The Language of the News investigates and critiques the conventions of language used in newspapers and provides students with a clear introduction to critical linguistics as a tool for analysis. Using contemporary examples from UK, USA and Australian newspapers, this book deals with key themes of representation – from gender and national identity to ‘race’– and looks at how language is used to construct audiences, to persuade, and even to parody. It examines debates in the newspapers themselves about the nature of language including commentary on political correctness, the sensitive use of language and irony as a journalistic weapon. Featuring chapter openings and summaries, activities, and a wealth of examples from contemporary news coverage (including examples from television and radio), The Language of the News broadens the perceptions of the use of language in the news media and is essential reading for students of media and communication, journalism, and English language and linguistics.

Introducing the Language of the News is a comprehensive introduction to the language of news reporting. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book provides an accessible analysis of the processes that produce news language, and discusses how different linguistic choices promote different interpretations of news texts. Key features include: comprehensive coverage of both print and online news, including news design and layout, story structure, the role of headlines and leads, style, grammar and vocabulary a range of contemporary examples in the international press, from the 2012 Olympics, to political events in China and the Iraq War. chapter summaries, activities, sample analyses and commentaries, enabling students to undertake their own analyses of news texts a companion website with extra activities, further readings and web links. Written by an experienced researcher and teacher, this book is essential reading for students studying English language and linguistics, media and communication studies, and journalism.

Written by a linguist who is himself a journalist, this is a uniquely informed account of the language of the news media.

Newspaper coverage of world events is presented as the unbiased recording of `hard facts`. In an incisive study of both the quality and the popular press, Roger Fowler challenges this perception, arguing that news is a practice, a product of the social and political world on which it reports. Writing from the perspective of critical linguistics, Fowler examines the crucial role of language in mediating reality. Starting with a general account of news values and the processes of selection and transformation which go to make up the news, Fowler goes on to consider newspaper representations of gender, power, authority and law and order. He discusses stereotyping, terms of abuse and endearment, the editorial voice and the formation of consensus. Fowler's analysis takes in some of the major news stories of the Thatcher decade - the American bombing of Libya in 1986, the salmonella-in-eggs affair, the problems of the National Health Service and the controversy of youth and contraception.

This book is a discourse-pragmatic study of media language in news headlines and leads. News is viewed as discourse in action largely influenced by some unique sociolinguistic and cultural constraints. The period between 1996 and 2002 viewed in this book as very crucial in the political development of Nigeria provided an environment that made highly critical and sensational news reports inevitable. The three most prominent Nigerian urban newsmagazines namely Newswatch, Tell and TheNews referred to as 'radical press, ' are viewed as adopting a people-oriented approach to confront perpetrators of social unrests and political scandals in Nigeria, especially military dictators and corrupt politicians. In a wide range of stylistic variations, lexico-semantic and grammatical strategies that produced highly sensational headlines and overlines, the news conveyed clearly marked ideologically significant representations of people and situations. Thus, in the context of Nigerian English, certain culture-specific items of discourse are foregrounded in the news to resist corruption and political power abuse.

Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in this period of English-language dominance. Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional—and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.

Obesity is a pressing social issue and a persistently newsworthy topic for the media. This book examines the linguistic representation of obesity in the British press. It combines techniques from corpus linguistics with critical discourse studies to analyse a large corpus of newspaper articles (36 million words) representing ten years of obesity coverage. These articles are studied from a range of methodological perspectives, and analytical themes include variation between newspapers, change over time, diet and exercise, gender and social class. The volume also investigates the language that readers use when responding to obesity representations in the context of online comments. The authors reveal the power of linguistic choices to shame and stigmatise people with obesity, presenting them as irresponsible and morally deviant. Yet the analysis also demonstrates the potential for alternative representations which place greater focus on the role that social and political forces play in this topical health issue.

English News Writing is a professional writer's handbook for newspaper reporters, magazine freelancers and journalism students who write in English. The focus is on writing rather than reporting. There is a thorough treatment of style, usage, and the many structures of news stories, as well as dozens of tips on how writers can improve their work. Specifically, the book includes thorough discussions of interviewing techniques, the inverted pyramid, speech coverage, feature writing, reporting on trends, reporting on public opinion polls, using social indicators to develop news stories, writing criticism, writing personality profiles, narrative styles of writing, question-and-answer stories, and the jargon of the journalism profession. Examples of news structures are annotated. The book also includes 42 Rules of Thumb that serve as a quick reference for reporters to improve their work.

Packed with examples from four popular tabloids, taken from recent editions in a month long study by the author, this book offers insight into how the tabloids have become so influential in everyday British life.

Written by a former news reporter and editor, News Talk gives us an insider's view of the media, showing how journalists select and construct their news stories. Colleen Cotter goes behind the scenes, revealing how language is chosen and shaped by news staff into the stories we read and hear. Tracing news stories from start to finish, she shows how the actions of journalists and editors - and the limitations of news writing formulas - may distort a story that was prepared with the most determined effort to be fair and accurate. Using insights from both linguistics and journalism, News Talk is a remarkable picture of a hidden world and its working practices on both sides of the Atlantic. It will interest those involved in language study, media and communication studies and those who want to understand how media shape our language and our view of the world.