The language of mass communication THE HISTORY

The language of mass communication

THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLICIST STYLE MODERN TRENDS WHAT IS THE LANGUAGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION? THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPERS

The publicist stуle of language became discernible as a separate style in the middle of the 18 th century. It falls into three varieties, each having its own distinctive features: the оratoriсal substyle, the essay (moral, philosophical, literary), journalistic articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines. Book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays.

The general aim of publicist style to exert a constant and deep influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech.

Newspaper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing standing apart from other forms. English newspaper writing dates from the 17 th century. At the close of the 16 th century short news pamphlets began to appear. Any such publication either presented news from only one source or dealt with one specific subject. It took the English newspaper more than a century to establish a style and a standard of its own. And it is only by the 19 th century that newspaper English may be said to have developed into a system of lan guagemedia, forming a separate functional style.

PROBLEM OF DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PUBLICIST STYLE I. R. Galperin differentiates: 1. Publicist Style: Ø oratory and speeches; Ø the essay; Ø articles. 2. Newspaper Style: Ø brief news items; Ø headlines; Ø advertisements and announcements; Ø the editorial.

PROBLEM OF DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PUBLICIST STYLE I. V. Arnold: Literary Bookish Styles: Ø scientific; Ø official documents; Ø publicist (newspaper); Ø oratorical; Ø poetic.

MODERN TRENDS The second half of the XX – the beginning of XXI centuries is the period characterized by tremendous growth of mass media and new information technologies. Dynamic development of traditional media of mass communication such as newspapers, radio, television, emergence and wide spread of World Wide Web (the Internet) led to creation of common information space. Common information space special virtual space made by a great number of media streams.

MODERN TRENDS The largest proportion of language usage is given to the sphere of mass communication. Texts produced by media of mass communication, called media texts, - the most widely-spread form of language usage nowadays. Interest to the language of mass communication started in the second half of the XX century when linguists paid their attention to such aspects of language of mass communication as linguistic, stylistic, pragmatic, functional and semiotic. These issues were studied in the works of the following scientists: G. V. Stepanov, D. N. Shmelev, V. G. Kostomarov, O. A. Laptev, T. G. Dobrosklonskaya, T. van Dijk, A. Bell, M. Montgomery, etc. in the framework of such trends as sociolinguistics, pragmatics, semiotics, psycholinguistics, functional stylistics, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics.

THE LANGUAGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION 1. 2. 3. The language of mass communication – all possible texts produced and spread by media of mass communication. The language of mass communication – a stable language system characterized by a set of linguistic features. The language of mass communication – a special semiotic system of mixed type with a certain number of verbal and audiovisual components common to each medium of mass communication: newspapers, radio, television, the Internet.

THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPERS - the newspaper is the oldest means of mass communication which includes basic stylistic devices characteristic for the whole range of media of mass communication. the newspaper is one of the most easily available means from the point of view of linguistic analysis since it doesn’t require any recording and further decoding as in case of radio or video materials.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEWSPAPER news (home/domestic and international), advertising, sport, entertainment, etc

NEWS SECTION Hard news focus on politics, economics, war, disasters, accidents, science, technology, law, crimes, protests, etc. Soft news focus on people, places, issues that affect the reader’s lives, communities problems.

NEWSPAPER HEADLINES Characteristics of headlines: simple, easily readable, appropriate to the kind of paper in which they are printed, the structure is telegraphic, tend not to use finite verbs, auxiliary verbs or adverbs, nominalization, ambiguous (having two meanings). - e. g. LOCAL MAN FINDS PICASSO DRAWING IN SHED

LANGUAGE FEATURES Phonetic features (in oratory): • Standard pronunciation, wide use of prosody; shades of meaning, overtones and emotions. • Phonetic compression. Morphological features: • • • Frequent use of non finite verb forms, such as gerund, participle, infinitive. Use of non perfect verb forms. Omission of articles, link verbs, auxiliaries, pronouns, especially in headlines and news items.

LANGUAGE FEATURES Syntactical features: • • Frequent use of rhetorical questions and interrogatives in oratory speech. In headlines: use of impersonal sentences, elliptical constructions, interrogative sentences, infinitive complexes and attributive groups. In news items and articles: news items comprise one or two, rarely three, sentences. Absence of complex coordination with chain of subordinate clauses and a number of conjunctions. Prepositional phrases are used much more than synonymous gerundial phrases. Absence of exclamatory sentences, break in the narrative, other expressively charged constructions. Articles demonstrate more syntactical organisation and logical arrangement of sentences.

LANGUAGE FEATURES Lexical features: • • Newspaper cliches and set phrases. Terminological variety: scientific, sports, political, technical, etc. • Abbreviations and acronyms. Numerous proper names, toponyms, anthroponyms, names of enterprises, institutions, international words, dates and figures. Abstract notion words, elevated and bookish words. In headlines: frequent use of pun, violated phraseology, vivid stylistic devices. In oratory speech: words of elevated and bookish character, colloquial words and phrases, frequent use of such stylistic devices as metaphor, alliteration, allusion, irony, etc. Use of conventional forms of address and trite phases.

LANGUAGE FEATURES Compositional features: • • • Text arrangement is marked by precision, logic and expressive power. Carefully selected vocabulary. Variety of topics. Wide use of quotations, direct speech and represented speech. Use of parallel constructions throughout the text. In oratory: simplicity of structural expression, clarity of message, argumentative power. In headlines: use of devices to arrest attention: rhyme, pun, puzzle, high degree of compression, graphical means. In news items and articles: strict arrangement of titles and subtitles, emphasis on the headline. Careful subdivision into paragraphs, clearly defined position of the sections of an article: the most important information is carried in the opening paragraph; often in the first sentence.

EXAMPLES OF HEADLINES 1) Bush likely to name 2 nd nominee next week 2) WOMEN WHO SMOKE HAVE LIGHTER CHILDREN 3) Girl frozen alive on her own doorstep 4) ICE-BLOCK KID Karlee, 2, survives six hours locked out of home at – 22°C