Abstract:
The Ghanaian press reach and influence a section of Ghanaian readers with their
messages. Readers, therefore, need to have adequate knowledge of the language
use in the media not only for constructing the intended meaning in the news but
also for decoding other texts. This study investigates the use of the language of
evaluation in the front pages and the editorials of state and private newspapers
namely; The Daily Graphic and The Chronicle respectively. The theoretical
framework used in this study is Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory.
Qualitative content analysis and case study approaches were used to collect data
about attitude (affect, judgment and appreciation) markers in both papers. The
study revealed that the front page news exposed mainly the cause and effect of
the disaster, made emotional appeals to readers, and assessed facilities to
combat the disaster through emotive language and judgment resources whilst
the editorials, through the abundant use of appreciation and judgment resources,
mainly distanced themselves from government, and ascribed the cause of the
disaster solely to careless and wanton human activities. These findings will be
applied in researching similar texts.
