Coulmas Handbook of Sociolinguistics / Part 2 - Social dimensions of Language / part 2 - 11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 1 of 12

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media

GERHARD LEITNER

Subject

Linguistics » Sociolinguistics

DOI: 10.1111/b.9780631211938.1998.00013.x

Introduction

Events would not happen the way they do and with the same impact without mass media. They inform and interpret, they entertain and educate with what is “out there.” They are mirrors of “reality”, as some critics believe, or, according to others, part of events themselves, a powerful “Fourth Estate” (Curran and Seaton, 1991). Whatever one thinks of this, media communication relies on and further develops language and other semiotic codes of society.

This paper is on the sociolinguistics of communication media.1 Assisted by the sister disciplines of linguistics and mass communications, sociolinguistics will address media discourse in the context of

the communication domain and will reveal what it is as performance, what the parameters are that determine its norm(s), what the public thinks of it, and what functions it aims to fulfill. This paper will concern itself with those forces in the wider sociolinguistic texture of a country and, finally, it will take up the role of the media as a public forum for language debates.

Two areas will be ignored: first, several types of mass media, that is, films, drama, and books. They can be mass media in their own right but also constituents of the program output of the press, radio, and television; they can be fictional or documentary. They deserve special treatment. The second omission is sound and visual codes and the interaction of different codes.

The first section will locate media discourse in the broader context of mass media research. The next one will look at media discourse, including the role of the media as public forums for linguistic debate. And the final section concludes with limitations of this account and the challenges of new technologies.

1 Communication Media and the Place of Media Discourse

Mass communications and macro-sociolinguistics consider mass media as social institutions (Schramm, 1975; Curran and Seaton, 1991) or domains (Fishman, 1974). Somewhat less consensual is

a functional definition of media as communication domains.2 But it is precisely that function that highlights media discourse and the factors behind it. A deeper understanding of the ways media

perform that function calls for an outline of the communication process.

To begin with the communication flow: Content moves from a source, the medium, to a target, the recipients, and communication is unidirectional. Unidirectionality results from technical constraints but, as a definitional criterion, sets mass media off from telecommunication (Noelle-Neumann et al., 1994: 142). These constraints restrict recipient participation systematically and severely. But media types differ in the extent to which they inhibit access technically. The press, with its production delay between events and publication, imposes the severest constraints while electronic media are more accessible to direct or mediated participation of selected or self-selecting audiences. Either way, the communicative imbalance provides the media with power and control over the discourse.

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 2 of 12

Connected with technical matters is the second point, that is, the fact that communication may take place on a single or on several layers or axes. One intrinsic axis is the unidirectional movement of content from medium to recipients. TV commentators speaking directly to an audience are cases in point. But other axes show up in interviews, talk, or game shows. Interviews combine at least two speakers in a speech encounter, which defines a second axis. Live talkback shows, music shows, or game shows may be even more complex when they take place in front of an involved (participating) or uninvolved (watching) audience. Shifts from one axis to another are indicated by discourse signals which are largely under the control of media professionals. But the case may and indeed does arise of participants arguing about who has the right to structure discourse (Leitner, 1983).

The third aspect concerns the source of communicational content. While messages are about the

“external” world, the nature of the relationship of media with “reality” is controversial.3 Some researchers believe that media reflect “reality,” others that they “co-orchestrate” dominant beliefs, etc.

which are around anyway, others still that media create “reality.” Gatekeepers, co-orchestrators, and manipulators encapsulate well-known notions. Without taking sides, it seems commonsensical to say that it is rare for media to be direct witnesses of some event, such as disasters. The routine case is that they get information in already mediated form from an outside agency. They depend on sources, for example, information departments, experts, stringers, “witnesses,” press releases. Media staff also glean information themselves. The processing of incoming information is best described along a cline of mediation. One extreme case is the use of outside information without (much) mediation, the other its reduction to “mere” content, its incorporation into a message without attribution. To exemplify these extremes, when an expert presents the weather forecast, a witness talks about some disaster, a radio play or a concert is broadcast, there is relatively little mediation. Alternatively, information can be reduced to a summary, to excerpts. As processing necessitates acts of selection, categorization, and its transformation into media discourse, a degree of mediation is always involved (Clayman, 1990; Bell, 1991).

