Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing - Volume 32, Issue 3, 2010

In this study of the editorial interventions of local newspaper journalists reworking press releases of municipalities, we address three questions. First, we look at the content variables that affect the decision to use a release at all for a news report; this primarily concerns dimensions of the release’s news value. Second, we examine what transformations are applied to press release headings and leads. It is shown that they o Read More

In this paper the choices for particular variants of pragmatic argumentation in advisory health brochures are explained by using the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. On the basis of the type of dispute that the brochure writer presupposes and the kind of advice that is at issue, four variants of pragmatic argumentation are distinguished. The choice for each of these variants is regarded as a strategic maneuver Read More

A good reputation has become increasingly important for governmental organisations. These organisations can promote their reputation by means of their corporate communication. In this study, the effects of two textual characteristics of a District Water Board’s leaflet are measured: the presence of positively charged information and geographical vicinity. It was expected that both characteristics would have positive effec Read More

Advertising firms and government agencies often face the challenge to make their written materials fit for young people. Lexical imitation has been shown to be an inadequate strategy: youths react negatively when outsiders borrow words from their registers. Communication professionals have little to add: they tend to stick to suggestions, such as ‘use simple and clear language’. This indeterminate situation makes it relevant to Read More

The historical backgrounds of the dialectical approach to argumentation are less well-known than those of the logical and the rhetorical approaches. This article discusses the views on argumentation of the philosopher Zeno of Elea, who is mentioned in ancient sources as the ‘inventor’ of dialectic. Zeno’s views on the aim, the organization, and the regulation of argumentation are reconstructed on the basis of Read More