This paper is concerned with an aspect of implicit forms of evaluation in British colonial journalistic discourse on Morocco in the late nineteenth century. British colonial discourse on Morocco is a part of a body of marginalized discourse, which, although marginalized, is not devoid of cultural significance both to Morocco and to Britain. The focus will be on the way figures of authority, such as the Sultan, are represented in the context of this discourse. The paper is based on the assumption that linguistic forms of naming the cultural other are never free of evaluative attitudes. These attitudes are usually expressed through utterances that carry the evaluation proper, either explicitly or implicitly.
The present paper demonstrates a reading of implicit forms of evaluative utterances taken from the Times of Morocco, a British newspaper published in Tangier during the "scramble for Morocco". Research in the area of what has come to be called colonial discourse analysis has been limited to the explicit thematic aspect of this discourse. The perspective of the present paper is significant in that a recognition of implicit attitudes embedded in discourse leads to more nuanced understandings of the workings of colonial discourse.
Last modified: 7 May 2001