Below are ten topics relevant to our understanding of news language from the linguistic and journalistic perspectives. Primary linguistic concepts are listed, followed by deliberately open-ended questions to encourage further thought, research, and understanding from several analytical points-of-view: structural, functional, theoretical, social, linguistic, practice-oriented, and journalistic.

USAGE NORMS AND EXPECTATIONS

• speech

• writing

• influence of written norms on spoken language

• influence of spoken language on written norms

• influence of channel or modality (Web, broadcast, print) on usage

• influence of Web on news-story style

Questions: How can we “read” the news media knowing that different modalities of transmission comprise different sets of norms? How does what reporters are taught about newswriting influence the shape of the narrative? Where do journalistic usage norms differ from or correspond to expectations in the larger culture?

USAGE AND SOCIAL EVALUATION (SOCIAL FACTORS)

• speech community

• communicative competence

• language attitudes and prejudice

• social stratification: language choice and its implications

Questions: How can the media be accounted for in a community? How would speech community norms influence usage in the media? How does standard language ideology figure in? How does the news media reinforce or subvert standard language, innovation in language, society's attitudes toward non-standard language users?