Affiliation around tensions: strategies for aligning with putative readers through counter-expectation resources in media editorials

Newspaper editorial discourse is designed to express a newspaper’s overt or implied political positions with the underlying aim being to persuade putative readers to align with their values. This kind of discourse frequently targets apparently opposing values at one ideational entity (e.g., a political party) in order to influence the opinions of putative readers (Liu, 2017). For example, The Australian is a right-centered newspaper which tends to support the political positions of the Liberal Party in Australia (Clancy, 2004). This newspaper tables contrasting values about the Labor Party to get the attention of all the Australians. For instance, both positive (capable and effective) and negative values (incapable) are targeted at the entity Gillard in Gillard was capable and effective…Yet she proved incapable of stepping up to the office of prime minister […]. Understanding how newspapers strategically concede certain positive values, only to subsequently override them constitutes an important research area in news media analysis interested in understanding how political stances are construed in discourse. This paper aims to explore the rhetorical strategies through which contrasting values are negotiated and ambient affiliation is achieved.

Political persuasion and the ways through which it is realized in media discourse have long been a topic of interest (Fairclough and Norman, 2012; Van and Teun, 1997) that continue to proliferate in this field. Attention has been paid to the persuasive role of discourse structure (Bonyadi, 2010; Zarza and Helen, 2016), certain syntactic structures (Liu and Hood, 2019; Manosuthikit, 2021; Matu and Hendrik, 2007), and specific wordings (Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Marín-Arrese, 2021). However, these studies tend to focus on persuasion around attitudinal values in the same polarity. The present study seeks to broaden the scope of this work to consider persuasion around contrasting attitudinal values. The data includes eleven editorials collected from The Australian. The analyses were conducted with reference to the key concepts from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially the discourse semantic systems of appraisal (Martin and White, 2005) and ideation (Martin, 1992; Martin and David, 2007). These analytical methods were used to describe the discursive strategies employed to forge alignments, drawing on social semiotic work on affiliation (described in Section “Studies of affiliation and counter-expectation in media discourse”).

This paper begins by reviewing previous studies of affiliation and counter-expectation in Section “Studies of affiliation and counter-expectation in media discourse”, and then explains the theoretical foundations of this study in Section “Research design”, including the relevant key concepts in SFL and the analytical procedures undertaken. In the analysis sections, we commence with identifying and discussing the dominant patterns of opposing values (referred to as ‘couplings’ which associate ideational meaning as a target or trigger of attitude) in Section “Patterns of opposing evaluative couplings”, before moving on to dynamically explain the strategies for overriding positive assessment of the Labor Party in Section “Reconfiguring positive couplings as unsustainable”. The general purpose of conducting this qualitative analysis is to identify the rhetorical strategies used to negotiate opposing values and their role in affiliation. The findings and implications for future research are summarized in Section “Conclusion”.

Studies of affiliation in media discourse

The affiliation framework explores social alignment through managing the couplings of attitudinal values with ideational entities (Zappavigna, 2021). This framework was firstly proposed to explore face-to-face interactions (Knight, 2010a) and then extended to explain polylogue (Zappavigna, 2019; Zappavigna and Martin, 2018) and monologue (Liu and Chang, 2021; Liu and Hood, 2019). Affiliation in dialog that incorporates direct exchange between participants is defined as dialogic affiliation. On the other hand, affiliation that occurs through mass social media practices which do not necessarily include direct interactions (e.g., using a hashtag) is termed as communing affiliation. In this latter case couplings are assumed to be shared rather than directly negotiated (Zappavigna, 2012, 2018).

Early studies of affiliation typically focused on the strategies for alignment around one value position. The signs of alignment vary across different kinds of discourse, including laughter in conversation (Knight, 2010a), hashtag use in Twitter (Zappavigna, 2019; Zappavigna and Martin, 2018), assumed responses in newspaper editorials (Liu and Chang, 2021; Liu and Hood, 2019), and engagement and graduation resources in YouTube comments (without actual reply) (Zappavigna, 2021). These resources orient the participants to commune around the shared values that are tabled in the texts.

There are also some emerging studies exploring affiliation around contrasting values. In dialogic affiliation, an unshared evaluative coupling is deferred by the laughing strategy (i.e., ‘laughed off’) and rejected by the condemning one (Knight, 2010b). In communing affiliation, a particular coupling could be opposed through ‘finessing’ resources such as contracting resources in the engagement system, or backgrounded through lowering the strength or scope of the coupling (Zappavigna, 2021; Zappavigna and Martin, 2018). These studies of finessing values (referred to as ‘couplings’) discuss the contrastive relationship between a presented coupling and other potential ones. Less attention, however, has been given to how opposing couplings are presented and managed in discourse. This study thus aims to identify the strategies used to override positive evaluative couplings and their effects on affiliation.

