'An important issue' a corpus based contrastive study of evaluation along the parameter of relevance in English and Spanish newspaper opinion discourse
espanolEste articulo aborda la expresion linguistica de la relevancia como dimension evaluativa en textos periodisticos de opinion en ingles y espanol a traves del analisis de los adjetivos de importancia mas frecuentes en los mismos y las entidades evaluadas (Thetela, 1997) en una y otra lengua. La presencia de estos elementos lexicos contribuye a determinar el caracter persuasivo del genero, al tiempo que deja entrever el sistema de valores de las sociedades que han producido dichos textos (Thompson Hunston, 2000: 6) La linguistica de corpus proporciona el marco metodologico de este estudio contrastivo de la expresion del posicionamiento del autor, en concreto, de su evaluacion de la importancia de entidades o proposiciones. EnglishThis paper approaches the expression of the evaluative parameter of relevance in English and Spanish journalistic opinion discourse. The case study presented here analyzes adjectives of importance as lexical markers contributing to the construction of writer stance in a persuasive genre. The main aim of the study is to engage in a cross linguistic analysis which identifies and compares the evaluated entities (Thetela 1997) in English and Spanish opinion texts. Authorial evaluation along the parameter of relevance may be considered to surpass the idiosyncratic features of individual texts and reflect the underlying value system of the society that has produced those texts (Thompson and Hunston 2000: 6) Corpus linguistics provides the methodological framework for a contrastive analysis focused on the primary function of evaluation, the expression of the writer's views, in this case, against a scale of importance. Keywords: evaluation, relevance, newspaper opinion discourse, English Spanish