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Dr Peter White

Dr Peter White

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D (University of Sydney), B.A. (Hons) University of Sydney, B.A. (Hons) University of Adelaide, Graduate Certificate in ESL Teaching (University of New South Wales)

Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of the Arts and Media

Dr White is one of the principal architects of the Appraisal framework,an account of the means by which texts convey evaluative and attitudinal meanings. [See for detailed information, contacts, bibliographies/links and an introductory course.] He is influential in the development of linguistics-based analyses of mass communicative discourse (journalism, politics, corporate communications, public relations and advertising) and in the contrastive analysis of journalism and political rhetoric across languages and cultures.

Dr White's further research interests include educational linguistics (literacy development, including English-language literacy development in indigenous and bilingual settings; genre-based pedagogy), translation studies and contrastive linguistics, corpus and computational linguistics (including sentiment analysis and opinion mining), argumentation theory and the language of persuasion, and new developments in Systemic Function Linguistic theory. For a detailed listing (with download links) of Dr White's publications see .

He supervises PhD candidates working across these different topic areas.

Prior to undertaking academic study, Dr White worked as a journalist and journalism trainer for almost 20 years (Sydney Morning Herald, The Adelaide Advertiser, Special Broadcasting Service -SBS). He gained his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2000 and prior to teaching media studies, linguistics, discourse analysis and journalism  at the University of New South Wales taught linguistics and journalism at the University of Adelaide, linguistics and English Language studies at the University of Birmingham (UK), journalism and media studies at the University of Wollongong and linguistics at the University of Sydney.,

He is also a semi-professional jazz musicians, currently performing on saxophone and keyboards with the Travelling Circumstances jazz combo.

