Müller Marcus
Institut für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany.
Z Literaturwissenschaft Linguist. 2021;51(3):421-450. doi: 10.1007/s41244-021-00212-4. Epub 2021 Aug 5.
This study examines modal verbs in German press coverage of COVID-19 during the first phase of the pandemic. The data basis is an 18-million-word corpus of newspaper articles. For analysis, a sample is drawn from the total number of modal verbs in the corpus and these are categorised according to their discourse function. The corresponding annotated data are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. For this purpose, the study draws back to Kratzer's concept of conversational backgrounds. It turns out that in addition to normative speech backgrounds, goal formulations can be found above all. Normative backgrounds are evoked, on the one hand, to address official rules and their effects and, on the other hand in appeals and demands, to refer to social norms that are assumed as common ground. The fact that teleological backgrounds play a relatively large role indicates that the normalisation perspective is of great importance as a regulative in the crisis discourse. More positive than negative determining factors are indicated and uncertainty markings occur comparatively rarely. This points to successful crisis communication in this discourse phase.
本研究考察了新冠疫情第一阶段德国媒体对新冠肺炎报道中的情态动词。数据基础是一个包含1800万字的报纸文章语料库。为了进行分析，从语料库中情态动词的总数中抽取一个样本，并根据其话语功能对这些情态动词进行分类。对相应的标注数据进行定量和定性分析。为此，该研究借鉴了克拉策尔的会话背景概念。结果发现，除了规范性言语背景外，最重要的是目标表述。一方面，唤起规范性背景是为了阐述官方规则及其影响，另一方面，在呼吁和要求中，是为了提及被视为共识的社会规范。目的论背景发挥了相对较大的作用，这一事实表明，常态化视角作为危机话语中的一种调节手段具有重要意义。研究表明，积极的决定因素多于消极的决定因素，不确定性标记相对较少出现。这表明在这一话语阶段危机沟通是成功的。
