PEOPLES DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA

LARBI BEN MHIDI UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGAUGES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Media discourse analysis

Group members:
Rahmani mounia
Mezyani zouaina
Ouannas wafa
Group n: 2

supervisor:
Mr. Ayadi Karim
1 st year Master

The content:
1- Introductory part
2- Why we study media discourse
3- How has printed media being studied
4- How has spoken media being studied
a) Pseudo intimacy
b) Linguistic corpus
5- Language of media
a) Reports
b) Internet
c) Interviews
6- Conclusion

Introductory part
What is discourse: discourse can be defined in three ways.
1- Language beyond the level of a sentence.
2- Language behaviors linked to social practices.
3- Language as a system of thoughts.
Discourse can be spoken as well as written.

What is media: the main means of mass communication (TV, radio, newspaper)
What is media discourse: refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast
platform, whether spoken or written in which the discourse is oriented to non-present,
listener, or viewer. Anne OKeeffe (2011)
Types of media discourse:
- Written /printed media includes such as: newspapers, magazines
- Spoken / broadcast media such as: TV, radio.
- Social network sites such as: face book, twitter, YouTube.
Types of news:
Hard news: refers to stories based on -5 w- who? What? Where? When? Why/how
for example war, accidents, crimes, law.
Soft news: focus on people, places, issues that affect the reader life. For example:
the death of the president U.S.A Kennedy.
His story (soft news)
His daily life ,work ( hard news)

Why we study media discourse

The importance of media as a source of data for the study of some language features.
The interesting way in which media uses some language features.
The effect of media on language in different societies.
Media language is a mirror that reflects culture and society.
The effect of media on people s opinion and attitude toward a culture, issues, people or
ethnic groups and how they may be misrepresented.
Media language is more available and easier to collect than conversations.
Media helps in developing a critical thinking.

How have printed media been studied?

Linguists identify the language of newspapers, as one of the four major registers in
language with (spoken conversation, academic writing, and fiction). In addition to that
much attention is given to genre analysis in studying newspapers i.e. what makes the
language of print media different from other genres. What can be noticed here is that
linguists aim to understand the individual genre characteristics. linguists also seen the
newspaper media as a distort of reality .i.e. away from reality ,something unreal.

How has spoken media being studied

Spoken media discourse:
conversation analysis has been the prevailing methodology in the study of spoken
media discourse, that is, radio and television .And CA focuses on how conversations are
structured and organized locally turn by turn and studies social interaction rather than
language,this makes it suitable for the study of many social interaction ,including media
interactions .so, we will used it in study some radio phone conversation. In radio phone
conversation the identification and recognition is carried out by the presenter who builds
a pseudo intimate relationship with their audience that means by talking about
themselves as if they are ordinary friends with ordinary lives. So, from this example we
can get some of the pseudo intimacy markers:
Presenter: its Wednesday morning Ann good morning to you

Caller: good morning Gerry how are you?

