concurrently, challenging existing understandings of the process of iconisation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385350 , vital:68010 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2022.2040369"
- Description: This article uses Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to explore interactions between various resources for building economic and political knowledge in a 2015 article from Business Day, a South African newspaper, concerning the country’s energy crisis. We use LCT to observe how three constellations are built in the article: a ‘developmental state’ constellation; a ‘neo-liberal’ constellation; and another underarticulated constellation that selectively draws ideas from both the preceding constellations. These constellations are built through the unfolding of the text using various linguistic resources, which we describe using SFL, including technicality and iconisation. We identify instances where words are charged with both ideational and axiological meaning concurrently, challenging existing understandings of the process of iconisation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
“Eye on the big prize!”: Iconizing the Democratic Alliance in the Daily Sun
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385324 , vital:68007 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/splp/article/view/253996"
- Description: This article gives a snapshot view of how Mmusi Maimane’s rise to leadership in the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2015 was reported on in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest-selling national daily newspaper (South African Audience Research Foundation, 2016). Through analysis of a Daily Sun news article exemplifying trends in the positioning of the DA in the tabloid over the first half of 2015, the present study demonstrates how Maimane tried to align the DA around a new iconography (Tann 2010, 2013), centred on the values of “freedom”, “fairness” and “opportunity”. Moreover, the present study also shows how this purported transformation in the DA was treated with scepticism by the news article’s author, who iconizes the DA as incapable of transformation and effective governance. Fine-grained complementary Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) analyses were conducted on this news article. The LCT analysis shows how multiple voices in the news article create conflicting binary constellations, axiologically charged through various linguistic resources, including intertextual references. The analysis, using SFL’s Appraisal system (Martin and White 2005), shows how iconization is accomplished in the news article through evaluative language, coupled with intertextual references, grammatical metaphor andtechnicality to produce syndromes of meaning in the news article. Such iconization works, in this case, to reproduce an attitude of cynicism toward party politics in post-apartheid South Africa. This cynicism foreshadows Maimane’s ultimate lack of success in transforming the discourses of the DA.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385324 , vital:68007 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/splp/article/view/253996"
- Description: This article gives a snapshot view of how Mmusi Maimane’s rise to leadership in the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2015 was reported on in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest-selling national daily newspaper (South African Audience Research Foundation, 2016). Through analysis of a Daily Sun news article exemplifying trends in the positioning of the DA in the tabloid over the first half of 2015, the present study demonstrates how Maimane tried to align the DA around a new iconography (Tann 2010, 2013), centred on the values of “freedom”, “fairness” and “opportunity”. Moreover, the present study also shows how this purported transformation in the DA was treated with scepticism by the news article’s author, who iconizes the DA as incapable of transformation and effective governance. Fine-grained complementary Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) analyses were conducted on this news article. The LCT analysis shows how multiple voices in the news article create conflicting binary constellations, axiologically charged through various linguistic resources, including intertextual references. The analysis, using SFL’s Appraisal system (Martin and White 2005), shows how iconization is accomplished in the news article through evaluative language, coupled with intertextual references, grammatical metaphor andtechnicality to produce syndromes of meaning in the news article. Such iconization works, in this case, to reproduce an attitude of cynicism toward party politics in post-apartheid South Africa. This cynicism foreshadows Maimane’s ultimate lack of success in transforming the discourses of the DA.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
We’re talking about semantics here: Axiological condensation in the South African parliament
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385389 , vital:68015 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.2.03sie"
- Description: This article describes how procedural knowledge is produced in a meeting of the South African parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport, using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Members of this committee argue over whether or not to amend a draft committee report and in the process co-construct procedural norms for future committee meetings. Participants on both sides of the argument use axiological condensation, in which actions and ideas are associated with each other and charged with a particular moral or affective value ( Maton 2014 : 130) to portray their version of the procedure to be followed as morally superior to that of their opponents. They also use axiological rarefaction ( Maton 2014 : 130) to reinforce their positions by making apparent concessions to those on the other side of the argument. This is revealed through an analysis of the coupling of ideation and Appraisal ( Martin 2000 : 161) in the logogenetic unfolding of members’ talk, combined with elements of Interactional Sociolinguistics ( Gumperz 1982 ). The analysis suggests that axiological condensation and rarefaction in this meeting reflect competing visions of what it means to be ‘pro-democracy’ in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385389 , vital:68015 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.2.03sie"
