ABSTRACT
Evaluative language includes linguistic expressions that realize opinion, for example, assessments of positivity or negativity, importance or unimportance, expectedness or unexpectedness. Negative evaluations of events (fiasco), behaviour (cashes in, made a gaffe), or news actors (sexual predator, wannabe) clearly construe the news value of Negativity. Happenings in a news story are often compared to similar happenings in the past. This frequently functions to construe Novelty, when the current event is described as, say, the first of its kind or for a long time. References to emotion, that is, describing news actors’ emotional responses, can take many forms, for example, describing ‘emotional’ behaviour such as screaming or shouting or labelling emotions.
