Semiotic changes generated by the rise of online news sites have greatly enhanced access to different versions of the news, making it possible for the general public to compare and contrast the representation of the same event on a global scale. The process of producing, accessing, and perceiving news is undergoing fundamental changes, accelerating the hybridization of genres. Representation is central to the process of all meaning construction and language plays a decisive but not exclusive role in the representation of world events in news sites. Various questions, however, need to be raised about the activities of representing, construing and experiencing news. For example, is it possible to base convincing ESP syllabuses on online news sites? If so, how can we provide trainee journalists with the multiplicity of viewpoints they need when training for their chosen profession and through which to guide their learning of English? In answer to these questions, this article uses a blended multimodal and lemma-based corpus approach to analyse G8 Summit reporting in English-language news sites. Based on the experience of teaching in a degree course in journalism at the University of Messina (Italy), the article specifically investigates research into syllabus construction that explores the connections between visual and linguistic items in framing news and the possibility for students to create their own corpus based on websearching. Apart from promoting future journalists’ (meta)linguistic and (meta)textual skills, in general, the paper is designed specifically to contribute to the construction of ESP syllabuses that explore intercultural and institutional aspects of news sites using websearching tools that foster students’ creation and use of website corpora. The paper argues the need for syllabus construction that carefully balances micro and macro features before any implementation of an ESP corpus-driven syllabus is undertaken with and by students.

Websearching and corpus construction of online news sites inESP: government leaders on show at G8 summits

CAMBRIA, Mariavita
2011-01-01

Abstract

Semiotic changes generated by the rise of online news sites have greatly enhanced access to different versions of the news, making it possible for the general public to compare and contrast the representation of the same event on a global scale. The process of producing, accessing, and perceiving news is undergoing fundamental changes, accelerating the hybridization of genres. Representation is central to the process of all meaning construction and language plays a decisive but not exclusive role in the representation of world events in news sites. Various questions, however, need to be raised about the activities of representing, construing and experiencing news. For example, is it possible to base convincing ESP syllabuses on online news sites? If so, how can we provide trainee journalists with the multiplicity of viewpoints they need when training for their chosen profession and through which to guide their learning of English? In answer to these questions, this article uses a blended multimodal and lemma-based corpus approach to analyse G8 Summit reporting in English-language news sites. Based on the experience of teaching in a degree course in journalism at the University of Messina (Italy), the article specifically investigates research into syllabus construction that explores the connections between visual and linguistic items in framing news and the possibility for students to create their own corpus based on websearching. Apart from promoting future journalists’ (meta)linguistic and (meta)textual skills, in general, the paper is designed specifically to contribute to the construction of ESP syllabuses that explore intercultural and institutional aspects of news sites using websearching tools that foster students’ creation and use of website corpora. The paper argues the need for syllabus construction that carefully balances micro and macro features before any implementation of an ESP corpus-driven syllabus is undertaken with and by students.
2011
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11570/2015037
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