Tecniche espressive della lingua inglese

There’s lot of redundancy it’s the intention of the author: so the Prince was very sad

(line 21 and 42).

He mentions the bulbuls twice(to refer to the Arabic world).

There’s something unusual: the nightingale speaks.

Line 78: it is strange that they were going to die but they are young.

“clergymen” is a word linked to the European (every day culture).

At the end of the story there is even a solution (“I can marry your father”). 07/03/2012

Views in the news

Introduction

Free press

Dailies or newspapers.

Free press in the Western world.

Freedom of the press: where is the freedom of the press limited? Is everything legitimate?

How far is it legitimate to publish everything?

Personal opinions should be accepted: everyone has the right to express ideas and

opinions.

Truth and false. Publish something on the base of first information can be a problem.

Often newspapers have not so much news: there are also personal opinions of the writers.

Advertising finances the newspapers. Purpose: to promote a brand and to raise money.

What is news?

Is the critic of a movie or of a book a piece of news?

News is information that should be interesting for the readers.

Idea of the scoop. If not the event in itself, but a certain feature that make it worth writing

and reading.

Media magnates

There are newspaper owners. They control certain newspapers. Editorial policy. They are

often industrialists.

TV programs, different types of newspapers, magazines.

People in the news

Columnist: someone who writes regular articles that appear on the same page, usually

expressing opinion.

Copy editor: the person who corrects or edits a reporter’s copy and writes headlines.

Correspondent: a reporter based in a different location. 5

Tecniche espressive della lingua inglese

Editor: the person who decides what news will be included and excluded, and decides the

layout of the paper.

Editor-in-chief: the person responsible for the content, publication standards and ethical

conduct in the process of news gathering and presentation.

Newsmaker: a person directly involved in the news story as a protagonist

Source: a person who supplies information (may also be a reporter, survey, etc.)

Newsworker: one of the people involved in overseeing, writing and editing the news.

Who pays for the news?

Government, sales, advertising.

Slant: different slants of presentation, regarding the interpretation of the same event.

Newspapers tend to put advertising in particular places, for example usually not in the

section of politics.

Problems of advertising

If the newspaper has a contract with a producer of luxury goods and is writing about the

poverty in the world?

Can newspapers be impartial?

It is practically impossible not to be subjective.

Spin. Spin comes from the game of baseball. It is the effect given to the ball when it is

thrown against the batter. The effect can’t be programmed. The spin is the twist given to

the ball. The spin is the ideological message behind news. The article always has some

kind of spin behind it.

Political spokesmen are often called spin-doctors. To doctor means to manipulate, change,

insert something. Spin-doctor is a person who controls news. Important personalities and

politics have spin-doctors.

News can be dangerous, can be manipulated and manipulate the readers.

Quality and popular press

In England quality newspapers are «The Telegraph», «The Guardian», and «The

Independent».

Popular press, or tabloids. «The Sun», «The Daily Mirror».

At the beginning tabloids were smaller. Now, they have also influenced quality

newspapers, in order to be more easily read.

Tabloids are more popular, full of scandals, sex questions… They almost don’t give

information about politics. The Royal Family is always a subject of tabloids. More

photographs, more colloquial styles (jargon, everyday language).

«The Daily Express» and «The Daily Mail» are in-between.

Readership. Each type of newspaper has its own readers. Newspapers take as granted that

the readership will be in symphony with what the newspaper states.

Readers expectations.

Unit 1. What is news?

News story

News story: contradiction. News is expected to be the real presentation of a fact. News

writers contested this use of ‘story’, preferring ‘articles’…

Newsworthiness

What do we talk about. What is worth writing about and put in newspapers.

There is a series of factors used to determine what is called the newsworthiness of a story.

News values:

- Timely. The story must be recent, it has to be happened in the last 24 hours.

- Negative. Negative events are always more newsworthy.

- Novel. Unexpected events are more interesting.

- Celebrated. Well known people attract the attention more.

- Geographically close. As time, also space must be near.

- Culturally close.

- Attributable. News that can be attributed to a specific important source (White

House).

- Factual. Story has to have a lot of details and to be collocated in a precise reality.

- Numerical. Bigger numbers make bigger news (death, money…).

- Personal. Events are presented in a more familiar and personal view. For example, a

murderer is interviewed. Single people more than abstract stories.

