Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 269
(12) Tien-e más de 75 millones de clientes en Europa, [..]
Have 3psgPres.Ind more than 75 million of customers in Europe
‘It has more than 75 million customers in Europe’
The second language-specific choice is the preferred conflation of the Goal/
Medium experiential roles with subject in English. While in English this is a fre-
quent conflation which results in a passive structure, as in (13) below, in Spanish
this conflation is less frequent (5.4% in English vs. 3.3% in Spanish), only occur-
ring occasionally in this language, as illustrated in (14) below.
(13) The investigation was launched when Mario Blejer, a senior Argentine econo-
mist, said Mrs Nagy, his wife, had been seduced at the Davos international
forum. (Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF,
escapes dismissal over affair. Report 1)
(14) Esta cuota es determinada para cada país [...].
(El FMI anuncia ayudas financieras para Ucrania y Hungría. Report 6)
‘This quota is determined by each country’
The rest of the conflations can be considered genre-related, reflecting the differ-
ent communicative purposes which characterize news reports and commentaries.
In this regard, our first observation was that the Actor was the preferred
choice as Thematic head in both newspaper genres and in both languages
(36.6% in English vs. 35.1% in Spanish), as illustrated by the elements in bold in
Examples (15), (16), (17) and (18) below:
(15) Emerging-market countries have increased their share of the world economy,
giving them a more important voice in international relations.
(Micro Europe. Comment 4)
(16) El presidente de la Generalitat valenciana, Francisco Camps, compareció
ayer como imputado ante el Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunidad
Valenciana, [..] (Sigue imputado. Comment 3)
‘The President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Francisco Camps, appeared yes-
terday as accused in the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community.’
(17) Dominique Strauss-Kam, the French head of the International Monetary
Fund, escaped dismissal for a one-night stand with a subordinate today,
but was denounced by board members for a “serious error of judgment”.
(Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF,
escapes dismissal over affair. Report 1)
(18) La economía española caerá un 4% este año.
‘Spanish economy will fall 4% this year’
This is probably due to the fact that both genres deal with current events, which
accounts for the high percentage of Material processes in both groups of texts.