1Media Linguistics: Interfaces to Media and Communication Studies
Abstract: Media linguistics is usually understood as a linguistic subdiscipline dealing with the use of language in the context of newspapers and magazines, television, radio, advertising and in online publications. The topics thus are extremely heterogeneous. Consequently, at first it is important to clarify the conceptual principles with special regard to the possibility of an integrated approach, and to sketch possible tasks of media linguistics. Of course, this article discusses traditional working fields (such as lexis, syntax, phraseology), but also considers textual and pragmatic approaches. The semiotic complexity of communication in the context of media is outlined with the help of the concept of “multimodality”. Cultural aspects are emphasized in a contrastive way. The last chapter names some fields of research where media linguistics should adopt the approaches and concepts of other disciplines and where an extension of the linguistic focus seems to be appropriate.
Keywords: audience design, contrastive description, hybridization, hypertext, interdisciplinarity, media communication, multimodality, prototypes, text and image linguistics, text types
1Media, media texts, media linguistics
Media linguistics is usually seen as a branch of research in linguistic science, focusing on language use in the press, on TV and radio, but also in advertising and online publications. It is debatable whether it is, in fact, already possible to speak of an independent linguistic subdiscipline. The obvious relationship to public, medially transmitted communication offerings and the specific issues in comparison to the more traditional fields of work known to us from applied linguistics are good arguments in favor (cf. Perrin 2006, 30ss.). On the other hand, there is some opinion that we are talking of research which could be done quite appropriately within pragmalinguistics. Why not use the concepts and methods of analysis developed in verbal action theory? Added to this, as Lenk (2013, 69) succinctly notes, there is as yet neither any specific journal, nor any particular specialist organization for this field of research. However, considering the now-established series of conferences on media linguistics and the corresponding documentation (cf. Lenk/Chesterman 2005; Lüger/Lenk 2008; Luginbühl/Hauser 2010; Grösslinger/Held/Stöckl 2012), it is possible to speak of a subdiscipline in statu nascendi.
1.1Basic concepts
Instead of discussing the intradisciplinary status of media linguistics, it has in the meantime become more urgent to clearly define a specialist profile, as well as to formulate the most important aims, develop approaches and identify the research focus.
Following a wide consensus, the object of research into media linguistics is above all mass media communication:
“The field of media linguistics research covers all those types of texts which are to be found in the mass media” (Burger 2005, 64).1
This general definition has the advantage of being relatively comprehensively applicable, including early forms of media-driven information, the Korrespondenzen at the beginning of the 17th century, up until more recent forms of communication. If we attempt to make the text orientation more precise, there are above all three factors to be considered: the arrangement of media texts is dependent on (a) the given social context to which the addressees (with their respective recipient habits) belong, (b) the type of medium, i.e., the possibilities and constraints which go hand in hand with, for example, TV news reports or Internet blogs, and (c) the sign modalities used, i.e., which codes are used, which semiotic resources (e. g., speech and noises on the radio); cf. Held (2011; following Fig. 1).
Before taking a closer look at the characteristics of media texts, we should briefly discuss how best to grasp the concept of media. Indeed, the use of this term is anything but clear. The technological concept is the most widespread, indicating – in contrast to direct, immediate communication – the necessity of certain aids, especially with respect to storage and transmissibility. Holly has developed the following definition:
“The media are concrete, material aids with which signs can be enhanced, produced, stored and/or transmitted” (Holly 1997, 69s.).3
Not to be forgotten is, as Dürscheid notes (2003, 39), the moment of reception; media are also a means by which signs can be received. It must be understood that the choice of the medium will usually considerably influence the type of communication: for a start, differences in the use of communication channels can be ascertained. While, for instance, newspapers remain restricted to the visual and radio to the auditive channels, television or computers are an audiovisual medium. In addition, depending on the respective medium, different forms of communication may arise. Compared to the conventional daily newspaper, which offers only articles, online newspapers, or computers as a medium, for example, make it possible to use e-mail, blogs, chats and Twitter (Jakobs 1998; Schmitz 2004, 57ss.; Stöckl 2012, 19s.).
