Journal articles by Tom Van Hout
—Background: Our teaching case reports on a fieldwork assignment designed to have master of arts ... more —Background: Our teaching case reports on a fieldwork assignment designed to have master of arts students experience first-hand how entrepreneurs write for the globalized marketplace by examining public displays of language, such as billboards, shop windows, and posters. Research questions: How do entrepreneurs use English to " style " themselves? What is the status of English in public displays? Which relationship with customers is cultivated by using English (among other languages)? How does English, or lookalike versions thereof, create a more innovative business? Situating the case: We use linguistic landscaping as a pedagogical resource, drawing on similar cases in a local English as a foreign language (EFL) community in Oaxaca, Mexico; EFL programs in Chiba-shi, Japan; francophone and immersion French programs in Montreal, QC, Canada and Vancouver, BC, Canada; and a study of the entrepreneurial landscape in Observatory's business corridor of Lower Main Road in Cape Town, South Africa. How this case was studied: We interviewed 36 students about their learning process in one-to-one post hoc interviews. Recurrent themes were increased self-monitoring, improved professional communication literacy, and expanded real-world understanding. About the case: The teaching case follows a three-pronged approach. First, we have students decide on a survey area, determine their empirical focus, establish analytical units, decide how to collect data, collect (sociodemographic) information about their survey area, and determine the degree of researcher engagement. Next, students conduct fieldwork, documenting the linguistic landscape in small teams of three to four students. In the third phase, students have returned from the field and discuss their initial findings, ideas, and observations during a data session with the instructors. Students decide whether they still stand by the decisions they made before they entered the field and are then asked to qualify how language is used in public space. Results: The main takeaway of the assignment is that students were more aware of the degree of linguistic innovation, rhetorical creativity, and ethnocultural stereotyping of entrepreneurial communication in their cities. Conclusion: As a pedagogical tool, LL offers possibilities for exploring entrepreneurial communication in all of its breadth and variety, providing access to perhaps the most visible and creative materialities of entrepreneurs and service providers: shop windows and signs.
This paper considers notions of agency, interaction and power in business news journalism. In the... more This paper considers notions of agency, interaction and power in business news journalism. In the first part, we present a bird’s eye view of news access theory as it is reflected in selected sociological and anthropological literature on the ethnography of news production. Next, we show how these theoretical notions can be applied to the study of press releases and particularly to the linguistic pragmatic analysis of the specific social and textual practices that surround their transformation into news reports. Drawing on selected fieldwork data collected at the business desk of a major Flemish quality newspaper, we present an innovative methodology combining newsroom ethnography and computer-assisted writing process analysis which documents how a reporter discovers a story, introduces it into the newsroom, writes and reflects on it. In doing so, we put the individual journalist’s writing practices center stage, zoom in on the specific ways in which he interacts with sources and conceptualize power in terms of his dependence on press releases. Following Beeman & Peterson (2001), we argue in favor of a view of journalism as ‘interpretive practice’ and of news production as a process of entextualization involving multiple actors who struggle over authority, ownership and control.
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introduction the special issue of Discourse, Context & Media on Journalistic Stance
This paper is a case study of reproductive newswriting, i.e. writing from news sources. We offer ... more This paper is a case study of reproductive newswriting, i.e. writing from news sources. We offer a multimethodological writing process analysis of a news article announcing the product launch of Apple TV on the Belgian market. By combining interview data, keystroke logging data, frame and corpus analysis, we reconstruct the discursive strategies a senior business reporter, the third author of this paper, employs as he writes a news article from a corporate press release. Our process data highlight how reliance on ready-made source texts prompt news frames which enable reporters to write fast and efficiently while also forcing them to introduce new frames which balance the story, establish authority and maximize news value. Taken together, these analytical dimensions lay bare both the interpretive creativity and professional routines of reproductive newswriting.
This article is an ethnographic case study of a senior business reporter as he discovers, writes,... more This article is an ethnographic case study of a senior business reporter as he discovers, writes, and reflects on a news story. We ‘‘follow the story’’ from its entry in the newsroom through the review process during a story meeting and the writing process up to the point the story is filed for copy editing. Drawing on ethnographic data, this article sheds light on how a news story about Russian gas exports to France is discursively constructed. In this writing process, we focus in particular on a frame shift in the construction of the lead and argue that this shift is led primarily by technological rather than overt ideological concerns. The detailed description of one newswriting process supports the argument that framing is an interpretive practice achieved within the demands, relationships, and discourses that anchor business news as a social institution.
