Language, Media and Society

An ideal introduction to the analysis of language as a central element of everyday interactions and media, helping students reflect critically on the ways individuals and the creators of media use language to reflect and construct social identities

Why do we encounter different types of language in different places, from different people, and in different types of media? What assumptions do we make about each other when we interact, and what assumptions do media creators make about us when they design the media we see and hear? When does the language used in society and by media lead to social change and when does it serve to reinforce existing power structures and class divisions? In Language, Media and Society, students learn how to notice the features of the language used in the interactions they have and the media they encounter everyday and to understand the relationships between language, media, and the wider world around them. Assuming no prior knowledge of sociolinguistic analysis, this student-friendly textbook is a perfect introduction to the intersections between language and its social contexts.

Written in a student-friendly, conversational tone, Language, Media and Society first answers some fundamental questions about what we mean when we talk about language, about media, and about society in the contexts of applied linguistics. The book then addresses the many different ways that language and media construct and reflect aspects of identity such as age, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Students will find useful examples throughout from the types of interactions they have every day and from the media they encounter every day and will be invited to begin their own investigations into the functions of language in everyday life and in media of all types. This valuable textbook:

• Is suitable for use in courses on language and media, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, communications, media studies, and sociology
• Encourages students to reflect upon the language that is used in everyday life and in the media they see and hear and to consider how this language influences and is influenced by society
• Features in-chapter tasks, end-of-chapter review questions, guided reflections, and resources for students and instructors
• Employs an engaging, conversational tone and makes underlying theory accessible

Language, Media and Society is an ideal introductory textbook for undergraduate courses on sociolinguistics, language and media, sociology and communication, and media studies.

Anthea Irwin-Turner is a Lecturer in Communication at Ulster University, UK. She applies her main research interest of power and identity in (media) discourse to a range of fields including adolescent interaction, and media constructions of young people, asylum seekers, poverty, minority languages, and political events. She has published chapters in edited volumes and papers in such journals as Language in Society.

Introduction: Defining the terms

The section will:

• answer the questions ‘what do I mean by language?’, ‘what do I mean by media?’, ‘what do I mean by society?’
  • outline which aspects of language and linguistic frameworks, media, and society or sociology will and will not be considered

Chapter 1: Getting started

Key themes:

• How people use language and other forms of communication in individual interactions
• Attitudes to language and other forms of communication and their implications
• How we are positioned by language, communication and the media

Key concepts explored: stereotyping, ideology, postmodernism.

Chapter 2: Producers and audiences

Key themes:

• What and who media producers are
• what and who media consumers are
• Identifying the shifting and blurring boundary between the two
• Implications of social media platforms

Key concepts explored: public service and commercial broadcasting; editorial stance; models of audiences; citizen journalism; online identities.

Chapter 3: Reading and (re) producing media messages

Key themes:

• How we read and interpret media texts
• Analysing language in media
• Analysing images in media
• Analysing multimodal texts

Key concepts explored: representation; genre; intertextuality; basic moving image analysis.

Chapter 4: Language, Media and Gender

Key themes:

• how gender identity is constructed
• how women, men, and transgender people are represented
• how women and men talk and interact

Key concepts explored: Gender; representation, construction and performance; gendered / sexist terminology and interaction patterns; discourse; deficit, dominance, difference, and social constructionist approaches to gender difference.

Chapter 5: Language, Media and Age

Key themes:

• Changing constructions of age and lifestage
• How people of different ages are represented
• How people of different ages use language
• How language is used when conversing with people of different age groups

Key concepts explored: representation; stereotypes; sociohistorical construction of age; language change; technology / literacy debate; child directed language / language acquisition debate.

Chapter 6: Language, Media and Social Class

Key themes:

• Definition and relevance of social class.
• How it relates to how we use language and media and how we perceive how others use them
• How social class is represented in the media

Key concepts explored: sociohistorical shifts in social class construction; accent and dialect; bidialectalism; overt and covert prestige; style shifting; forms of capital; habitus; representations and stereotypes of social class.

Chapter 7: Language, Media and Ethnicity

Key themes:

• (Contested) definitions of race and ethnicity
• Language use related to ethnicity: language varieties, creativity, attitudes, racism and resistance.
• Changing representations of ethnicity in media.

Key concepts explored: bidialectalism; codeswitching; crossing; reclaiming language; objectification and subject positions; cultural appropriation; privilege.

Chapter 8: Language, Media and Sexuality

Key themes:

• How language is used by LGBT+ people
• How language is used about LGBT+ people
• Media representations of sexuality

Key concepts explored: shifting LGBT+ terminology; language for visibility and invisibility; othering; mainstreaming; the ‘pink pound’ / ‘dorothy dollar’; objectification and subject positions.

Chapter 9: Language, Media and Disability

Key themes:

• (Contested) constructions of disability
• Disability, identity and culture
• How language is used about disabled people
• Media representations of disability

Key concepts explored: models of disability; sociohistorical and ideological implications; ‘people first’ language; themed representations – sweet innocent, obsessive avenger, freakish, rehabilitative, differently able, supercrip; objectification and subject positions.

Chapter 10: Bringing it all together

Key themes:

• Interaction and intersection of different aspects of identity
• Case studies: personal experience and media texts

Key concept explored: intersectionality.

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