Media Language Innovations - Essay Example

Media Language Innovations Media has its main goal to amaze public, to appeal for the interests of people, to their most inner thoughtsand ideas and for this purpose very often figurative language is used. In the modern context it is possible to differ between online media and printed media. We decided to look for common features in these two different types of media and come to the common conclusion that it is more effective to post media online and to gain online audience than to print and to sell newspapers, magazines etc. For example, ads and newspapers appeal to the customers in a mass market in different spheres of human activities. Basically, ads in the newspapers are very concise and very informative. It is very important to enable people to read information quickly and correctly. Very often in printed media a strategy of noun-phrases ‘squeezing’ is used, for example: Larger- than- life comedienne Joe Brand (Saks, 2010). This strategy kills two birds with one stone: we save words and we also appeal for the readers attention from the very beginning of our story. In the story from a newspaper, it is possible to see the exact structure. There are the following main elements of the article/story in the newspaper: abstract-setting-complicating action-resolution-coda. Abstract of the story combines the headline and the lead sentence. We provided a piece of text from the newspaper in the Appendix I and it is evident that in the first paragraph attention of readers is grasped for sure. The author introduces a special quote, which proves that his further claims underline the importance of the story. Then the author introduces a subhead, which organizes the story. It is also evident that the author prognosticates further development of events and confirms its reliability. This newspaper article presents the authors different claims as he changes directs speech and indirect speech. Moreover, he introduces another subheading in the middle of the article: "Frozen in Time" and in such a way he attracts attention of the readers and reminds them about dinosaurs that are the basic objects of the article. Both, the ideas of detective stories and glimpses of paleontology are combined. With this citation: "You take all these bits of evidence and reconstruct the past" the author draws parallels between the science of paleontology and gives some hints on a detective story. Of course, when we talk about language of media the first thing, which comes to our minds, are original headlines. Very often puns or alliteration are used there as attractors of the readers attention. There is an interesting example illustrating peculiarity of headlines: Burning questions on tunnel safety unanswered. This headline is from the article, which is about possible fires coming in the Channel tunnel (Saks, 2010). The main theme of the article is a fire and ‘burning questions’ in this article is a pun. Lets look on the headline from a different perspective: ‘burning question’ means a very important question, actually. What are we thinking about, when we come cross the article titled Science friction? It is about political arguments between British intellectuals and British government concerning mad cow disease (Saks, 2010). Here ‘friction’ stands for disagreement among people; in this sense ‘friction’ means fiction. As far as we can see, different stylistic devices are used in the texts of media. The authors intentions are often transmitted to the readers by means of figurative language. The main emphasis of the texts in printed media is made on attraction of readers from the first lines of the stories. It should be mentioned that very often in the modern printed media there is a lacking of authors individuality, because the main emphasis is made on the central message. The means of this message transfer are diverse and it is very interesting to trace the differences of the authors styles. The more unique is authors style the more remarkable text will be for the readers. New media objects contain more complex and challenging levels, e.g. (interface —content; operating system — application; Web page — HTML code; high-level programming language — assembly language — machine language). An individual potential of the computer texts authors can be evidently observed. With the help of abbreviations, different metaphors and comparisons the authors are able to transfer their attitude to a certain theme. Lets look at the following sentence: "Terms like B2B, B2C and C2C are the buzzwords that raise eyebrows. Little do they know that Internet models change so fast that they have mutated into B2B2C andC2B2C along with the e-commerce models." We can see many elements of personification and animation of computer terminology in this abstract. Moreover, the author violates stylistic norms of the English language. The word order in the last sentence is changed in comparison with the norm of words order in the English language. On the following example from the computer science journal it is evident that the abstract of the article is saturated with imagery and figurative language means. Personification of English computer discourse agents (communications nerds), introduction of opposing lexical units (a tiny piece of a larger problem; good news-bad news), introduction of specific computer terminological verbs, such as hijacking, bring the machine to its digital knees, to keep Web site administrators chewing their fingernails. As far as we can see, there are many means of connotation used in the computer texts and texts from the Internet discourse. The essence of messages, which are transmitted on the Web, depends of figurative means and in such a way the recipients of these texts are impressed by the central messages of texts. The authors individuality can be identified by the majority of literary means and methods. The existence of a socio-linguistic phenomenon of the computer discourse reflects blending of virtual and real lives of the contemporaries and claims for attention of modern scholars. English media computer texts are characterized by imagery reflection of information, which outlines characteristics of different communicative situations involving acquisition mechanisms of English computer discourse subjects. It is claimed that imagery plays an important role in English computer terminology. Innovative computer termlexis of premium or secondary imagery occurs. Media on the Web develops in accordance with its own laws and it is necessary to remind of the fact that the processes of globalization and technologization in the modern world set the trend and texts of media are subjected to flows, transitions and imagery. A progress of the modern society can be seen in media and it is the main emphasis made by the authors of many texts that message transfer is very important and plays a crucial role in the process of information exchange. Therefore, it is relevant to discuss modern innovative linguistic means in the language of modern media. We can see that in printed media individuality of authors can be seen in headlines and puns used everywhere. Computer texts are more characterized by metaphors, figurative means of language, comparisons, and reflections of personal attitudes of author, as well as by personification and animation of texts subject. Appendix I Language of journalese A Double Dinosaur Discovery Last December, two research teams working 2,000 miles apart in Antarctica made amazing discoveries. Each unearthed the fossilized remains of what is believed to be a new species of dinosaur. One is an herbivore, or plant eater, and the other is a carnivore, or meat eater. Working separately, the teams led by scientists James Martin and William Hammer found the fossils. “There we were, in the middle of Antarctica, talking to Bill about his find 2,000 miles away,” Martin told TFK. FROZEN IN TIME Near Beardmore Glacier, Hammer’s team found the bones of what they think is a plant-eating sauropod that lived 200 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. On the island off the Antarctica Peninsula, Martin and his team found the bones of a type of theropod, a group that includes the tyrannosaur. Each discovery will give scientists a new glimpse into the age of the dinosaurs. Any fossil find in Antarctica is rare, because bones and other remains are frozen and buried under many layers of ice. “We know very little about life in Antarctica from this particular time period,” said Martin. Excavating the fossils is just the beginning. The scientists will start a yearlong process to analyze the bits of teeth and bone. “It’s a detective story,” Martin says. “You take all these bits of evidence and reconstruct the past.” (Sample Newspaper Story) Appendix II Language of Computer Mediated Media It takes advantage of a standard computation — called the checksum by communications nerds — that every Web server on the Internet normally uses as a matter of course to verify that incoming data hasnt been corrupted. Apparently its possible to take these checksum calculations and use them to solve a tiny piece of a larger problem. Do this with enough computers (the Internet has millions of servers) and you can solve the larger problem in its entirety. Thats the good news. 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