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Own goals in Italian EL word count fiascoJUST Book Reviews travels to Verona to hear an English linguistics lecture on the language of politics in British newspapersBy Domenico Pacitti, JBR Editor
"Corpora and Discourse" by John
Morley: a paper given at the University of Verona on December 17 2003. John Morley�s lamentable paper on English discourse has perhaps one positive virtue. It provides a clear and unequivocal demonstration that abysmal standards at Italian language faculties are not the exclusive reserve of Italians but apply equally to foreign academics in Italy with native-speaker competence in the language of their research. Italian universities have been well described in the international press as constituting an academic black hole. Mr Morley's paper helps drive home the fact that the omnivorous sucking force of this black hole does not spare foreigners, an important point that is often overlooked. Mr Morley�s
official CV boasts that he began his career about forty years ago as a
goalkeeper for a top soccer team in Uganda, opting for Italian academia on the
eve of Idi Amin's dictatorship. On the basis of the present paper it would be
difficult to say whether his decision brought greater benefit to Italy or
Uganda. Morley is
concerned to show the value of computer word counts in assessing political bias
in English newspaper editorials. A five-page lecture handout contains two such
reports relating to the Iraq War. The reports are taken from The Guardian
and The Mirror and are based on background modules of 51,701 words and
21,214 words respectively. Both are set against a wider collection of no less
than 1.25 million words of reporting on the same subject extracted from a total
of ten UK and US newspapers. Morley lists
forty-five words together with their percentage recurrences in each of the two
newspapers. He points out, for example, that the word �Tony� [Blair] appears 105
times in the Mirror corpus but only 55 times in the Guardian
corpus. On the other hand, �Mr� appears just 96 times in the Mirror but
435 times in the Guardian. So what does this show? It looks as if Morley
wants to say that referring to the British prime minister as �Tony� confirms
proximity and agreement whereas calling him �Mr Blair� confirms the opposite.
You need only state this contention in order to see how patently absurd it is.
Other examples fare no better. But Morley, his brain evidently benumbed by the
stultifying effects of 1.25 million words that obstinately resist intelligent
classification in his canonical categories, fails to perceive the absurdity. Morley also introduces �key concepts� to interpret his word counts. The key concepts, which include �semantic prosody� and �lexical priming�, serve no real purpose other than to allow Morley to mimic scientific rigour, a practice that is entirely in line with standard Italian academic convention. Nor does Morley seem capable of even constructing any concrete scientific hypotheses. These facts together help explain why Morley fails to reach any conclusions. In outline
the project might have been expected to produce interesting results in the hands
of a competent academic. Sadly, however, Morley proves hopelessly inadequate to
the task, becoming increasingly immersed in a plethora of word frequency detail
which he is unable to interpret with any conviction or lucidity. Clearly on a
hiding to nothing with his �never-mind-the-depth-feel-the-breadth� approach,
Morley is visibly embarrassed by his own muddled and awkward presentation. The
distinct impression is that he would have felt a good deal more at ease between
two goalposts than on a lecture-room podium.
Interestingly and in marked contrast to Morley�s effort, a serious study of
media bias on the Falklands War in 1982 was once carried out by the Glasgow
University sociology department�s Media Group. The study appears to have used
observation and rational analysis rather futile mountains of computerised words
couched in pseudo-scientific jargon. It is said to have so incensed the then
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher that she considered closing them down
by withdrawing funding. Regrettably,
Morley and his department at Siena run no similar risk. The likely prospect of
his continuing to squander Italian research funding on publishing this and
similar material while at the same time teaching it to unsuspecting sycophantic
students and having them write about it in graduation theses is of little
interest to Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and higher education minister
Letizia Moratti. Pending the unlikely event of serious Italian research on the
subject with politically incisive conclusions, Morley and his colleagues can
look forward to endless hours of futile, politically innocuous computer
entertainment � all at the Italian taxpayer�s expense. Mr Morley began teaching at the University of Siena in 1987 and was elected to a senior post in English linguistics at the faculty of political sciences in 2000.
Note: This review was first published by JUST Book Reviews on December 21 2003. It marks a new initiative in our �Failing faculties� section to cover public lectures and conference papers within Italian academia in addition to books and articles. Mr Morley's lecture took place in Room C of the University of Verona's faculty of foreign languages and literature before an audience of approximately 150 students and four teaching staff and lasted just over one hour.
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