Phone
+61 2 9385 2364
Location
311F, Level 3 Robert Webster
  • Books | 2010
    Feez S; Iedema R; White P, 2010, Media Literacy, NSW Adult Migrant Education Services, Sydney
    Books | 2008
    White P; Thomson E, 2008, Communicating Conflict, Multilingual Case Studies of the News Media, Continuum Publishing Co, London and New York
    Books | 2005
    Martin JR; White P, 2005, The Language of Evaluation - Appraisal in English, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, New York
  • Book Chapters | 2022
    White P, 2022, 'The Appraisal Framework and Analyses of Journalistic Discourse: Objectivity, Subjectivity and Attitudinal Positioning,', in Knox J; Caldwell D; Martin J (ed.), Appliable Linguistics and Social Semiotics: Developing Theory from Practice, Bloomsbury, London, pp. 294 - 208,
    Book Chapters | 2020
    White P, 2020, 'Attitudinal alignments in journalistic commentary and social-media argumentation: The construction of values-based group identities in the online comments of newspaper readers', in Zappavigna M; Dreyfus S (ed.), Discourses of Hope and Reconciliation: On J. R. Martin’s Contribution to Systemic Functional Linguistics, Bloombury Academic, London, pp. 21 - 39,
    Book Chapters | 2016
    White PR, 2016, 'Evaluative contents in verbal communication', in Rocci A; de Saussure L (ed.), Verbal Communication, Vol 3, Handbooks of Communication Sciences, DE GRUYTER MOUTON, Berlin, Boston, pp. 77 - 96,
    Book Chapters | 2015
    White PRR, 2015, 'Appraisal Theory', in Tracy K; Ilie C; Sandel T (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction,, Wiley-Blackwell, New Jersey, pp. 1 - 8,
    Book Chapters | 2010
    Thomson E; White P; Kitley P, 2010, '"Objectivity" and "Hard News" Reporting Across Cultures: Comparing the news reort in Ehglish, French, Japanese and Indonesian journalism', in Richardson JE (ed.), Language and Journalism, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, pp. 61 - 77
    Book Chapters | 2008
    Thomson E; Fukui N; White P, 2008, 'Evaluating "Reporter" Voice in Two Japanese Front-page Lead Stories', in Thomson EA; White PRR (ed.), Communicating Conflict, Multilingual Case Studies of the News Media, edn. 1, Continuum Publishing Co, Great Britain, pp. 65 - 96
    Book Chapters | 2008
    White P; Thomson E, 2008, 'The News Story as Rhetoric: linguistic approaches to the analysis of journalistic discourse', in Thomson EA; White PRR (ed.), Communicating Conflict, Multilingual Case Studies of the News Media, Continuum Publishing Co, Great Britain, pp. 1 - 24
    Book Chapters | 2008
    White P, 2008, 'Praising and blaming, applauding and disparaging – solidarity, audience positioning, and the linguistics of evaluative disposition', in Antos G; Ventola E (ed.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin and New York, pp. 542 - 567
    Book Chapters | 2007
    Simon-bandenbergen A; White P; Karin A, 2007, 'Presupposition and ‘taking-for-granted’ in mass communicated political argument - An illustration from British, Flemish and Swedish political colloquy', in Fetzer A; Lauerbach G (ed.), Political Discourse in the Media, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 31 - 74
    Book Chapters | 2006
    White P; Sano M, 2006, 'Dialogistic Positions and Anticipated Audiences – a Framework for Stylistic Comparisons', in Aijmer K; Simon-Vandenbergen AM (ed.), Pragmatic Markers in Contrast, Elsevier, Frankfurt, pp. 189 - 214
    Book Chapters | 2006
    White P, 2006, 'Evaluative Semantics and Ideological Positioning in Journalistic Discourse: a new framework for analysis', in Lassen I; Strunck J; Vestergaard T (ed.), Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten critical studies (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture), John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 37 - 67
    Book Chapters | 2004
    White P, 2004, 'Subjectivity, Evaluation and Point of View in Media Discourse', in Coffin C; O'Halloran K (ed.), Grammar, Text & Context: A Reader, Arnold: 229-257, London & New York, pp. 229 - 257
    Book Chapters | 2003
    White P, 2003, 'News As History - Your Daily Gossip', in Martin JR; Wodak R (ed.), Re-Reading the Past: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Time and Value, John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 61 - 89
    Book Chapters | 2002
    White P, 2002, '‘Appraisal - the Language of Evaluation and Stance', in Verschueren J; Östman J; Blommaert J; Bulcaen C (ed.), The Handbook of Pragmatics, John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia:, pp. 1 - 23
    Book Chapters | 2000
    White P, 2000, 'Dialogue and Inter-Subjectivity: Reinterpreting the Semantics of Modality and Hedging', in Coulthard M; Cotterill J; Rock F (ed.), Dialog VI - Working With Dialog, Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Germany, pp. 67 - 80
    Book Chapters | 2000
    White P, 2000, 'Media Objectivity and the Rhetoric of News Story Structure', in Discourse and Community, Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen, Germany, pp. 379 - 397
    Book Chapters | 1998
    White P, 1998, 'Extended Reality, Proto-Nouns and the Vernacular: Distinguishing the Technological From the Scientific', in , . (eds),,: .', in Martin JR; Veel R (ed.), Reading Science - Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, Routledge, London & New York, pp. 266 - 296
    Book Chapters | 1997
    White P, 1997, 'Death, Disruption and the Moral Order: the Narrative Impulse in Mass-Media Hard News Reporting', in Christie F; Martin JR (ed.), Genres and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School, Cassell, London,, pp. 101 - 133
  • Journal articles | 2021
    White P; Xu Q, 2021, 'My Husband Always Crosses the Line": Textual Identity and Presentation of "the Self" in Family Conflict Communication', Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics, 12, pp. 52 - 73,
    Journal articles | 2021
