Language and the Media

Abstract

Media language has always attracted the attention of linguists, particularly applied linguists and sociolinguists. There are four practical and principled reasons for this interest. First, the media provide an easily accessible source of language data for research and teaching purposes. Second, the media are important linguistic institutions. Their output makes up a large proportion of the language that people hear and read every day. Media usage reflects and shapes both language use and attitudes in a speech community. For second language learners, the media may function as the primary—or even the sole—source of native-speaker models. Third, the ways in which the media use language are interesting linguistically in their own right; these include how different dialects and languages are used in advertising, how tabloid newspapers use language in a projection of their assumed readers' speech, or how radio personalities use language—and only language–to construct their own images and their relationships to an unseen, unknown audience. Fourth, the media are important social institutions. They are crucial presenters of culture, politics, and social life, shaping as well as reflecting how these are formed and expressed. Media ‘discourse’ is important both for what it reveals about a society and for what it contributes to the character of society.