Title: The mixing of modes as a means of resolving the tension between involvement and detachment in news headlines
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2003, vol. 29, iss. 1, pp. [51]-66
Extent
[51]-66
-
ISSN1211-1791
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/104373
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This article sets out to explore the application of the linguistic strategies of involvement and detachment in news discourse in general and in news headlines in particular. It notes the opposed tendencies of relating detachment phenomena with the need for objectifying the presented information and utilizing involvement phenomena in order to increase the readers' engagement in a more personal form of communication. The tension between these two tendencies becomes manifested on the level of the mixed modes: the written form of anonymous mass communication comes to rely on linguistic features evoking the oral mode, adding a synthetic "personal touch" to the discourse. This resulting mix is derived from the media's aims both to inform and to attract the readers; such aspects may be labelled with reference to Halliday's functional grammar as ideational and interpersonal.
References
[1] Bennett, Peter D. (1988) Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[2] Black, Jay and Jennings Bryant (1995) Introduction to Media Communication. 4th edition. Chicago: Brown & Benchmark.
[3] Bovée, Courtland L. and John V. Thill (1992) Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[4] Chafe, Wallace L. (1982) 'Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature'. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.) Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 35-53.
[5] Chovanec, Jan (2000a). Interpersonal Aspects of Printed News Discourse. Unpublished PhD thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts.
[6] Chovanec, Jan (2000b) 'Interpersonal implications of participant identification in news headlines'. Sborník příspěvků z 6. anglistické konference Opava-Prešov, 124-133.
[7] Chovanec, Jan (2001) 'Register analysis of news discourse'. Sborník příspěvků z konference Styl ve výuce cizích jazyků. Plzeň: ZČU, 83-91.
[8] Dominick, Joseph R. (1993) The Dynamics of Mass Communication. 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[9] Dor, Daniel (2003) 'On newspaper headlines as relevance optimizers'. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 695-721. | DOI 10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00134-0
[10] Fairclough, Norman (1989) Language and Power. London and New York: Longman.
[11] Fairclough, Norman (1999) 'Linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis'. In Coupland, Nikolas, and Jaworski, Adam (eds) The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge.
[12] Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London and New York: Routledge.
[13] Fowler, Roger and Gunter Kress (1979) 'Critical linguistics'. In Fowler, Roger, Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress and Tony Trew. Language and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[14] Hladký, Josef (1960) 'Remarks on complex condensation phenomena in some English and Czech contexts'. Brno Studies in English 3: 105-116.
[15] Hoey, Michael (1994) 'Signalling in discourse: A functional analysis of a common discourse pattern in written and spoken English'. In Malcolm Coulthard (ed.), Advances in written text analysis. London: Routledge, 1994: 26-45.
[16] Mathesius, Vilém (1975) A Functional Analysis of Present Day English. Praha: Academia.
[17] McCarthy, Michael and Ronald Carter (1994) Language as Discourse. Perspectives for Language Teaching. London and New York: Longman.
[18] McCarthy, Michael (1998). Spoken Language & Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
[19] McQuail, Denis (1994) Mass communication Theory. An Introduction. 3rd edition. London: Sage.
[20] Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman.
[21] Schiffrin, Deborah (1981) 'Tense variation in narrative'. Language 57 (1): 45-62. | DOI 10.1353/lan.1981.0011
[22] Stoll, Pamela (1998) 'Text as conversation: An interpretive investigation of utterances in a women's magazine'. Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 545-570. | DOI 10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00081-7
[23] Stubbs, Michael (1996) Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford UK and Cambridge MA: Blackweil.
[24] Talbot, Mary M. (1995) 'A synthetic sisterhood: False friends in a teenage magazine'. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. London: Routledge, 1995: 143-65.
[25] Tannen, Deborah (1982) 'The oral/literate continuum in discourse'. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.) Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1982.
[26] Urbanová, Ludmila (1998) 'Impersonality in radio interviews as a manifestation of semantic indeterminacy'. In Brno Studies in English 24: 109-117.
[27] Vachek Josef (1976 [1948]) 'Written language and printed language'. In Josef Vachek. Selected Writings in English and General Linguistics. Prague: Academia.
[28] Vachek, Josef (1960). 'Some less familiar aspects of the analytical trend of English'. In Brno Studies in English 3: 9-78.
