Philological Sciences/3. Theoretical and Methodological Language Study Problems

Semynina O.A.

Orenburg State University, Russia

The concept «violence» in media discourse

Violence as socio-political event is widely reflected in media discourse. Information about violent acts frequently appears in mass media. Despite a vast amount of works devoted to mass media texts a precise analysis of the concept «violence» in media discourse has never been provided.

A famous researcher of mass media language Allan Bell in his book “Approaches to Media Discourse” writes the following:

“Definitions of media texts have moved far away from the traditional view of text as words printed in ink on pieces of paper to take on a far broader definition to include speech, music and sound effects, image and so on… Media texts, then, reflect the technology that is available for producing them…” [Bell, 1998].

The present trend in approaches to media texts can be described by turning away from «text-internal readings, where readers are theorized as decoders of fixed meanings, to more dynamic models, where meanings are negotiated by actively participating readers» [Meinhof,1994].

A discourse analysis is widely used for media texts studies and it is primarily aimed at «the explication of qualitative data rather than quantitative data. Of course, quantitative measures may well be based on an explicit analysis of a more qualitative kind» [Teun A. van Dijk, 1983].

Teun A. van Dijk indicates that «while content analysis is primarily based on observable, countable data, such as words, phrases, sentences, or stylistic features, a discourse analysis will—apart from making explicit such surface structures in tercos of modem grammars—also pay attention to underlying semantic structures and make explicit implications, presuppositions, connections, strategies, etc., which usually remain implicit in the discourse. It will try, in terms of empirical theories, to find the rules or principles underlying the structures, the production, and the comprehension of media messages» [ Teun A. van Dijk, 1983].

Thus, a discourse analysis is considered to be part of cognitive and social theory related to rules and strategies of media discourse production and understanding. Hence, a number of highly complex cognitive and social-psychological models of information processing should be taken into consideration, thus, providing insight into the relation between content properties and specific effects produced by media discourse.

More specifically, it should be stressed that a great importance in mass media texts studies is paid to the correct perception of the text which is provided not only by language units and their connections, but also by means of necessary general knowledge, a communicative background. With reference to mass media the communicative background is understood, first of all, as a set of conditions and peculiarities of media text production and distribution, on the one hand, and its perception, on the other. Thus, the presence of a powerful communicative background together with an embracing multilayered structure has put the texts of mass media in the centre of attention of discourse researches.

Considering news as a special kind of discourse, Teun van Dejk considers that “structures of media texts can be adequately understood only in one case: if we analyze them as a result of cognitive and social activity of journalists on texts production and their meanings, as a result of the interpretation of texts effected by readers on the basis of their communication experience with mass media” [Teun A. van Dijk, 1989].

First of all, we will focus here on the lexical representation of the concept “violence” in media discourse. We will observe mainly the articles from the newspaper “The Guardian” that traditionally refers to the British quality press. It is known that each printed edition can be characterized by its own discourse, thus, the discourse of “The Guardian” has its own peculiarities of text production, text presentation and text perception.

The choice of specific lexical items over others in representation of the concept “violence” is not arbitrary, it’s rather intentional. Thus, the following lexical units can be often observed: «violence», «kill», «danger», «harm», «fear», «damage», «bomb», «killing», «weapon» and others.

The repetition of the following phrases is rather deliberate, it produces a negative effect on the reader: «violent act» «violent extremism» «violent attack».

Of particular interest is the choice of lexical items used to denote some participants in the violent acts. They are presented by means of the following lexical units: «the terrorist», «the murder», «drug-fuelled», «alcohol-fuelled», «knife enabled people», «officials» and others. The lexical unit «islamist» very often becomes the synonym to the word «terrorist».

Thus, the participants of violent acts can be easily distributed into the following groups:

- Affiliation

- Ideological adherence

- Nationality

- Terroristic specialization

A violent act can be aimed not only at people («to take hostage», «to kill», «to murder», «assault», «attack»), but also at various objects («highjacking», «explosion») etc.

First of all, the act of violence is mainly an action, and, therefore, it is often represented by means of verbs and verbal word-combinations: «to dismantle weapons of mass destruction», «to terrorise», «to murder», «to scare», «to harm», «to attack», «to warship» etc.

Stylistic variation can occur at several levels, such as lexical choice, word formation, or syntactic structures. Similarly, phonetic, lexical and syntactical expressive means also require definition on various levels.

Language expressive means are an integral part of the concept “violence” representation in mass media discourse. Lexical expressive means («weapons of mass destruction», «massive surge of fearful fantasy», «tentacular organization»), as well as syntactical figures of speech («We worked together against terrorism and we succeeded. We worked together to avoid terrorism and we worked together to dismantle weapons of mass destruction») largely contribute to the means by which the authors achieve the desired effect.

The analysis at different levels can offer insight into the roles played by these lexical representations of the concept in the processes of media discourse production and understanding.

Thus, negative attitude to violence and violent acts in media discourse is expressed by means of lexical units having negative connotation. All language means mentioned above are closely connected to produce a negative effect on the reader.

However, a discourse of mass media is often characterized by the author's modality, and, hence, quite often the act of violence is expressed by emotionally coloured vocabulary that underlines cruelty and brutal character of such negative activity.

The list of references

1. Approaches to Media Discourse / Ed. By A. Bell, P. Garrett. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

2. Dijk van, T.A. Discourse Analysis: Its Development and Application to the Structure of News. Journal of Communication, 1983.

3. Dijk van, T.A. Language. Cognition. Communication. M.: Progress, 1989

4. Meinhof, U.H., Richardson, K. Text, discourse and context. Longman, 1994.