Analysis of the news stories on violence against women in Turkish daily newspaper within the framework of judgement, one of the sub-categories in appraisal theory

In this study, Turkish news stories on violence againt women is examined on the basis of Appraisal Theory. Appraisal Theory that is developed from the interpersonal upper-function of language on the basis of Systemic Functional Linguistics aims to reveal positive or negative attitudes and evaluations of various events in the texts of the speakers or writers. The theory consists of three interacting domains as engagement, attitude and graduation. Attitude is used to express the attitude of the author or speaker in the text. In the news on vilonce against women published in Turkish dailly newspaper, Judgement which is the sub-catagory of Attitude has been researched within the frame of social esteem and social sanction. Gender includes the assigned roles to women and men by society. It is proposed that media mediated the maintenance and reproduction of these roles and women generally appeared in media with violence news. The purpose of this study is to reveal the open or implicit evaluation that is conveyed by the social relations and the analysis of their texts. The database of our research consists of six different daily newspaper with high circulation. The data that was examined in the frame of the Judgement and its sub-category in the news of violence against women in the newspaper collected during one month period was analyzed and interpreted statically. According to the findings, violence against women was evaluated as negative normality, negative capacity and negative tenacity in the context of social esteem; negative veracity and properiety in the context of social sanction. When the domains of judgement were evaluated typically, it was determined that the violence news against women was evaluated more intensively with negative judgement. Key Words: Appraisal Theory, Judgement, Social Esteem, Social Sanction, Newpaper News