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… /Forum: Qualitative Social …, Jan 1, 2011
Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an over... more Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an overview of the emerging body of research bringing together the epistemologies and the methods of these two perspectives. It then presents a novel analytical framework for computer-assisted ethnographic discourse analysis. The paper outlines how close analysis of discursive practices – in this case journalistic writing practices – can provide insights into struggles over meaning and hegemony in contemporary knowledge work. The case study explores the production of a financial news story about the supply of gas to French consumers, and the way the practices in question subtly write Russia as a threat.
... 1998). Analysis vs. recipe: evaluating the use of research findings in a business communicati... more ... 1998). Analysis vs. recipe: evaluating the use of research findings in a business communication course. Pelsmaekers, Katja; Jacobs, Geert (in: Life-long learning in business and industry / Björk, Eva L. [edit.]; 2001). Education ...
Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Jan 1, 2011
This position paper sketches the contours of a linguistics of news production. It is argued that,... more This position paper sketches the contours of a linguistics of news production. It is argued that, until recently, linguistic interest in the news prioritized close analysis of news products at the expense of the production process. The current paper is aimed at consolidating a number of emerging research efforts which focus on the interplay of language use and journalism, media and society. First, we spell out what can be considered news and how this conceptualization supports a case for the analysis of the news production process. Next, we look to various fields in linguistics and discourse studies to detail some of the relevant methodological frameworks that can be incorporated in a linguistics of news production. Finally, we situate our production focus within the larger media research context and suggest how it can bring added value to ongoing efforts in four related fields outside of linguistics.
This position paper sketches the contours of a linguistics of news production. It is argued that,... more This position paper sketches the contours of a linguistics of news production. It is argued that, until recently, linguistic interest in the news prioritized close analysis of news products at the expense of the production process. The current paper is aimed at consolidating a number of emerging research efforts which focus on the interplay of language use and journalism, media and society. First, we spell out what can be considered news and how this conceptualization supports a case for the analysis of the news production process. Next, we look to various fields in linguistics and discourse studies to detail some of the relevant methodological frameworks that can be incorporated in a linguistics of news production. Finally, we situate our production focus within the larger media research context and suggest how it can bring added value to ongoing efforts in four related fields outside of linguistics.
Journal of Pragmatics, 2011
Pragmatics, Jan 2, 2010
News scholarship is vast, en vogue and, above all, theoretically eclectic. Case in point is the f... more News scholarship is vast, en vogue and, above all, theoretically eclectic. Case in point is the field of journalism: Recent journals such as Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice and Journalism attest to the interdisciplinary social-scientific interest in news study. Academic interest in journalism has, first and foremost, social causes. As cultural brokers disseminating world knowledge, the stories journalists tell are ideologically significant. This observation is old news, but ever so timely, especially given today's mediascape of ...
Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an over... more Drawing on the perspectives of ethnography and discourse analysis, this paper first gives an overview of the emerging body of research bringing together the epistemologies and the methods of these two perspectives. It then presents a novel analytical framework for computer-assisted ethnographic discourse analysis. The paper outlines how close analysis of discursive practices – in this case journalistic writing practices – can provide insights into struggles over meaning and hegemony in contemporary knowledge work. The case study explores the production of a financial news story about the supply of gas to French consumers, and the way the practices in question subtly write Russia as a threat.
Books & edited volumes by Tom Van Hout
Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellenc... more Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellence and self-justification. The contributors explore ways in which individuals, teams or groups in organizations discursively present themselves as competent, i.e. as having the ability and willingness to perform tasks or functions, possibly at a superior level. The chapters offer analyses of displays of competence based on the idea that such displays are extensively signaled and encoded in organizational discourse. This collection of research papers is characterized by an empirical approach to socially situated instances of text and talk that is analytically concerned with describing patterns, regularities and implicit meanings as they are manifested in the organizational practices that agents, groups and communities engage in. A wide spectrum of organizational settings is discussed including management, education, gate-keeping and service encounters in a variety of institutions and organizations. This is studied through a range of different media such as face-to-face interaction, print media and a variety of digital media.
Book reviews:
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Drawing on data collected at the economics newsdesk of De Standaard, a quality newspaper in Belgi... more Drawing on data collected at the economics newsdesk of De Standaard, a quality newspaper in Belgium, this book examines the situated practices of print journalists in their roles as knowledge mediators and creators. How do reporters make sense of the various sources, narratives and frames around them and channel these into one final news story? What is the journalist’s role in the representation of events? How are news articles negotiated between reporters, editors and sources? How do technologies of production mediate the news process? Crucially, what does the journalist actually do while writing?
