A Newspaper Corpus Analysis

1. A Newspaper Corpus Analysis China and Europe in The Papers

2. Sources: • The New York Times – aprox. 25.000 words • The Guardian – aprox. 20.000 words • The Telegraph – aprox. 20.000 words • In total, aprox. 65.000 words.

3. What? • How corpora are built around the issue: China-EU Relations • How do these journals see both and how they do see their relations

4. Wordlists – 1. The NYT

5. Wordlists – 2. The Telegraph

6. Wordlists – 3. The Guardian

7. Analysing the Respective Concordances • The New York Times: • “said” – reporting. Attributing the responsability of a certain fact or event to something somebody or something said. Distances the reporter from the facts he’s reporting. • “China” – Obviously among the “Top20”. – Europe? • The Telegraph: • “by” – tells us who or what did or provocated something – the agent? (“«emerging market economy» was invented by the World Bank”; “a big gap left by the collapse in consumer confidence”) • The Guardian: • “will” – modal verb, working in conditional clauses (“if they are, it will be our problem as well as theirs”) or as reflecting a prospective (“we will achieve more”). As we can see, this modal is found in the direct speech, but sometimes we can also find it used by the author: “And Beijing will have a far bigger say than it did in 1944.” – this is a general truth but it also reflects the opinion of the author - subjectivity. (bold) • As – used as comparison of similarity (“be roughly the same size as those of the United States”); as a temporal conjunction (“As I write” – used as while); as a consequential conjunction (“The test of any political system is how it withstands hard times. The Chinese system, as it has emerged over the past 30 years, has not yet stood that test.” – used as because) – reflects also subjectivity.

8. CLUSTERS • Relevant Clusters • In the New York Times • In the Telegraph • In The Guardian

9. Relevant CLUSTERS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

10. Clusters in NYT • In Europe : 19 times • Bad things happen in Europe, or particularly in Europe: bank failures; creditworthy companies cannot get money in Europe; etc. … • And Europe : 17 times • United States and Europe – 11x (1) • Asia and Europe – 2x • China and Europe – 2x • Middle East and Europe – 1x • Alaska and Europe – 1x • Europe and: • Europe and: 12 times • Asia, United States, South America, Japan, China • (1): This reflects the contrast and alliance between the EU and Asia on one hand, and between the EU and the US, on the other hand. There is a clear division between the Asian and the American blocks.

11. Clusters in NYT • To Europe: 8 times • This is a very important cluster, because “TO” Europe we have: the spread of the crisis which had origin in the US; the slowdown of sales (following the US); exports to Europe were down 20%; etc. … • So, what we have coming to Europe is all negative.

12. Clusters in The Telegraph • In the Telegraph it is very interesting to remark that there are no relevant clusters at all. Interesting also is that among all those not relevant clusters there’s “from Europe”, not “to Europe”, which could show us something more if there would be more articles under analysis. • The Telegraph is in Europe, this does also change the point of view. • Related to the cluster “and Europe”, it is interesting that Europe is only related to America or the US, never to Asia nor China.

13. Clusters in The Guardian • And Europe (12x): the same as in the NYT. Asia, China, the US • Europe and (11x): idem. • In Europe (6x): except 1 reference to the “inevitable recession in Europe”, there are no other negative perspectives of what is happening in the continent. • “To Europe” is not really relevant in The Guardian, relevant is rather “Europe is”: “Europe is incapable”, “Europe is now the key to the continuing strength of western values” • Europe is assumed as being and doing.

14. Modals in The NYT • Related to Europe the NYT does not directly use modal verbs. However, associated to “China” there are some modals: would (5), can (2), might (2), must (2), cannot, could. In general we see that there’s a huge expectancy regarding China. • “China will not be a savior to the global economy, taking up the slack from the slumping United States, Europe and Japan, as some had hoped.” • “China will suffer as the global downturn deepens” • “they said that China would need to work more closely with other economies, including the United States and Europe, to overcome the current financial crisis.” • In recent years, some Chinese experts have written analyses about the inevitability of an American decline and how China must prepare to manage it. But in the face of the current crisis, most Chinese analysts say China is nowhere near ready yet to stand as a superpower. • Need (26x) – “President Obama will need to quickly lay out his vision of the military this country needs to keep safe and to prevail over 21st-century threats.”

