Lecture (5)

Variability in sociolinguistics and stylistics

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I reject the standard sociolinguistic views of style as a correlate of the amount of attention paid by the speaker to his or her speech, because of insurmountable difficulties in basing such a categorisation on operational criteria. In its place I suggest that the audience in the form of addressees, bystanders or overhearers should be taken as the decisive factor that can be correlated with linguistic differences to establish different styles.

some recent approaches to the language of the media and

placing them in the triangle of: 1. traditional stylistics 2. the ethnography of speaking 3. correlational sociolinguistics

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There is a lay notion of the concept of style, which equates style with the elevated and aesthetically pleasing forms that are used, for instance, by celebrated authors in their writings. Some newspapers, accordingly, are claimed to “lack style" altogether.

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Every single text has got a style in as far as it has formal properties that can be compared with those from other texts. A stylistic analysis will try to single out those features that help to distinguish the texts under comparison.

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The results of Winter’s (1961) study show that stage prose, which he takes to be a rough approximation to spoken language, has - in relation to the entire corpus:

o a consistently high percentage of subjects in clause initial position, o a high percentage of finite verbs (indicating short clause length); o a consistently high percentage of finite verbs in main clauses

(indicating little complexity).

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Knimsky, in various publications (e.g. 1967, 1969, l972b, 1985), typically correlates the frequency of particular word classes with different styles of written English such as:

o fiction (by Dickens, Wells, Lawrence and Warner), o "colloquial" style (plays by Shaw, Wilde, Seymour and Osborne), o scientific style (textbooks ranging from linguistics to biology) (

1972b: 36).

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Duranti gives the following definition: The ethnography of speaking ( ... ) studies language use as

displayed in the daily life of particular speech communities. Its method is ethnography, supplemented by techniques developed in other areas of study such as developmental pragmatics, conversation analysis, poetics, and history. (Duranti 1988: 210)

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In this approach, style is not taken to be a collection of arbitrary features, but rather as a strategy to use certain features with specific intentions, and thus the motivation for the stylistically relevant features becomes paramount. What is at issue here is the "cultural relativity of linguistic functions" ( Levinson 1988: 167).

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some of the pertinent approaches to "style“ within sociolinguistics. o For Hymes the locus of style can be in the form of the message, the

topic, the setting, the channel, the audience, etc, o Whereas Labov reduces style to variation on the level of setting. objecting Labov' s view mainly on the basis that it casts the speaker in

a passive role in that he merely reacts to changes in the perceived formality of the situation.

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This view of sociolinguistics depends on what Levinson ( 1988: 165) calls sociolinguistic alternates. These are two or more linguistic forms that are said to have the same meaning, with the all-important proviso that they vary in their use. They are used by different speakers or in different situations or both.

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All the three approaches try to relate features of linguistic production to the wider, nonlinguistic context in which they occur. In terms of their respective aims and methods, as outlined before, there exist considerable differences.

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Ferguson ( 1971: 30) defines ‘variety’ as: Any body of human speech patterns which is sufficiently

homogeneous to be analyzed by available techniques of synchronic description and which has a sufficiently large repertory of elements and their arrangements or processes with broad enough semantic scope to function in all normal contexts of communication.

Varieties: dialects, sociolects, “historiolects”

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there is also considerable variation in the speech produced by individual speakers in different situations, that is to say variation according to the uses rather than to the users.

It is the sum of all these intraspeaker variations that one wants to call stylistic variation.

A style, therefore, is a variety that is established on the basis of non-

linguistic features that distinguish the speech as produced by the same speaker on different occasions.

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Bell ( 1977) found that there are considerable style differences among news broadcast on different New Zealand radio stations.

Sometimes the same speakers read the news on different stations, and they always show a systematic variation across these stations.

In traditional methodology this variation cannot be accounted for, because in all instances they are using "reading style", and it cannot plausibly be claimed that the amount of attention paid to their speech differs according to the station on which they happen to broadcast.

What is different though is .of the different stations, and according to Bell this is the decisive factor.

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The intraspeaker variation is explained in terms of the social status, sex and age not of the speaker but of the hearers. The hearers are not just the addressees but include also auditors, overhearers and, to some extent, eavesdroppers, as shown in the next slide….

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variations produced by the newscasters are initiative because the newsreaders do not have any direct feedback from their audiences.