Studies of counter-expectation from systemic functional linguistic perspective

Key to the negotiation of opposing values in this study is the concept of counter-expectation. The discourse function of counter-expectation has been widely explored from different perspectives, in particular pragmatics and SFL. Within the SFL tradition, counter-expectation has been examined across all the three linguistic metafunctions, although studies differ in terms of the delineation of scope and discursive function. Studies focused on the ideational metafunction have examined counter-expectation as a link within and between processes (Halliday and Christian, 2004; Martin, 1983). The focus in this work has been on how counter-expectation expands the meaning of a clause in terms of logical complexing (clause complex) or experiential constituency (circumstance). In Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.405-412), for example, this relationship is realized by two categories of extension: addition (adversative: but) and variation (replacive: instead and subtractive: except), and one category of enhancement: causal-conditional (condition: concessive). Attention has also been given to the types of circumstantial elements in the transitivity system, realized as enhancing: contingency (concession). Circumstances can augment the process by construing frustrated causes. These studies orient the analysis experientially to construe the field of discourse.

An approach from the perspective of textual metafunction informs a group of studies that have explored the counter-expectation relationship as a link between generic elements of a text (Halliday and Ruqaiya, 1976; Martin, 1992; Martin and David, 2007). Martin (1992) explores how counter-expectation scaffolds arguments through two types of logico-semantic relations: comparative (contrast) and consequential (concession). This relationship is of particular importance in organizing discourse within two key genres: discussion and challenge (Martin, 2003a, 2003b; Martin and David, 2008). Such studies orient the analysis rhetorically to the structure of text.

Studies of the interpersonal dimension of counter-expectation have tended to examine its persuasive function (Halliday, 1994; Martin, 1992; Thompson and Thetela, 1995). Martin (1992, p.183) explains that the concessive relationship is interpersonal in orientation as it blurs the distinction between “organizing text and constructing field”. These studies include attention to the functions of counter-expectation in expressing attitudinal values and managing dialogic space in the appraisal framework (Martin and White, 2005; White, 1998, 2012), such as but and actually which implicitly flag an attitudinal reading and contract the dialogic space by countering an expected position. The patterning of counter-expectation resources with concur resources have been explored to negotiate alignment in newspaper editorials (Breeze, 2016). (Concur is one sub-category of engagement system in appraisal framework, as explained in Section “Appraisal framework: expressing attitudinal values”). Focus has also been on the role of counter-expectation in signaling a shift in prosodic key and a change in alignment (Hood, 2010; Martin and David, 2007; Thompson and Zhou, 2000). Hood (2004) describes concessive conjunctions as a ‘prosody buster’ in shifting the prosodies of attitude in academic discourse and as a way to manage community alignment by creating space for the writers’ position (Hood, 2010). Hood (2010) considers disjunctive values as a rhetorical strategy to re-align putative readers into an opposite attitudinal position. These studies attend to the interactive nature of the counter-expectation relationship in a negotiation going on between writers and (putative) readers.

The metafunctional approaches to counter-expectation discussed above each make significant contributions to an appreciation of its complexity in discourse. Most of these studies were conducted from the perspective of a single metafunction to either examine the meaning or the structure of discourse, with few considering its roles in affiliation. Therefore, more research is needed to examine the rhetorical effects of counter-expectation in affiliating with (putative) readers. Recently, Logi (2021) illustrates how deviations from interactants’ expectations creates humorous affiliation in stand-up comedy. In Logi’s study, expectation is concerned with imminent language patterns in addition to attitudinal values, factoring in resources beyond appraisal such as clause complexing, genre, periodicity, and collocation. In the present study, expectation refers to the putative readers’ expectation about one particular evaluative coupling. The indicators of counter-expectation override rather than directly deferring/rejecting one particular evaluative coupling.

This section explains the research questions, theoretical frameworks, data, and analytical methods informing the discourse analysis that was undertaken to explore the role of counter-expectation in affiliation.

Research questions

This study is to examine how affiliation between editorial writers and putative readers is constructed around opposing values in media editorials. The specific research questions addressed are the following:

1. [1]

   What patterns of opposing values are constructed in the data?

2. [2]

   How are these opposing values managed rhetorically in the data?

3. [3]

   How is affiliation realized through managing these opposing values?

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework employed in this study combines the affiliation framework, appraisal framework, and the discourse semantic system of ideation, drawing on Martin’s (1992) discourse semantic account of English.

