Intersubjectivity in newspaper editorials: Construing the reader-in-the-text

In this article, I take a discoursal perspective on intersubjectivity, exploring ways in which intersubjective meanings may be realized across texts, and the kinds of effects that arise from the combination of different forms. In particular, I focus on how writers may exploit intersubjective choices to enact interaction with their intended audience. I carry out an illustrative analysis on a small corpus of editorials from two British newspapers, one quality and one popular; and I demonstrate that there is clear connections between the readership of the two newspapers as described on their audience demographic webpages and the ways in which the editorial writers deploy the resources of interactant reference, mood and modality to construe different kinds of audience.