Negotiating evaluation in newspaper editorials in Philippine English

This study explores the phenomenon of evaluation in newspaper editorials in Philippine English in terms of global structure, linguistic features, and semantic relations. Data consisted of 75 editorials from three leading newspapers, 25 from each newspaper, in the Philippines. Findings include the following: (1) In terms of global structure, newspaper editorials in the Philippines follow the Lead-Follow-Valuate structure, although there is a tendency for them to intersperse background material with evaluative statements as early as the first statement, which amounts to an initial evaluation of the information in the editorial; (2) In terms of lexico-grammatical markers of evaluation, adjectives (especially those of the attributive type), adverbials (both epistemic and attitudinal), modal verbs (especially those that convey possibility/ability and obligation/necessity), negativity markers, and rhetorical questions, are among the linguistic resources available to writers; and (3) In terms of semantic relations, evaluation consists of concessive relations, expectancy relations, and hypothetical-real patterns. The paper concludes with a discussion of evaluation as encoding interpersonal meaning in editorials and of the implications of the findings for second-language teaching. © 2004 ALC Press, Inc