THE INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA ON LANGUAGE

Introduction

Language is constantly subject to change. It transforms over the centuries, as well as it can change over few years, as the language used by young people shows the change in language. Language is influenced by many factors such as class, society, developments in science and political circumstances. One major influence, however, is and has been the media. Media has always played a major part in influencing language from the very first manuscript to the use of Internet language in the modern era.

Manuscripts

The earliest forms of books in England are the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Those early books are very precious and a great source of anything that relates to the Anglo-Saxon world such as the Beowulf manuscript. These expensive early books were only available for the rich people. The people who had money in the Middle Ages were belonging to the nobility and the clergy. Often, a nobleman would be the donor of a manuscript, meaning he would pay for its production and would not keep it to himself, but rather donate it to a monastery or a convent.

The language that was used to write down manuscripts was not at all standardised. Every scribe was written in its own dialect since there was nothing even close to a standardised English language yet. A monk in the North of England would write completely different from a monk who lived in a monastery in Cornwall. It was not until the printing press was invented that language and that language became standardised.

One thing however, was standardised in the manuscript era: the use of MAJUSCULES (capital letters) and MINUSCULES (small letters). Generally, the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were written in minuscule, reserving majuscules for “important” words or NOMINA SACRA, meaning words that relate to God or Bible. This has led to today’s use of capital letters (Herrington, 2004).
Generally, manuscripts did not have as much an influence on language as they had on the development of the Anglo-Saxon culture.

The Impact of Print Media on the English Language:

The invention of the printing press brought influential changes to the English language. We will discuss it in historical perspective.

Linguistic Situation

William Caxton is considered the first English printer. When Caxton started printing in 15th century, he faced the problem that there was not yet a standard form of English. That was the ending stage of the Middle English-period and French lost its status as the prestigious language only about one hundred years ago. In 1399 King Henry IV was the first native-speaker of English on the throne of England.

The New Standard

Caxton’s wish for a standard language had an economical background. He could not afford to print books in different dialects but had to choose one that was prestigious and easily understood by many people. The dialect that happened to fulfill both was the EAST MIDLAND DIALECT. This dialect was spoken in the triangle of the three most influential cities: London, Oxford, and Cambridge. The new standard that emerged was called the CHANCERY STANDARD. This was the variety the chancery or government scribes used. It was mainly based on London dialect with central Midland elements. Caxton more or less adopted this variety in the books, he printed.
We have observed that the forming of a widely accepted standard variety of English was due to different factors. Thus Caxton did not define the standard of the English language but by adopting a certain variety; he forced its establishment (Culpeper 1997).

Codifying the English Language

The emergence of dictionaries, grammar books, and spelling books in the 16th century is the most important in establishing a standard for the English language. Marshall McLuhan argues that, “Print altered not only the spelling and grammar but also the accentuation and inflection of languages, and made bad grammar possible”.

Social Dimensions

The invention of the printing press influenced not only the English language but also the social dimensions. The printing press made it possible to produce a larger quantity of books and it has reduced the price of a copy. More people could afford the purchase of books. Reading was no longer restricted to the clergy and the highest social ranks. In fact at the end of the 15th century illiteracy was very high. The lower costs of books increased the literacy among the lower classes and women (Schiltz, 2004).

The Problems created by the Printing Press

As for as the spellings are concerned the printing press has created many problems. When the printing press was started English language was not a standard language. We find a lot of varieties within English language.

Different writers used one word with different spellings. Printing press took advantage of variability of English language but while justifying the line they have corrupted the language. Sometimes they added some letters with actual words and sometimes omitted. We can find such kind of examples in different renowned books. Some of the examples are:
go---------- goe, their-------------- theyr

Been----------beene--------bin

Fellow----------felow-------------felowe

Fellow--------------fellowe.
But now the language has been standardized and we have not to face any difficulty regarding standard spelling system.
Origin of Newspapers
The first newspapers in England were published in the seventeenth century. The Weekly News, for example, began to appear irregularly from 1622 on and The London Gazette came out first in 1666. The nineteenth century brought the greatest progress in the production of newspapers. English thus was established as the language of the news.

The Language of the Newspapers

The question that arises here is: What are the characteristics of the language used in newspapers? According to David Crystal, a special kind of newspaper language does not exist. “The media reflect all aspects of the human condition, and makes available to the public many varieties of language already well known elsewhere, such as those associated with religion, politics, science, and literature, and the more topic-directed aspects of conversation (e.g. discussion, interview, debate, argument, letter)”. In other words, newspapers adapt their language to the kind of topics they deal with. Thus, scientific magazines like The National Geographic use a scientific kind of language. But newspapers do not only suit their language to the topics, but also to the readership they want to attract. Therefore, tabloids like The Sun are written in a simple language with large catchy headlines and many coloured pictures. The Sun is supposed to be read by working class people and Tory supporters whereas more serious papers like the Guardian and the Times are expected to be read by left-wing, middle-class, Labour supporters.