    White P; Zaidi A, 2021, 'Attitudinal Positioning and Journalistic Commentary in Politically Fraught Circumstances: Editorializing About the Killing of Osama bin Laden', Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics, 12, pp. 89 - 112,
    Journal articles | 2021
    White P, 2021, 'Textual anticipation and the putative reader in persuasive discourse', Journal of Foreign Languages, 44, pp. 2 - 20,
    Journal articles | 2021
    White PRR, 2021, 'Alignment, persuasiveness and the putative reader in opinion writing', Language Context and Text The Social Semiotics Forum, 3, pp. 247 - 273,
    Journal articles | 2020
    White PRR, 2020, 'The putative reader in mass media persuasion – stance, argumentation and ideology', Discourse and Communication, 14, pp. 404 - 423,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Blackwell JW; White PRR, 2018, 'The building blocks of speech: Spontaneity, pre-packaging and the genre structuring of university lectures', Text and Talk, 38, pp. 267 - 290,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Jalilifar A; Elhambakhsh S; White P, 2018, 'Nominalization in Applied Linguistics and Medicine: The Case of Textbook Introductions and Book Reviews', Research in Language, 16, pp. 280 - 301,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Mehrabi K; Jalilifar A; AbdolMajid H; White P, 2018, 'Investigating Action Nominalization in the Introduction Sections of Research Articles: A Cross-disciplinary Study of Hard and Soft Sciences', Teaching English Language, 12, pp. 1 - 26,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Tavassoli F; White P; Jalilifar A, 2018, 'British newspapers’ stance towards the Syrian refugee crisis: An appraisal model study', Discourse and Society, 30, pp. 1 - 21,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Caldwell D; White PRR, 2017, 'That's not a narrative; this is a narrative: NAPLAN and pedagogies of storytelling', AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY, 40, pp. 16 - 27,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Caldwell D; White PRR, 2017, 'That's not a narrative; this is a narrative: NAPLAN and pedagogies of storytelling', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 2017,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Makki M; White PR, 2017, 'Socio-cultural conditioning of style and structure in journalistic discourse: The distinctively “objective” textuality of Iranian political news reporting', Discourse, Context & Media, 21, pp. 54 - 63,
    Journal articles | 2016
    White PR; Jing Y, 2016, 'Why Audiovisual Translators Downplay the Interpersonal: The Case of "Interjections"in English-to-Chinese Move Subtitling', The Journal of Translation Studies, 17, pp. 107 - 142
    Journal articles | 2016
    White PR; Makki M, 2016, 'Crime reporting as storytelling in Persian/Farsi news journalism – perspectives on the narrative function', Journal of World Languages, 3, pp. 1 - 21,
    Journal articles | 2016
    White PRR, 2016, 'Constructing the "Stranger" in Camus' L'Étranger - Registerial and Attitudinal Variability under Translation', The Journal of Translation Studies, 17, pp. 75 - 106,
    Journal articles | 2015
    White PRR; Mammone G; Caldwell D, 2015, 'Linguistically based inequality, multilingual education and a genre-based literacy development pedagogy: insights from the Australian experience', Language and Education, 29, pp. 256 - 271,
    Journal articles | 2014
    White PR; White , 2014, 'The attitudinal work of news journalism images – a search for visual and verbal analogues', Quaderni del CeSLiC. Occasional papers, 2014, pp. 1 - 42,
    Journal articles | 2012
    White P, 2012, 'Attitudinal meanings, translational commensurability and linguistic relativity', Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 65, pp. 147 - 162,
    Journal articles | 2012
    White P, 2012, 'Exploring the axiological workings of ‘reporter voice’ news stories — Attribution and attitudinal positioning', Discourse, Context and Media, 1, pp. 57 - 67,
    Journal articles | 2010
    White P, 2010, 'Taking Bakhtin Seriously: Dialogic Effects in Written, Mass Communicative Discourse', Studies in Pragmatics, 12, pp. 37 - 53
    Journal articles | 2003
    White P, 2003, 'Beyond Modality and Hedging: a Dialogic View of the Language of Intersubjective Stance', Text and Talk, 23, pp. 259 - 284
  • Conference Papers | 2009
    White PRR, 2009, 'Media power and the rhetorical potential of the "hard news" report - attitudinal mechanisms in journalistic discourse', in VAKKI Symposium XXIX, University of Vaasa, Finland, Vaasa, Finland, pp. 30 - 49, presented at VAKKI Symposium XXIX, University of Vaasa, Finland, 13 February 2009 - 15 February 2009

I act as literacy development consultant for a group of primary schools identified as having students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. I act in a similar capacity in a project developing teaching and learning resources for literacy developments in remote-area indigenous schools in the Anangu lands of northern South Australia.

I review for a number of academic journals including Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse, Context and Media, Functions of Language, and Functional Linguistics.

My Research Supervision

Linguistics, Journalism, Translation Studies

My Teaching

Currently supervising PhD students in the following topic areas:

  • journalistic discourse analysis (including contrastive studies),
  • political discourse analysis,
  • translation and interpreting studies,
  • contrastive linguistics and contrastive discourse analysis (across cultures and languages),
  • educational linguistics (issues in academic English, literacy development, ESL/EFL, genre-based pedagogy),
  • the language of evaluation and intersubjective stance,
  • argumentation theory and the language of persuasion,
  • critical discourse analysis.

Undergraduate teaching

  • Convener: Journalistic Voices and Values (MDIA1002)
  • Convener: Features Journalism (MDIA2003)
  • Convener: Opinion Journalism (MDIA2002)
  • Convener: Professional Media Practices (MDIA3010)