Appraisal framework: expressing attitudinal values

The appraisal framework is used to analyze evaluative language in discourse. It deals with the construal of values by writers/speakers, such as “how [they] approve and disapprove, […] and how they position their readers/listeners to do likewise” (Martin and White, 2005, p.1). The framework includes three interacting systems: attitude (expressions of values), engagement (sources of attitudinal values), and graduation (strength of attitudinal values). This study focuses on the attitude system which provides a means for exploring the evaluative positions expressed in editorials, and the engagement system which offers a foundation for examining the interactions between these positions.

The attitude system is regionalized into three sub-categories: affect (our emotional reactions), judgment (the evaluation of behaviors), and appreciation (the evaluation of things) (Martin, 2000; Martin and White, 2005). These sub-categories are further classified in terms of delicacy, as shown in Fig. 1 below. For a detailed explanation of these attitudinal categories, see Martin and White (2005). All these values could be positive or negative, described by the system vibe in Martin (2020). The attitudinal values could be expressed explicitly or implicitly. For example, they could be inscribed by attitudinal lexis, such as capable and important, or invoked through the selections of ideational meanings, such as lexical metaphors (provoke), graduation resources (flag), indicators of counter-expectation, and ideational meanings (afford) (Hood and Martin, 2007). The categories, vibes and expression modes of attitude are presented in Fig. 1 below. In this and following figures, the brace bracket indicates an ‘and’ relationship and the square bracket represents an ‘or’ relationship.

The attitude system includes three aspects: category, vibes, and realization.

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In the analysis, each attitudinal value is encoded in terms of these three sub-systems. An attitudinal value could be encoded generally as positive or negative attitude, or specifically as positive attitude: affect (taking affect as an example), or more specifically as positive affect: happiness. The choice between general or specific attitudinal encodings depends on the needs of the discussion. The attitudinal coding conventions are exemplified in example (5) in Section “Patterns of opposing evaluative couplings”.

The engagement system is concerned with the linguistic resources for negotiating the sources and interactions of different attitudinal values. This system is about “position[ing] the speaker/writer with respect to the value position being advanced and with respect to potential responses to that value position” (Martin and White, 2005, p. 36). The resources in this system are categorized into two groups. One group expands the dialogic spaces and presents the authorial voice as one of a range of possible voices. It includes the sub-categories of entertain and attribute (acknowledge and distance). The other group contracts the dialogic space and sets the authorial voice as challenging the alternative voices. This contractive group contains the sub-categories of disclaim (deny and counter) and proclaim (concur, pronounce, and endorse). For a detailed discussion of engagement system, see Martin and White (2005) and White (2012). These engagement resources position evaluative couplings as more or less open for re-interpretation by the putative readers (Zappavigna, 2021). The sub/categories of engagement are shown in Fig. 2 below.

The engagement system includes two sub-categories: contract and expand. Each sub-category is further classified into different categories.

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The sub-category of counter (within contract: disclaim) is of particular relevance to the present study. The resources of counter invoke a position which would have been expected so as to frame it as either requiring replacement or as unsustainable within the evolving discourse. In the present study, counter plays two important roles: invoking an expectation and countering this expectation (as well as any related positions), as discussed in Section “Reconfiguring positive couplings as unsustainable”.

Discourse semantic systems of ideation: entities and conjunctions

The ideational metafunction deals with resources for construing experiences (entities) and connecting processes (conjunctions). Entities and their taxonomic relations have been considered to be of great value in studying ideational and interpersonal meanings in discourse. Ideationally, they build the field of discourse (He and Li, 2024; Martin, 1992); interpersonally, they function as a ‘conductor’ to propagate evaluative prosodies in the unfolding discourse (Hood, 2010). Entities are re-classified into source, thing, activity, semiotic, place, and time in Hao (2020), and are connected through the taxonomic relations of classification and composition (Martin, 1992). In the present study, entities are discussed as attitudinal targets/triggers. The combination of an attitudinal value with its ideational target/trigger forms an evaluative coupling, as discussed in detail in Section “Affiliation framework: negotiating evaluative couplings” below.

From a discourse semantic perspective, the counter-expectation relationship can be realized between or within processes, as well as manifested explicitly and implicitly via conjunctions, identification, and transitivity (Hao, 2020; Martin, 1992; Martin and White, 2005; Thompson and Zhou, 2000). Some of these realizations are textual Themes and belong to the conjunction system; some are positioned rhematically and belong to the continuity system (Martin, 1992). This study does not distinguish conjunctions and continuatives in the analysis. In the data, this relationship is manifested as a concessive relation (yet, but, however) or a contrast relationship (rather than, in fact, instead). The most frequent concessive relationship is a cohesive conjunction between processes, such as yet in example (1). In these examples, the realization of counter-expectation is shown in box with gray highlights.

