Journalistic Quotation Techniques: Reported Speech Exploration in Select Editorials from a Functional Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

This study investigates the projection of roles in newspaper editorials using Functional Linguistics, with a focus on clause complex analysis and its connection to the logico-semantics of quoting and reporting speech or thoughts. Functional Linguistics provides a framework for understanding how language is used to project roles onto different participants in discourse, such as journalists, politicians, and the public. Clause complex analysis is employed to examine how clauses are organized and combined in chains to represent speech or thoughts, shedding light on how these representations contribute to the construction of roles. The logico-semantics of quoting and reporting speech or thoughts play a crucial role in this process, as they determine how reported speech, or thoughts are attributed to specific participants. By integrating clause complex analysis with the logico-semantics of quoting and reporting, this study offers a comprehensive approach to understanding the projection of roles in newspaper editorials. It demonstrates how grammatical choices, such as the use of direct or indirect speech, influence the attribution of speech or thoughts to different participants, thus shaping their roles within the discourse. In this scenario, reported speech can also be used to engage the reader by bringing in the voices of relevant stakeholders or by presenting contrasting viewpoints. This can make the editorial more interesting and persuasive. The data of this research are clause complexes containing projections in editorial texts of 3 international newspapers, namely the New York Times, Saudi Gazette, and Times of India. Each of the newspapers is represented by 60 news stories in leading articles for editorial texts. The data are analyzed by using a manual analysis technique in which the clause complexes are analyzed and categorized concerning systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory about projection. The findings indicate that there are two kinds of projection used in news story texts, namely hypotactic locution, and hypotactic idea. The logico-semantics of quoting and reporting further enrich the analysis by examining the logical and semantic relationships between the reported speech and the participants involved. This aspect of the study elucidates how the choice of reporting strategy, such as direct or indirect speech, affects the attribution of speech or thoughts to specific participants, thereby shaping their roles within the discourse. Through a comprehensive examination of reported speech in newspaper editorials, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of language in projecting roles and shaping meaning in media discourse. It sheds light on the persuasive strategies employed by editorial writers to influence readers\' perceptions and opinions, highlighting the intricate interplay between language, ideology, and power in journalistic discourse. To sum up, this research demonstrates how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), through clause complex analysis, offers a subtle understanding of how roles are projected in newspaper editorials. It highlights the role of language structure in the representation of social actors, showing how grammatical choices influence the portrayal of these actors and their relationships within the editorial discourse. By providing insights into the persuasive strategies employed in editorials, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms through which language is used to influence readers\' perceptions and opinions in the realm of media discourse.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

This study aims to study and explore the clause complex as a linguistic resource for making up the logical meaning of the editorials in newspapers. Adopting Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in the analysis, the study takes the clause complex as the basic unit for analyzing the editorial articles of three international newspapers. This study is a comparative account of the clause complex system found in three international newspaper editorials. This study adopts a Systemic Functional perspective. The central hypothesis of this research is to explain how clause combination meanings are built in newspaper articles in general and editorials in particular.

In the realm of Functional Linguistics, the analysis of projection, particularly through reported speech, in newspaper editorials offers a nuanced understanding of how language is used to attribute speech or thoughts to different participants in discourse. The term Projection is equivalent to direct and indirect or reported speech in traditional grammar. This analysis, when viewed through the lens of the logical metafunction, provides insights into the underlying mechanisms through which roles are projected onto participants such as journalists, politicians, and statesmen. The logical metafunction, as defined within systemic functional grammar, focuses on the organization of ideas and the construction of meaning in language.

The projection of roles through reported speech in newspaper editorials is not merely a grammatical exercise but a complex interplay between language structure and meaning. By analyzing how clauses are organized and how logical relationships are established between the reported speech and the participants involved, we can uncover the persuasive strategies used by editorial writers to influence readers' perceptions and opinions.

Media has skillfully shaped the world of today. “Whereas in the past it had been the historians who constructed history, by transforming doings into meanings (historiography) and thus providing each recorded event with a history of prior conditions relevant to its interpretation, in our time it has been the media who construct history, by the simple process of deciding what is news”, M.K. Halliday and J.I. Webster (2003:365). Therefore, studying editorials and showing their features is an important way to understand how the powerful media can shape the thinking of readers today. In general, media power is symbolic and persuasive and have the potential to control to some extent the minds of readers.