Fourth, the production of messages is controlled by factors that are internal to the domain or bear upon its work from the outside. Ownership, technology, media context, programming philosophy, but also media legislation can shape the production of messages. The media structure allocates responsibilities to several layers so that incoming content is taken through a hierarchy of levels and responsibilities until it becomes output and is couched in media discourse. The final production steps can be subject to control by style and editorial guidelines, language committees, or the professional routines. The ultimate encoder, the journalist, announcer, or presenter, is normally held responsible for the final shape of a message. While they represent the “voice of the medium” that recipients are most obviously confronted with, they are not the originators of the discourse. These steps are described by Schlesinger (1978) from a media sociological and Bell (1991) from a linguistic perspective.

Fifth, the fact that recipients are restricted in access and participation has been the source of much controversy. However, older theories that saw them primarily as the passive targets of message flows have been replaced by those that assign them a crucial role in determining uptake and wider effects. It is recipients that expose themselves to or withdraw from media output, they decode adequately or misconstrue content, they reinforce messages or alternatively nullify their effect. Media are therefore bound to incorporate into their messages a prototypical image of recipients and of the audience's desired or likely reactions. They “design” messages for an audience, a fact that differentiates public discourse from that of other domains, such as the law.

To sum up: Media are communication domains with specific communicative structures which are the cause of, broadly speaking, content becoming public, in other words, becoming accessible as public knowledge and for public debate. The discourse in which content is couched has been defined as a public idiom (Hall, 1978). It is not and cannot be homogeneous. What is more, each medium creates its own version. To emphasize a quotation from Hall: “The language employed will thus be the newspaper's own version of the language of the public to whom it is principally addressed” (1978: 48). Having located media discourse formally and functionally, we can turn to the media's part in processing content into media messages.

2 Media Discourse and Media Messages

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 3 of 12

The term “media discourse” refers to the forms, structures, and uses of language and other semiotic codes that are specific to the media. It also applies to the underlying cognitive systems (e.g., ideologies). Media discourse needs to be distinguished from the messages that it transports, a notion

that describes the content and form of the “packages,” such as articles or programs.4

Media messages and discourse are related to one another in three dimensions. That relationship will be outlined presently. A discussion of the impact and linguistic realization of references to sources, “reported” domains, and recipients will follow, and a survey of linguistic characteristics will conclude this section.

2.1 The dimensions of messages and media discourse

To begin with the messages-discourse relationship: From the production point of view, the processing of content occurs at several layers of an institutional hierarchy until it is transmitted as a media message. From the output perspective, messages are sequenced spatiotemporally. Cutting across these dimensions are particular formal constituents and themes, which are of concern to different layers of the institutional hierarchy and show up in various spatiotemporal slots.

Low-level output and the link-ups between parts of such output are the most obvious message types to which recipients are exposed, provoking their reaction. They can be illustrated by a commentary on the resignation of Haiti's military government, an interview with President Mandela, a talk show with a leading politician, or a soccer report on a match between Germany and Hungary. Such messages are at the interface of two dimensions. One points to the hierarchical structures of media domains, the other to spatiotemporal programming or layout sequences.

To begin with the former, the hierarchical dimension, low-level output is an instantiation of the program format, such as news, editorials, sports reports, game shows. Formats allow for variations which are broadcast at different times or appear in different locations in print. Spot news, evening bulletins, event and summary reports are cases in point. They can be grouped into broader higherorder categories such as news and current affairs, sport, local news, etc. on the grounds of similarity in orientation. Orientation is not a given category but derives from the classifications imposed by the media (or media outlets) on “reality,” on the “reported domains” (see below). There follows output in general, for example, the business paper, the information or music channel. More abstract still is the media's definition of their approach to specific areas, such as classical or pop music, or the entire output. RTL does things one way, the BBC another. And finally, there are features that emanate from the technical constraints on media (both print and electronic).

Low-level messages occur in spatiotemporal sequences. Again two dimensions can be distinguished. One is the preplanning of sequences by the media, the program schemata, the other is the actual occurrence of some sequence which is determined by whatever content is available at a given time. As to the former, there are the days of the week, the hours, the sections and pages. Thus one can identify the weekend edition or program, the Sunday edition, the business or home news section, the “Friday Night.” For the latter, one may observe that related or relatable items, for example, disasters in various locations, reports and commentaries on some event, may occur close by in space and/or time. Sequencing requires connections and conversely delimitation of one part from another. Such messages are frames and are, in their turn, peculiar to media types and organizations. In the press this is primarily a matter of layout, in electronic media of presentation.