1. (1)

   It will be tempting for Ms. Gillard and her remaining supporters to blame Mr. Rudd for rocking the boat. Mr. Rudd gained oxygen only because of her failure to stamp her authority […].

It is also manifested as a parataxis relationship (but in example (2)) or a hypotaxis one (while in example (3)).

1. (2)

   Mr. Rudd was slipping in the polls, he retained a level of popular support Ms. Gillard only briefly surpassed.

2. (3)

   based on sound principles, funding deals with the states are being rushed under the heat of political pressure, spiraling into an expensive Dutch auction.

This counter-expectation relationship is also realized within process as circumstance (despite in example (4)).

1. (4)

   Labor’s record for good economic management […] has been trashed by this government Australia’s strong economic performance.

In the analyses, counter-expectation reveals that only one of the opposing values is confirmed and promoted by the editorial writers, while the other one is conceded to widen the putative readership. The rhetorical strategies deployed to manage these values are discussed in detail in Section “Reconfiguring positive couplings as unsustainable”.

Affiliation framework: negotiating evaluative couplings

Affiliation is one trajectory of the individuation cline which specializes the meaning potential of a culture according to people (Martin, 2010). The affiliation framework deals with how “personae mobilize social semiotic resources to affiliate with one another—how users share attitude and ideation couplings” (Martin et al. 2013, p. 491). Thus, this framework is of particular relevance in exploring how editorial writers affiliate with putative readers into a community of values.

The affiliation process in monologic discourse involves three steps (Liu, 2017; Liu and Hood, 2019). First, a coupling, as the linguistic basis of affiliation, is constructed through the combination of an attitudinal value and its ideational target/trigger. Each coupling is assumed to be shared by the editorial writers and some putative readers, and therefore forms a potential bond. A bond is the basic social semiotic unit in affiliation (Knight, 2010a). Different bonds are connected into a bond network through the taxonomic relations between the attitudinal targets. Each bond network represents a potential community of values. By negotiating couplings in discourse, editorial writers affiliate with putative readers based on the bonds which are promoted. In this study, couplings are annotated through the following convention: a square bracket represents a coupling and a “+” symbol indicates the combination of attitude and entity.

In this study, the readership to whom the couplings are directed is constructed in the discourse, rather than actual readers. Therefore, a “preferred reading” (He and Caple, 2020, p. 5) is created in relation to the positioning of putative readers. In this sense, each coupling is shared by editorial writers and some putative readers who comply with this preferred reading position.

The data and analytical procedure

This study constitutes part of a larger research project comparing affiliation strategies across different national newspapers. The data in the current study were collected from The Australian between March 27, 2013 and July 5, 2013, the beginning of the larger research project. A constructed-week (Knox, 2009) method was adopted here to collect data and resulted in a dataset of 11 editorials (about 7,000 words). Two of the editorials were concerned with foreign affairs, such as Egypt and America, and one editorial was concerned with the economic performance of the Federal Party (the O’Farrell government). These editorials were removed, leaving eight editorials about the practices of the Labor Party.

The Australian tends to adopt a somewhat negative position towards the Labor Party. However, in order to draw a national readership, it also sometimes positively assesses the Labor Party. This tendency suggests that any entities related to the Labor Party will predominantly be negatively evaluated, and that positive positions are likely to be introduced concessively. Thus, an important question lies in how this newspaper presents positive evaluations of entities relating to the Labor Party and finally recasts these positive values as negative.

In manually analyzing the data, particular attention was paid to the attitudinal expressions and counter-expectation realizations. First, attitudinal expressions were identified and coded in terms of their expression mode, vibes, and attitudinal categories. See Section “Appraisal framework: expressing attitudinal values” for the different ways of expressing attitudinal values. Second, attitudinal targets were identified and evaluative couplings were formed through combining the attitudinal values with these targets. Finally, opposing evaluative couplings were coded through identifying the counter-expectation realizations and taxonomic relations between attitudinal targets. One thing needs to be emphasized here. As our purpose is to analyze affiliation around opposing evaluative couplings, the couplings which cannot enter into opposing relations are not explored in this study.

A qualitative approach is adopted in this study to explore the complexity of affiliation. This approach enables us to locate and describe relevant patterns of opposing values and accompanying discursive strategies for managing these values. The analyses were undertaken in two steps. First the patterns of opposing couplings were identified across the data. Then a dynamic perspective was adopted to closely examine how the positive values were overridden by the negative ones in the unfolding discourse. The discussion in this study aims not only to understand the positioning of opposing values in editorial discourse, but also to explain how the management of these values functions as rhetorical strategies for affiliation.