[29] Van Dijk, Teun A. (1988) News as Discourse. Hillsdale, Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[30] Vassileva, Irena (2001) 'Commitment and detachment in English and Bulgarian academic writing'. English for Specific Purposes 20: 83-102. | DOI 10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0
[31] Wahlstrom, Billie J. (1992) Perspectives on Human Communication. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown.
[32] The Electronic Telegraph (the on-line version of the Daily Telegraph) http://www.lelegraph.co.uk. Headlines retrieved on 15 January 2002.
[33] Daily Express, 15 September 2002.
[2] Black, Jay and Jennings Bryant (1995) Introduction to Media Communication. 4th edition. Chicago: Brown & Benchmark.
[3] Bovée, Courtland L. and John V. Thill (1992) Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[4] Chafe, Wallace L. (1982) 'Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature'. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.) Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 35-53.
[5] Chovanec, Jan (2000a). Interpersonal Aspects of Printed News Discourse. Unpublished PhD thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts.
[6] Chovanec, Jan (2000b) 'Interpersonal implications of participant identification in news headlines'. Sborník příspěvků z 6. anglistické konference Opava-Prešov, 124-133.
[7] Chovanec, Jan (2001) 'Register analysis of news discourse'. Sborník příspěvků z konference Styl ve výuce cizích jazyků. Plzeň: ZČU, 83-91.
[8] Dominick, Joseph R. (1993) The Dynamics of Mass Communication. 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[9] Dor, Daniel (2003) 'On newspaper headlines as relevance optimizers'. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 695-721. | DOI 10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00134-0
[10] Fairclough, Norman (1989) Language and Power. London and New York: Longman.
[11] Fairclough, Norman (1999) 'Linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis'. In Coupland, Nikolas, and Jaworski, Adam (eds) The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge.
[12] Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London and New York: Routledge.
[13] Fowler, Roger and Gunter Kress (1979) 'Critical linguistics'. In Fowler, Roger, Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress and Tony Trew. Language and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
[14] Hladký, Josef (1960) 'Remarks on complex condensation phenomena in some English and Czech contexts'. Brno Studies in English 3: 105-116.
[15] Hoey, Michael (1994) 'Signalling in discourse: A functional analysis of a common discourse pattern in written and spoken English'. In Malcolm Coulthard (ed.), Advances in written text analysis. London: Routledge, 1994: 26-45.
[16] Mathesius, Vilém (1975) A Functional Analysis of Present Day English. Praha: Academia.
[17] McCarthy, Michael and Ronald Carter (1994) Language as Discourse. Perspectives for Language Teaching. London and New York: Longman.
[18] McCarthy, Michael (1998). Spoken Language & Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
[19] McQuail, Denis (1994) Mass communication Theory. An Introduction. 3rd edition. London: Sage.
[20] Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman.
[21] Schiffrin, Deborah (1981) 'Tense variation in narrative'. Language 57 (1): 45-62. | DOI 10.1353/lan.1981.0011
[22] Stoll, Pamela (1998) 'Text as conversation: An interpretive investigation of utterances in a women's magazine'. Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 545-570. | DOI 10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00081-7
[23] Stubbs, Michael (1996) Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford UK and Cambridge MA: Blackweil.
[24] Talbot, Mary M. (1995) 'A synthetic sisterhood: False friends in a teenage magazine'. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. London: Routledge, 1995: 143-65.
[25] Tannen, Deborah (1982) 'The oral/literate continuum in discourse'. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.) Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1982.
[26] Urbanová, Ludmila (1998) 'Impersonality in radio interviews as a manifestation of semantic indeterminacy'. In Brno Studies in English 24: 109-117.
[27] Vachek Josef (1976 [1948]) 'Written language and printed language'. In Josef Vachek. Selected Writings in English and General Linguistics. Prague: Academia.
[28] Vachek, Josef (1960). 'Some less familiar aspects of the analytical trend of English'. In Brno Studies in English 3: 9-78.
[29] Van Dijk, Teun A. (1988) News as Discourse. Hillsdale, Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[30] Vassileva, Irena (2001) 'Commitment and detachment in English and Bulgarian academic writing'. English for Specific Purposes 20: 83-102. | DOI 10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0
[31] Wahlstrom, Billie J. (1992) Perspectives on Human Communication. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown.
[32] The Electronic Telegraph (the on-line version of the Daily Telegraph) http://www.lelegraph.co.uk. Headlines retrieved on 15 January 2002.
[33] Daily Express, 15 September 2002.