The technological concept of media must, however, be distinguished from the use of the term that attributes medium status to language itself. From this perspective, language is always also a means to achieve certain aims, for example to gain insight, to create reality, to help society move forward (Ehlich 1998). An additional terminological extension can be made, if, following Koch/Oesterreicher (1985), different media varieties are also accepted, i.e., when, in the practical implementation of language utterances, a media-based oral or written language use is opposed to a conceptional one.
1.2Development trends
As indicated above, contemporary media texts can often be distinguished by their semiotic complexity. In the process of text production, elements of different sign systems or codes which can mutually influence, complement or clarify one another are employed. Media texts are thus designated as multimodal all-in products, whose effect is primarily based on the interplay of verbal and visual components:
“La multimodalità [. . .] riguarda non solo l’uso dei diversi codici, bensì la fabbricazione semiotica del messaggio, l’elaborazione di un tema nei modi più svariati. Si può dire che è il resultato del complesso processo di far interagire visual e testo, ottica e stilistica per produrre una semiosi che deduce la sua particolarità solo da effetti di sinergia” (Held 2005a, 51s.; cf. Giessen 2012, 81ss.).4
Consequently, linear written language use and the linear construction of meaning are no longer paramount in every case. The survey in Fig. 2 (as set out by Stöckl 2006, 29) shows which types of sign in print and audio texts can work together.
With a view to audiovisual media texts, the dynamic forms of image and typography must be included. The semiotic complexity increases from print text via audio texts to audiovisual contributions (Stöckl 2012, 20). For media linguistics, this also means taking into account the multimodality outlined above as a characteristic feature of modern media reality and widening the view of traditional text linguistics accordingly. It is essential to devote more attention to the interaction of different codes and/or modalities, and to consider the occurrence of language-image texts or language-sounds/music texts as the normal case, exploring their potential for meaning with regard to the whole text or the whole communication, and thus rejecting, in the words of Klemm/Stöckl (2011, 11), “the decades-old linguistic self-restriction to the analysis of verbal signs”.5
It remains to be seen whether, in this context, something similar to Bildlinguistik [‘image linguistics’] or Sehflächenforschung [‘research into visual screening’] (cf. Schmitz 2011) will be established. We must also ask how far linguistically founded concepts can be applied to other sign systems, for example to the combined effect of language and image, and whether definitions such as Bildakt [‘image act’] (Schmitz 2007), Bildpragmatik [‘image pragmatics’] (Klemm 2011) or Grammatikalisierung von Modalitäten [‘grammaticalization of modalities’] (Stöckl 2006) keep in their explanations what they terminologically promise. The fact that a certain skepticism in this regard is appropriate has been critically noted on several occasions (cf. Muckenhaupt 1986; Bucher 2010). And that such analogies are not axiomatic is also shown in diverse media text analyses, for example of political posters (Demarmels 2007), online news reporting (Hauser 2010) and TV news (Luginbühl 2011), to mention just a few.
One may not deduce from these comments that language in media texts is thus losing its importance. To quote Ehlich: “No matter how intensive the flood of images may be, language remains powerful in its own right” (1998, 20).6 Verbal components are, however, increasingly seen in combination with other sign systems, especially in their interplay with static or moving images. In addition, spoken language is always connected with intonation, facial expressions and gestures as well as with paraverbal and extraverbal elements. Written language is necessarily dependent on forms of typographical transfer, and, as a secondary sign system, the latter is able to develop a broad spectrum of meanings (cf. Stöckl 2004).