Newspapers and its language also reflect the cultural values of a country. “The print media of different countries or different cultures differ in a variety of ways.” (Reah 1998) Through language certain cultural values are expressed. “For example, if a particular culture has little respect for certain groups, concepts or beliefs, then the language for expressing ideas about those groups, concepts or beliefs will reflect that attitude.”(Reah 1998) If a newspaper writes, for example, about people that have a physical disability, they refer to them as “the handicapped”, or more specifically as “the blind” or “the crippled”. They are labeled by their disability. The use of these terms reflects the attitudes that the society has towards people with disabilities. “Many people with disabilities are very unhappy with this kind of labeling. They reject the label ‘disabled’ and prefer the term ‘differently baled’”. (Reah 1998) Language expresses and reinforces attitudes like these because newspaper texts operate within the value system of a particular culture.
Thus, there is no such thing as typical newspaper language, the language used in the printed news is adapted to its readership and it reflects the values of a culture. These values and with them the language changes over time. Thus, the language used in the printed news is changing as well.

Broadcasting and Television

Nowadays the electronic media is a very influential genre, though not all researchers agree with this. For instance, it is argued that the media is successful in displaying innovations and spreading new idioms, but television cannot force people to adopt them (Bauer 1994). Nevertheless, many people adopt the speech style. They hear on TV. Milroy, for instance, observed in a study on the working-class in Northern Ireland that the speech of women, who often stay at home, is closer to the standard than the speech of women who have extensive kin-ties in their area. These women then use a more localized and non-standard speech variety. Therefore, the language that is heard on TV or the radio has an influence on society. The language displayed in the media is used as a tool to convey messages.
But it is used in a different way than in normal face-to-face conversations as no interaction between the sender of information and its receiver takes place. For this reason, the receiver has no chance to interrupt the speech flow of the sender. Linguists are interested in the way language is used in the media; how it changes within society and the effects it has on it.
Trudgill admits that television may act as a source for new lexis and idioms, or as a model for speakers of a dialect to acquire the core phonology and syntax of the standard variety of a language (or indeed across languages), but here such changes require conscious motivation by speakers to orientate towards, and imitate such a model.
Nevertheless, it is still possible to find linguistic changes taking place that are difficult to explain by diffusion. Trudgill himself deals with exactly this when discussing the appearance of [f] for /th/ in e.g. think (and also [v] for /dh/ in e.g. brother), so-called TH-fronting, a feature usually associated with London accents, in relatively non-mobile working-class speakers in Norwich. He suggests that the change is the result of a combination of factors working together, including less overt opportunities for contact between Norwich speakers and those from London, but he also speculates about the potential role of television programmes based in London in promoting positive attitudes towards London dialect features: ‘television may be part of a ‘softening-up’ process leading to the adoption of the merger [of /f/ with /th/], but it does not cause it’ (Trudgill 1986).
According to the traditional view, then, television may be able to influence systemic language change, but indirectly through changes in attitudes towards linguistic varieties. It has also been claimed, drawing on the results from sociological research into the diffusion of innovations more generally, that while television may increase speakers’ awareness of innovations, it is less likely to promote their adoption. This could then explain how dialect speakers of English, for example, have gained greater awareness of standard varieties of English through television broadcasting, but without actually adopting features of the standard.
As for as English language in Pakistan is concerned, we are facing a lot of problems regarding the pronunciation of words. As we are not native speakers of language that is why our media is also not presenting perfect English language. Most of time speaking they shift language order to English and English to Urdu. There are also some of the habits that we observe in our day-to-day life. Often media members speak ‘chairmano’ instead of chairmen. ‘Ladies first’ is a phrase which we listen frequently. The word ‘Ladies’ has been adopted by the most of the illiterate people. Especially drivers, conductors instead of singular for one lady, use the plural form of noun.The phrase ‘thank you so very much’ is also used frequently by the anchorpersons of media. This expression has no base in English language.