In this study, the aim is to explore the projection of roles in Functional Linguistics within newspaper editorials, focusing on clause complex analysis and the logico-semantics of quoting and reporting speech or thoughts. Through this exploration, we seek to deepen our understanding of how language is used to construct meaning and project roles in media discourse, highlighting the role of the logical metafunction in this process.

II. RESEARCH BACKGROUND

The language of newspapers, like other genres, is special and aims at a specific audience. It includes grammatical and phonological systems that serve many purposes such as informing the readers, instructing them, and entertaining them at large. Though many studies have been done regarding newspapers none of them has discussed the clause complex systems in the construction of information in the newspapers using systemic functional grammar. The Clause complex refers to the clauses that are connected systematically and meaningfully. The meaning becomes clearer and well-enhanced by putting many clauses together to create a bigger complex of them and hence becomes one event. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014:430) clarify this point by saying “Semantically the effect of combining clauses into a clause complex is one of tighter integration of meaning: the sequences that are realized grammatically in a clause complex are constructed as being sub-sequences within the total sequence of events that make up a whole episode in a narrative”.

Therefore, the clause complexes are powerful tools to analyze newspaper editorials extensively and explore the lexicogrammatical patterns that are prominent in the newspapers. According to S. Eggins (232,233: 2004) “The projection is just one of the different types of logical relationships that can bind adjacent clauses together. The projecting clause is the clause which contains the mental process… it is important to understand that with projection there are two clauses involved. Each clause needs to be analysed for its transitivity structure. Only the projecting clause will be a mental process (or verbal process). The projected clause can be of any process type: material, mental, verbal, existential, relational.”

 This indicates that the main clause comes either verbal or mental in the sense that the sayer or believer as this study would explain this in detail along with supporting examples.

III. PROJECTION RELATIONS AND TACTIC SYSTEM

In this paper, I will discuss the expansion system and its subparts and how they effectively played meaning-making resources in editorial texts, the projection relations, which are also a part of the logico-semantic system, deal with relations between projecting clauses (phenomenon) of verbal or mental features and the content of thinking or saying and the content is considered as a meta phenomenon in systemic functional grammar. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014:516) state that “As with nexuses projecting locutions, nexuses projecting ideas consist of a phenomenon – the projecting clause – and a meta phenomenon – the ‘content’ of the projecting clause…”

The direct or indirect quotations are used by journalists as one of the strategies to show neutrality in their news reporting and this conforms with Van Dijk's statement in his book ‘News as Discourse’ (1988:70) that “These quotes suggest that 'these are his words,' and are used routinely when the journalist wants to distance himself from such an expression…,” and also added that “quotes are a powerful strategy for the journalist to avoid the constraints on impersonality, opinions, point of view, and formality.”

This paper discusses the roles of projections with the taxis system in meaning-making procedures in news editorials.

Projection relations can be both paratactic and hypotactic. Paratactic relations occur when one clause makes a direct quotation of speech or thought whereas hypotactic relations transpire when one clause makes an indirect quotation of speech or thought. Projection refers to the relationship that exists between a projecting clause containing a verb of saying or thinking and a projected one that expresses what is said or thought. In Systemic Functional Grammar as shown in IFG4 (2014 509-511) three systems are involved in the differentiation of different of projections.

A. Kinds of Projection

1. The level of projection (idea vs locution)

The projection can be a representation of a mental clause; such projections are called ideas. On the other hand, the projection may be a representation of a verbal clause; such projections are called locutions.

2. Mode of projection (paratactic and hypotactic)

The mode of projection refers to whether the statement or proposition is reported indirectly and hence referred to as hypotactic, and if quoted as such, it is seen as paratactic. Therefore, locutions and ideas can be projected paratactically; such projections are referred to in traditional grammar as ‘direct speech’. Here the exact words of the Sayer are quoted. Locutions and ideas can also be projected hypotactically; such projections are referred to in traditional grammar as ‘indirect speech’.

3. The speech function of the projection

The speech functions can be divided into two kinds: propositions which include statements and questions and proposals which comprise commands and offers.

The analysis of the data found that projections have 183 occurrences in the editorials under consideration. Verbal projections have 144 relations divided between paratactic verbal projections which obtain 59 instances whereas the hypotactic verbal relations attain 85 instances in the whole data. Mental relations, on the other hand, have only 37 hypotactic relations and 2 occurrences of paratactic mental relations. The following points will discuss the two parts.