This section illustrates patterns of opposing evaluative couplings identified in the dataset. A substantial number of clashing values regarding taxonomically related entities, in particular entities from the field the Labor Party were identified. According to the taxonomic relationship among appraised entities, these opposing values can be categorized into four patterns. The dominant pattern involves opposing values encoded towards one entity, such as Rudd in example (5).

1. (5)

   Mr. Rudd himself was once seen as the messiah [t.+capacity], but […], he proved too human for the task [t.-capacity].

In this and following examples, attitudinal expressions are presented in bold, such as messiah in example (5), and attitudinal target is underlined as in Mr. Rudd. The attitudinal encoding is presented in square bracket ‘[]’ after the attitudinal expressions and includes expression mode (explicit or implicit), vibe, and attitudinal value, with ‘t’ indicating implicit expression. The sign ‘+’ represents positive values and a ‘-’ sign marks the negative ones. In this example, the expression messiah invokes positive judgment: capacity of Rudd, while that of too human for the task expresses implicitly negative judgment: capacity of Rudd. They form contrasting values expressed towards the entity Rudd.

The second dominant pattern concerns opposing evaluations of entities taxonomically related through composition, such as co-meronyms or meronyms shown in example (6). This example is concerned with the Labor party’s past policy and current membership. In this example the positively evaluated target modern Labor project functions as a meronym of the negatively evaluated one the Labor party.

1. (6)

   Mr. Ferguson was part of the modern Labor project which aligned the unions and the party [t.+reaction] […]. Instead, the party has been taken over by an exclusive [t.-propriety] club of operatives [t.-propriety] with a cloistered [t.-propriety] world view […].

The third pattern includes opposing values expressed towards entities which are not connected taxonomically. Example (7) discusses Rudd’s achievements as prime minister. The evaluated entities are from different experiential fields. The positively evaluated entity (Australia’s economic performance) construes the field Australia economy and the negatively evaluated one (Rudd government) is from the field the Labor Party.

1. (7)

   Labor’s record for good economic management has been trashed [t.-propriety] by this government (Rudd government) despite Australia’s strong [+reaction] economic performance.

In the fourth pattern, the opposing relationship is implied through the counter-expectation resources as shown in (8). Example (8) concerns Gillard’s ascension and achievements as prime minister. This example includes positive evaluations (nation’s first female prime minister, important) of Gillard’s name and ascension respectively. There is not any negative value encoded here. The related strategy of managing such values is discussed in Section “Labor’s performance overrides its role”.

1. (8)

   Ms. Gillard’s name will be recorded as the nation’s first female prime minister [t.+reaction], and her ascension was therefore an important [+reaction] moment. In the job, however, a prime minister, male or female, must be judged by their performance.

The Australian encodes opposing attitudinal values towards entities from the field the Labor Party. The contrasting values indicate that a tension exists in the affiliation process and thus more is at stake. This raises the questions of how this newspaper positions putative readers in relation to the Labor Party, and which positions are finally promoted to these readers and how.

The opposing couplings discussed in Section “Patterns of opposing evaluative couplings” were not afforded equal standing within the unfolding editorial discourse. This section discusses the rhetorical strategies used to orient putative readers to a position of negative attitude towards the Labor Party.

Labor’s performance overrides its role

One strategy for casting off the position [pos+Labor] concerns the evaluation of Labor’s performance and role. In this and following couplings, ‘pos’ refers to the collection of positive attitudinal values, ‘neg’ is concerned with that of negative attitudinal values, and ‘Labor’ stands for all the entities from the field the Labor Party. In the dataset, positive values are encoded towards Labor’s role and negative values are coupled with Labor’s performance. For instance, in (9) an evaluative coupling is construed as [pos attitude: important + Gillard’s ascension], contributing alongside other positive instances to a more general coupling [pos+Labor].

1. (9)

   Ms. Gillard’s name will be recorded as the nation’s first female prime minister [t.+reaction], and her ascension was therefore an important [+reaction] moment. In the job, however, a prime minister, male or female, must be judged by their performance.

2. (10)

   Filmmaker Khoa Do and political scientist and ABC commentator Waleed Aly are interesting [+reaction] appointments, but their professional experience is hardly central to the council’s core business [t.-reaction].

The above two examples include opposite evaluations of Labor’s members. The ideational entities Ms. Gillard’s name and her ascension in (9) and appointments in (10) are instances of Labor’s role. These entities are evaluated positively by important, interesting, and nation’s first female prime minister. The ideational entities performance in (9) and professional experience in (10) constitute the instances of Labor’s performance. The entity professional experience is encoded with negative attitudinal values, invoked by the experiential meaning hardly central to the council’s core business.