The third dimension describes the fact that, irrespective of the media categorization of “reality,” the orientation, some theme, text type, and/or some type of structure, e.g., interviews, may be components of various program formats. Themes such as women, racism, or violence may come as separate topics at low-level output, they may occur inside the political, the sport, or the business section, or be linguistic elements of media discourse.

Semiotic codes – language, sounds, visuals, and film – and elements of cognition, such as scripts, schemata, etc., are used in different ways along these dimensions. Language is the central carrier of low-level messages and of message sequences. It can be supported or sometimes replaced by acoustic or visual codes. But as one moves beyond the level of program formats or covers wider stretches of sequences, its role diminishes. Belief systems, derived from the interpretation of a media organization's role in the overall context, come to dominate. As a consequence, the dimensions per se and specifically the higher levels are the concern of mass communications (Curran and Seaton, 1991;

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 4 of 12

Noelle-Neumann et al., 1994), rather than of linguistics and sociolinguistics.

As for language-oriented analyses, a few studies have been done on the evolution of some notion of orientation and theme (a third dimension). Thus Cardiff (1980) has revealed the development of the distinction between the serious and the popular as programming concepts and their manifestation in program types in the BBC. The history of sports reporting has been studied by Hargreaves (1986) and McChesney (1989). Racism, sexism, and violence as themes (in the third dimension) or as constituents of media discourse have also been studied (see below).

The majority of linguistic studies is of lower-level messages and sequences of messages with the goal of correlating findings with domain-specific factors that can serve as (partial) explanations. To begin with low-level output: Case studies of single examples of low-level output cannot distinguish the “normal/routine” from the “special,” so they can be ignored. Collections or corpora of low-level output will be taken up below, but one should mention corpus linguistic analyses of particular lexical or

grammatical features. Thus Virtanen (1992) has looked at the placement of adverbial phrases.5 Mention should also be made of studies of specific structural constituents such as headlines (e.g., Bell,

1991).

Higher-level message analyses have addressed a variety of concepts. To begin with program formats, GUMG (1980) highlights the role of professional routines in the production of British TV news programs, the interaction of different semiotic codes, and the patterning and meaning of types of news components. Bentele (1985) has suggested a “grammar” of news programs based on German data. Discourse structures of interviews (as programs of their own and/or as components of other programs), phone-ins, host programs, and debates, that is, multi-axis messages, have been identified in Scannel (1991), Leitner (1983), Heritage (1985), and Trösser (1983). Van Dijk (1988b) has suggested a model of the macro-text for international press reports. On the basis of German press soccer reports in print media, Simmler (1993) argues that text types can be predicted on the basis of layout characteristics. Linguistic properties of media texts have also been studied by Graustein and Thiele (1987) and Werlich (1976).

The analysis of some (third-dimension) theme in program formats over a period is a second and recurrent type of study, akin to content analysis. Fowler's (1991) analyses of health care, law and order, and gender, Walton and Davis's (1983) study of the assassination of an Italian president, and van Dijk's (1988) analysis of the assassination of President Gemayal reveal stable journalistic practices, the patterns of the transformation of “outside” content, and the role of cognitive frameworks in enand decoding. Ferguson (1983) has studied syntactic features of style in live American sports reporting.

A third type of analysis is of language policies and attitudes. They manifest themselves typically across a variable range of program formats, defined by similarity of orientation, such as news reading, announcing, children's programs, editorials, or front-page reporting. The social and institutional forces behind their formulation and ways of implementing them have been revealed, for instance, by Leitner (1980, 1984).

Levels high up in the hierarchy, such as “full page,” “full issue,” and “full week” analyses, “running stories,” have been suggested as objects of research by Fowler (1991) but have not yet been done (but see section 3 below).

2.2 Reported domains: The impact of sources

Having clarified the message hierarchy, one can turn back to the media's dependence on sources. Leitner has proposed an extension of the notion of domain since:

unlike other domains, e.g. like economy or science … they [mass media, government and law] are totally unspecified with regard to the range of areas they deal with … It seems that they could be treated as higher domains than all others, or, alternatively, as hyperdomains, which are unspecific with regard to topics etc. This option necessitates the distinction between domains and reported domains.

