Evaluative Attitudinal Presence in Primetime TV News Presentations in Ghana

Abstract

This article explored the presence of evaluative attitudinal resources in primetime TV news presentations in Ghana and linguistically shed light on professional practices in news presentations for the purpose of meaning in the news. An inquiry into attitudinal resources in news presentations is useful for understanding how subjects of primetime news bulletins manage and send reports on local and international happenings using evaluative attitudinal resources. The focus is on the linguistic resources that are attitudinal in nature. In doing this, I situate the analysis within the sub-systems of Appraisal theory, developed by Martin and White (2005) in discussing the presence of attitudinal resources employed in the news and their relevance. The data presents reasons to prove the use of evaluative attitudinal resources to construe different forms of emotions in the news reportage. It was also observed that the emotions are attributive and not subjective.