New discourse- Monika Bednarek and Helen Caple
1. INTRODUCTION
This book is about new discourse- the kind of discourse we encounter on the television, newspaper, when
we go online, on the radio, to get our dose of daily happenings.
Definitions both of discourse and of news are plentiful and have been discussed in different disciplines. In
this book, we consider discourse as multimodal, or multisemiotic, that is, not being restricted to the
semiotic system of language alone but, crucially, also incorporating the semiotic system of images. We also
look at how such discourse (language and image) is actually put to use and how it contributes to the
construction of news. News discourse means that it is discuss the discourse that audiences encounter in
news bulletins, news programmes, on news websites, newspapers- discourse that reports on newsworthy
events, happenings, issues, also includes other kinds of visual material, such as typography, cartoons,
figures, tables, layout, and the like.
series of “key approaches in linguistics”:
SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACH – correlation between features of new discourse and the social status
of the audience of such discourse. The language of newspapers varies depending on target
audience.
CONVERSATION ANALYTICAL APPROACH – Analysis of spoken interaction (for ex. In the context of
news interviews)
THE SYSITEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC APPROACH – approaches new discourse from the
perspective of register, genre and discuss the different purposes, linguistic features and structures
of various types of new discourse.
PRAGMATIC/STYLISTIC APPROACH – draws on various linguistic concepts to investigates the
Language of New discourse. This often Includes Pragmatic Analyses, discussion of presentation and
perspective, genre status, style and register.
THE PRACTICE- FOCUSED APPROACH – tries to provide insights into news discourse and journalistic
practices, it is often pursued by researchers who also worked as journalists themselves.
THE CORPUS LINGUISTIC APPROACH – makes use of datasets (corpora) and computer software to
analyse new discourse, often draws on the insights of corpus-based discourse analysis.
THE DIACHRONIC APPROACH- study linguistic change.
CRITICAL APPROACH- is interested in uncovering power relations and ideologies behind new
discourse. It has the goal of looking Beyond text and taking into account institutional and social
cultural context and often involves a search of aspects or dimensions of reality that are obscured.
How to collect news data? Selection of data is a relevant matter. Analysis of media language demands
decisions in 3 areas:
The genres: news, advertising, opinion. (Type of content)
The outlets: publications, radio stations (carriers of content)
The outputs: newscasts, programmes and time of period to be covered.