(1992: 56)

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 5 of 12

Examples of reported domains are politics, science, sport, music, or the “social domain.” Each has a number of subdomains. The social domain, for instance, may include accidents, murders, disasters, biographies, etc. The precise specification of what is in or outside some domain varies between media outlets. As media select content from reported domains they make it publicly available and in doing that they have to process the cognitive frameworks, linguistic norms, professional practices, and registers of the originating domains. Processing can mean integration, deletion, or modification. The following areas have attracted some interest.

The first concerns the accessing, processing, and linguistic identification of sources. GUMG (1980), Fowler (1991) and others have argued that there is a hierarchy of sources and a distinction between authoritative and nonauthoritative sources in news media, which shows in frequency of citation. It also affects practices of linguistic processing. The former type is less mediated than the latter. Bell (1991) outlines the processing steps of newsmakers’input, of agencies’material, and how integration may fail and lead to imperfect communication. Semantic processes of selection, deletion, summarization, and generalization have been described by van Dijk (1988a).

The second area concerns matters of representation and presentation (see section 2.4), in particular the effects of making publicly available expressions from reported domains. Suffice it to refer to the adaptation, that is, broadening or narrowing down, of the ideological “consensus” which media rely on (Hartley, 1982; Fowler, 1991). Based on Gulf War reports, Staczek (1993) showed how lexemes, idioms, and metaphors from the military domain have been incorporated. Siehr (1993) describes lexicosemantic conflicts in the process of German unification that derive from the use of legal terminology in the public domain. It is not always appreciated that such studies deal with media discourse, rather than with the language proper of the reported domain. Only a few have consciously addressed this issue. Simmler's analyses of the relationship of the sports domain with press sports reports (1991, 1993) and Hess-Lüttich's of German print media for adolescents (1983) are worth mentioning. Closely related is register research, such as Hoffmann's study of technical registers (1988).

2.3 Audience design: The impact of recipients

The active role of recipients in the communication process has already been referred to. While they are necessarily exposed to low-level output and normally perceive it as a member of some program format (soap opera, series, etc.), they need not notice higher-level planning and are certainly not bound to follow the media's agenda. In other words, the message dimensions bind the media but not the recipients.

In order to gain and maintain a stable audience, communication media must therefore include recipients’needs and expectations early on in message production. Bell (1991) suggests the notion of “audience design” for that, which he, however, studies only in low-level output. The question of how media gain knowledge on recipients is a matter of audience research (Noelle-Neumann et al., 1994). One frequently mentioned source is feedback through letters, phone calls, etc. from self-selecting recipients. Empirical investigations of recipients’reactions (e.g., comprehension studies) provide more objective input that may change media discourse to narrow down the gap with the “real” language of recipients.

Explicit decisions on audience design in low-level and framing messages deal with the selection and codification of linguistic expressions, e.g., the consideration of correctness norms, of “good usage,” the use or disuse of taboo expressions, the avoidance of bias against gender or race. There is also a less conscious level of audience design that derives from professionalism and the overall media context. Bell (1984, 1990) has shown how it correlates with the social parameters of the audience.

Public service institutions have been found to be more amenable to explicit language debates than private companies. Thus the BBC commissioned a report on its language use after “a cultural shift … the levelling down to the speech and prose patterns of the largest common denominator rather than that of an élite” had been diagnosed (BBC, 1979). Similar measures were taken in Australia. Officially appointed media “watch-dogs” exist in many public service systems.

Audience design conflicts with other norms. The goal of objective reporting may conflict with a high level of audience empathy, the need to avoid obscene language with the colorful sociolects of recipients, the awareness of the role of language in forming prejudices against gender, race, or the disabled with recipients’expectations. The design and implementation of “acceptable” discourse

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 6 of 12

require the ability to integrate diverging norms in the same way as with reported domains. Only a few studies mention these themes, but they form regular content in media style and editorial guidelines (see the next section).

