Language in the Media Flashcards
Fairclough - Synthetic Personalisation
Addressing a wide audience as individuals using direct address, e.g. newspaper articles read by thousands but still uses ‘you’
Large corporations address potential customers on a personal level to create a sense of friendship
Fairclough’s values
experiential values = any words with certain associations or ideologies - e.g. ‘rampage’ is used to describe a group of kids, creates sense of chaos and animalistic imagery
relational values = formality, refers to how close/distant the reader and writer are (formal/informal) (e.g ‘hooded youths’ has rv as audience is likely older gen)
expressive values =over wording/ hyperbolic, the idea that a word used by a writer might express a certain opinion, e.g. ‘left wing politicians’ can be intended as an insult from right wing politics, but might express a positive feeling for someone who is more left wing
Fairclough - Power behind/within discourse
Power WITHIN refers to the language itself and the words chosen and choices made with grammar, semantics etc
Power BEHIND refers to the context behind the writing, social impact, political standing, power dynamics etc.
e.g. a teacher in a classroom has power in discourse because they control the conversation and subject matter
a doctor is trusted and professional, therefore we take what they say and write as more factual than other people
Instrumental vs. Influential power
Instrumental - held by those who have authority over others due to who they are, e.g. The Queen
Influential - held by those who aim to influence and persuade others (such as politicians and advertisers)
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Linguistic determinism - suggests the language a person uses determines or influences their thinking or worldview.
Linguistic determinism vs reflection
Determinism - suggests the language a person uses determines or influences their thinking or worldview.
Reflection - suggests the language we use reflects our own thoughts
Bell (1991)
Journalists do not write articles, they write stories
Hall (1978)
said that the media is ‘the translation of official viewpoints into a public idiom’
3 ASPECTS OF IDEOLOGY (Van Dijk, 1998)
Social functions - Why do people develop and use ideologies in the first place?
For coordination of the social practices of group members in order to realise the goals of a society, protects its interests, etc.
Cognitive structures - Creating/representing ‘in group members’ and ‘out-group members’ (us vs. them)
Discursive expression - How are ideologies expressed in text and talk? e.g. lexis (labelling of ‘crooks’ ‘gangsters’ etc), conceptual metaphors (‘floods of immigrants’) etc.
Gendered language examples
- The generic ‘he’ pronoun used in old law texts for all people of any gender
- The generic ‘man’ (marked forms), e.g. fireMAN, policeMAN
- Terms of endearment e.g. ‘sweetie’ ‘honey’ ‘chick’ ‘baby’ all condescending to women, comparing them to infants, food and animals
- Order of precedence, e.g. husband and wife, boys and girls, men and women -. exception is ‘ladies and gentlemen’ due to rule of courtesy
- Semantic derogation, female version of a word becomes more negative over time while the male version stays the same e.g. master and mistress
Halliday’s verb processes (1994)
Material verbs - describe ‘doing’ something, e.g. ‘ran’, ‘fought’ - usually used when describing men
Mental verbs - describe ‘feeling’ something, e.g. ‘thought’, ‘loved’ - usually used when describing women
Aristotle theory (persuasive rhetoric device)
Logos - Logic, statistics, facts etc.
Ethos - ethics, morals etc.
Pathos - emotions, feelings etc.
Anaphora
Repetition at the beginning of a sentence
Hypophora
Asking a question then immediately answering it
Van Leeuwen - Nomination
Naming of social actor in any way within a text
Van Leeuwen - Classification
Talking about a social actor’s identity, e.g. class, age, gender, e.g. ‘The woman, aged 34’
Van Leeuwen - Functionalism
Talking about a social actor’s role or occupation ‘The secondary school teacher’
Van Leeuwen - Physical identification
Talking about a social actor’s physical appearence, e.g. ‘sporting a high ponytail’
Van Leeuwen - Relational identification
Talking about a social actor’s relation to others, e.g. ‘mother of three’
Use of passive voice in newspapers
Used to avoid blame, allow them to be vague on details of a story or distance the publication from the story
Wareing’s theory of power
Social - power held by a group of people due to certain social factors, such as class, ethnicity, gender, or age.
Political - power held by people with authority, such as politicians and the police.
Personal - power based on an individual’s occupation or role in society. For example, a headteacher would likely hold more power than a teaching assistant.
Syndetic vs Asyndetic listing
Syndetic - use of conjunctions when listing (and — and —–)
Asyndetic - avoidance of conjunction when listing, using commas instead (, , , )
3 theories of Humour
The Incongruity Theory (Morreall)
- humor is the enjoyment of something that violates ordinary mental patterns and expectations.
-structural ambiguity (jokes/puns-> double meaning/one-liners)
- phonological jokes ; ‘How do you think the unthinkable? With an ithberg’
-morphological jokes
-lexis
-syntax
-discourse
The Superiority Theory
= Teasing someone to gain power over them (social context for humour)
The Psychic Release Theory
= Jokes that make people laugh because a taboo has been broken
(ie sex, death, religion etc)
Types of satire
Horatian Satire -> seeks to criticise rather than attack its subject (witty/playful)
= fake donald trump example
Juvenalian Satire -> biting, bitter and angry; sees the voices in the world as intolerable, very ironic/sarcastic (attacking) (wants to achieve something)
= uni price example
Material verbs (Halliday)
Verb processes that describe actions or events, e.g. ‘hit’ ‘run’ ‘play’
Mental verbs (Halliday)
Verb processesthat describe thought, emotion etc. e.g. ‘loved’ ‘thought’ ‘felt’