The process of negative evaluations overriding positive ones can be exemplified by analyzing example (10) in further detail. Example (10) talks about the political appointment of Do and Aly whose previous expertize was primarily on the fields of media and science. In (10) the writers acknowledge an initial positive reaction towards their political appointment, before presenting negative evaluation of their professional experience. The presented positive coupling [pos attitude: interesting + role: appointments] creates a positive expectation that Khoa Do and Waleed Aly could be capable council members. An expected positive coupling is therefore construed: [pos attitude + performance]. However, the presented negative coupling [neg attitude: hardly central to the council’s core business + performance: professional experience] shows they are not capable to do the business of council members. This negative position counters the positive expectation, with the countering process signaled by the concessive conjunction but. This conjunction, as one realization of counter in engagement system (Martin and White, 2005), represents the presented negative position as supplanting the expected positive one, and thus presents the negative coupling as the authorial position. It therefore cancels the putative readers’ positive expectation towards the political performance of Khoa Do and Waleed Aly. This countering process is shown in Fig. 3 below. In this and following figures, the expected coupling is presented in dotted line.

This figure includes three evaluative couplings: two of them are presented in the data, and one of them is expected and shown in dotted line.

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This presentation of contrasting values could facilitate editorial writers’ affiliation with both Labor supporters and Labor critics. The presented positive coupling and the expected one construe a bond network of Labor supporters, while the presented negative coupling forms a bond of Labor critics. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the countering process forges an affiliation between editorial writers and Labor critics. This could potentially prompt a shift in the attitudes of certain Labor supporters towards adopting negative viewpoints, potentially widening the scope of the community of Labor critics. Managing opposing values presents the editorial writers as more objective: they acknowledge the positive values of Labor’s role while simultaneously countering the anticipated positive values of Labor’s performance. However, a good political appointment does not necessarily lead to good political performances. Their previous professional experiences as filmmaker, political scientists, and ABC commentator may be irrelevant to the council’s core business. This context makes their political appointment unsustainable when juxtaposed with the council’s core business, which enables the presented negative positions to override the presented positive one.

Labor’s practice overrides its policy

A second strategy employed to override the position [pos+Labor] relates to the evaluation of Labor’s practice and policy. The entities of Labor’s practice are encoded with negative values, while those of Labor’s policy are encoded with positive values, as indicated in examples (11) and (12).

1. (11)

   While based on sound [+reaction] principles, funding deals with the states are being rushed [t.-reaction] under the heat of political pressure…

2. (12)

   … the government has its work cut out if it is to secure agreement from the states on one of its flagship [+reaction] policies. Yet again the government is rushing [t.-propriety] to implement an ambitious [-reaction] policy agenda devoid of many details [t.-reaction].

Both examples involve contrasting evaluations of one ideational entity. Labor’s policy is instantiated as principles in (11) and policies in (12). These specific instantiations are assigned with positive values realized by sound in (11) and flagship in (12). The combinations of policy with positive values instantiate a general coupling [pos+Labor: policy]. Labor’s practice is specified as funding deals with the states in (11) and policy agenda in (12). The specific entities of practice are encoded with negative values which are invoked by the ideational meaning rushed in (11), and inscribed by ambitious and invoked by rushing in (12). The combinations of practice with negative values instantiate a general coupling [neg+Labor: practice]. The recasting process is explained in a detailed analysis of (12).

Example (12) discusses different aspects of the Gonski school reform. It firstly presents this reform as one of Labor’s flagship policies. This presented coupling [pos attitude: flagship + policy: policies] creates a positive expectation that the Gonski school reform could be implemented well and supported by many schools, which in turn construes an expected positive coupling [pos attitude+practice]. The example then explains the implementation of this reform and includes several instances of negative evaluation of the implementation practices. The reform agenda is encoded with negative appreciation: reaction through the expressions of ambitious and devoid of many details. The behavior of implementing this reform is also negatively evaluated as rushing. These instances of negative values realize a general coupling [neg+Labor: practice]. The concessive conjunction yet closes down the dialogic space and presents the advanced negative position as replacing the expected positive one. The relationship among these three couplings is presented in Fig. 4.

This figure includes three evaluative couplings. Two of them are concerned with evaluations of Labor’s practices, and one of them concerns with that of Labor’s policy.