The distinctions between the codes involved remain undisputed; an “integrative concept” guarantees a (considerable) reality-embracing weighting and an extension of the scientific text issues (cf. Eckkrammer/Held 2006, 4). It is not unimportant which functions the relative text-image or image-sound combinations respectively take on, and which illustrative, explanatory, constitutive or stylistically persuasive part they play (Hoffmann 2012, 52ss.). The appropriate research into this field has barely begun.
Only indirectly is another development interconnected with the multimodality and general “complementarity of the codes” (Hess-Lüttich 1992):7 the tendency to favor selective information extraction. The well-known keywords are: cluster principle and text design8 (Püschel 1992; Bucher 1996). A comprehensive report is so subdivided into a hierarchically organized text assemblage that the recipient can choose according to previous knowledge and range of interests. The presentation of the information is quasi modular; several contributions may be offered on a given topic, dealing with different aspects, reflecting different perspectives and (in the press) possibly complemented by graphics, photos and cartoons or caricatures. This form of orientation towards the addressees has meanwhile become firmly established (cf. Freytag 1992; Lüger 2002; 2003) and has been consistently carried over to online publications with their various possibilities of hypertext structuring (cf. Lilienthal 1998).
Linguistics cannot alone lay claim to researching into media texts. Overlapping with other disciplines is unavoidable, because of the complexity and polymorphism of the object under discussion. Thus, it is no surprise that there has always been a considerable readiness to adopt insights and impulses from other lines of research into language in the media, not least from the science of journalism. Altogether, there is an unmistakable endeavor to analyze media communication in such a way that “media production, the production and reception of feature articles, are treated as aspects of public communication in an integrative way” (Bucher 1986, 19).9 This view will be given further consideration in the following, where we will be concerned with presenting fields of research into media linguistics, above all from a Romance perspective.
2Fields of study in media linguistics
In the following, we shall be outlining important text features and going into the details of further work, but also looking at the typical questions that have to be answered when analyzing mass communication.
2.1Lexis, syntax, phraseology
2.1.1Normative orientation
Early comments on the use of language in the media refer in most cases to the stylistic appropriateness, and presuppose the observance of certain norms. When it is above all a question of a qualitative evaluation of journalistic articles, the benchmarks of literary standards often also play a role. The use of language in the press is thus almost too easily termed as an “échantillon de mauvais goût et de mauvais style” [‘a specimen of bad taste and bad style’] (Chaurand 21972, 105), or the reproach is made of an “offense permanente à la pureté de la langue française” [‘a permanent offence to the purity of the French language’], as Pucheu (1965, 18) is obliged to declare. Such a partly puristic tendency from a language point of view appears to be especially valid for French. This need not, however, exclude similar evaluations in Italian, for example, in the case of critical undertones of language use and pejorative designations such as giornalese (Magni 1992; Schafroth 2006, 52ss.; cf. for Spanish, Gillich 1998). Many such language observations often end in recommendations for the “right” choice of word and a suitable sentence structure. Referring to the so-called “subtilités du vocabulaire”, Pucheu (1965, 21) cites the alternatives:
| Don’t say | Say |
| affamé | famélique |
| concert | récital |
| intéressant | palpitant |
| une salle pleine | une salle archicomble |
| le chat | le félin |
| étrange | mystérieux |
| parfait | impeccable |
| etc. |
Today, suggestions of this kind appear rather strange and arbitrary. Recent scholarly publications therefore usually abstain from such a normative bias.