The first part of this book outlines a theoretical and methodological framework for a linguistic ethnographic approach to news production and describes the fieldwork procedures for collecting data. In the second part, the book presents four empirical chapters that analyze journalism as a field of production, then as materiality, next as literacy and finally as opacity. The third part addresses the ‘So what?’ question by reflecting on the validity, reliability and generalizability of this study from the perspective of linguistic ethnography.
Book chapters by Tom Van Hout
At the intersection of applied linguistics and journalism studies lies media linguistics. This em... more At the intersection of applied linguistics and journalism studies lies media linguistics. This emerging subdisciplinary label is an umbrella term for the study of mass mediated language use, which, for the purposes of this chapter, is restricted to news media: public or private institutions of mass communication that produce and spread public information commodified as news. Two issues stand out in the literature on media linguistics (and beyond). The first is the shifting ecology of contemporary journalism: in an alwayson, digital mediascape, the craft of journalism is increasingly defined by screenwork. The second is the perspective of mediatization, which highlights the central role mediated communication plays in high modern societies. This chapter discusses two responses to the mediatization of society: the cultural authority of journalists as knowledge creators and knowledge brokers in fluid, heteroglossic media environments, and satirical responses to the proliferation of news discourse. Keywords Media linguistics; Journalism Studies; Journalism; Mediatization; Authority; News satire; 1
ABSTRACT Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, ... more ABSTRACT Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellence and self-justification. The contributors explore ways in which individuals, teams or groups in organizations discursively present themselves as competent, i.e. as having the ability and willingness to perform tasks or functions, possibly at a superior level. The chapters offer analyses of displays of competence based on the idea that such displays are extensively signaled and encoded in organizational discourse. This collection of research papers is characterized by an empirical approach to socially situated instances of text and talk that is analytically concerned with describing patterns, regularities and implicit meanings as they are manifested in the organizational practices that agents, groups and communities engage in. A wide spectrum of organizational settings is discussed including management, education, gate-keeping and service encounters in a variety of institutions and organizations. This is studied through a range of different media such as face-to-face interaction, print media and a variety of digital media.
Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellenc... more Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellence and self-justification. The contributors explore ways in which individuals, teams or groups in organizations discursively present themselves as competent, i.e. as having the ability and willingness to perform tasks or functions, possibly at a superior level. The chapters offer analyses of displays of competence based on the idea that such displays are extensively signaled and encoded in organizational discourse. This collection of research papers is characterized by an empirical approach to socially situated instances of text and talk that is analytically concerned with describing patterns, regularities and implicit meanings as they are manifested in the organizational practices that agents, groups and communities engage in. A wide spectrum of organizational settings is discussed including management, education, gate-keeping and service encounters in a variety of institutions and organizations. This is studied through a range of different media such as face-to-face interaction, print media and a variety of digital media.
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Journal articles by Tom Van Hout
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Books & edited volumes by Tom Van Hout
Book reviews:
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The first part of this book outlines a theoretical and methodological framework for a linguistic ethnographic approach to news production and describes the fieldwork procedures for collecting data. In the second part, the book presents four empirical chapters that analyze journalism as a field of production, then as materiality, next as literacy and finally as opacity. The third part addresses the ‘So what?’ question by reflecting on the validity, reliability and generalizability of this study from the perspective of linguistic ethnography.
Book chapters by Tom Van Hout
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Book reviews:
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The first part of this book outlines a theoretical and methodological framework for a linguistic ethnographic approach to news production and describes the fieldwork procedures for collecting data. In the second part, the book presents four empirical chapters that analyze journalism as a field of production, then as materiality, next as literacy and finally as opacity. The third part addresses the ‘So what?’ question by reflecting on the validity, reliability and generalizability of this study from the perspective of linguistic ethnography.
label is an umbrella term for the study of mass mediated language use, which, for the purposes of this chapter, is restricted to news media: public or private institutions of mass communication that produce and spread public information commoditized as news. Two issues stand out in the literature on media linguistics (and beyond). The first is the shifting ecology of contemporary journalism: in an always-on, digital mediascape, the craft of journalism is ncreasingly defined by screenwork. The second is the perspective of mediatization, which highlights the central role mediated communication plays in high modern societies. This chapter discusses two responses to the mediatization of society: the cultural authority of journalists as knowledge creators and knowledge brokers in fluid, heteroglossic media environments, and satirical responses to the proliferation of news discourse.