IV. ESEARCH METHODS

A. Data Collection

This research aims to investigate the logical connections between the editorial texts which tailor the information structure for the readers meticulously. The data were collected from three international newspapers namely the New York Times, Times of India, and Saudi Gazette respectively. Topics chosen to cover political, social, and other issues. Sixty editorial texts were chosen and shortlisted for analytical study. The texts under study are selected from online websites of the abovementioned newspapers and can be accessed online at https://www.nytimes.com/,https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ and http://saudigazette.com.sa/   respectively. The selected materials were published between June and September 2018.

B. Study Design: Steps of Analysis

This research goes through several stages or steps which can be up to six steps. An example of text extraction is to show the way the editorial texts are structured for analysis. It shows the knowledge construction in newspapers through the grammatical resources of the clause complex in 6 analytical steps. They will be as follows:

1. Presentation of the selected editorial text as orthographic units

First, I will present one sentence and apply the steps to it. This sample editorial is taken from the NYT newspaper.

“One would think that at a tête-à-tête with the Russian autocrat, the president of the United States would take on some of the major concerns of America and its closest allies.”

2. Pointing out the clause complexes as units of analysis.

In this step, the clause complexes which are considered as units of analysis in this research are located in the editorial text. Also, the distinction is done to differentiate clause complexes which can form clauses from clause simplexes which cannot form any stretch of language more than one clause. The table below will show the clause complexes in contrast with simplexes as well as embeddings in the selected editorial from the New York Times.

Table 3.3: Presenting the clause complexes as units of analysis vs simplexes.

3. Presenting the Tactic System of Clause Ranking Clauses

The tactic system refers to the status of clauses that can stand alone or that are dependent on another clause. Editorials are analyzed into clause complexes highlighting relations of interdependencies. Then the tactic relations are studied to see whether clauses are equal (paratactic) or unequal (hypotactic). One clause carries one information unit. For the clauses which are connected paratactically, Arabic numerals 1,2,3,4…. . are used to indicate them while clauses that are linked hypotactically are distinguished by Greek letters α, β, γ, d, e, …. etc.

4. Indicating the notation conventions of Taxis and Logic-semantic Relations

In this fourth procedure, the notation conventions that are used in SFL theory are also called the principal markers which realize all types of logico-semantic relations in any text. The adopted notations that tag logico-semantic relations in SFL are mentioned in Halliday and Matthiessen (2014: 438). The notations are represented as symbols: the symbol (=) refers to elaboration relations, the symbol (+) refers to extension relations, the symbol (x) refers to enhancement relations, the symbol (‘’) refers to the projection of ideas (thinking and believing) and the symbol (“ ”) refers to the projection of locutions (saying and telling). The following table will show the principal markers of the logico-semantic relations in the selected editorial.

The table below will highlight the tactic relations among clauses in the selected text.

Table 1: Presenting of the tactic system in the NYT editorial

Table 2: Indicating the text as numbered sequences of taxis and logico-sematic relations.

5. Counting the Tactic and Logico-semantic relations in the data.

In this step, we need to look at the logico-semantic relations and Tactic relations across the whole data. This happens by selecting each coding category and its similar occurrences in the whole editorials under study. Then the same category will be compared to the total number of a specific logico-semantic relation.

6. Determining the Favored Logical Structures

The analysis of editorials using the clause complex relations reveals the way the logical meaning is structured across the texts. Such an analysis in the editorials indicates that both the paratactic and hypotactic relations converge together to support the logico-semantic system in the newspapers displaying their news and propositions to their wide readership.

V. PROJECTION OF LOCUTIONS IN THE EDITORIALS

In the projection of locutions, two clauses are linked together through which the projecting clause encodes the sayer and the verbal process while the projected one carries what is said by the sayer.

The verbal projections far outnumbered the mental ones in the existing data as mentioned above verbal projections have overwhelmingly contributed to the information construction in news editorials. Their distributions in the data will be presented in the table below.

Table 3: Distribution of Projection of Locution relations in editorials

Projection relations are an important part of news editorial texts in that they show the other participants in events by referring to them via direct and/or indirect speech. The editorial coherence and news constructions are achieved by displaying facts and propositions explicitly in the manner of reporting what politicians say or deliver in their speeches. This has been revealed in the projecting clause which encodes the sayer and verbal process and in the projected clause which indicates the content of the saying. The projected locutions focus on propositions.

