Media Linguistics and Its Role in The Language of Modern Mass Media

Abstract

The study of media text led to the allocation of a new section of linguistics. Medialinguistics studies the language of mass communication and media speech. Modern foreign studies speak of linguistic imperialism and the English-speaking influence on the world media. Stylistic aspects of media speech in media linguistics has an important role for the expression of opinion and evaluation in information and analytical texts is played by ideologically-modal vocabulary. The article considers this influence on the example of the Uzbek media.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays we live in a global world that is characterized by a high degree of information. The basic aspect of media linguistics as a new systematic approach to the study of the media language is due to the fact that media texts are today, one of the most common forms of language existence. Rapid development of traditional media: print, radio, television, the emergence of new computer information technology, the globalization. Moreover, with the dynamic growth in the number of TV channels, radio stations, online versions of printed publications and the emergence of online publications, a global information space has emerged, which modern Western and domestic researchers consider as a special specific area of ??language functioning. By the end of the 20th century, media linguistics, as a new independent direction in the study of the language of the media, confidently declared itself. The subject of the new discipline was the study of the language of mass communication, the language of mass media. It is this new branch of linguistics that makes it possible to train a competent specialist of the modern level. If for traditional linguistics the key concept was a verbal text with integrity and coherence, then the media text uses not only the verbal level, but also any other signs. Thus, the mass media discourse combines the verbal and extralinguistic components into one whole.

II. METHODOLOGY

The modern Dutch scientist T. van Dijk speaks about the expansion of the concept of discourse, about the need to include in it such factors of the speech situation as the social context, which gives an idea of ??the participants in communication and their characteristics; features of production, dissemination and perception of information, cultural and ideological background, etc. French sociologist A. Mol in the late 70s of the XX century,  predicted that with the advent of mass media, attitudes towards the cultural heritage of society will change. Even the basic system of education, accepted in society, also ceases to play its former role. Much more important for the average person is not the amount of knowledge acquired in the family, school or college, but what he hears on the radio, sees on TV or in the movies, reads in a poster or newspaper, learns from conversations with colleagues and neighbors. Thus, the former more or less integral system of knowledge and values, which constituted the worldview and structure of the personality, is replaced by a set of changeable attitudes, which are constantly influenced by the mass media. This means that the whole structure of spiritual life is changing, in which the newest media perform the dominant function: the Internet with its social networks, forums and blogs, television, radio, cinema and the press (and we arrange them in order of decreasing importance. "Screen culture", created on the basis of computer-space technologies for processing and transmitting information, is becoming the leading means of forming a picture of the world. Its internationality, the absence of language barriers erases national-state borders and forms a single global information space. The written verbal component can be supplemented by oral speech, a video sequence with musical accompaniment, animation, etc. All this allows both any text and any program to be multi-valued and manageable (the text and the "picture" can complement, or even carry the opposite or false information - interpretation, commentary, policy of double standards). Thus, instead of an unambiguous and unidirectional flow of information, the media discourse was enriched and at the same time began to influence the flow and content of spiritual processes, the acquisition of forms of knowledge. The images and interpretations replicated by the mass media, the global clichédness of news texts require a specialist to be able to reflect events in various formats and see information picture of the world in dynamics and at the same time in a logical and stable order of structural and thematic connections.

The national and cultural specificity of the organization of the information space, which must be mastered, is manifested not only at the level of content. Comparison of domestic and English-language media (USA, UK) allows us to see both similarities in the selection of topics and differences, to get acquainted with the priorities of the Uzbek media market. The specialist must comment, create a certain information environment.  The well-known Italian journalist J. Chiesa wrote: "The facts are nothing more than a background, the main thing is a commentary."[5] Another contemporary media researcher, Professor O. Boyd-Barret, defines media imperialism as a situation in which the ownership, structure, distribution, and content of the media in a given country are significantly influenced by other, more developed countries in terms of media economics. And this impact is asymmetric, disproportionate and unidirectional. [1:251]. Media linguistics allows you to study what is the mechanism of media interpretation of events, what linguistic technologies are used to create media images. Taking into account the interaction of languages ??and cultures in the era of globalization, familiarity with the concept of linguistic imperialism expands the traditional scope of language learning as a tool of a specialist. English linguist R. Phillipson back in the early 90s. in his work, he cited the words of the British Foreign Secretary that "one of the main strategic tasks for the current period, he considers the replacement of the Russian language in the educational systems of Eastern European countries with English." [8:11] The expansion of the English language, especially among the youth , in Internet communication, there is no doubt, but let's not forget that R. Phillipson points out that the "global dominance" of the English language is mainly due to socio-economic and political reasons, as well as the promotion of the national interests of the most powerful language-speaking countries - the USA and Great Britain [8:10].

III. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Thus, even Western scholars note that this process is accompanied by a reduction in the share of the national media product in the domestic market. Thus, media linguistics teaches to evaluate the general language situation in the media. The powerful influence of the Anglo-American mass media at the language level is noticeable to everyone, primarily at the level of vocabulary, and many works of Uzbek linguists are devoted to the problem of English borrowings. But a significant number of media texts use this vocabulary unmotivated, which is often perceived as an alien inclusion that sometimes violates the general perception. Accounting for the addressee of mass communication, forecasting his reactions to either an incomprehensible or even annoying word is necessary. The new virtual environment for text communication creates many of its own media streams that actively influence language processes. Thus, one cannot but agree with the opinion of T.G. Dobrosklonskaya: “Along with the verbal and media level, the most important component of the media language is the conceptual or cognitive-ideological level. Indeed, it is the language of the media that is the code, that universal sign system, with the help of which a picture of the surrounding world is formed in the individual and mass consciousness. Specialists in media psychology admit that today the perception of the environment by a person world to a very large extent depends on how the media present this world. Not having our own experience of a huge number of events taking place in the world, we are forced to build our knowledge of the surrounding reality on media reconstructions and interpretations, which, by their very nature, are ideological and culturally specific” [3:10]. Thus, media linguistics expands our understanding of the possibilities of using the language and becomes a new paradigm in its study, which will reveal both the role and means of the language of the media, which actively influence the formation of public consciousness. The protection of the Uzbek language and the preservation of national culture should be one of the tasks of every specialist in the humanities, regardless of the specifics of the profession. The concept of a single information space, a new virtual territory without state borders, helps to present a holistic information picture of the world in dynamics, using such terms as information environment, information field, infosphere, media sphere, media landscape, media discourse. These complex and multifaceted processes require the development of new paradigms for studying the language of the media.

The concept of a media text as a volumetric multi-level phenomenon is supplemented by a stable system of parameters that allows giving an extremely accurate description of a particular media text in terms of its product features, distribution channel, and language-format features. The named system includes such essential parameters as:

1. Method of text production (author's-collegial);
2. Form of creation (oral-written);
3. Form of reproduction (oral-written);
4. Distribution channel (media: print, radio, television, Internet). The entire range of text processing methods is used for studying mass-media texts: from traditional methods of system and content analysis to discourse, sociolinguistic, and cultural analysis. This extensive methodological base is mainly due to the interdisciplinary nature of media language research. Indeed, mass media texts are studied today from various disciplines – linguistics, sociology, psychology, stylistics, cultural The functional and stylistic aspect of media speech in media linguistics The theoretical basis of the concept of media language is a systematic study of a stable range of issues related to the use of language in the field of mass communication, such as:

a. What effect does mass communication have on the ratio of oral and written speech, • how does the mass nature of the message affect the movement of the language norm,

b. What is the language of mass media in terms of functional and stylistic differentiation,

c. What are the criteria for the typological classification of media texts,

d. What are the specifics of the languages ??of specific media - newspapers, magazine press, radio, television, the Internet, as well as the languages ??of the so-called media-conditioned systems - advertising and public relations, studies, political science, and intercultural communication.

The integration of various methods of analyzing media texts within the framework of media linguistics allows obtaining a comprehensive idea of the real properties of a media speech, its style, features of influence on individual and mass consciousness, on the ways of verbal and media levels interaction, on ideological modality, on the role of culturally significant components. Among the most effective and common methods of studying media speech are the following:

• Firstly, a whole group of methods of linguistic analysis, allowing to identify the basic properties and characteristics of the text at various language levels: lexical, syntagmatic (compatibility), stylistic (the use of tropes, comparisons, metaphors, and other stylistic devices), sociolinguistic.
• A method of content analysis based on a statistical calculation of specially selected text units.
• The method of discourse analysis, based on the concept of discourse and allowing to trace the relationship between the linguistic and extralinguistic side of the text.
• The method of critical linguistics (or rhetorical criticism), allowing to reveal the hidden political and ideological component of the media text. As shown by the analysis of specific material – English news texts in the press, on radio and television, with some stylistic differences due to the technical and format capabilities of individual media, at the level of syntagmatic, all the basic features of the news  text are preserved. At the same time, each of the features reflects a particular essential quality of the news text, such as its dynamism, informative content, and the desire for objectivity and a neutral style of presentation.  The description of linguacultural and informational processes using the socio-economic term imperialism, which has certain negative connotations, allows us to emphasize their aggressive and offensive nature. Indeed, the expansion of the sphere of influence of the English language in the world information space significantly increases its impact on other languages, which in particular is manifested in a large number of English-language borrowings. In turn, the expansion of English-language mass culture is inevitably accompanied by a reduction in the share of the national media product in the domestic market. If some countries, for example, France, try to somehow control the English-speaking influence by introducing legislative restrictions, the cultural and information space of Uzbekistan continues to remain completely open. Naturally, this affects both the general language situation and the state of the internal media landscape. The functional and stylistic aspect of media speech in media linguistics  of the world's information space has a huge impact on the production and distribution of words. All these complex and multifaceted processes require not only scientific understanding but also the development of new paradigms for practical research of the media language.

Conclusion

Besides, the article examines such a question as media text as the main category of media linguistics. The media text is defined as a discrete unit of the media stream that combines the sign units of the verbal and media series. The concept of a media text as a three dimensional multi-level phenomenon allows combining such diverse types of media products as newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, television news, Internet advertising, etc. The most common methods of studying media texts are highlighted. Among them are a group of proper linguistic methods that allow us to identify the main features of the media text at different language levels-lexical, syntagmatic, stylistic, sociolinguistic. There is also the efficacy of the media texts of the following methods of research: method of content analysis, based on a statistical calculation of certain textual units; the method of discourse analysis to trace the relationship between the verbal side of the text and its extralinguistic context; a method of critical linguistics, which allows revealing a hidden ideological component of the media text; the cognitive analysis based on the study of the conceptual side and directional on the relationship of reality and its media presentation; a method of linguistic and cultural analysis aimed at identifying culturally significant components of media texts and their national and cultural specificity.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Khodjayorov Malik Berdimurodovich. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.