1. Judgement in Crime News
Aditi Dubey-Jhaveri
Assistant Professor
Centennial College

2. Aims
Analyze the way in which solidarity and alignment with readers is realized in student-produced crime news texts.
Examine the language resources student journalists use to align the reader with their view.

3. Methodology
Textual analysis of news reports using Jim Martin’s Appraisal Theory
40 student-produced crime news reports (one class of students)
ESL learners
Associate Degree students in a HK university

5. Objectivity and Subjectivity in News Stories
Hard News: Factual, neutral, objective and impersonal
The hard news report is a benchmark for journalists, a textual base level, which may be transformed into ‘commentary’, ‘editorial’ or ‘feature’.
Argumentative texts such as ‘editorials’ contain explicit opinions and are regarded as: subjective, evaluative and personalized.

6. Objectivity Media researchers argue:
All value judgements are backgrounded or naturalised in hard news stories in the way the event is presented
As if, it’s the only way of writing about it.
Thus, the impartiality / factuality of a text is not the measure of the degree to which it accurately represents reality
Rather, it is the success of the text in presenting its underlying set of value judgements and ideologically informed responses:
As natural and normal
As fact, not opinion
As knowledge, not belief

7. Appraisal
“…is concerned with the interpersonal in language, with the subjective presence of writers/speakers in texts as they adopt stances towards both the material they present and those with whom they communicate.
… how writers/speakers approve and disapprove, enthuse and abhor, applaud and criticize, and … how they position their readers to do likewise.
It is concerned with the construction by texts of communities of shared feelings and values, and with the linguistic mechanisms for the sharing of emotions, tastes and normative assessments.”
(Martin & White, 2005, p. 1)

9. 3 Sub-types of Attitude
Affect (emotion): evaluation by means of which writers indicate their emotional disposition towards a person, thing or an event
Judgement (morality/ethics): normative assessments of human behaviour making reference to rules and conventions in society
Appreciation (aesthetics): assessments of the form, appearance, composition, impact, significance etc. of artefacts and objects

10. Judgement of Character/Behaviour
Involves positive or negative assessments of human behaviour by reference to a system of social norms
Acts to indicate judgement value by directly or indirectly reflecting on the behaviour or performance of some human individual / group
Operates in a particular cultural & ideological context

12. Findings: Good vs. Evil (Simplistic)
Generally, the positive qualities of the victim are stated to highlight their innocence:
‘The baby, aged between 4-6 months old, was found crying in her crib and obviously very hungry.’
the positive qualities of the police are mentioned to show their competence:
‘Police have successfully stopped a burglary…’
the positive qualities of the witness:
‘A witness heroically caught the offender and reported the incident to the police.’
And the positive qualities of the perpetrators are shown by highlighting their ability to do the crime:
‘The counterfeits are skillfully made and the magnetic strips are well-encoded. They appear completely real to the untrained eye.’

13. Findings Blurred Boundaries between ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’
A small number of students attempted to disturb the conventional division of characters into good and evil:
‘He was a good guy. But he could be quite mean when it came to money’, said Mr. Lee, a friend of the victims.
‘School reports showed all 5 suspects performed well in their studies and extracurricular activities.’
A neighbour described the victim as a ‘cold woman who rarely talked to neighbours’ and said that her boyfriend was ‘rude who looked like a triad member with tattoos on his arms.’

14. Findings Construction of Offenders & Naming as a way of Judging
Noun choices for offenders
Racial: Mainlanders, Taiwanese men, foreign domestic helpers, killers from the Mainland
Gender: man, male, men
Age: Teenager, youth
Deviant labels: culprit, drunk driver, killer, robber, murderer, triad leader

15. Findings Construction of Victims through Noun Choices
Marital status: A Mainland couple
Racial / regional identity: An immigrant
Gender: an office lady, a middle-aged woman
Age: baby, children

16. Findings Other Lexical Items
Adjectives used for the nature of crime or attack
Battered woman, cruel manner, brutal attack, fierce attack, causing serious injury, badly wounded, gruesome discovery, tragic conclusion, unfortunate incident, deadly attack
Verbs used to describe the nature of the crime
Banged, stabbed, beaten up, double-crossed
Reporting verbs used to describe the suspect’s statements:
Claimed, admitted, confessed

17. Conclusion Students know how to maintain the status quo in society
They may not fully know about the rules of newswriting or grammar but they know how to align themselves with the reader by appealing to their sense of shared moral norms of behaviour and conduct
The construction of their texts reflect the prevalent and dominant discourses in Hong Kong
Readers may often not be able to identify these implicit evaluative strategies.