2.4 Presentation and representation: The creation of the message

It has become clear by now that media discourse is not only a public idiom but also a public discourse, being sourceand target-oriented. What then is the specific media contribution in the production of that discourse? Broadly speaking, it resides in the ability to provide a consensual frame of reference that integrates divergent demands and is sensitive to needs of the message dimensions, as well as to the stylistic requirements of themes. Two well-established categories can serve as an organizing framework for the discussion: presentation (style) and representation (content).

The former can be expressed in a variety of ways, ranging from layout and announcing to program and topic sequencing; from the choice of words to that of syntactic constructions and text types. It expresses media values such as immediacy and distance, involvement and objectivity, factuality and dramatization. It converts the media's “approach” into consistent patterns of semiotic codes and creates “product” identity. Representation is similarly broad and includes the scope of content and its institution-specific transformation (imprint), the approach to content, the definition of recipients’segments, and programming strategies. It embodies the media's ideological stance.

The distinction between presentation and representation is akin to linguistic theories that see language as a vehicle for the how and the what that is expressed. Drawing on Halliday's interpersonal and ideational functions, Kress suggests that the processing of events at the social level “has its analog on the linguistic level, in the interpersonal function of language” (1983: 44). Fowler argues strongly that “imbalances of access” to the media result “in partiality, not only in what assertions and attitudes are reported – a matter of content – but also in how they are reported – a matter of form or style” (1991: 23). And Leitner (1983) suggests they account for numerous aspects of media language and are related to sentence-based text and discourse theories. Moreover, professionals are more likely to discuss language topics in terms of style and approach than of content.

Theoretical and practical considerations suggest that the two notions are related rather than strictly separate from each other. The former has to do with the connection between language and cognition, the latter with the need to assign a function to linguistic (or other semiotic) expressions, while encoders may have intended, and decoders understood them, in different ways (cf. pp. 190–2).

Practical problems will be ignored6 but on theoretical issues Kress has this to say:

in analyzing the mediating function of the media these two aspects must be considered: the primary classification of reality … and the modes in which these are presented to the audiences … Language enters into both … not only because of the parallel or analogical nature of processes on the social and the linguistic plane, but because ideological systems exist in and are articulated by the categories and processes of a given language … linguistic and ideological processes do not exist as distinct phenomena, they are indistinguishable, they are one and the same in substantial terms.

(1983: 45)

In other words, both express and rely on ideological positions. But a conflict between the underlying ideologies of presentation and representation may arise. Once again, media must create a compromise in their discourse.

Presentation

Presentation deals with standardization, that is, processes of selection, codification, expansion, and acceptance of some variety of linguistic expression.7

The question of language choice (mainly in connection with codification) arises in these situations: multilingual countries; media for minority language groups; media for international and/or extranational distribution. Language choice in competitive situations and the propagation of minority languages have been looked at by Fox (1991). This volume contains studies on Irish, Icelandic, Gaelic,

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 7 of 12

Occitan, and Czech and shows that policies are more successful if they are supported by benefits, such as adequate output and technology. In densely populated multilingual regions, as in parts of Asia, some languages, such as Hindi, Kannada, Mandarin Chinese, or Bahasa Malay are disadvantaged in the sense that they are not (fully established) official languages and/or are complemented by former colonial ones. But they may well be successful competitors with those dominant languages. As their reach is limited to small, if elite numbers, the commercial value of large languages can be a winning factor. There are no studies of such situations as yet. A particular self-image of a country may help create a language ecology that permits media to use both large and small languages. Australia's multiculturalism, to give one example, led to the spread of “ethnic” media and ethnic or community languages. In other words, media can be potent factors in language maintenance and revival. But they are, generally speaking, the object of decision-making processes at political levels rather than initiators (cf. section 2.5).

The more frequent case of selection concerns the choice of a variety from within a language, a situation again closely related to codification. Fishman (1974: 1644) maintained that

the standard language per se, without further differentiation or accompaniment, is most fitted for communication across large but referential (or non-interacting) networks, such as those involving mass media, governmental pronouncements, legal codes and text books. The standard variety is the “safest” for those communications in which the speaker cannot know his diversified and numerous listeners.