- Relevant. You have to find a sense or logic in a message, or the story will be

ineffective. 08/03/12

Language in texts and contexts

Understanding the mechanisms of medical text

Eps= English for special purposes.

There are many types of English according to the different professions.

Some characteristics are common to the many Englishes but other are specific to each text.

The fixed structure of the medical articles is made up by different parts:

-background: the context in which the article is written. It is a presentation easily

accessible.

Article p. 25: the topic is presented errors in medicine (when doctors forget something

after a surgery operation inside the bodies). They never write something by themselves,

there are many contributes of many persons.

It’s a special article.

Here there’s a double reality: medical investigation and medical articles (specified and

general sections)

It involves 3 aspects:

a. an understanding of the problem

b. an explanation that if fought to be accepted by the reader

c. a documentation

In the title there’s the topic of the article. It immediately involves the medical profession,

the question of the reputation in society of the medical profession, the public image of the

medical profession.

The writers has to try to appear objective, impartial and develop a kind of sympathy,

solidarity in order to get the reader understand. He has also to implicitly defend the

medical profession.

The title is a technical one: “retained instruments” (=strumenti ritenuti). It is a readymade

expression, not invented by the writer. 7

Tecniche espressive della lingua inglese

“Retained” has many meanings: it is something maintained. Idea of holding on something,

not give back something.

=instruments forgotten in the point for the specialists

=instruments that the body keeps in itself for common readers

The structure of the background: it is composed of four paragraphs that have different

topics. The numbers of sentences and words contribute to the effect of the medical article.

Introduction (1 and 2), climax (3) and conclusion (4) are the functions of the paragraphs.

There’s a structure of numbers behind the article.

-The first sentence is the topic sentence, that underlines the problem. It is clear, direct,

immediate, objective. It begins with a subject and two co-ordinated verbs. There are two

extremely common world at the beginning: common and harm (it is a devaluation of the

word danger).

Error can be countable or uncountable. Error with no articles indicated big categories, it is

abstract and errors with article.

Error is more sophisticated.

Plurality gives number, quantities.

The introduction is a mitigation of the problem. It prepares to the justification.

Nearly every sentence has a connector.

-second sentence: “however” is a limitation, it is adversative.

Here we have an echo of the title.

The subject is a phrase “isolating the factors”

Underlined idea of justifying. It is difficult to justify why people forget instruments.

Repetitions in typical for coherence. “error” is in the first, second and third sentence.

-third sentence: repetition of the problem and then the explanation errors are frequent

because medicine is difficult.

-forth sentence: it adds something, “furthermore”

“factor” is again repeated.

It says that errors happen not enough to be understand. It is a contradiction with what it is

said before. The same thing is said but with a negative tone.

Everyday language is used to talk about a technical subject. “devastating”

Idea to identify a pattern, a scheme to give reason of why all the errors happen.

-fifth sentence: it is the last sentence that concludes the paragraph.

It repeats the word of the second sentence.

It tells exactly what they are going to do.

Some researches have been done but not in that section.

-sixth sentence: topic sentence that repeats the title.

“Error” is again in singular.

-seventh sentence: “incidents” reminds something casual

“may” again =sometimes result major injuries

-eighth sentence: gives the first objective dates.

It gives a list of major injuries with the number of deaths.

-ninth sentence: “many” is a vague word.

“can”= it has the capacity, the possibility

-tenth sentence: “yet” connective word

The errors persist because nothing is done to stop this problem.

-eleventh sentence: “although” mitigation

They put their hand forth: there are not sure number of errors. It is only an estimation.

There are two numbers: when they forget something. It is a wide range of indecision. The

numbers are very flexible.

It finishes with data.

-twelfth sentence: topic sentence “great uncertainity”, it’s a mystery why this errors

occur.

th

-13 sentence: Indications of the nurses behaviour in the operating room. “standards”

Only some sponges have to be used.

Important of the count after and before the operation.

th

-14 sentence: the standards recommend that the instruments have to be count in all cases,

every time you open up and close a body.

th

-15 sentence: passive verb form idea of impersonal responsibility.

th

-16 sentence: the procedure have not been follow you see the results.

th

-17 sentence: they do everything of what they must do but sometimes they forget

something in the body.

th

-18 sentence: who is the resp