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This negotiation forges an affiliation between editorial writers with the putative readers critical of Labor’s implementation practices. Each coupling in (12) construes a potential bond and then a community of values. Editorial writers are presented as members of each community. Policy is theoretical in itself, while its implementation is practical. So the implementation is privileged as more important than the proposal of the policy. This difference between theory and practice facilitates the overriding process and makes the presented negative positions more convincing to the putative readers and thus override the presented positive ones. The countering process also persuades the putative readers to cast off their positive expectation and potentially aligns Labor supporters (supporting its policies and practices) into a community of Labor critics.

Labor in governance overrides its other positions

A third strategy is closely related to the political positions of the entities as attitudinal targets, that is, Labor’s political positions in Australia. The same entity is encoded with opposing values under different political positions, as illustrated in examples (13) and (14).

1. (13)

   In opposition and as deputy prime minister, Ms. Gillard was capable and effective [+capacity]. […] Yet she proved incapable [-capacity] of stepping up to the office of prime minister, unable [-capacity] to secure the political high ground [t.-propriety] and too willing [+inclination] to demean [-propriety] herself…

2. (14)

   Perhaps the National Party was at fault [-capacity] for failing to [-capacity] appreciate the talents [+capacity] of Mr. Oakeshott and Mr. Windsor when they were members. But over the past three years they have shown a curious lack of independence [t.-capacity].

These two examples involve opposite evaluations of the same person in different political positions. In (13) Gillard in opposition and as deputy prime minister is positively evaluated, while Gillard as prime minister is negatively encoded. In (14) positive values are assigned to Oakeshott and Windsor as members of the National Party, but negative values are assigned to them as supporters of Gillard and the Labor Party. In these examples, the positive evaluative couplings instantiate the pattern [pos+Labor: other positions] and the negative ones instantiate the pattern [neg+Labor: prime minister]. Here the term ‘other positions’ means the roles other than prime minister and governing party. The process of overriding [pos+Labor: other positions] is detailed in the analysis of example (13) which talks about Gillard’s political behaviors.

The excerpt in (13) construes evaluations of Gillard’s behaviors. It begins with a series of positive evaluations of Gillard as deputy prime minister, in particular positive judgment of her behaviors (capable, effective). The presented positive couplings create a positive expectation about Gillard behavior as prime minister. An expected positive coupling [pos attitude + Gillard: prime minister] is thus construed. The excerpt continues with a series of negative evaluations of Gillard as prime minister, including the behaviors of stepping up to the office of prime minister (incapable, unable) and governing the country (demean, playing the politics of division). The presented negative couplings are represented as supplanting the positive expectation through the concessive conjunction yet. The negotiation process is shown in Fig. 5.

This figure includes three evaluative couplings. One of them relates to the evaluation of Labor in opposition, and two of them relate to the evaluations of Labor in governance.

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These three syndromes of couplings build three potential bonds and communities of values in turn. Editorial writers are portrayed as belonging to each of these communities and aligning themselves with various groups of putative readers. The context of Gillard being in opposition and deputy prime minister refers to the time period from December 3, 2007 to June 24, 2010, while that of Gillard being prime minister covers the time of writing the editorial text where example (13) was from. This distinguishes what Gillard did in the previous position (expressed as [pos+Labor]) from what Gillard did in the current position (expressed as [neg+Labor]) and makes the negative positions more relevant to the current context. Therefore, the presented negative values override those positive ones and are described as more compelling to the putative readers. Both the overriding and countering processes are geared towards dissociating Labor supporters from the Labor Party in governance and persuading them to align with editorial writers as critics of Labor. In this example, editorial writers concede the ability of Gillard as deputy prime minister but finally promote Gillard’s incapacity as prime minister.

Group position overrides individual position

A fourth strategy of overriding [pos+Labor] concerns the social status of the sources of evaluation. In the following examples, most of the attitudinal values are attributed to external sources with different social status. In the dataset two pairs of social status are instantiated: an individual source versus a group source (example (15)), and an individual source versus an institution source (example (16)). The sources of evaluation are italicized in the examples.

1. (15)

   […] Mr. Oakeshott described the Prime Minister as “focused and still smiling … impressive” [+capacity]. Mr. Windsor praised Ms. Gillard on Monday for doing “an extraordinary [+capacity] job” getting through the current parliament. Many in the Labor caucus, however, disagree [-satisfaction].

2. (16)

   Nevertheless, Mr. Garrett assured [+security] voters that discussions with the Catholic and independent school sectors continued [t.+reaction], as was the case with the other state governments. But as The Australian reported last week, Catholic and independent schools fear [-security] they will be worse off [-reaction] if the Gonski school education reforms are implemented in their current form [t.-reaction].