All media language is initiative style design. It creates the relationship

between communicator and audience, rather than responding to an existing relationship. This holds supremely for radio, where announcers rely solely on their speech to project whatever

relationship they have with the audience. Their style draws its effect from the norms of who such a style is addressed to in face-to-face

interaction. (Bell 1984: 192)

Page (33) Crystal and Davy- "Journalese" versus "normal" English

The aim of stylistics is to analyse language habits with the main purpose of identifying, from the general mass of linguistic features common to English as used on every conceivable occasion, those features which are restricted to certain kinds of social context to explain, where possible, why such features have been used, as opposed to other alternatives and to classify these features into categories based upon a view of their function in the social context. (Crystal and Davy 1969: 1 0)

Page (34) Carter and Ghadessy- Newspaper vocabulary Core words tend to have antonyms, they are: o less collocationally restricted, o more basic in that they are regularly used to define non-

core words o carry less emotive meaning o less discourse- or register-specific o often superordinates rather than hyponyms.

Page (34) Carter and Ghadessy- Newspaper vocabulary o Carter takes it for granted that "newspaper reports

should ideally report the facts in as core a vocabulary as possible" (1988: 10, his emphasis)

Page (36) Ferguson- Sports announcer talk The most characteristic feature of sports announcer talk, according to Ferguson, is the inversion of subject and predicate under certain conditions. The subject is typically a player's name, while the verb is the copula or a verb of motion as in the following two examples Holding up at third is Murphy Pete goes to right field and back for it goes Jackson

(1983: 160, 161).

Page (36) Ferguson- Sports announcer talk o There are two ways of expressing a result that "are very

frequent in SAT [i.e. sports announcer talk] and rare in other kinds of talk" (1983: 161). They are the pattern

for + noun and to + verb as in: o Joe Ross's caught it for a touchdown o And it gives us a double to Mumphries to lead things off

(1983: 61).

Page (36) Ferguson- Sports announcer talk Sports announcer talk is further characterised by heavy noun modifications, which are, according to Ferguson, "more typical of written English“ (1983: 163), such as: o David Winfield, the 25-million-dollar man, who is hitting

zero, five, six in this World Series, o The quiet Texan Tommy John delivers.

Page (42) Verschueren- Metapragmatic metaphors

Verschueren intends his study to reveal how members of one culture (Americans), as members of that culture and as professionals whose work is governed by a range of restrictions imposed on them by an established institution (journalism in a free-press tradition), interpret and present the communicative behavior (constituting the core of the reported event) displayed by other members of their own culture (American politicians and spokesmen) as opposed to members of a different - even antipodal - culture (Soviet political leaders and their representatives). (1985: 38)

Page (42) Verschueren- Metapragmatic metaphors

In order to do this, he opposes "neutral" linguistic action verbials such as said, declared, or commented, which might be expected to be particularly common in a free press tradition priding itself on being "objective" and "impartial", to metapragmatic metaphors such as admitted, pointed out, or seized this opportunity also to repeat. In this way, he investigates whether the framing of the communicative events was biased. The use of a certain linguistic action verbial depends both on the reported communicative event itself and on the journalist's interpretation of this event.

The differences between the form and content between Broadsheet and Tabloid newspapers :

Tabloids/Popular newspapers • (less serious newspapers) • Headlines are big . they are typed in bold

print and may extend across the whole page.

• The front page headlines can occupy more space than the whole article they refer to.

• Shorter articles about less important events.

• Lots of stories about famous people. • Photos are large often in colour. • Lexis is often emphatic with short and

sensational words. • The angle adopted is human. • News stories (political, economic, etc.) are

directly linked to people. • The tone is conversational and the

approach is sensational and dramatic. • Punctuation is used sparingly. • Comas are often omitted after initial

adverbials and between strings of adjectives . This avoids complicating the reading process.

• Dashes make the style quite informal • Co-ordinators in initial position are

common: e.g. And Lisa, 23, is hoping for success tomorrow

Broadsheets/Quality newspapers • (serious – minded newspapers) • Headlines are small. They usually extend over to

columns . • The print tends to be smaller. Front page headlines,

however, are sometimes an exception. • Long and detailed articles about national and

international events. • The photos are small. • Lexis is more formal and specific. • The angle adopted tends to be more factual. • The tone is often controlled . • Punctuation is used traditionally and formally.

Dashes are less frequent. • Co-ordinators in the initial position are not common. • Cohesion is created through referencing and lexical

repetition rather than through conjunctions.

The differences between the language of Tabloid and Broadsheet :

Tabloids/Popular newspapers • Informal • Use of puns • Use of alliteration • Exaggeration for effect • Slang • Colloquial language (chatty) • Informal names used • Short, snappy sentences • Heightened language (over the top) • Brand names • Adjectives often carry sexual

overtones • A focus upon appearance • Frequent use of elision

Broadsheets/Quality newspapers • More formal • Metaphors rather than puns • Rhetorical questions • More complex sentences (look for sentences

separated by lots of commas, semi-colons etc.)