A completely different picture emerges, however, when dealing with publications which are intended for practical work or for the training of journalists. Similar to the “elevator check”, the top priority must be, for instance, to be able to reduce a piece of information to its core message, in concrete terms: to not more than two sentences:
“Quelle que soit la complexité du sujet, ce que l’on veut dire d’essentiel peut se formuler en deux phrases. C’est la brève que l’on ferait si l’on ne disposait que de dix lignes dans le journal, les phrases que l’on prononcerait si l’on n’avait que dix secondes d’antenne” (Voirol 82006, 17s.).10
Imperatives of this kind are then the starting point for further language guidelines; they remind us indeed of the prescriptive language criticism mentioned above. They are often formulated as relatively binding rules, even going as far as the recommendation to avoid certain expressions as far as possible:
“Débrouillons-nous pour contourner les mots incontournables, les snober, leur faire la nique, les mettre en quarantaine. Ces tics d’écriture font décidément toc” (Cuypers 22011, 21).11
There are, too, clear instructions for syntax: sentences with 20 to 30 words should be preferred as they are easier to understand and to remember, and long sentences should be avoided altogether. In addition, alternating between very short and longer sentences is necessary (cf. Voirol 82006, 19). The text dimension is not usually mentioned in these style guides; one exception is publications which are devoted to particular forms of presentation, for example press or TV reports (cf. Boucher 1995; Brabant 2012). But there is one general, overall language-science statement that is left to us at any rate: we will search in vain for traces of (text-)linguistic insights in journalism handbooks, the influence of scientific language models and methods is downright humble (cf. Hennig 2000; Lebsanft 2001, 295).
2.1.2Descriptive orientation
An early study composed by Charles Bruneau in 1958, “La langue du journal”, provides an interesting mixture of language analysis and the presentation of the media environment, including culture-specific expectations connected with newspaper texts. Particular elements of journalistic language use (in the press, on the radio) can mostly be explained by external factors, if we follow the implicit basic suppositions of the author. Accordingly, contexts of the following kind, for example, may be postulated:
commercialization → nouvelles sensationnelles
orientation towards the addressees → différentes variétés (degré le plus proche de la langue parlée dans la langue écrite)
comprehensibility → complexité syntaxique réduite
restricted certainty → conditionnel journalistique
originality, entertainment → images, procédés rhétoriques
diversity of expression → locutions verbales
denomination gaps → créations néologiques, emprunts
economy of expression → noms composés
Bruneau’s work therefore goes far beyond a list of language structure features taken out of context and – long before the so-called pragmatic turnaround – looks at a broad spectrum of communicative processes (procédés) as they are applied to fulfill media-specific tasks. Even if the text level does not yet play a role, we may without doubt speak of a pioneering concept. Remarks on journalists being entrusted with the mission of the guardians of language standards and language culture must be seen as pure nostalgia. In the face of present-day media developments, there should also be some research into the degree of truth in assertions that the professional image of French journalists is still today more heavily weighted towards literary figures and the model of the journaliste-écrivain than elsewhere (cf. Preisinger 2004; Robert 2011, 149s.).
The method implied by Bruneau may meanwhile be considered mutatis mutandis, as a generally accepted approach when working on the presentation of the results of media-related language analyses. To this extent, media linguistics research is generally characterized by recording, evaluating and explaining the language features or structures under examination solely in combination with their respective functional context. Often, contrasting comparisons are included. To illustrate this, some examples from the large amount of appropriate research work are now considered.
For instance, the lexical design of media texts is dependent not only on the respectively considered topics or data, but also on the text type, the section, the publication and kind of addressee orientation intended. In journalistic commentaries, for example, we may find specific argumentative connectors, a broad spectrum of judgmental vocabulary and metaphorical and stirring forms of expression (cf. Lüger 2012). Advertising portrayals in trendy sports magazines are, according to Müller-Lancé (2014), characterized by, among other things, high-value lexemes, superlative expressions and emotional and figurative formulations. In blogs, it is above all the frequent coherence-supporting means, concise judgments and counter-judgments and ironical signals that are so striking (cf. Fiorentino 2011). In the case of tweets, Overbeck (2014) gives special mention to the perception of elements of spoken language (including grapheme iterations, abbreviations, code-switching) as striking features.
