IMPACT OF MEDIA ON LANGUAGE

Language is the subject to continuous transformation and change. Language is influenced by a lot of factors.

• Ø    Social classes
• Ø    Political circumstances
• Ø    Educational background
• Ø    Media

Among all these factors media has a significant influence upon language.  Broadly we classify media into two categories:

• Ø        Print media
• Ø        Digital media

IMPACT OF DIGITAL MEDIA:

We classify digital media into two types

1.           Social media
2.           Main stream media( television and broadcasting)

Social media:

Social media has affected the English language in terms of vocabulary, syntax, spelling, semantics, pragmatics and grammar. We normally observe the manipulation of language on different social media platforms .i.e. Facebook. In the past usually think of our house walls if we listen to the word ‘wall’. But now wall refers to the homepage of your social media profile. Above example is the illustration of the fact how social media has influenced pragmatic and sematic abilities of an individual.

Moreover, social media is continuously adding different unique words to language thus influencing vocabulary.   .i.e.

Ø  Stream

Ø  Troll

Ø  Emoji

Ø  Selfie

Ø  Lol

Above terms are now part of our everyday vocabulary.

We have observed that for the sake of convenience people mostly use contractions and acronyms in their online discourse. Some of the examples of important contractions are:

• Ø               OMG (oh my God)
• Ø               OIC (oh! I see)
• Ø                BTW(By the way)
• Ø                DP(Display picture)

Moreover, people are usually prone towards using contractions in their language.

• Ø     K instead of ok
• Ø      R instead of are

Standard grammar:

Social media users often neglect grammatical rules during their communication. This aspect is severely affecting the writing skills of people. For example, twitter only offers140 characters to its users to express their thoughts. Such tweets depict the mutilated face of language having a lot of grammatical errors.

Television and Broadcasting:

According to Trudgil:

                       “Television may act as a source for new lexis and idioms”

It is said that people usually tend to copy the language they listen in Television shows. The language which is being used in TV shows directly affects the linguistic ability of the society.  E.g. the Indian content on Pakistani channel has badly influenced our ability to use our national language. Certain international news channels like BBC is the embodiment of standard grammar vocabulary, and syntax. BBC pronunciation is considered to be a standard pronunciation of English language. I.e. received pronunciation.

Pakistani media industry is not a true representative of English language in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation.  A phrase ‘thank you so very much’ is used by many famous anchors has no grammatical base.

IMPACT OF PRINT MEDIA:

Newspapers:

Newspapers are the embodiment of socio-political, socio-economics and religious trends of the society. Mostly newspapers adapt their language in terms of the issue they mostly discuss. For example, the editorial page of many famous newspapers such as ‘The Washington post (USA)’, ‘The Guardian (UK)’ and ‘Dawn (Pakistan) represents the political use of language. These newspapers are a source of new terminologies thus adding words to the existing vocabulary. For example:

• Ø      9/11
• Ø      Cold start doctrine
• Ø      I can’t breathe (recent slogan that symbolizes racial discrimination prevalent in American society)
• Ø     Gulluism

Moreover all the major newspaper has a very strict policy regarding the quality of language. Moreover, the newspapers represent a very standard and sophisticated use of vocabulary. Following examples have been collected from Dawn (Pakistan).

• Ø      Chide instead of criticize
• Ø      Uprising instead of revolt 
• Ø      Scuffle instead of fight or dispute

Strict screening has been done to minimize the spelling mistakes. But certain literary terms have been continuously misspelled in many major English dailies of Pakistan.

Critical Comments:

The gist of discussion is that media is mixed blessing. It has some advantages such as enhancement of vocabulary, better pronunciation in the form of BBC accent. But it has certain disadvantages like continuous use of contraction, acronyms, and syntactic errors. All of these habits have a bad influence upon our writing skills. The recent results of Central Superior services is the embodiment of the fact that how media is destroying our writing skills.