Abstract
Abstract In newspaper editorials, authors sometimes present others’ opinions first (identified as Claims) before proposing their own opinions (identified as Counterclaims). The relationship between Claims and Counterclaims may be classified under the category of concessive relation. It appears that concessive clausal relations can be extended to hold the relationship between generic elements. In this thesis, we examine how concessive relations are amplified to the genre level and what generic elements newspaper editorials often contain. Besides, the rhetorical strategy of employing Claims and Counterclaims will also be discussed. Finally, we investigate what implications the result of the present study may yield to teaching reading and writing to senior high school students in Taiwan. Our corpus is based on thirty editorials adopted from the China Post. We utilize Martin’s (1992) reticulum to be the analytical tool. After analyzing thirty texts, we have found that the structure of editorials is (Background)^ Claim^ (Basis)^ Counterclaim^ Basis^ (Appeal)^ (Conclusion). The generic elements can be identified by linguistic features as well as their positions in a text. The relationship between Claims and Counterclaims has been found to be either retraction or concession. When a Claim involves opinions, an author tends to directly retract the Claim. On the other hand, when a Claim is about solutions to a problem, its relationship with a Counterclaim tends to be concession. Editorial authors are more tentative about the effects brought about by the solutions proposed in Claims; they show a more objective and rational thinking style by adopting concession. The implication for teaching reading is that teachers should be familiar with all the conjunctive relations and their functions in a text. In writing, students can be taught the rhetorical strategy of employing Claim-Counterclaim relationship. The knowledge of text structure can serve as a guidance for students to initiate, develop, and conclude their composition. We therefore suggest that discourse analysis should be included in English teacher training programs.