Hidden power structures in Czech printed media

Table 3.3: Dispersion in the iDnes article [13].

3. AN ANALYSIS OF POLARISING NEWS STRUCTURES

Article: 2019 forthcoming.

Main theories: a) In critical reading of news text, several analytical methods should be combined [9]; b) Discourses are interpreted differently in a time of crisis [10, 6]; and c) When analysing one text at a time (cf. Tables 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3), patterns emerge more clearly [5].

Question: Did the news text production amplifiy the polarisation in the social media postings?

Material: Facebook posts 31.12.2016–04.01.2017. 3 news items, 04.01.2017 [3, 13, 14].

Corpus analysis: Keyword analysis with SYN2015 [11] in KWords (kwords.korpus.cz), dispersion overview in AntConc [1].

Method: intertextual analysis of the news structure and wording, keyword analysis and then dispersion analysis of keywords. See Tables 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3.

Most surprising results: Male commentators negatively polarized versus female in the news items, despite this not occurring in original FB posts, where women also posted negatively. Word “opinion” [názor] not widespread despite news items about people’s opinions.

More expected results: Keywords dispersion corroborated the initial result of polarising in groups. “Black man” mentioned only by negative (Table 3.1), “explain” only by experts. The word “racism” not mentioned by negative commentators (see Table 3.1 and 3.2).

Useful for: When people discuss pros and cons of qualitative versus quantitative research in linguistics. When teaching critical thinking in media and communication.

Illustration 3.1: Social media comments on an advertising leaflet with a model of African origin.

Table 3.2: Dispersion in the Deník article [14].

Table 3.1: Dispersion in the Blesk article [3].

Table 2.1: Results from the corpus searches of adjectives collocated with the lemmata “Cikán” and “Rom”.

2. ROMA VS. GYPSY – A DISCOURSE & CORPUS ANALYSIS

Article: 2016.

Main theory: a parallel to Fidler’s [7] “more automatic mental representation” through the language used about these “others”.

Material: the subcorpus SYN version 3 of the Czech National Corpus (5.170.696 lemmata, 2.685.127.310 tokens [4]) – newspapers 1990–2014.

Node words: the Czech lemmata for Roma and Gypsy (Rom and Cikán).

Method: to analyse these lemmata with their adjacent (position L-1) adjectives.

Question: To what extent do negative and positive adjectives follow the two node words in the discourse of the most popular Czech printed media from 1989 to 2009?

Corpus analysis: a statistical analysis of the frequencies of adjectives adjacent to the two denominations.

Most surprising result: For both denominations, approx. 33% of the adjectives in position L-1 were geographically related (as in “Romanian”, “Czech”, or “local”). See Table 2.1.

More expected results: Negative adjectives twice as frequent with Gypsy compared to the lemma Roma. Neutral adjectives almost twice as frequent with Roma compared to the lemma Gypsy. See Table 2.1.

Useful for: When people discuss whether it is better to use one or the other denomination [cf.

15], to explain that one is closer connected to negativity, and the other more to neutrality.

References

[1] Anthony, Laurence. 2018. AntConc (version 3.5.7). Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University.

[2] Baker, Paul and Tony McEnery. 2015. Corpora and Discourse Studies?: Integrating Discourse and Corpora. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

[3] Bednárová, A. (2017). “Lidl lákal zákazníky na cernocha v mikine. Kolem letáku je ted poprask”. Blesk. [online]. https://www.blesk.cz/clanek/zpravy-udalosti/441205/lidl-lakal-zakazniky-na-cernocha- v-mikine-kolem-letaku-je-ted-poprask.html. (Last accessed 2 April 2019.)

[4] Czech National Corpus wiki, http://wiki.korpus.cz/doku.php/en:cnk:syn:verze3, last accessed 2019/04/02.

[5] Egbert, Jesse and Erin Schnur. 2018. ‘The Role of the Text in Corpus and Discourse Analysis – Missing the Trees for the Forest’. In Corpus Approaches to Discourse?: A Critical Review, edited by Charlotte Taylor and Anna Marchi, 159–173. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

[6] Fairclough, Norman. 1989 [2015]. Language and Power (3rd ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

[7] Fidler, Masako. 2016. “The Others in the Czech Republic: their image and their languages”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 238: 37–58.

[8] Fidler, Masako and Václav Cvrcek. 2018. ‘Going Beyond “Aboutness”: A Quantitative Analysis of Sputnik Czech Republic’. In Taming the Corpus: From Inflection and Lexis to Interpretation, edited by Masako Fidler and Václav Cvrcek, 195–225. New York: Springer International Publishing.

[9] Fowler, Roger. 1991. Language in the News?: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.

[10] Holý, Ladislav. 1996. ‘The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation: National Identity and the Post-Communist Transformation of Society’. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, 103:

276–329.