The verbs that have been used in projecting paratactic relations are say, tell, call, tweet, insist, wrote, admit, state, suggest, deliver, correct, and warn.

Verbal projections in the editorials under consideration have both paratactic and hypotactic instances.

The structural environments of the paratactic projection relations will be discussed below:

1. In single relations in an unmarked theme:

2. In single relations in a marked theme:

3. In single relations in which the projected clause has been interrupted by the projecting clause:

4. Nested in a hypotactic verbal projection relation:

5. Nested as part of a paratactic clarification relation:

6. Nested in the continuing clause of paratactic enhancing temporal later time relations:

7. Nested in the hypotactic non-defining relative clause:

8. Nested in a paratactic positive additive extension relation:

9. Nested in the hypotactic cause reason enhancing relation:

10. In relation with an enhancement relation:

11. In relation with a hypotactic positive conditional clause:

The examples above show paratactic verbal projections can adjust their positions with other relations of expansion types and other hypotactic verbal projections.

As the examples show paratactic projections can be in any order either the projecting then projected clause as in:

The president said “ I will leave office next year”

1                                                                        “2

 or projected then projecting clause:

“I will leave office next year”, the president said.

“1                                                                      2

In some cases, the projected clauses can be interrupted by the projecting clause such as

“The safety of our country”, the president said, “is above all laws”.

 1…                                      ? 2?????                                                    ??

The projecting clause “the president said” interrupts the quoted projected clause “the safety of our country is above all laws” and because the projected clause comes first it is labeled 1 and the projecting clause comes second it is labeled 2.

Paratactic verbal projection relations provide the propositions as such without any modifications to make it for the readership of news editorials that quoted utterances belong to the locutors be it politicians, statesmen, or organizations. In this case, the editors distance themselves from any bias in their articles.

Regarding the hypotactic verbal projections, the data shows that there are 87 instances occurred in the editorials under analysis. Most of the projection locutions in the data were exemplified by verb ‘say’ (27instances), verb ‘tell’ (9 occurrences), verb ‘insist’ (6 instances), verb ‘report’ (4 instances), verb ‘suggest’ (2 instances), verb ‘announce’ (3 instances), verb ‘express’ (2 instances), verb ‘claim’ (3 cases), verb ‘admit’ (2 examples), verb ‘argue’ (4 instances), verb ‘declare (2 instances), verb ‘assert’ (2 instances), and remaining verbs have one or two occurrences only.

The selection of verbs and words by the news editors and politicians as well depends on the intended readers to affect their opinions towards certain situations. Hence, Van Dijk’s asserts that “Rather, the bulk of our everyday news is an instance of the speech act of assertion. For such speech acts to be appropriate the writer must express propositions that are not yet known to the listener/reader and which the writer wants the listener/reader to know.” This is seen in the news texts chosen in this study.

Their structural contextual environments in the editorials will be presented in the examples below:

a. In single relations in an unmarked order:

b. In sub-complex with hypotactic cause reason enhancement relation:

c. In sub-complex with a hypotactic temporal enhancing relation:

d. In sub-complex with addition relations:

e. In sub-complex with conditional relations:

f. Intermixed with projection and elaboration relations:

g. Chained with extension and elaboration relations:

Hypotactic verbal projections show that they can go with other relations to support the reported speech. Remarkably, unlike paratactic verbal projections, hypotactic verbal ones have the unmarked order only, that is, the dominant clause first and then the dependent one. In the hypotactic verbal projections, the content can be manipulated depending on the tense selected by the reporter. Bloor and Bloor (2004:197) in their book ‘Functional Analysis of English’ state that:

“Reported speech does not always represent what was actually said in this precise one-to-one manner. Unlike direct speech, reported speech does not purport to be a precise reproduction of the words used. It may be only an approximation to what was actually said…”.

The verbal projections of both paratactic and hypotactic relations in the editorials shed light on the utterances of politicians and connect them to current situations taking into consideration the sociolinguistic contexts to produce more effective editorial texts. The projections indicate the circumstances under which the speech was uttered.

VI. PROJECTION OF IDEAS IN THE EDITORIALS

Projection of ideas occurs when one clause has the Senser or Sayer and the mental process projects another clause that contains a thought or an idea. The analysis of the data found that mental projections have 39 occurrences out of which 37 instances are hypotactic mental relations and 2 instances are paratactic ones. Their distributions in the data will be displayed in the table below.

