English Linguistics and ESP: Prova in itinere modulo 2 News Discourse / In-course assessment, Module 2, News Discourse

Registration is now open for the in-course assessment of Module 2 on News Discourse. It is possible to register by 2 April.

As already announced in class, at the time of registration, students must indicate in the “Notes” section of Studium the specific topic chosen for their paper. In other words, they must specify the subject matter of the newspaper article(s) analysed in the paper, which should be examined following the model proposed by Bednarek and Caple (2012, 2017) discussed in class.

Students must submit the paper via email to raffaele.zago@unict.it by 16 April. As indicated in the syllabus, the paper must be between 14,000 and 20,000 characters in length. Below are the instructions regarding how to complete the assessment and write the paper.

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English Linguistics and ESP, Module 2, News Discourse

Deadline for the submission of the paper: 16 April 2026. 

Length of the paper: 14,000-20,000 characters. 

What’s the task about:

• Pick a topic/event.  

• Choose the newspaper article(s) that constitute your data.  

• Analyse your data according to the framework discussed in module 2 (i.e. Bednarek and Caple 2012, 2017).  

Information about the assignment:

• Include a Research Question: what do you want to unveil? 

• It is advisable to use the structure of academic research papers, namely: introduction, literature review (not compulsory, but maybe a short section about relevant previous studies), methodology, results, conclusions. If you struggle with this structure, you can think of other ways to organise your text. At a minimum, structure your text as follows: 
  • Introduction + research question; 
  • Analysis of the data (think about how to categorise the findings);
  • Conclusions.

• Remember that the analysis shows your analytical skills.

• In terms of academic writing, splitting the text into sections may help. Tables and images (if any) need a caption. Use examples (i.e. relevant extracts from the newspaper article(s) under investigation) to support your analysis and always comment on them. Extracts/examples are not included in the 14,000-20,000 characters.    

• You need a reference list at the end of the paper (i.e. a list of all the studies you relied on to carry out your analysis).    

If you have any questions regarding the choice of topic or the structure of the paper, you may discuss them with me during office hours.