15. Modals in The Guardian • Will (66x) – “China will have the world’s second largest economy by 2025”, “the strategic partnership with China will keep this new dawn bright” • Must (26x) – “Europe and China must ‘swim together’…” • Can (41x) – “Any Chinese lawyer can tell you how far away the country is from having an independent judiciary” • Could (42x) – “if they fail, it could be war” • Cannot (14x) – cannot [afford] (2x) – “We cannot afford not to be interested in the progress of its uncharted, incremental economic and political reforms” • Need () • Need (39x) – “the need to stabilize economies”; “we need a global vision” • Be able to (5x) – “One [EU] that will be able to forge a partnership of equals”

16. The Use of Evaluative Words/ Subjectivity in Papers • IN: • The Guardian • The Telegraph • The New York Post

17. Evaluative Language (1) • Perplexed [leaders] • Terrified (e.g. “Policy makers are terrified”; “Asia's terrified financial markets”) • Panicked (e.g. “as panicked European leaders tried…”) Concerned (?) g+nyt • Shattered “the shattered Western economy” • Destroyed “The manufacturing heart in the Pearl River area near Hong Kong is being destroyed” • Marginalised • Fragmented (e.g. “[the NIC] foresees a fragmented world”) • Hobbled (e.g. “European Union will be a 'hobbled giant' by 2025”) • Compromised (e.g. “Brown remains a deeply compromised figure as a credible pro-European”) • Irrationally • Desperately • Dramatically Emotionally (negatively) loaded adjectives Scare-mongering

18. Evaluative Language (2) • “Pigs” (the assumption that Portugal, Italy, Greece or Spain, the much derided "Pigs") • Derided • Unrivalled (“no longer the unrivalled superpower” [the US]) • hard-nosed (e.g. “This hard-nosed power [China] does not share the west's enthusiasms”) • Probably • Certainly • Predictably • Realistic • Optimistic • Pessimistic • Unexpected (e.g. “The financial crisis has levelled the international playing field in unexpected ways”) • Unpredictable • Unworkable • Uncontrollable • Unstable • Incapable • Unavoidable • Inevitable • Inevitably Pejorative Adjectives Uncertainty Loss of Control

19. Evaluative Language (3) • Stable • Renewable • Sustainable • Abominable • Precisely • Incredibly • Significantly • Scarcely • Rarely

20. Evaluative Language (4) • Apparently • Seems • Hardly – “and since Chinese consumers' instinctive reaction to a crisis is hardly to spend more” • Acutely • Crudely • Wildly • Relatively • Deeply • Profoundly • Highly • Widely • Fully

21. Vague Language • Vague Language • Besides those adverbs mentioned above • A lot • Lots • Very • Almost • Rather • A bit • Quite • Rather • These, the NYT uses most

22. Closing remarks • Double negation • 3,000 yuan a year (£300) is not unusually low • Relatively certain that the EU will be losing clout by 2025 • 2025: the end of US dominance • European Union will be 'hobbled giant' by 2025 • This is never mentioned in the NYT, but often in The Guardian and the Telegraphy – specially in The Guardian

23. Conclusion • The US has hidden fears concerning China, although they shouldn’t, they could take profit from the new growing market. The US representatives do not cooperate with China as the EU does, frequently sending representatives to Asia. • Europe is accompanying the eastern-directed evolution and working on that since 1978 and the US aren’t. • A lack of factuality and certainness characterises the NYT vague language around the issue. • The vitality and dynamism of The Guardian provokes the blossoming of evaluative adjectives, nouns and verbs among their articles. • The Telegraph must possibly be seen as a more conservative paper, which restrains not only literary flowering but also the amount of articles. It was by far harder to find articles on telegraph.co.uk than it was on nytimes.com or guardian.co.uk.

24. Conclusion (2) • The US, whilst fearing the rise of China, minimizes the effects of a powerful China, saying it would never be a Super-Power to be taken seriously. Dur to this, we might assume, China and the world crisis involving China is seen from afar, from a distance which is so huge that we could imagine the US to be on another planet. They do have, indeed, other problems to resolve, specially internally.