[11] Hnátková, Milena, Michal Kren, Pavel Procházka and Hana Skoumalová. 2014. “The SYN-Series Corpora of Written Czech”. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’14). Reykjavik: ELRA.

[12] Scott, Mike. 2010. “Problems in Investigating Keyness, or Clearing the Undergrowth and Marking out Trails...” In Keyness in Texts, edited by Marina Bondi and Mike Scott, 43–57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

[13] Wirnitzer, Jan. 2017. “Lidl celí kritice rasistu kvuli cernochovi v letáku. Ustupovat nehodl”. iDnes. [online]. https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/domaci/lidl-reklamni-letak-cernoch-rasiste- facebook.A170104_102151_domaci_jw (Last accessed 2 April 2019.)

[14] Zelenková, Z. (2017). “Reklama na ilegální migraci? Cernoch v letáku Lidlu vyvolal pozdvižení”. CTK. [online]. Available: https://www.denik.cz/z_domova/muz-cerne-pleti-na-strankach-letaku- vyvolal-pozdvizeni-20170104.html. (Last accessed 2 April 2019.)

[15] Zlinská, Zuzana. 2019. “Herec Godla ze seriálu Most! se omluvil za používání slova „cikán“”. iDnes. [online] https://www.idnes.cz/usti/zpravy/omluva-godla-rom-cikan- romea.A190203_154321_usti-zpravy_zdo (Last accessed 2 April 2019.)

1. Project overview

These are two examples from a project examining linguistic othering in printed media discourse in the Czech Republic, using the Czech National Corpus (CNC). Journalistic texts after 1989 are used, sometimes with the balanced, representative subcorpus SYN2015 [11].

The project uses a partly corpus-based, partly corpus-driven [2], critical discourse analysis, with some statistical input (e.g. prominence and keyword analysis [12], DIN ranking [8]).

Hidden power structures in Czech printed media

Irene Elmerot

Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German

Abstract

What hidden power structures are there in Czech printed media?

This is an overview of a Language and power-framed project examining linguistic othering in printed media discourse in the Czech Republic, using the Czech National Corpus (CNC). Journalistic texts from 1989 onwards are used, sometimes with the balanced and representative subcorpus SYN2015 (Hnátková et al. 2014). The project uses a partly corpus-based, partly corpus-driven (Baker and McEnery 2015: 47), critical discourse analysis, with the help of statistical input (e.g. prominence and keyword analysis, DIN ranking etc., cf. Fidler and Cvrček 2018: 198–200).

Example 1: Subcorpus SYN of the CNC was used to analyse the Czech lemmata for Roma and Gypsy (Rom and Cikán) with their adjacent (position L−1) adjectives, to see what differences there were in the discourse of the most popular Czech printed media from 1989 to 2009, depending on which denomination had been used.

Result: The negative adjectives were about the double when adjacent to the lemma Gypsy compared to the lemma Roma. The neutral words were, on the other hand, almost the double for the lemma Roma compared to the lemma Gypsy. This is

relevant to real-life language usage when people ask about the reason for using one or the other denomination (e.g. Zlinská 2019).

Example 2: The case of a Lidl advert turned into three news articles. This is an example where the structure of news articles amplify a polarization, which can be viewed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Through corpus software, a keyword analysis using a representative and balanced corpus allows some words or phrases to stand out – both for being there and for being absent. These patterns reflect several contemporary media phenomena, such as ‘click-hunting’, perceived threats to the nation and its traditional citizens, and a lack of indication regarding what in a news item is opinion and what is fact.

Result: Keyword and dispersion analyses show present and absent discourse, and clarifies a polarization that might not be obvious from a strictly qualitative research, nor from using a single quantitative method, where groups like men and women or laymen and experts are distinctly separated.

Keywords: linguistic othering, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, Czech References

Baker, Paul. 2018. ‘Language, Sexuality and Corpus Linguistics: Concerns and Future Directions’. Journal of Language and Sexuality 7 (2): 263–279.

Baker, Paul, and Tony McEnery. 2015. Corpora and Discourse Studies : Integrating Discourse and Corpora. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fidler, Masako, and Václav Cvrček. 2018. ‘Going Beyond “Aboutness”: A Quantitative Analysis of Sputnik Czech Republic’. In Taming the Corpus: From Inflection and Lexis to Interpretation., edited by Masako Fidler and Václav Cvrček, 195–225. New York: Springer International Publishing.

Hnátková, Milena, Michal Křen, Pavel Procházka, and Hana Skoumalová. 2014. ‘The SYN-Series Corpora of Written Czech’. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’14). Reykjavik: ELRA.

Zlinská, Zuzana. 2019. “Herec Godla ze seriálu Most! se omluvil za používání slova

„cikán“”, https://www.idnes.cz/usti/zpravy/omluva-godla-rom-cikan-

romea.A190203_154321_usti-zpravy_zdo [Last viewed 1 March 2019]