Media and RP Pronunciation

The electronic media has never been as influential as today. As most people spend many hours per day in front of the TV, they probably hear more language from the media than they do in conversations. Therefore, one can say that the language that occurs in the media influences society. The examples of Milroy’s Belfast study given previously shows how, for instance, women are influenced by television. But the language used in the media has also influenced society in another way. This becomes evident due to frequent public complaints concerning the way in which language is used in the media. For instance, people expect broadcasters to speak the standard variety called Received Pronunciation. Until recently, the BBC had only employed RP speakers as announcers. But as nowadays, RP is not as prestigious as it used to be, announcers with other accents are also heard on TV. Nevertheless, in the beginning, the BBC even had an Advisory Committee on Spoken English that prescribed the pronunciations of words that might be difficult to pronounce. So, if announcers speak a variety that seems not close enough to RP, people are likely to criticize them. Though criticism is inappropriate in this case, because it is based on a relative point of view, likely to be dropped for even the attitudes towards a standard variety of a language are subject to change. Once, it was seen as the standard to say: ‘our father which art in heaven’, while nowadays, the correct version would be: ‘Our father, who is in heaven’. Standard varieties have changed in the past and they will do so in the future as all living languages are undergoing changes. Labov refers to this as the UNIFORMITARIAN PRINCIPLE.

News and Language

On TV as well as on the radio, the news is particularly important. They are seen as the genre that is particularly important for setting a language standard within the media. Contrary to most face-to-face interactions, language is not produced by a single individual in the news media, but by many parties. Journalists, editors, newsreaders are only part of the production of a news story. Their job is to bring together different news fragments in order to create a coherent and understandable text. One device that is used in about 20% of the BBC’s news talk is reported speech. It is used as a substitution for, or addition to, visual input such as interviews. Furthermore, its aim is to integrate “media-external sources into a form consistent with the ideological framework of the media institutions” (Leitner 1983). This means that BBC’s reporting is standardized, i.e. reports have to fit into a certain form and for this reason it can be necessary to put them differently.
In conclusion, it seems that people have never been as aware of the niceties in English as at present; due to the influence of the media. Most of the language people hear comes from the television or the radio, because most people spend many hours per day in front of the TV. They expect to hear Standard English from newscasters and for this reason BBC and other standard broadcasters have always paid great attention to this variety of English in its programs.

Computer Mediated Language

In the late 70s the first personal computers came on the market. The invention of the World Wide Web in the beginning of the 90s made it possible for everyone to go online. PCs and the Internet play an important role as we write and send our letters and our e-mails with their help, read news or articles and chat with each other online. We use our computers for have to do with writing or reading, with communication and (electronic) language. It then would not be surprising if along with out lives that have changed due to PCs and the Internet, also our language has changed.

Computer Mediated Communication

CMC (COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION) means that human beings communicate with each other with the help of computer (Herring 1996). The most common form, and the one we want to focus on, is written CMC. The most popular forms of written CMC that almost everybody is familiar with are e-mail and chats. When it comes to CMC, the question most people are concerned with is; whether CMC has more in common with spoken or with written language. And this question is not only something that concerns a few linguists as any teenager who has made his or her first experiences in online chatting knows that CMC does not use the same language as in books but something similar to spoken language.

Similarities of CMC to Spoken and Written Language

There are many different studies that try to give an answer as to whether CMC is more like written or spoken language.
Of course there are different types of written language and spoken language, but CMC seems to be more personal, like speech. There are some features or effects in CMC, especially in chats to support this personal and speech-like atmosphere. For example, hyphens and periods are used to create a pause, capitalization and exclamation marks have the effect of emphasis. Also, there are effects to imitate sounds or laughter, for example ding dong or hahaha. It is also not unusual to use the effect of gesture, for example when chat partners are simulating, they would shake each others hands or hugging each other by adding *shake hands* or *hugs* to their messages (Herring 1996).

CMC Features

So far we have learned that CMC has features of written and spoken language and it cannot clearly be attributed to either one or the other. But CMC has also some features on its own. The most well known is probably the current use of abbreviations. People that are not familiar with chatting on the computer might have problems to understand the many abbreviations the chat language is used there. For example, lol, meaning laughing out loud or IMHO, means In My Humble Opinion. Something that is also typical of Computer Mediated Communication is emoticons, which you use if you want to show emotion with the help of a few characters. The most common emoticon is: - ☺) which indicates a smile.
Abbreviations and emoticons are really helpful in writing an informal e-mail, while chatting or lately, in writing text messages on mobile phones. Both features express something one wants to say or an emotion one wants to submit in minimum characters. This way, you can save time, space and even money, if you think of the extremely limited characters you can use in one text message.

Conclusion

The manuscripts, that were used first in writing down the spoken dialects, the invention of the printing press and that set a standard to the writing of the English Language, newspapers and telegraphs that established English as the language of the news, broadcasting and the BBC that set RP as the standard variety of English and finally the Internet that changed the English language in simplifying words or using emoticons to convey moods - after having learnt all this and how the ways of communication between people therefore changed over the centuries. It is easy to understand that language necessarily had to change under these circumstances. A very interesting point in this discussion is how the English language is being simplified. The whole language started out as a very complicated and complex system of declinations and cases. As language was printed, broadcast and went online, it got – in some aspects – reduced until it was there, where it all started out: the drawing of pictures to convey meaning!