{"id":1619,"date":"2011-06-20T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T08:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1619"},"modified":"2011-06-17T09:06:53","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T07:06:53","slug":"news-talk-investigating-the-language-of-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1619","title":{"rendered":"News talk: Investigating the language of journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
News talk:<\/strong> Investigating the language of journalism. By Colleen<\/strong> Cotter<\/strong>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiii, 280. ISBN 9780521525657<\/a>. $32.99.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham<\/strong><\/a>, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey<\/em><\/p>\n

This text offers an introduction to journalism and addresses how media practice influences the discourse and language of the news. Colleen Cotter adopts an approach that is informed by the traditions of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and linguistic anthropology. The research is based on C\u2019s previous experience as a journalist in the US and on a broad array of data gathered from fieldwork, text analysis, and interviews with practitioners.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s ten chapters are arranged in four sections (\u2018The process and practice of everyday journalism\u2019, \u2018Conceptualizing the news\u2019, \u2018Constructing the story: Texts and contexts\u2019, and \u2018Decoding the discourse\u2019), a division which reflects the news gathering and production process. Each chapter contains numerous examples from interviews or journalistic texts, begins with a list of key points, and ends with a summary. A final conclusion is followed by a glossary and an index.<\/p>\n

Ch. 1, \u2018An interactional and ethnographic approach to news media language\u2019 (15\u201329), situates the author\u2019s approach within previous research on media studies and briefly describes factors that affect news discourse. In Ch. 2, \u2018Craft and community: Reading the ways of journalists\u2019 (30\u201348), C discusses journalism as a craft involving intersecting communities of journalists and recipients (readers or listeners), and journalists\u2019 conceptualization of their craft. Ch. 3, \u2018The ways reporters learn to report and editors learn to edit\u2019 (49\u201364), explores how the skills developed as journalists are socialized into the profession, ranging from reporting, news writing, and editing, to issues concerning reporting ethics.<\/p>\n

Ch. 4, \u2018News values and their significance in text and practice\u2019 (67\u201387), analyzes the treatment of newsworthiness in textbooks and by journalists. Ch. 5, \u2018The \u201cstory meeting\u201d: Deciding what\u2019s fit to print\u2019 (88\u2013109), provides a detailed ethnographic description of the speech event of a story meeting (i.e. daily meetings between editors to discuss the news format of the subsequent day\u2019s paper). Ch. 6, \u2018The interaction-based nature of journalism\u2019 (110\u201332), examines the interactive nature of journalistic practice, in terms of the journalist\u2019s relationship as a participant in a community, with the audience, and the influence this has on evaluations of newsworthiness.<\/p>\n

Ch. 7, \u2018Story design and the dictates of the \u201clead\u201d\u2019 (135\u201370), discusses the design of a good news story, focusing on the ingredients of journalistic writing such as attribution, background, and crafting the lead. Ch. 8, \u2018\u201dBoilerplate\u201d: Simplifying stories, anchoring text, altering meaning\u2019 (171\u201386), explores the contextualization of news through the boilerplate technique, involving the repetition of certain material in stories that run for more than a day. A description of the features and the implications of choices made in the boilerplate is provided. Ch. 9, \u2018Style and standardization in news language\u2019 (187\u2013214), examines the style and standardization of written and spoken news language, and news media\u2019s insider attitudes towards language usage. In addition to the conservative and prescriptive approach to language use enforced by news editors, C also discusses language standardization as an opportunity for interaction with the audience (e.g. letters to the editor and language mavens), and as a means of forging links with the audience through using marked linguistic choices.<\/p>\n

The final chapter, \u2018The impact of the news process on media language\u2019 (217\u201329), briefly outlines aspects of the news delivery process and discusses insights that a linguist may bring to the field of journalism.<\/p>\n

News talk<\/em> is suited to undergraduate students with some linguistic training, but with little or no background in media operations. Those with an understanding of the media world, but with little knowledge of how linguistics can contribute to the description of journalistic practice, may also be interested in the role that language plays in this profession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News talk: Investigating the language of journalism. By Colleen Cotter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xiii, 280. ISBN 9780521525657. $32.99. Reviewed by Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University Writing Center, Turkey This text offers an introduction to journalism and addresses how media practice influences the discourse and language of the news. Colleen Cotter adopts an approach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1620,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions\/1620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}