Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 279
Fields are highlighted. We can see that even in the case of longer Themes, such as
Evidence of rising..., the Thematic Field consists exclusively of a Thematic Head.
(37) Opec’s mettle will be tested next week when the cartel assembles in Vienna
at a hastily convened meeting to discuss the economic crisis and whether the
exporters’ club should take action to arrest the fall in the price of crude oil.
Mounting alarm over the dwindling rent from oil sales prompted Opec yes-
terday to bring forward an emergency meeting scheduled for mid-November
to next Friday. Together the cartel members have lost about a billion dollars
of revenue a day since crude price peaked in July. The benchmark US Light
crude price fell $5 per barrel on the New York Nymex exchange yesterday to
$69.15 (£40.05), less than half the value at oil’s peak, while London’s Brent
crude futures contract fell to $65.70. Evidence of rising oil stocks in America
and weakening demand for energy in China’s mills and workshops has
speeded up oil’s decline, but there is no agreement within the cartel over price
strategy. Opec hawks, such as Iran and Venezuela, want to shore up the price
by turning off the taps, but neither country can afford to cut output and forgo
revenues. (Opec hawks want to cut oil production to keep up price. Report 2)
As mentioned above, the contrast between the inner thematic structure of com-
mentaries and reports is more marked in the English than in the Spanish texts;
the Spanish reports often have heavier Themes than the English reports, including
Outer Thematic Fields, such as No obstante (‘nevertheless’) in (38) and some long
preHeads, such as De cara a [...] ejercicio (‘In order to [...] exercise’) in (39):
(38) No obstante ha moderado esta caída a medida que avanzaba la sesión y se ha
estabilizado en torno a los 62,75 dólares. (El recorte de producción
de la OPEP hunde el petróleo. Report 2)
‘Nevertheless, it has softened this fall as the session progressed and it has lev-
eled off at about $62.75.’
(39) De cara a recompensar a sus accionistas tras los flojos resultados del anterior
ejercicio, la compañía ha aumentado su beneficio por acción durante el primer
semestre fiscal a 95 centavos el dólar, frente a los 61 centavos por título que
ganó entre julio y diciembre de 2006. (Los resultados de Microsoft
brillan gracias al Windows Vista. Report 3)
‘In order to make it up to its shareholders after the previous year’s weak results,
the company has increased its profit per share during the first fiscal half of the
year to 95 cents a dollar, as opposed to the 61 cents per share earned between
July and December 2006.’
Contributing to the less clearly marked distinction between commentaries and
reports in Spanish is the presence of elements in the Outer Thematic Field of the