Leitner (1980) found correlations between the social function of varieties, sociopolitical attitudes, the definition of the media's task, and overall media context in his comparison of German and British radio language policies. Crucial differences between Germany and Britain cast doubt on the general validity of Fishman's claim. For one, the standard variety was undisputed only in Britain and only for as long as the southeast dominated. Germany, in contrast, had always been organized around regions and educated regional varieties were preferred. Only during one short period when radio was indeed national was a national standard selected. It was soon replaced again by regional varieties. Studies on New Zealand (Bell, 1983) and Australia (Leitner, 1984) confirmed the correlation with media-internal parameters and attitudes on functions of varieties. But while Britain and Germany were discussed in terms of choosing from within the national speech repertoire (endo-normativity), Australia and New Zealand showed a conflict between national and foreign variety choice, in other words, between endoand exo-normativity. With the help of ABC Australia moved to endo-normativity, whereas New Zealand still lags behind. By way of a generalization, one can conclude that former political status and language transplantation affect the media's role in fostering sociolinguistic identity. Choice has also been discussed in relation to English language media in Nigeria, where a shift from one exo-normative situation to another is noticeable. American English is gradually impinging on British English, while educated Nigerian English is still not recognized. Particularly in multilingual and Third World countries, the question of language choice may imply the question of translation. Content from some part of the country may be transmitted in one language that is not understood elsewhere in that country, news agencies favor English, and translation is a prerequisite for further processing and output. Simpson (1985) has looked at that issue in Nigeria.

Questions of choice are restricted to “significant” output and shade off into codification. In terms of the message hierarchy they are located at the level of clusters of program formats (scope), such as news, talks, announcing, and editorials. In Germany, for instance, radio debates had wide scope, including talks, quite apart from news, children's programs, announcing, and general presentation. In Britain, in contrast, talks were excluded.

Turning to a more frequently discussed theme in the media, codification, two situations must be distinguished. One is explicit codification, sanctioned or promoted through advisory bodies, and media-internal or official judges. The other is implicit codification through professional practices and/or the professional interpretation of media's roles. There is a domain-specific conflict between them for two reasons. One, explicit codification, while ideally more powerful and prestigious, is difficult to implement and control, in contrast to implicit codification, which is acquired and perpetuated through daily routine. A tension between norm and performance results. The BBC's inquiry

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 8 of 12

(1979) was made in such a context. The BBC tried to rid itself of linguistic conservatism and close up the gap between its language and that of its audience (Leitner, 1980; Quirk, 1982). But significant sections of its audience perceived the new policies as jargon.

Again, media and countries differ and attitudes change over time. In the 1920s and 1930s the pronunciation of common words was a controversial matter in the BBC, along with the noncontroversial area of proper names. Today the focus is on good spoken style, as in other countries. In Germany, for instance, codification always emphasized style and the relationship with the recipients. The use of foreign words has been a continuous theme in Germany; in Britain and Australia Americanisms are foregrounded. An interesting contrast emerges if one compares English mother-tongue and secondlanguage countries, since codification in the latter mainly focuses on correctness, intelligibility, and proximity to international English (Nihalani et al., 1979; Bansal and Harrison, 1983). Hussein and Zughoul (1993) have looked at the closely related question of lexical interference from English in journalistic Arabic.

Implicit codification, the result of professionalism, shows up, for instance, in noun-name phrase construction, as in examples 1 and 2:

1 Prime Minister Major has said …

2 England manager Graham Taylor …

Use of this pattern correlates with media outlets, speech community, time, audience type, and reported domains (Bell, 1991: 130 ff.; Jucker, 1992). It has reached the level of sociolinguistic marker in Britain as it is sanctioned by the BBC whose judgments are couched in terms of style, rather than of good usage:

The dropping of the word “The” before titles probably began in the American magazine TIME, with the idea of creating a brisk and pacy style. It has now become a commonplace in British newspapers, and occasionally with broadcasters … This is not how people speak … We should write as we would speak.

(BBC, n.d.)

De facto codification is visible also at higher message levels. Van Dijk (1988b) has suggested that topics are developed in cycles of decreasing importance. The typical macro-structure is that of the inverted pyramid, which suggests that full text consumption is not required. Simmler (1993), in contrast, argues that this model cannot be a general pattern. Soccer reports, which he studied in detail, are written for full consumption. It appears that reports may differ as a result of spatiotemporal properties of “reality.” But despite disagreements one point seems uncontroversial: There is only a small number of basic text structures (Werlich, 1976).

