Nomination and Predication as Profiling Tools in Media Discourse

Abstract

The article concerns the phenomenon of profiling as a cognitive concept and a research paradigm implemented in German discourse linguistics and used successfully in the linguistic discourse analysis. The contrastive analysis is carried out based on the Polish and German-language research corpus. The analysis aims to reconstruct the profiles of the controversial biographers in the press – Artur Domosławski (author of Kapuściński’s biography), and Gerhard Gnauck (author of Reich-Ranicki’s biography). In this approach, profiling in the media discourse is understood as a dynamic process, pointing to journalists’ competing and mutually combating positions and points of view, embedded in different cultures. Based on the theoretical assumptions and the specificity of the corpus, important questions arise about who profiles whom, what perspective they adopt and what linguistic practices they use. The analysis will examine nominations (referential forms) and predications (predicative forms) in the context of their potential for profiling discourse actors. The selected tools will allow us to reconstruct the culturally specific profiles of both biographers.