- Description: This article describes how procedural knowledge is produced in a meeting of the South African parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport, using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Members of this committee argue over whether or not to amend a draft committee report and in the process co-construct procedural norms for future committee meetings. Participants on both sides of the argument use axiological condensation, in which actions and ideas are associated with each other and charged with a particular moral or affective value ( Maton 2014 : 130) to portray their version of the procedure to be followed as morally superior to that of their opponents. They also use axiological rarefaction ( Maton 2014 : 130) to reinforce their positions by making apparent concessions to those on the other side of the argument. This is revealed through an analysis of the coupling of ideation and Appraisal ( Martin 2000 : 161) in the logogenetic unfolding of members’ talk, combined with elements of Interactional Sociolinguistics ( Gumperz 1982 ). The analysis suggests that axiological condensation and rarefaction in this meeting reflect competing visions of what it means to be ‘pro-democracy’ in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Informed Interdependence: A model for collaboration in fostering communicative competencies in a Commerce curriculum
- Siebörger, Ian, van der Merwe, Kristin, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , van der Merwe, Kristin , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124822 , vital:35700 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2015.1023502
- Description: The current orthodoxy among academics in higher education studies is that content and language learning should be integrated in order to facilitate communicative competencies in degrees seeking to prepare students for business and professions such as accounting, engineering and pharmacy. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been well-theorised and its goals are laudable; however, we contend that a one-size-fits-all solution of complete integration is not the most practicable or pedagogically-sound option in all contexts. Instead, we argue that establishing relationships of Informed Interdependence between content and language courses may offer greater benefits in specific contexts. This argument may appear counterintuitive, but we believe it has significant insights to add to the continuing dialogue around the use of CLIL. Accordingly, we describe a Professional Communication course at Rhodes University and then outline how we have responded to changes in our context through a process of engagement which led to a new course, namely, Professional Communication for Accountants, and recurriculation of the original Professional Communication course. In reporting on this process we foreground the importance of suitable boundary objects and discursive spaces around which interdisciplinary collaboration can occur. We provide staff and student reactions to a pilot project designed to test the curricular innovations made thus far, and conclude by reflecting on the efficacy of an Informed Interdependence model in our context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , van der Merwe, Kristin , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124822 , vital:35700 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2015.1023502
- Description: The current orthodoxy among academics in higher education studies is that content and language learning should be integrated in order to facilitate communicative competencies in degrees seeking to prepare students for business and professions such as accounting, engineering and pharmacy. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been well-theorised and its goals are laudable; however, we contend that a one-size-fits-all solution of complete integration is not the most practicable or pedagogically-sound option in all contexts. Instead, we argue that establishing relationships of Informed Interdependence between content and language courses may offer greater benefits in specific contexts. This argument may appear counterintuitive, but we believe it has significant insights to add to the continuing dialogue around the use of CLIL. Accordingly, we describe a Professional Communication course at Rhodes University and then outline how we have responded to changes in our context through a process of engagement which led to a new course, namely, Professional Communication for Accountants, and recurriculation of the original Professional Communication course. In reporting on this process we foreground the importance of suitable boundary objects and discursive spaces around which interdisciplinary collaboration can occur. We provide staff and student reactions to a pilot project designed to test the curricular innovations made thus far, and conclude by reflecting on the efficacy of an Informed Interdependence model in our context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Resemiotising concerns from constituencies in the South African parliament
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385362 , vital:68011 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2015.1061892"
- Description: Members of Parliament (MPs) in South Africa represent different constituencies across the country. In this article, we report on how MPs resemiotise concerns from their constituencies in spoken discourse in a parliamentary committee, and on the effectiveness with which this informa- tion is in turn resemiotised into a written committee report. Both resemiotisations form part of a genre chain which we investigated while conducting a linguistic ethnography of the communica- tion difficulties which occur in parliament's committee process. We use a multi-stranded theoretical foundation, including tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics, Interactional Sociolinguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to analyse MPs’ ability to communicate concerns from their constituen- cies in parliamentary discourse. We conclude that the success of MPs’ resemiotisations of these concerns depends on their ability to rescale them as relevant on a national level, and on their ability to negotiate the power relations at play in parliament.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385362 , vital:68011 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2015.1061892"
- Description: Members of Parliament (MPs) in South Africa represent different constituencies across the country. In this article, we report on how MPs resemiotise concerns from their constituencies in spoken discourse in a parliamentary committee, and on the effectiveness with which this informa- tion is in turn resemiotised into a written committee report. Both resemiotisations form part of a genre chain which we investigated while conducting a linguistic ethnography of the communica- tion difficulties which occur in parliament's committee process. We use a multi-stranded theoretical foundation, including tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics, Interactional Sociolinguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to analyse MPs’ ability to communicate concerns from their constituen- cies in parliamentary discourse. We conclude that the success of MPs’ resemiotisations of these concerns depends on their ability to rescale them as relevant on a national level, and on their ability to negotiate the power relations at play in parliament.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Can contracts be both plain and precise?
