以語料庫之觀念來比較美式及英式訃聞架構之異同

A Corpus-Based Comparison of American and British Newspaper Obituaries

洪茂盛(Mao-Sheng Hung) ； 黃佳鈞(Chia-Chun Huang) ； 林慧雅(Hui-Ya Lin)

《語文與國際研究》 12期 (2014/12) Pp. 37-69

https://doi.org/10.3966/181147172014120012002

摘要

本研究主要在探討訃聞之撰寫是否有固定的規格。研究資料來源為三十篇刊載於美國紐約時報以及英國每日電訊報的許聞報導。研究者透過語料庫之概念及相關電腦軟體(WordSmith 4.0)之運用，來比較分析所蒐集之語料。研究結果顯示許聞報導有其獨特的體裁。除了新聞出處、摘要報導這些一般的新聞特徵外，還記錄了死者生平事蹟及故事結尾。不過，不同的新聞機構對訃聞的撰寫也會有不同的風格變化。若以此研究中之兩家報紙為例，這些差異主要在於其如何稱呼死者、有無標明新聞出處、對死亡原因及其家屬細節之著墨，以及如何引述消息來源之上。

關鍵字

訃聞 ； 語料庫 ； 文類 ； 專業英語

並列摘要

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate how contemporary newspaper obituaries function as a genre and how they are composed and organized in systematic ways. Thirty obits from two prototypical quality papers, the New York Times (USA) and the Daily Telegraph (United Kingdom), were examined via a program called ＂WordSmith 4.0＂. The comparisons and analyses performed on the collected samples revealed that the two varieties of newspaper obits shared the major elements of attribution, abstract, biography, and coda, but they differed from each other in several aspects of formulation. For instance, the New York Times obits were news-oriented while the Daily Telegraph obituaries were more personality-oriented. Moreover, each of the dailies had its own way of crediting the source of supply, listing the circumstances of death and surviving family members, referring to the subject, etc.

並列關鍵字

Obituaries ； Corpus ； Genre ； ESP

參考文獻

The New York Times. (2006, September 25).Talk to the newsroom: Obituaries editors Bill McDonald, Retrieved March 6, 2009, form http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/business/media/25asktheeditors.htm

(1994).The obituarist's art: Lives after death.The Economist.333,64-66.

Al-Ali, M.(2005).Communicating messages of solidarity,p romotion and pride in death announcements genre in Jordanian newspaper.Discourse & Society.16(1),15-33.

Annelie, A.(ed.),Randi, R.(ed.)(2008).Corpora and discourse: The challenges of different settings.Philadelphia:John Benjamins.

Baker, P(2006).Using corpora in discourse analysis.London:Continuum.