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In:Multilingual Corpus Research: Advances and challenges
Edited by Noelia Ramón and María Pérez Blanco
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 126] 2026
► pp. 71–90

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Chapter 3
The use of effectivity in opinion articles about the Ukraine migrant crisis

 | Universidad Complutense de Madrid
 | University of Massachusetts Boston
Published online: 20 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.126.03mor
Abstract
This study examines the use of effective stance, i.e., the positioning of the speaker or writer regarding the realisation of events, in opinion articles on the Ukrainian refugee crisis published in 2022–2023 in The Guardian (UK) and elDiario (Spain). A corpus of over 20,000 words, including English and Spanish, was annotated for six effective stance categories: Deonticity, Directivity, Inclination, Intentionality, Normativity, and Potentiality. Results reveal significant cross-linguistic differences, with Spanish texts using more Deonticity and Normativity markers, reflecting a focus on collective responsibility. English texts, on the other hand, emphasise Directivity and Potentiality, adopting a more individualistic and persuasive tone. These findings highlight the role of language in shaping public attitudes towards the refugee crisis and global humanitarian issues.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Opinion sharing and stance taking
    • 2.2Effective stance
  • 3.Corpus and methodology
    • 3.1Corpus selection
    • 3.2Analytic procedure
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Usage frequencies of effective stance in English and Spanish
    • 4.2Realisations of effective stance in English and Spanish
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (31)
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