Media linguistics

Media linguistics is the linguistic study of language use in the media. It studies the functioning of language in the media sphere, or modern mass communication presented by print, audiovisual, digital, and networked media.

Media linguistics is being formed in the process of the differentiation of linguistics as a general theory of language, and is a sub-field of linguistics similar to other fields such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, developmental linguistics, legal linguistics, political linguistics, etc.

Object
The 1968 Ray-Ban advertisement uses a play on the English word "sport," referring both to a person and the activity.

Modern media linguistics examines not only the written language of media, but also media speech. Media linguistics includes media speech studies that examine (1) the speech behavior of mass communication participants and (2) specific areas, textures, and genres of media texts. Media linguistics analyses texts, as well as their production and reception.[1][2]

Thus, in principle, media linguistics seeks to explain the particular case of the functioning of language—in mass communication with its complex structure and changing properties—amid the overall trends of language and speech culture.[3] It studies language in relation to medium-specific aspects, such as the specific properties of media texts or platforms, and sometimes includes analysis of multimodality.[1] Other purposes include analyzing patterns of language use within certain historical contexts, and establishing differences between "normal" language and media language.[4][5] Media linguistics is closely related to contemporary media practices and intends to impact on them, in particular, by means of media education. Studying language use in the media can be used to help develop critical media literacy, for example in relation to stereotypes.[2]

Media linguistics includes the study of traditional mass media texts (typically, print or broadcast news) as well as social media and other digital media such as blog posts or SMS messages.[1][6] Advertisements, amongst other multimodal media, are commonly analyzed in the context of media linguistics.[7] The study of fictional film and television has recently emerged as an important area of media linguistics.[8]

In recent years, media linguistics has been influenced by "transnational and translocal" communication and the relationship between a country's culture and its use of language.[9]

Importance

Media linguistics provides that media is used as a source of historical and current data or research.[10] It is critical in examining regional language and regional dialect models of media involving the portrayal of society and culture.[11] Media linguistics is crucial in understanding how the media broadcasts language ideologies and is able to strengthen representation of a less common, minority language or maintain representation of a dominant language.[4]

Sources of media language are used as learning material in second language courses given its ties to the language's culture and its surrounding context and its role in exposing students to native-speaker syntax and vocabulary.[10][11]

Change over time

In the early 21st century, linguists are studying how "computer-mediated communication (CMC)" differs from older forms of media communication. While the level of interactivity between readers and writers remains the same, CMC shows increasing evidence of media attempting to gain more and more of their reader's attention.[12]

The variables that have some of the strongest effect on how language changes over time are the number of speakers within a language and how connected they are to other speakers. This is especially evident within social media, which has the ability to connect many speakers of the same language.[13][14] CMC also shows how people might form exclusive "groups" online, and form a sense of relatedness with these groups or other online users.[6]

In different countries
  • In English-speaking countries the terms media study and media discourse analysis are used, while interdisciplinary approaches such as Critical Discourse Analysis are often used to study news media. See, for example, Teun A. van Dijk's book News as Discourse.[15] Some scholars have recently started using the term media linguistics,[2] while others prefer the more narrow term media stylistics.
  • In Germany-speaking countries the term Medienlinguistik is used,[16] and the field is regarded as "one of the most dynamic fields of applied linguistics".[1]
  • In Russia, active usage of the term Медиалингвистика is associated with the publications of T.G. Dobrosklonskaya, where English media speech is investigated. Russian media linguistics is the successor of different linguistic fields, which were designated as and called "the language of newspaper", "the language of radio", "the language of media".[17]

See also

References
  1. Luginbühl, Martin (2015). "Media Linguistics: On Mediality and Culturality" (PDF). 10Plus1. 1: 9–26.
  2. Bednarek, Monika (2018). "Language and Television Series: A Linguistic Approach to TV Dialogue". Cambridge Core. doi:10.1017/9781108559553. Retrieved 2019-12-14.
  3. Hult, F.M. (2010). Swedish Television as a mechanism for language planning and policy. Language Problems and Language Planning, 34(2), 158-181.
  4. Johnson, Sally; Ensslin, Astrid (2007). Language in the Media: Representations, Identities, Ideologies. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 33. ISBN 9781350063372.
  5. Jucker, Andreas (1992). Social Stylistics : Syntactic Variation in British Newspapers. De Gruyter Inc. ISBN 9783110851151.
  6. Cutler, Cecelia; Røyneland, Unn, "Multilingualism in the Digital Sphere", Multilingual Youth Practices in Computer Mediated Communication, Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–26, ISBN 978-1-316-13557-0, retrieved 2020-10-09
  7. Tanaka, Keiko (1999). Advertising Language: A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan. London: Routledge. pp. 1–4. ISBN 9780415198356.
  8. Bednarek, Monika; Zago, Raffaele (2019). "Bibliography of linguistic research on fictional (narrative, scripted) television series and films/movies". Academia.Edu. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  9. Contrastive media analysis : approaches to linguistic and cultural aspects of mass media communication. Hauser, Stefan, 1970-, Luginbühl, Martin, 1969-. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 2012. ISBN 978-90-272-7329-1. OCLC 818870228.CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. Bell, Allan (March 1995). "Language and the Media*". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 15: 23–41. doi:10.1017/S0267190500002592. ISSN 1471-6356.
  11. Oroujlou, Nasser (2012-01-01). "The Importance of Media in Foreign Language Learning". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. The World Conference on Design, Arts and Education (DAE-2012), May 1–3, 2012, Antalya, Turkey. 51: 24–28. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.08.113. ISSN 1877-0428.
  12. Language and new media : linguistic, cultural, and technological evolutions. Rowe, Charley., Wyss, Eva Lia. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 2009. pp. 13–32. ISBN 978-1-57273-929-1. OCLC 320622239.CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  13. Nettle, Daniel (June 1999). "Is the rate of linguistic change constant?". Lingua. 108 (2–3): 119–136. doi:10.1016/s0024-3841(98)00047-3. ISSN 0024-3841.
  14. "Social Media Speeds Up Language Evolution". Language Magazine. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  15. Teun A. Van Dijk (1988). News as Discourse. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum. ISBN 0-8058-0828-0. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
  16. de:Medienlinguistik
  17. "Media Linguistics": a scientific web site: http://medialing.spbu.ru/world_of_medialinguistics/ and an international journal of the same name https://medialing.ru
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