Presenter: oh well (yawning) Im good a little bit of sunshine this morning
Caller: oh, well thats good.
Presenter: it had a positive effect on me anyway dunno about every.
Caller: well I think it has on everybody hasnt it?
Use of first name: Anna, Gerry
Informal non-verbal behavior: presenter yawning
Reciprocation and repetition of discourse markers; oh, well.
The use of linguistic corpus:
The study of turn structure and organization is the main means of looking at spoken
media discourse within the frame work of CA. It allows us to analysis some amount of
interaction .SO, let us take for example opening and closing at a small corpus of radio
phone conversation.
1- Opening:
Presenter: and next we have west colm good afternoon to you
Caller: am good afternoon Miriam
Presenter: colmmc carthy now you are involved can you tell me how are you got
involved in inis mor and what youre opening up a new heritage centre on Inis Mor the
largest of the Aran Islands am based on the story of Aran sweater
-In turn1, the presenter addresses the audience: And next we had west, giving them a
deictic orientation as to the location of the next caller. The vocative becomes the footing
colm good afternoon to you.
-The repetition of the vocative in line 3 followed by the discourse marker now indicates
the moves into the business of the call phase. ,i.e, entering in the core of the subject .so,
we can summarize that by saying we find that the audience is addressed first, then the
footing is changed to the caller by the use of discourse markers and the vocatives.
2- The closing patterns:
Presenter: well well I suppose one way or the other I I Ive suspicion that people want
certain things to go away but something just wont<laughs>am some things have to be
forced anyway there you go. ah listen Bishop Donal Nurry thank you very much indeed for
talking to us
Caller: not at all. Thank you very much.
Presenter: okay all the best cheers bye bye.
-The presenter uses discourse markers to signal closing (well)and he uses a discourse
marker plus the vocative to introduce the thanking phase .notice the use of the pronoun
us in turn 1to signal the change of footing back to the audience .The presenter does not
say thank you very much indeed for talking to me (us)
-In closing analysis we find that 67% of all closing us is used and we (presenter +
audience)is used of all closing.
The canonical structure of a given dialogue is the sequential order of turns between
two or more people. The canonical stages can be summarized in:
Summons-answers, identification-recognition, greeting then sequence
If there is an intimate relationship between the interviewee and the interviewer the
canonical stages are shortened (there may be only two stages: answers +greeting)
whereas in a pseudo-intimacy or unmarked relationship the canonical stages are more
likely to be long.
Language of media:

a/Language of headlines: is the short summary which introduces the story at the
beginning of a TV or radio, news broadcasts, or articles in newspapers, websites.

Headlines should be in a simple structure, easily readable, choice of words.

 Headlines tend to avoid finite verbs , auxiliaries , adverbs (for not to create
ambiguity)
Language features:
Omission of words: we can omit Function words that (carry intrinsic meaning)
,determiners ( some, this) ,pronouns( relative pronouns), auxiliaries , tittles .
Short words: aid =assistance
Loaded words: wealthy = rich
The use of nouns phrases: cars, people.
Gimmicks: words that make ambiguity ,to take attention.
Eg: she is a skillful pilot whose career has really taken off.
The use of puns: playing on words via a humorous way.
Homonyms: same sound different spelling.
Eg : the two sisters went to parties too much in two day .
Homonyms: a men has been killed beside the bank.
Intertextuality: referring to familiar phrases.

the germen team

Eg:
Metaphor: describing one thing ,drowning in money
Eg: it is raining cuts and dogs. Time is running out.
Alliteration: repetition of sounds.
The worst wide world phenomenon.
Rhyme : crime of the time.
b/ reports
what is a report: it is a piece of written or spoken information in the form of
document ,with evidence after investigation ,with a clearly structured format . making use
of sections and headlines.
Language of reports:
-language is reported in an interesting way with object .
-we notice the use of passive voice(more formality) in order to make suspense , to make
the reader involved .
-the use of synonyms.
-the use of formal language (correct spelling+ vocabulary + grammar)
-precise language.

-the non use of apostrophes.

a) Internet
The language of the internet: The internet has had and continue to have a great
impact on our lives ,with it we are able to access to new ideas ,more information
,unlimited possibilities ,and a whole new world of communities .Because of this
development a whole new vocabulary is developed to talk about all these issues.
The vocabulary of internet:
We can divide the vocabulary in two main groups:
1- Words that are created to talk about the internet.
2- The old ones which are used in new words.
3- Nouns: We have net and World Wide Web which refer both to the internet.
4- Adjectives: the most useful adjective is online and offline
5- Prefixes: we can use prefixes to create words like E-mail E refers to electronic so it
is electronic mail, also, we have the word web like in website or webpage this
means that they can be found in the internet .
6- Verbs: we use phrasal verbs to talk about connecting to the internet .like log on
and log off and we find the verb serf which means searching in the internet.
7- Abbreviations: are short forms of words or phrases .abbreviation are often used in
chat rooms because they are easy to type and save time, here are some common
abbreviations which can help you to translate todays texting
?4U: I have question for you.
10X: thanks
2EZ: too easy
2MOR: tomorrow
Totes: totally
Pic: picture
B2W: back to work