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Part of
Self- and Other-Reference in Social Contexts: From global to local discourses
Edited by Minna Nevala and Minna Palander-Collin
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 342] 2024
► pp. 89–113

Chapter 5
Self- and other-positioning in eighteenth‑century newspapers

A case study of a failed joint venture

| University of Duisburg-Essen

This study takes a sociopragmatic perspective on processes of self- and other-positioning in eighteenth-century newspapers. A case study of the adversarial separation of Edward Topham and John Bell, the makers of the highly successful newspaper The World, will reveal the complexities of indexical practices in negotiating positions and responsibilities. Evidence of their feud was mainly found in Bell’s new paper, The Oracle, which was launched in June 1789. Drawing on Reisigl and Wodak’s (2001) framework of positive self- and negative other-presentation, this study particularly explores the referencing and predication strategies, but also some of the perspectivation and argumentation strategies employed in a kaleidoscopic dataset including Bell’s inaugural comment and a range of further newspaper genres. While the processes of positioning provide evidence of the self-serving bias, i.e. “a tendency for people to take personal responsibility for their desirable outcomes yet externalize responsibility for their undesirable outcomes” (cf. Shepperd et al. 2008: 895–896), they were probably carefully planned with the formation of public opinion and marketing effects in mind.

Keywords: Self-positioning, other-positioning, sociopragmatics, discourse-historical approach, reference, predication, perspectivation, argumentation, self-serving bias
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Analytical framework
  • 3.Historical contextualisation
  • 4.Data: A kaleidoscopic set-up
  • 5.Strategies of self- and other-positioning
    • 5.1Self- and other-references in self- and other-positioning: The case of pronouns
    • 5.2Reference and predication strategies in The Oracle
      • 5.2.1Self-positioning: Bell/The Oracle
      • 5.2.2Other-positioning: Edward Topham/The World
    • 5.3Further strategies of self- and other-positioning
      • 5.3.1Perspectivation
      • 5.3.2Argumentation strategies
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 March 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.342.05bos
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