Furthermore, phraseological expressions are to be particularly expected in commentary contexts. Normally, they additionally express attitudes, or signal a certain informal or emotional mindset on the part of the author of the text on the basis of their semantic added value. It is not rare for phraseologisms to be used in a modified form, whereby plays on words or poetic effects can be achieved (cf. Hammer 2005). Advertising slogans are especially productive in this respect, but also attention-inducing formulations in magazines; homophony or paronyms and playing with different readings can be used to produce allusions, comic effects and thus entertainment for the reader:
“Bien que la reconnaissance de l’allusion n’apporte en l’occurrence aucune information supplémentaire, elle représente pour l’initié une sorte de clin d’oeil, un appel qui l’invitera peut-être à poursuivre la lecture” (Bender-Berland 1997, 382s.).12
The satirical French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné presents an almost unsurpassed intensity in this domain (cf. Hausmann 1974). A further aspect that should not be neglected is the contribution of phraseological units to the constitution of the text. Through the recurrence of individual lexemes or the uptake of certain semantic features, an isotopic direction becomes apparent, i.e., there is intersentential networking, which, according to context, supports coherence and text structuring. On many occasions, such effects also result from the interplay with metaphors specific to the theme and their extension to groups of images (cf. Schowalter 2005; Lüger 2006).
Pioneer Bruneau’s favored procedure (1958) is also a practicable approach for analyses of syntax. Assertions are not made generally for media texts, but rather for certain functional areas. And generalizations stating that language use in the media is syntactically complex or tendentially nominal are as such hardly plausible and need at all events more detailed specification (cf. Dardano as early as 1973; Allaire 1990; Lebsanft 1997). This is even more valid for the analysis of individual phenomena such as the distribution of tenses in press texts (e. g., Klöden 1998; Favre 2014). Also, studies of different sentence types usually concentrate on daily newspapers, and only seldom do they refer to other media. On the other hand, quasi inter-media attention is given to structures of dislocation (for example, in French news magazines, cf. Havu 2003; for Italian TV reports, cf. Spina 2006). They belong to those structures which can be used, as and when required, to focus upon certain constituents in a statement. It is therefore hardly surprising if they are often used in the media as a means of flexible gradation to establish importance (for a more detailed syntactic description, including cleft sentences/phrases clivées, cf. Schöpp 2005).
Another explanation for their use is important: constructions of dislocation with diverse other language techniques fit nicely to the tendency to strengthen the connection to the addressees and to create a feeling of spatial, social and emotional proximity. For this change from distance to proximity language behavior, a generally observable “apertura al parlato” [‘opening to orality’] (Schafroth 2006, 59) on all levels of language use can practically be considered, starting with phonetics and the choice of various registers to syntactic structures (cf. the synopsis in Große 2003). Schäfer (2006) has published detailed, statistically well-founded research on the basis of French regional newspapers, with comparisons to the German press; Müller-Lancé (1998) is also able to show that the absolute constructions generally classified in French as distance language behavior (participe en construction absolue) are omnipresent in media texts (also in interviews with sportsmen and in talk shows), thus showing that they are feasible in proximity language behavior. An extension of oral language analyses to free newspapers was undertaken by Große (2008). Friedl (2010) also includes (young people’s language) magazines, while Haug (1997) carries out a comparative analysis of literary magazines on French and German TV, and the article published by Nicklaus (2006) looks at the details of proximity language in chats.