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123299 , vital:35425 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2011.651944
- Description: One argument against the use of plain language in legal documents is that it is impossible to convey legal meanings in plain language with the same precision as in specialist legal discourse (Hunt, 2003). We tested this claim by redrafting an extract from a lease agreement into plain English in three stages, producing three versions of the extract in progressively plainer English. We submitted these with the original lease agreement to a senior advocate to elicit his opinion on whether the plain-language versions of the extract are equivalent to the original in legal force. Various differences between the versions are analysed using lexical semantics and Systemic Functional Grammar (as described in Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). This analysis reveals that the redrafted versions could easily be altered to eliminate the difference between them and the original extract, and that ‘plain language’ as conceived by redrafters of official documents may be easy for non-experts to read, but more difficult for experts. This demonstrates that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to readability is often not tenable, and that plain-language activists can learn much from research (such as Street, 1993) which asserts the existence of a plurality of literacies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123299 , vital:35425 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2011.651944
- Description: One argument against the use of plain language in legal documents is that it is impossible to convey legal meanings in plain language with the same precision as in specialist legal discourse (Hunt, 2003). We tested this claim by redrafting an extract from a lease agreement into plain English in three stages, producing three versions of the extract in progressively plainer English. We submitted these with the original lease agreement to a senior advocate to elicit his opinion on whether the plain-language versions of the extract are equivalent to the original in legal force. Various differences between the versions are analysed using lexical semantics and Systemic Functional Grammar (as described in Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). This analysis reveals that the redrafted versions could easily be altered to eliminate the difference between them and the original extract, and that ‘plain language’ as conceived by redrafters of official documents may be easy for non-experts to read, but more difficult for experts. This demonstrates that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to readability is often not tenable, and that plain-language activists can learn much from research (such as Street, 1993) which asserts the existence of a plurality of literacies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Newspaper literacy and communication for democracy: is there a crisis in South African journalism?
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125304 , vital:35770 , https://doi.org/10.2989/SALALS.2009.27.4.4.1024
- Description: Media theorists such as Barnett (2002), Buckingham (1997 & 2000) and Sampson (1999) describe a perceived crisis hindering the media’s ability to inform citizens for participation in democracy. One of the symptoms and causes of this crisis, they argue, is that the media use language that many citizens cannot understand. This article draws on theories and methodologies from linguistics to investigate whether this claim holds true for South African newspapers. The concept of the crisis in journalism is deconstructed in the light of Street’s (1984) ideological model of literacy. In a pilot study, multiple readability tests were conducted on one article from each of three newspapers, Business Day, The Herald and Daily Sun. The findings of these tests, and a systemic functional grammar analysis of cohesion and lexical density in the three articles, show that all three newspapers tailor their language to fit their target markets. This, triangulated with the rapid growth in readership of the Daily Sun and the more modest growth of The Herald, suggests that many South Africans are better informed for participation in democracy than in the past, although newspapers can do more to help readers learn a plurality of literacy practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125304 , vital:35770 , https://doi.org/10.2989/SALALS.2009.27.4.4.1024
- Description: Media theorists such as Barnett (2002), Buckingham (1997 & 2000) and Sampson (1999) describe a perceived crisis hindering the media’s ability to inform citizens for participation in democracy. One of the symptoms and causes of this crisis, they argue, is that the media use language that many citizens cannot understand. This article draws on theories and methodologies from linguistics to investigate whether this claim holds true for South African newspapers. The concept of the crisis in journalism is deconstructed in the light of Street’s (1984) ideological model of literacy. In a pilot study, multiple readability tests were conducted on one article from each of three newspapers, Business Day, The Herald and Daily Sun. The findings of these tests, and a systemic functional grammar analysis of cohesion and lexical density in the three articles, show that all three newspapers tailor their language to fit their target markets. This, triangulated with the rapid growth in readership of the Daily Sun and the more modest growth of The Herald, suggests that many South Africans are better informed for participation in democracy than in the past, although newspapers can do more to help readers learn a plurality of literacy practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
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