• Puns sometimes used, although more subtle • Statistics • Descriptions of people tends to relate to

personality or position in society • Politician’s comments often included, with a

commentary by the journalist

There are two types of National newspapers in Britain and most of them express a political opinion, therefore they may be RIGHT WING or LEFT WING.

Tabloids/Popular newspapers • (compact-sized format) • The Sun (the biggest –selling, right

wing) • Daily Express (right wing) • Daily mail (right wing) • Daily Star (right wing) • Daily Mirror (left wing) • Sunday Mirror (left wing) • News of the World (right wing)

Broadsheets/Quality newspapers

• (large size) • The Times (the oldest newspaper ,right

wing) • Sunday Times (right wing) • Daily Telegraph (right wing) • The Sunday Telegraph (right wing) • The Observer (slightly left wing) • The Guardian (slightly left wing) • The Independent (neutral) • Financial Times (neutral)

At present the differences between tabloids and broadsheets are breaking down.

Many of the broadsheets have stories about famous people.

Tabloids used to be cheaper than broadsheets, but The Times is now the cheapest national newspaper.

The Times and The Independent have both switched to a compact – sized format.

The omission of words; the use of short words; the use of words with strong connotations; the use of noun phrases; the use of gimmicks (puns, word play, metaphor,

alliteration, rhyme)

Omission of words The words omitted are usually function words, that is grammatical

words that do not carry intrinsic meaning : determiners (some, this, that, the, a, an, etc), pronouns (relative pronouns), auxiliaries (be, have, do). Titles (Mrs, Sir, Lord) and punctuation may be also omitted.

e.g. Bush likely to name 2nd nominee next week (President, to be, the omitted)

(President Bush is likely to name the 2nd nominee next week) Short words row = argument aid = assistance raid = robbery. Tabloids make a greater use of shorter words and more sensational words. e.g. Monster in the classroom

Loaded words are words that carry particular strong connotations that is, carry an emotional loading beyond their literal meaning. e.g. wealthy : rich (negative connotation) well off/affluent (positive connotation)

Noun phrases can be nouns on their own (cars ,people) , but often include other words such as determiners (these cars, the people, a pensioner), numbers ( a thousand dollars), adjectives (these fast cars, the important people), called modifiers. Noun phrases can also be pronouns. The main noun in a noun phrase is called the headword, the last word in the chain of words. e.g. the three people ; the sweet perfume e.g. PM defeats Iraq troops pull out call. ( the call to pull troops out of Iraq). e.g. I’ve got two boys, and they both enjoy playing tennis Many headlines are noun phrases. e.g. Shoplifting arrests (The Independent)

Nominalzation ( a noun can be used instead of a verb) Headlines may not contain a verb. The action is frequently nominalized (turned into a noun) becoming a dynamic noun. e.g. Jailed Iraqi abuse soldier in tears (the soldier who abused)

Gimmiks are strategies that can create ambiguity. They include: Puns, that is plays on words, which include :

Homophones : words with the same sound but a different spelling and meaning. e.g . DR SPUHLER WILL MAINTAIN SWISS ROLE The phrase SWISS ROLE is a homophone of SWISS ROLL Homonyms : words with the same sound and spelling but different meaning. e.g. WOMEN WHO SMOKE HAVE LIGHTER CHILDREN

Intertextuality means reference to familiar phrases, which are already known to the reader, many coming from film and book titles or the words of songs.

e.g. MY FUR LADY,ZARA THE BOHEMIAN (how the Queen’s grand-daughter was dressed) It is a pun based on Intertextuality : My Fur Lady echoes

My Fair Lady, a musical film.

A metaphor describes one thing in terms of another, creating an implicit comparison.

e.g. - Time is running out e.g.- Political gains must be weighed up against the costs ( gains, weighed up, costs. Politics seen in terms of finance)

Alliteration is the repetition of sounds ,usually consonants.

e.g. BUTTER BATTLE SPREADS

Words which rhyme. e.g. CRIME OF THE TIMES

We have seen that headlines tend not to use finite verbs, it is the lead which will anchor the story in time with a generic reference, sometimes, however, the verb is present and may appear in one of the following forms :

o the present simple o the past participle o the infinitive o the future with modal verbs o the conditional. Other tenses may appear but normally in tabloids.

The past participle is used to signal the passive voice. Some headlines use the passive voice to focus the reader’s attention on a particular element, particularly on what happened rather than on the people involved. By omitting the by + agent, readers can be left in suspense.

e.g. World Cup matches “fixed in the Far East” (The Observer)

The passive voice allows the newspaper to attract attention to the noun phrase “Word Cup matches” which would be in the object site of an active sentence.

Headlines may have a visual function. The picture can give meaning to the headline or add an extra dimension of meaning. e.g. AND THEY ALL LIVED This story carries meaning because it was accompanied by a picture of the crashed plane .