Table 4: Distribution of Projection of Ideas relations in editorials

As the table above shows paratactic mental relations have only two instances and they will be presented below:

Hypotactic mental projections show more occurrences than paratactic mental relations. All the mental projections in the data have the functions of information exchange and hence focus on propositions only. They were realized by cognitive verbs.

The verbs that occur frequently in the data to project the ideas are: ‘believe” (10 instances), ‘think’ (5 instances), ‘show’ (3 instances), ‘know’ (3 instances), ‘signal’ (2 instances), ‘remember’ (2 instances), ‘recall’ (3 instances), ‘note’ (3 instances) and the remaining verbs mainly occur in single instances. Their contextual environments in the editorials will be shown below.

1. In single relations:

2. In sub-complex with addition extension relations:

3. In sub-complex with enhancement relations:

4. In relation with both extension and enhancement relations:

5. In sub-complex with non-defining relative clause elaboration relations:

6. In sub-complex with verbal projections and extension relations:

7. In intricate structures:

Looking at the examples above, mental projections can be in single clause complexes or in a sub-complex with expansion relations such as elaboration, extension, and enhancement subcategories. This shows that mental projections play a vital role in editorial text interpretation and can cater to socio-cultural values that are encoded in the mental projections. For example:

That’s not good enough for Mr. Trump, who thinks Europeans should be forced to buy American-made cars.

In the above mental projection clause, the socio-political tone is there which attracts the American people's interest, and the president tries to show how he cares for his country's car industry.

Hence, this cognitive projection clause interacts with other elaboration relations to show who believes what. Therefore, mental projections are very significant in their effect on the readers of editorials.

VII. SUMMARY OF PROJECTION RELATION

The analysis findings of projection relations in the data show that projections have 183 occurrences in the editorials under consideration. Verbal projections make up 78.7% (144 out of 183) while mental relations, on the other hand, reach 21.3% (39 only 37 out of 183).

From the 144 verbal, paratactic verbal projections obtain 41% (59/144) whereas the hypotactic verbal relations attain 59% (85/144) instances in the whole data. Mental relations, on the other hand, have only 94.9 (37/39) hypotactic relations and paratactic mental relations got 5.1% (2/39).

Tactically, both verbal and mental relations have 66.7% (122/183) hypotactic relations and 33.3% (61/183) paratactic relations which show that projection relations in general favor hypotaxis (dependent) clauses over parataxis (independent) clauses in their information exchange in the editorials.

The following table summarizes projection relations and their frequent occurrences in the editorials.

Table 5: Classification of projection relations and their percentage frequency distribution

The verbs that have been used in projecting paratactic relations are say, tell, call, tweet, insist, wrote, admit, state, suggest, deliver, correct, and warn.

Most of the hypotactic projection locutions in the data were exemplified by the verb ‘say’ (27instances), the verb ‘tell’ (9 occurrences), the verb ‘insist’ (6 instances), the verb ‘report’ (4 instances), the verb ‘suggest’ (2 instances), the verb ‘announce’ (3 instances), the verb ‘express’ (2 instances), the verb ‘claim’ (3 cases), the verb ‘admit’ (2 examples), the verb ‘argue’ (4 instances), the verb ‘declare (2 instances), the verb ‘assert’ (2 instances), and remaining verbs have one or two occurrences only.

The verbs that occur frequently in the data to project the ideas are: ‘believe” (10 instances), ‘think’ (5 instances), ‘show’ (3 instances), ‘know’ (3 instances), ‘signal’ (2 instances), ‘remember’ (2 instances), ‘recall’ (3 instances), ‘note’ (3 instances) and the remaining verbs mainly occur in single instances.

To sum up, direct speech “paratactic projection” is more accurate than indirect speech “hypotactic projection”, that is, direct quoting usually is the same wording of the speakers rather than altering it as indirect speech does. The attribution of the content of speech and the source of quotation plus the person who said that is very important in newspaper editorial texts. The fidelity to the source sometimes is violated when it comes to hypotactic projection in cases where tenses and pronouns are changed. In general, projections of locutions and ideas in the editorials are essential to add credibility to the texts. Another motive for the use of hypotactic projections is to gain effectiveness in summarizing what the news source implied and hence to persuade the readers of the propositions that editorials need them to be convinced with.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2024 Mr. Fahd Mohammed Sagheer Eid. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.