Book Review: News Across Five Continents: Newspaper Language in the Context of Regional and Functional Variation

The English language encompasses a wide range of varieties across the globe, and the language used in news media demonstrates regional and thematic variation. So far, research investigating English varieties in journalism has either focused on their regional distinctions (e.g., Canan Hänsel and Deuber, 2013) or disparities across thematic domains (e.g., Liu, 2018). Few studies examine both regional and thematic varieties in journalism from the perspective of register, resulting in a limited understanding of the applicability of register analysis in studies of English varieties.

Jennifer Fest’s News across Five Continents: Newspaper Language in the Context of Regional and Functional Variation, published by Equinox Publishing, brings the notion of register from Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL) into the exploration of functional and regional variations in journalism studies. Register refers to a social semiotic approach towards understanding of how language varies across different situations (Halliday, 1974). The volume aims to provide insights into newspaper language, with a particular focus on the development of regional varieties and functional varieties and the applicability of a functional approach to these two forms of variation (p. 143). The volume, situating itself in the broader context of English varieties in journalism, coincides with a growing scholarly interest in a cross-dimensional perspective: “it is not just newspaper language in general that is of interest, but also the degree of differentiation between the individual topics that reflects the relevance attributed to them” (p. 38).

This book is comprised of 11 chapters and can be divided into three parts. Part I (Chapters 1–4) discusses the rationale for integrating two axes: regional variations (English in Australia, Kenya, Hong Kong, the USA, and the UK) and functional variations (sports news, hard news, lifestyle, economy, and politics), arguing that the combination of two variations is crucial to avoid partial conclusions, as differences displayed in a variety across two particular news domains do not necessarily appear in other varieties (p. 40). The author also explains news language serves as an excellent area for this integration because it is more comprehensive and representative of our society in comparison to other public languages. Chapters 2 to 4 revisit the field of World English and define key terms (e.g., first language, mother tongue, foreign language, second language, etc.), illustrating journalist writing and press freedom, before reviewing the application of register in language varieties and media language.

Two chapters in Part II (Chapters 5, 6) are particularly insightful. Chapter 5 introduces a theoretical framework for digital news language across multiple platforms, which provides a clear-cut structure for data analysis. Five subdimensions are devised to connect 20 linguistic indicators with three abstract register parameters (field, tenor, and mode) (p. 56). Field includes experiential domain and informative goal orientation (p. 47). Tenor includes social role and social distance and deals with the impact of interpersonal relationships on language usage between readers and journalists (p. 50). Mode defines the role of language in a discourse that distinguishes spoken language from written language (p. 54). This framework integrates abstract register theory with precise linguistic markers, which enables a systematic exploration of language varieties in journalism in an objective and measurable manner. Chapter 6 presents the corpus design, which is particularly useful for researchers working with big-data media discourse with multiple variables. The corpus consists of 4000 articles (about 2.4 million tokens) from four newspapers in the UK, the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and Kenya, with data selected on the basis of availability, quality, popularity, and ownership (p. 63).

Part III (Chapters 7–11) presents results and draws conclusions. On the functional axis, lifestyle news prioritises information and exhibits a weaker degree of distance and hierarchy compared to hard news. By contrast, hard news construes objectivity by employing the passive voice (p. 134). Sports news is often presented in a casual manner, similar to lifestyle news (p. 132). In comparison to economic news, political news is typically more standardised and less accessible to the general public because of the frequent use of industry-specific jargon in political news (p. 135). On the regional axis, news articles in Hong Kong and Kenya share certain similarities in that they both have a formal tone and manifest a degree of separation between the journalist and the reader (p. 135). Nevertheless, Hong Kong’s news is highly objective and informative, with minimal use of personal language. Conversely, news from Kenya may not strictly adhere to standardised language, even though English is the official language in Kenya (p. 137). For instance, nominalization is less frequently used in Kenya news compared to news in Hong Kong. English in Australia and the UK share a low distance between journalists and readers, whereas in the USA, news maintains a moderate distance throughout (p. 139).

Combining the two axes, this book delves into the developmental status of English as a second language (hereafter L2), that is, the language used in official or institutional environments (p. 13). Specifically, it explores how L2 interacts with individual native languages and the level of press freedom in different countries. The author proposes a connection between tenor and press freedom, with Australia and the USA having higher values of press freedom in contrast to Kenya and Hong Kong where journalists are faced with greater restrictions (p. 142). Additionally, the development of Kenyan English may be impeded by restricted communication and the diversity of native languages (p. 138). Although American English serves as the closest point of reference for L2 varieties, the connection between L2 and native languages is generally weak (p. 139).

The volume examines the complex interplay between language variety and media discourse. The theoretical framework developed in this volume effectively demonstrates how societies’ media background and native language impact the development of L2, thus providing valuable insights on the construction of cultural identity in speech communities. Additionally, the volume introduces a robust discourse methodology that connects language variety and press freedom at a broader social context. However, the volume is conducted from a synchronic perspective (p. 57) and thus “cannot confirm or refute general hypotheses about L2 developmental status” (p. 139). It would thus add theoretical rigor if a diachronic perspective was included in the discussion. Furthermore, the incorporation of news from other platforms such as new media, television, and radio in the corpus would strengthen the discussion, because news is becoming increasingly digitized.

To sum up, this volume features a discourse-specific corpus analysis of functional and regional variation in newspapers spanning five continents. It provides significant insights on the exploration of English variety development and press freedom, making it a valuable reference book for journalists and linguists seeking to investigate news language, English dialects, and SFL.