224 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
It helps in the examination of the outcome if we take the third version
first.
//r+ at the NATional stadium in NIBlitz today //p supPORTers CLASHED
//r when ENGland //p played their WORLD CUP match //r against
the PRESent cupholders //p RURiTAnia //o ENGland //p had HELD
//r+ the CHAMpions //p to ONE ONE //p until HALF TIME //r but
SOON after play was reSUMED //p a PENalty //p was awarded
aGAINST them //r acCORding to our reporter jim BULLock //r the
deCISion //p CAUSEd UProar //r+ aMONGST a GROUP //p of ENGland
FANS //r+ and THIS in TURN //r provoked an ANgry resPONSE /
/r from some opPOSing supporters //r in an adJOINing section //p
of the STAND //We might expect this reading to be at or near the end of the continuum
which represents maximal engagement. The newsreader could be expected
to anticipate in her performance the assumptions which she, as purveyor of
the news, shared with those people in her audience who were interested in
this particular item. For our present purposes, the situation differs from that
of one person telling another conversationally about what happened at Niblitz
principally in that the second party, even if its composition is narrowed
down to that portion of the listening public who take an interest in football,
is an enormous and diverse group. This last fact would lead us to expect the
reader to err on the side of explicitness: not to take everything for granted
that might, in a one-to-one conversation, reasonably be taken for granted.
It will be a fully engaged presentation, but one in which engagement will
be with a composite recipient: considerations of highest common factors
and of how much can properly be taken for granted, will therefore be of
some importance.
Taking tone choices first, we can say that the treatment of the first
sentence is in line with these expectations. On the day when this item
occurs in the news, it is sensible to assume a widely shared interest in
what happened in the National stadium at Niblitz today, and therefore to
present this part of the bulletin with a referring tone. The same applies to
when England and the present cupholders. But the same might well be
thought to be true of played their World Cup match and Ruritania. Surely
the kind of involvement we are attributing to hearers would make both the
special significance of the match and the name of the opposing side equally
available in the common pool? We may, perhaps, attribute the fact that
this availability is not acknowledged by the reader to her being less than
one hundred per cent efficient; and in view of the complexity of the
demands that the performance of such a task makes, we ought not to be
surprised at occasional lapses from the intonation that a strict examination
of the circumstances would lead us to expect. An alternative version, which
associates referring tone with mention of the World Cup match, could