Language in the Media: A Comprehensive Guide
Features of Spoken Language in the Media
Neutral Accent
Dialect differences are deleted or neutralized in favor of a standard pronunciation.
Formal Register
An intermediate tone that avoids both cultivated forms and overly colloquial or vulgar speech.
Formal Simplicity
Syntax and vocabulary are simple and understandable by most viewers or listeners.
Common Errors
- Ascending declarative intonation.
- Prosodic emphasis on unstressed syllables.
- Separation of emphatic vowels that should be sinalefa.
- Pronunciation of foreign words phonetically without adapting them into Spanish.
- Use of the infinitive as an independent verb rather than subordinate to another verb.
Language in Advertising
Specific Purpose
Advertising seeks to convince a receiver of the benefits of a product through linguistic economy and techniques and resources to attract attention.
Phonetic-Phonological Level
- Use of phonetic figures to facilitate memorization.
Morphosyntactic Level
- Use of imperative.
- Declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences.
- Comparatives and superlatives.
- Simplification of syntax.
- Simple juxtaposition of phrases to persuade an idea, highlight product qualities, attract attention, and achieve brevity and efficiency.
Lexical-Semantic Level
- Creation or use of neologisms.
- Employment of rhetorical devices to capture the receiver’s attention and improve the effectiveness of the advertising message.
Handling Advertising
Principle of Good Faith
Information provided by an advertiser should be true. Viewers are in danger of misinterpreting certain advertising through misleading techniques. Consumers should take a critical attitude towards ads.
Handling mechanisms can be visual and verbal.
Advertising Manipulation Techniques
- False messages: When the product information provided does not correspond to reality.
- True but misleading messages: The information is true, but it ignores an essential part that would change our assessment of the product.
- Subjective comments: Subjective assessments are used to influence our assessment of the product.
- Undue association: When the advertiser relates the product with values that do not belong to it.
Mass Communication
Mass Media
Newspapers, radio, television, and the internet.
Characteristics
- Generic issuer.
- Group receiver.
- Public message.
- Technical channel.
- No context (one-way communication).
- Audiovisual code.
History of the Media
Writing
Allows for the perpetuation of messages and the development of communities through laws, history, and literature.
Printing
Emerged at the end of the fifteenth century, enabling the multiplication and dissemination of messages.
Media
Developed at the end of the nineteenth century, giving rise to the serial reproduction of messages and the rapid dissemination of broad public communication.
Internet
Provides more interaction, comprehensiveness, and immediacy.
Journalism
Literary Journalism
Until the nineteenth century, writers gave importance to the formal aspects of the text, and there was no clear separation between information and opinion.
Modern Press
In the second half of the nineteenth century, newspapers became a daily component. Technological inventions facilitated the dissemination of information, often with a strong ideological slant.
Radio and Television
In the 1920s, radio became a powerful tool to influence society. Television became the most influential media in history, with an enormous capacity to shape public opinion.
Internet Era
The latest revolution in media, characterized by the ability to interact with other users. It is poised to become the ultimate means of communication.
Language in the Media
Media language is alternative, syncretic, and heterogeneous, with features of informal register and a standard variety (International Spanish). It employs a lexicon accessible to a majority of the audience and uses simple syntax.
Media Formats
- Written: Primarily uses a written verbal code.
- Audiovisual: Combines graphics and audio.
- Internet: Primarily written, but combined with audiovisual and interactive elements.
Media faithfully reflect the linguistic phenomena that occur in society. They play an important role in the standardization and fixation of language. Media act as an amplifier of language usage in the community of speakers, contributing both to the proper dissemination of the standard and to the propagation of errors.
Language in Audiovisual Media
Features
- Multi-sensory system.
- Value set (global information is processed, and the receiver receives and decodes it as a whole).
- Sensitive language (language addressed to the senses rather than the intellect).
- Unidirectional.
- Immediacy.
- Composed of a set of symbols and rules of use that allow the transmission of messages.
Audiovisual Text Elements
Visual, Verbal, Aural, and Technical Elements
- Visuals: Any element perceived by sight, a basic element of communication.
- Sound elements: Acoustic realities of all kinds, including verbal, musical, sound effects, and silence.
- Technical elements: Images, sounds, and words can be combined with assembling and editing techniques, special effects, and dubbing.
Spontaneous and Planned Genres
Spontaneous Genres
There is no preconceived text; participants improvise their actions and dialogue in accordance with the established theme. Everyday spoken language is used, with minimum standards for correction.
Planned Genres
Texts are previously written, often in the form of a literary script.
Teleprompter
Displays a text on a screen that is moved while the presenter reads it.