In multi-axis messages, correlations between discourse structures, presentational norms, and broader media goals have also been revealed (cf. section 2.1 above; Burger, 1990; Scannel, 1991). Broader issues still, for instance, language modernization for Indian news media, are dealt with by Krishnamurti and Mukherjee (1984).

Representation

Representation must be seen in the light of the Whorfian hypothesis. Of two possible versions the weak one, which is commonly accepted, says that language influences cognition and interpretation but does not pre-empt alternative ways of making sense of “reality.” Some event might be referred to as an “accident,” a “mishap,” or a “disaster” despite obvious semantic differences between these words. But the use of one expression rather than another implies a deliberate act of categorization. As language unavoidably involves such acts, none of this is controversial. What is controversial in media studies is whether media discourse adds another dimension of willful ideological bias. With regard to news media, criteria that predict to some extent what might be selected (and transformed) as news have been suggested by Galtung and Ruge (cf. Bell, 1991: 155–60). Fowler rightly argues that they “are rather to be seen as qualities of (potential) reports” (1991: 19) and adds, “they are not simply features

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguistic... Page 9 of 12

of selection but, more importantly, features of representation; and so the distinction between ‘selection’and ‘transformation’ceases to be absolute.”

Thus the selection and representation of some content, for instance, as “gossip” (in music shows), as “background” (in classical music, sports reporting), or as “hot news” (in news broadcasts) involve creative acts of categorization. Many studies have confirmed this (Fowler et al., 1979; GUMG, 1980; Fowler, 1991). Claims of deliberate acts of ideological distortion (GUMG, 1980) have been softened and, instead of “bias,” the term mediation has come into use: “‘Mediation’and ‘representation’will less provocatively cover the processes which lead to ‘skewing’and ‘judgement’,” says Fowler (1991: 12). A related term is “transformation.”

The manifestation of mediation in lexis, grammar, text or discourse type and mode, style, and scripts or schemata, has been addressed most extensively with news media and news reporting (Fowler et al., 1979; GUMG, 1980). It has been argued that media discourse, rather than being media-specific, reflects the dominant view of a society, the perspectives of the powerful. It relies on and creates a consensual aura that transcends program format and emanates from the approach to content. And as consensus has an integrative and a delimitative function, it aggrandizes what is inside and marginalizes what is outside (Davis and Walton, 1983). But the concept of “news” is often ill-defined or not defined at all. While GUMG (1980) and Schlesinger (1978), for instance, are clear in looking at news as a program (a program format), Fowler (1991) is extremely diffuse.

Van Dijk's study of international media discourse (1988a, b) should also be seen as providing insight into media representation. He points to cognitively grounded discourse categories (schemata, scripts, etc.) for both the categorization and organization of content. Structural-semantic notions such as evaluation, background, event (narration) have been proposed for the macro-structure of texts. In the area of style, informality and conversation are said to project images of familiarity, cooperativeness, and friendliness. On a deeper plane, they have a “reality-maintaining,” i.e., a representational, function (Fowler, 1991: 57) that invites agreement and the sharing of media's consensus by recipients. Such multi-plane functions have also been revealed in multi-axis messages, such as topic structures and shifts, turn-taking, etc. in interviews (Harris, 1991).

Functional duality: Presentation and representation

It has become clear that presentation and representation address different issues of media discourse but are nonetheless related. Van Dijk's macro-structural model points to both functions. Leitner's analyses of variety choices in Britain, Australia, and Germany (1980, 1984) highlighted presentational factors, but Fowler (1991) correctly points out that the status of standard varieties confers an aura of officialdom on the discourse that carries representational overtones. I will now turn to cases where the multi-functionality of language expressions is at issue. First, there may be a shift at the encoding end from presentation to representation, and second, encoders’intentions may legitimately be read differently by recipients.

Designations for ethnic and other minorities are cases in point for the first situation. The list of names for people with “black” complexions (which already is a classification) in English includes nigger, black man, blackfellow, coon, black, Afro-American, aborigine, aboriginals. Debate about appropriate choices and the refutations of inappropriate terms has progressed from arguments in terms of mainly appropriate use and politeness (presentation) to ones in terms of the avoidance of racism

(representation) (ABC, 1989).8 To quote the ABC's recent position:

The right of indigeneous peoples to identify themselves is recognized in a number of United Nations resolutions. When referring to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the terms preferred by these people should be used wherever possible. Failure to recognize this right results in language which is centred on white Anglo-Celtic values and preferences.