The language design of headlines represents a special case. In the foreground are issues of syntactic typology, often linked to normative indicators (cf. Sutter 1955; Elwert 1968). To be noted are, among other things, the lack of hypotactic constructions, the dominance of statements (as opposed to questions and interjections) and a high frequency of nominal and elliptic forms. However, we must consider that these observations are usually drawn from informative articles. As soon as texts with an emphasis on opinion are included, another picture emerges. Information transfer is not the sole yardstick. The incentive to read, the arousal of curiosity, original formulations that are rich in allusions or puzzling – all these features gain considerably in importance in the framework of a general infotainment trend. Therefore, pure résumé headlines are here simply a subcategory. Generally more important are reader correspondence and the optimization of reception:
“Il titolo decide dell’interpretazione dell’articolo. […] Il titolo funge cioè da ‘codice’ per il resto dell’articolo. Se non lo sostituisce, nel senso che il lettore riceve l’informazione data dal titolo e trascura l’articolo, determina tuttavia il modo in cui l’articolo sarà letto” (Eco 1971, 354).13
Thus, headlines fulfill the function of pre-signals, as they point to the intention inherent in an article and often also indicate the text type to be expected, give some orientation on how the topic is treated and, together with the above-mentioned attention-increasing and aesthetic characteristics, are above all a useful means in text advertising (cf. Lüger 1987).
A further semiotic dimension becomes relevant when we consider language design in headlines in combination with typographic and pictorial means. This proves to be unavoidable, for example, when considering the front pages of daily newspapers, news magazines or popular magazines (cf. Große 1996; Seibold 1995 and 1996). Even if it is not always clear which effects can be obtained by which means, the text-image relationship moves decidedly to the center of our attention. Especially when magazine covers are analyzed, the obvious question is to what extent we can still speak of a language-mediated textuality. At all events, the adjustments to the functions of accentuation and contact initiation are especially important here. This is reflected in a tendency to personalization, inconsistencies in creative expectations, rhetorization, intertextual allusions and playing with divergent readings of text and image, of language and iconic components (cf. Held 2005b and c; cf. 2.3).
2.2Forms of presentation, text types
One important object of media linguistics research is not least the differentiation and description of mass media text types. In Lebsanft (1997), the suggestion is made, for example, to base the studies on models or examples from journalistic practice. Advice from handbooks on the production of media texts also plays an important part:
“A linguistic description and thereof derived theory of press text types should build on such journalistic data and arrive at categorizations which are maybe more explicit, but not supposedly ‘sharper’, or ‘stricter’ than those of the practicians” (Lebsanft 1997, 373).14
Franke (1997, 165s.) has already pointed out the basic problem of such a conception: the respective denominations and demarcations are then, above all, not the result of well-founded reflection. This is understandable if one envisions, for example, the relatively flexible use of French terms like commentaire, éditorial, chronique, analyse, billet, tribune (libre), libre opinion for judgmental texts.
Initial attempts at differentiation have thus tried as far as possible to put together a consistent classification with the aid of overlapping criteria. The important starting points in this work were terms or concepts such as “text intention”, “text function”, “macrostructure” (Lüger 1977 and 11983/21995; Schröder 1984).
Subsequently, Große/Seibold (1996) suggest a rather comprehensive overall model, featuring three characteristics (Fig. 3): a) on the first level, four general text functions are assumed (informer, conseiller, juger/persuader, louer/vanter); b) the text types concerned represent prototypical patterns through their family resemblance; c) finally, exact borders are relinquished in favor of smooth transitions (cf. Adam 31999, 15ss.; Foschi Albert 2009, 63ss.). Historically, too, the model can be developed accordingly and individual sections made more specific (cf. Hrbek 1995; Große 2000).
Because of the current media development, it is becoming more difficult anyway to distinguish clearly according to text type or text genre, independent of whether it is a matter of traditional press texts or hypermedia communication on the Internet (cf. Lugrin 2000). The picture is determined increasingly by innovative pattern mixtures, or hybrid forms, which are used to try to gain the attention and interest of the users in the sense of recipient design or audience design.
2.3Multimodality
Another phenomenon is connected with the orientation towards changes in recipient habits: the trend towards multimodality. The more the media compete with one another for the attention of the addressees, the more comprehensive and sophisticated the measures taken by text producers become in order to reach their audience. In any case, the striving for positive advertising effects at any price appears to be the motor for increased recourse to various sign systems and codes.
