Abstract
This article proposes a testable method for identifying guesses on future events in news journalism. By combining linguistic theories on speech acts and non-reality, the article seeks to bring clarity on the fuzzy concepts of guessing, conjecturing, predicting and speculating which have previously (Jaworski et al. 2003, Neiger 2007) been handled as presupposed and, to some extent, undefined categories, although they are often hard to distinguish from each other and from other speech acts dealing with future events. This leads to a set of operationalized definitions which are tested for intercoder reliability (Krippendorff’s α = 0.88) on a case corpus (n = 1939 sentences). The article concludes by emphasizing the necessity of elaborate definitions and a testing device when dealing with speech acts in content analysis.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
| Event | 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association - Seattle Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, United States Duration: 22 May 2014 → 26 May 2014 |
Conference
| Conference | 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association |
|---|---|
| Location | Seattle Sheraton Hotel |
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Seattle |
| Period | 22/05/14 → 26/05/14 |