(ABC, 1989: 25)

Designations for gender, disabled people, migrants, and ethnic communities provide ample evidence for similar developments inside the ABC, the BBC (1993), and elsewhere.

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007

11. The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media : The Handbook of Sociolinguist... Page 10 of 12

The second case is exemplified by the possibility of a clash between media's policies, practices, and the public's perception (attitudes). Reactions to the ABC's rulings on the avoidance of gender-specific language (1984) provide an example. The Sun headlined an article with “ABC plans attack on manhood!” and continued: “Aunty is killing off men … sportsmen, gentlemen, aldermen, the whole lot” (May 7,1984). Similar reactions appeared elsewhere but, despite the outrage and the discourse gap with the audience, the ABC adhered to its policy rulings.

Such shifts emphasize the fact that media discourse is sensitive to social changes, that it is not only a compromise but also dynamic, and that norms and practices may compete with one another. A medium may well want to go for a particular style, e.g., informality, but if it does, it is faced with beliefs and values associated with that style. To return to an example mentioned earlier. The BBC's rejection of noun-name collocations in examples 1 and 2 (p. 198) as outside natural conversation defines informality in a particular way, while American and Australian media take a different stance.

2.5 Media as a public forum and public use of media discourse

Relating the discourse of communication media to the media's functions is undoubtedly a crucial theme in sociolinguistics. But as the public idiom per se media discourse has a wider relevance that is well recognized by the public. The controversies that arise here take us back to the argument that media are a part of social life at large and represent a Fourth Estate (Curran and Seaton, 1991). From such a broad vision two lines of argument can be distinguished.

One is substantially sociopolitical and asks questions about how well or how poorly media discourse does the work it is expected to do: Does it adequately meet the sociopolitical demands made on it in a democratic society? What is its relation to other public discourse, such as the language of politics? Such issues tend to be discussed in broad terms, unrelated to specific discourse characteristics. They widen problems raised in connection with representation and provide the motivation for Fowler (1991), GUMG (1980), Bucher and Strassner (1991), and others to relate them to language and discourse. But presentational questions have also been addressed. The role of standards in the BBC (BBC, 1979) was couched in terms of sociopolitical demands. And empirical tests of comprehension have suggested that media discourse may fail to give equal access to all sections of the public because it is inherently difficult to understand. Such difficulties have been related to formal characteristics of media discourse, to the selection of varieties but also to the interaction of different semiotic codes. Media fail, it is concluded, in their mediating function (Burger, 1990: chapter 8).

The second theme is more narrowly linguistic and embeds media discourse into the framework of the language repertoire of society at large. If discussed under the heading of “authority” in language (J. and L. Milroy, 1985), public attitudes towards it within the broader context of correctness and norms are highlighted. As a corollary, media discourse can be seen as a useful tool in educational contexts.

The feedback function of recipients’reactions to and expert opinions on media discourse has been mentioned in section 2.3. Such reactions may initiate changes in audience design but they may have a wider role in representing content from the social domain. From this angle media constitute a public forum for debate about language. Several subthemes should be mentioned. First, some studies suggest that content on language issues indicates a speech community's sense of linguistic identity and propriety. That point was made with regard to Australia by Leitner (1984) and New Zealand by Bell (1990). Along the same lines, Reeve (1989) suggests that they can be used to reconstruct the history of Australian language attitudes. In Germany's “new Länder” (East Germany) letters to the editors and expert opinions often express great reservations against the use of Anglicisms, such as insider. Anglicisms are perceived as “West German” German, whereas “East German” German has remained “pure” despite the presence of Russian. Official French efforts to eliminate Anglicisms from public language must be understood in this light, just as the fact that usage guides to language often make

extensive use of media data to illustrate bad language or style.9

Another subtheme has to do with the belief that media discourse may change, or inhibit desirable change in the language repertoire of some society. In many countries media language is perceived as something special, somewhat different from everyday speech. And special terms for the media language have come into use, such as BBC English in Britain, network English in the USA, or Rundfunkaussprache in Germany. Looking closely, two contradictory attitudes can be identified. On one hand, it is considered as something to emulate, to adopt in public discourse. Alternatively, it has

http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=532/tocnode?id=g9780631211938... 28.12.2007