Roland Barthes, in his early pioneering work (1961), already pointed to this possibility and to the corresponding synergetic effects. For him, it is “only” a matter of the message photographique and the combination with text communications, but insights are mentioned here which are later applied to audiovisual and screen media. With a view to the text-image relationship, for example, a differentiation is made, with regard to language, between headline, legend and article. Depending on the case, the image is differently enriched regarding its connotations. In this context, Barthes refutes the notion that photography is a perfect analogy, purely a message sans code and thus quasi an objective reproduction of a certain detail of reality:
“Or, ce statut purement ‘dénotant’ de la photographie, la perfection et la plénitude de son analogie, bref son ‘objectivité’, tout cela risque d’être mythique […]” (Barthes 1961, 129).15
And in the processes that can make a photo appear full of meaning, i.e., “connoted”, six different possibilities are named: from truquage, a montage or forgery, to photogénie, the usage of lighting effects (Barthes 1961, 131ss.).
More recent research into text-image analysis has taken the same direction, for instance when imputing a “connotative evocation of associations” (Eckkrammer/Held 2006, 2).16 Or, with regard to Internet presentations:
“Most moving and still images do not function purely as an image, no, they show a deeper meaning” (Kirstein 2008, 419).17
Cartoons and caricatures represent a still further developed form of multicodal feature design. They aim not at a neutral representation of reality; their intention is the alienated representation of a given object or subject matter, often combined with a provocative, humorous punch line (Häußler 1999; Lenk 2012). The language elements occur in different forms: as a picture heading, in a legend, as so-called inserts (e. g., as writing on an object), as speech or thought bubbles (communication between figures, talking to oneself). Independent of whether we attribute a persuasive orientation to caricatures or see them merely as utterances of opinion (Hammer 2012), the words function consistently as a means of understanding. It is the language commentary that usually prevents the information in the image from falling short of the mark, with the result that a surprising or comic overall meaning can emerge. Caricatures which figuratively represent the literal meaning of idiomatic phraseologisms or of metaphorical expressions present an especially pregnant form of visual-verbal constitution of meaning. The complementary interaction of the sign systems involved, the establishing of bimodal coherence cannot be any more clearly practicable.
An increase in (multimodal) complexity comes through Internet presentations, because here additional semiotic resources (images, graphics, typography, colors, symbols) are included, as Seibold (2003) demonstrates, using the online versions of French newspapers and news magazines. In audiovisual communication, for example TV news, we are talking about moving images, about the combination with further sign types like music, sounds and spoken language. Depending on the multimodal linking and on the cutting technique, the effect is more of an intensive staging of proximity and the creation of “sympraxis”, a systematic involvement of the recipients (Landbeck 1991; cf. Luginbühl 2011). This development does not need to exclude the handing down of different journalistic styles.
2.4Contrastivity
Media linguistics analyses can be contrastively angled in many ways and pursue very different aims: a) as a comparison of media texts, originating from different languages or cultures (e. g., Drewnowska-Vargáné 2005), b) as an intralingual comparison, in which material from different media, consisting of different text types, sections and topic groupings are contrasted (e. g., Seibold 2003), c) as a diachronic text comparison, in which certain developments referring to one medium, one text type or one text component are in the forefront (e. g., Hrbek 1995).
It is meanwhile hardly possible to count the number of papers on contrastive media linguistics. The bibliography at the Internet portal <www.kontrastive-medienlinguistik.net> contains a general survey.
For analyses of type a), it is important to find a descriptive level which, on the one hand, prescinds from the concrete nature of individual texts, but, on the other, avoids detached, no longer verifiable generalizations. To avoid this dilemma, the text type as tertium comparationis is chosen in many papers to be the basis for contrast. The variables to be examined are then respectively correlated with this criterion above and beyond the individual language.