In these examples contrasting values are attributed externally to different sources. Example (15) includes positive evaluation of Gillard (impressive, extraordinary) and negative evaluation of these positive positions (disagree). Example (16) involves positive values of discussions with the schools (assured, continued), and negative values of schools (fear, worse off) and the Gonski school education reforms (in their current form). The positive values are attributed externally to individuals, such as Oakeshott in (15) and Garrett in (16), while the negative ones to group many in the Labor caucus or institution The Australian. The overriding process is illustrated through the analysis of example (16).

Example (16) talks about the implementation of the Gonski school education reforms in Australia. The presented positive values instantiate the general coupling [pos+Labor] and create the expectation that these reforms would be good to the schools. The negative evaluation of the schools invoked negative values of the Gonski school education reforms which construe the general coupling [neg+Labor]. The presented negative position fends off the positive expectations and considers the negative position as authorial stance through the use of the concessive conjunction but. The negotiation process is explained in Fig. 6.

This figure includes three evaluative couplings. Two of them are attributed to external group sources, one of them is attributed to external individual sources.

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Affiliation around negative values is enacted here. In (16), the positive values are sourced to Garrett, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth appointed by Prime Minister Gillard (14 September 2010 to 26 June 2013). In this sense, the positive values are self-attributed as the reform was proposed by the Labor Party and then promoted by its members. This self-attribution decreases the acceptability of the positive positions and renders them unsustainable when compared with the source of presented negative values (The Australian and schools). The differences between individual source and group source in terms of their social influences make the presented negative position (associated with group source) more powerful and acceptable for putative readers. These differences facilitate the overriding of [pos+Labor] by [neg+Labor]. This strategic approach is designed to distance Labor supporters from the Labor Party and encourage them to align with a community critical of Labor.

To this point, a number of strategies have been identified to negotiate opposing values targeted at entities from the field the Labor Party. These strategies concede the presence of the positions [pos+Labor] in some circumstances, whose primary function is to create some space for Labor supporters and provide a value for affiliating editorial writers with these supporters. These strategies also propose the existence of positions [neg+Labor], which serve to create space for Labor critics and for editorial writers to affiliate with these critics. The validity of [pos+Labor] is challenged by that of [neg+Labor], which render the position [pos+Labor] unsustainable. These strategies do not directly negate or reject the positions [pos+Labor]. Instead, they counter the positive expectations arising from the presented positive positions and covertly undermine these positive positions by questioning their validity and portraying the context of the negative positions as more important or relevant. These strategies negotiate affiliation with both Labor supporters and critics, but ultimately promote alignment with the latter group.

This study has examined affiliation strategies used by editorial writers to negotiate opposing values in newspaper editorial discourse and persuade putative readers into affiliating with editorial writers. The general discursive strategy employed was defined as conceding and overriding, and acted upon the coupling [pos+Labor]. Editorial writers acknowledge the positive attributes of entities associated with the Labor Party, thus recognizing instances when the party performs commendably. This approach broadens the potential readership by resonating with Labor supporters. These positive positions are subsequently overshadowed by negative ones, portraying the Labor Party as unsuitable for the present circumstances or not advantageous for Australians. This negotiation strategy seeks to convince all potential readers to disaffiliate themselves from the Labor Party and adopt a critical stance towards its performance, policies, and members.

The analysis in this study could make significant contributions to the study of persuasion and affiliation in media discourse. Persuasion here is realized through a combined analysis of interpersonal and ideational resources, rather than individual choices or isolated patterns. Affiliation in this study is achieved around opposing values. Two discursive signals indicating the affiliation process include counter-expectation resources and contrasts in attitudinal targets or attitudinal sources. The counter-expectation resources facilitate the presented negative positions replacing the expected positive ones arising from the presented positive positions. The contrasts portrayed render the presented positive positions untenable for the current context and the context of the presented negative positions more important. This negotiation strategy allows editorial writers to acknowledge various perspectives on the Labor Party, yet ultimately depicts the party as unsustainable in its role as a governing entity in Australia. The analysis here therefore suggests more ways to explore disagreement in dialogic or monologic discourse and better understand the language of media discourse.

By exploring the strategic navigation of affiliation through the negotiation of contrasting perspectives that ultimately portray some positive positions towards the Labor Party as unsustainable, this study sheds light on the intricate dynamics of discourse and persuasion in shaping public perception and political alignment. However, this study focused on the management of opposing values at sentence level. Future research thus could explore how these values are managed dynamically across an entire text. The data for this study include opposing values, which may be different from other news-opinion writing. There also may be differences across cultures and political systems. Therefore, it would be interesting to conduct a wider comparison of such rhetorical patterns in different media and cultures. Other semiotic resources, such as images, color, and sound, may also play an important role in realizing persuasion and affiliation. We leave these topics for future work.