The most important aspects of such a procedure can be seen in Fig. 4. As a matter of principle, comparisons can be made on a bilateral or multilateral basis, so that a text type can be examined relative to various cultural environments (C1. . .n). When attributing the characteristic feature “cultural”, or “culture-specific”, it is necessary to avoid overgeneralizations. The evaluation of contrastive text comparisons can make sense only in relation to certain communication communities, and the latter may very well be regional or local. Therefore, an overall cultural concept stemming from a homogeneous society is out of the question, and the range of language findings should be classified accordingly. Further, it must be borne in mind that text types need not necessarily stand in every case as culturally neutral invariables. A text type, like the opinion column or the TV news item, may thus follow different traditions and norms in the respective social context, taking on another value in the range of media. This will in turn affect reception, especially the credibility of the information passed on – up to and including consequences for the whole of the medium, in this case the press or TV (cf. Landbeck 1991; Lüger 2005). That means, ultimately, that the role which a text type plays in its respective environment has to be considered from the start. It therefore often appears sensible to choose a combination of text types as a basis for analysis, rather than a single text type.
The subject of culturally contrastive studies is often, for the reasons given above, the comparison of text types, or of text type features. Tendentially holistic approaches are taken, to list one or two examples, in the case of multimodal contact texts in news magazines (cf. Held 2005b), book reviews in specialist journals (cf. Foschi Albert 2009), advertising portrayals in sports magazines (cf. Müller-Lancé 2014), text design in TV news programs (cf. Landbeck 1991) or tweets (cf. Overbeck 2014). Other research concentrates on – in the framework of certain text types – particular language features, for example the use of figurative expressions (cf. Kirstein 2008), the nature of proximity and distance (cf. Haug 1997) and the usage and intensity of evaluative expressions (cf. Lüger 2012).
No less diverse are the studies which can be assigned to type b): they may deal with, among other things, the structure of headlines in the press and advertising (cf. Dardano 1973), the language differences in free and retail newspapers (cf. Große 2008), language usage in diverse sections in the press and on TV (cf. Schafroth 2006; Spina 2006) or the syntax of blogs in comparison to other forms of communication (cf. Fiorentino 2011). Historically comparative studies (type c) take a close look at either the development of a wider text type spectrum (e. g., Große 2000) or, as described in 2.1.2, concentrate on individual communicative processes, or selected syntactic and lexical characteristics. The first impulses for this came from Bruneau (1958).
3Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary aspects
Up to now, the discussion should have sufficiently shown that the field of media linguistics is characterized by considerable diversity and heterogeneity. A narrower approach in the linguistic sense would have limitations and would in no way do justice to the complexity of today’s media communication. Thus, as Perrin (2006, 31) rightly concludes, “an approach across disciplines”18 is required.
Last but not least, the multimodality factor indicates what integrative endeavors are necessary to combine the different sign systems in the analysis. In a traditional text linguistics framework alone, the insights and methods of diverse subdisciplines have to be taken into account, for example from morphology, semantics, syntax or rhetoric. Additionally, there will be support from sociolinguistics and conversation linguistics. The inclusion of image and sound requires an additional extension of the theoretical and methodological instruments. Various authors have established that it is not enough to simply transfer linguistic categories to other phenomena (cf. Bucher 2010).
Media communication does not take place, as is well known, in a socially neutral or homogeneous environment. In the analysis of media texts, it is necessary to consider reading habits, the preferences of certain groups of readers and political and institutional circumstances, not forgetting the innovations which technical developments make possible. Viewed thus, it is a matter of course for media linguists to include sociology, cultural science and politics in their considerations.
One special point is quite clearly the interaction with communication science and so-called media practice. As desirable as a “transdisciplinary bridging”19 (cf. Perrin 2006) may be, the chances of it happening are not very good. As long as language analyses which work precisely are confronted with the reproach of “counting flies’ legs in their micro-analysis”20 (cf. the criticism in Lenk 2013, 74), then the idea of a fruitful, interdisciplinary contact cannot have won recognition yet. It therefore still remains a lot to do for media linguistics.
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