This article documents some foregrounding devices that the media use to attract
readers' attention to linguistic forms, all identified in sports reports relating to
the Euro 2004 Football Championship published in various British newspapers. A
functional explanation is offered in terms of the poetic and interactive character
of such devices and their role in simulating friendship and encouraging `bonding'
between the writers and readers (phaticity). Their omnipresence in the British media
is linked with structural characteristics of the English language, the readiness of
the British to tolerate manipulation of linguistic forms, and the general trend
towards `infotainment' in the media.
Alabarces, P.
,
Tomlinson, A.
and
Young, C.
(2001)
`Argentina versus England at the France '98 World Cup: Narratives of Nation
and the Mythologizing of the Popular', Media
, Culture and Society23: 547-66.
2.
Alexander, R.J.
(1997) Aspects of Verbal Humour in English.
Tübingen:
Narr.
3.
Attardo, S.
(1994) Linguistic Theories of Humor.
Berlin
and New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
4.
Augarde, T.
(2003) The Oxford Guide to Word Games, 2nd
edn. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
5.
Ayto, J.
(2007) Oxford: A Century of New Words. A Chronology of Words
that Shaped Our Age. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
6.
Bell, A.
(1991) The Language of News Media.
Oxford:
Blackwell.
7.
Benwell, B.
(2001)
`Male Gossip and Language Play in the Letters Pages of Men's Lifestyle
Magazines'
, Journal of Popular Culture34(4):
19-33.
8.
Black, J.
and
Bryant, J.
(1995) Introduction to Media Communication,
4th edn. Madison, WI: Brown and
Benchmark.
9.
Blakemore, D.
(1992) Understanding Utterances. An Introduction to
Pragmatics . Oxford:
Blackwell.
10.
Blommaert, J.
(2005) Discourse. A Critical Introduction.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
11.
Carter, R.
(2004) Language and Creativity. The Art of Common Talk
.
London
and New York:
Routledge.
12.
Chovanec, J.
(2005a)
`Czeching Out Puns and Clichés in Football Reporting'
, Theory and Practice in English Studies3: 61-7.
13.
Chovanec, J.
(2005b) `From Zeroo to Heroo: Word-Play and Wayne Rooney in
the British Press', in Slovak Studies in English I, pp.
85-99. Bratislava :
Comenius University.
14.
Conboy, M.
(2003) `Parochializing the Global: Language and the British
Tabloid Press', in
J. Aitchison
and
D.M. Lewis
(eds) New Media Language, pp. 45-54.
Abingdon:
Routledge .
15.
Conboy, M.
(2006) Tabloid Britain. Constructing a Community through
Language.
London
and New York:
Routledge.
16.
Cook, G.
(2001) Discourse of Advertising, 2nd edn.
London
and New York:
Routledge.
17.
Costera Meijer, I.
(2003)
`What is Quality Television News? A Plea for Extending the Professional
Repertoire of Newsmakers'
, Journalism Studies4(1):
15-29.
18.
Crystal, D.
(1998) Language Play.
London:
Penguin.
19.
Dominick, J.R.
(1993) The Dynamics of Mass Communication, 4th
edn. New York: McGraw
Hill.
20.
Dor, D.
(2003)
`On Newspaper Headlines as Relevance Optimizers'
, Journal of Pragmatics35: 675-721.
21.
Fairclough, N.
(1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of
Language. Harlow:
Longman.
22.
Fairclough, N.
(1989) Language and Power.
London
and New York:
Longman.
23.
Fairclough, N.
(1992) Discourse and Social Change.
Cambridge:
Blackwell.
24.
Fairclough, N.
and
Wodak, R.
(1997) `Critical Discourse Analysis', in
T. van Dijk
(ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction , pp.
258-84. London:
SAGE.
25.
Fowler, R.
(1991) Language in the News.
London
and New York:
Routledge.
26.
Fowler, R.
(1996) Linguistic Criticism.
Oxford : Oxford University
Press.
27.
Goddard, A.
(1998) The Language of Advertising.
London:
Routledge.
28.
Halliday, M.A.K.
(1978) Language as a Social Semiotic. The Social
Interpretation of Language and Meaning.
London: Edward
Arnold.
29.
Halliday, M.A.K.
(1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar,
2nd edn. London: Edward
Arnold.
30.
Harcup, T.
and
O'Neill, D.
(2001)
`What is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited'
, Journalism Studies2(2):
261-80.
31.
Jacobson, R.
(1960) `Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics', in
T.A. Sebeok
(ed.) Style in Language, pp. 350-77.
Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
32.
Jucker, A.
(1992) Social Stylistics: Syntactic Variation in British
Newspapers.
Berlin
and New York : Mouton de
Gruyter.
33.
Kress, G.
(1996) `Representational Resources and the Production of
Subjectivity', in
C.R. Caldas-Coulthard
and
M. Coulthard
(eds) Texts and Practices, pp. 15-31.
London
and New York:
Routledge.
34.
Kress, G.
and
van Leeuwen, T.
(1998) `Front Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper
Layout', in
A. Bell
and
P. Garrett
(eds) Approaches to Media Discourse , pp.
186-219. Oxford:
Blackwell.
35.
Leitner, G.
(1997) `The Sociolinguistics of Communication Media',
in
F. Coulmas
(ed.) The Handbook of Sociolinguislics, pp.
187-204. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
36.
Lennon, P.
(2004) Allusions in the Press. An Applied Linguistic
Study .
Berlin
and New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
37.
Lipka, L.
(2002) English Lexicology: Lexical Structure, Word Semantics
and Word-Formation. Tübingen:
Narr.
38.
Macdonald, M.
(2003) Exploring Media Discourse.
London:
Arnold.
39.
Machin, D.
and
van Leeuwen, T.
(2005)
`Language Style and Lifestyle: The Case of a Global Magazine', Media
, Culture and Society27(4):
577-600.
40.
McArthur, T.
(ed.) (1992) The Oxford Companion to the English
Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
41.
McQuail, D.
(1994) Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction,
3rd edn. London:
SAGE .
42.
Mukařovský, J.
(1983[1932]) `Standard Language and Poetic Language' , in
J. Vachek
and
L. Dušková
(eds) Praguiana, pp. 165-86.
Amsterdam : John
Benjamins.
43.
Nilsen, A.P.
(2003)
`Humor in the News: Newsletter'
, Humor16(1):
125-31.
44.
Rambousek, J.
(2004) `Between Language Play and Language Game', in Theory
and Practice in English Studies. Volume 2, pp.
165-71. Brno:
Masaryk University.
45.
Richardson, J.E.
(2007) Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical
Discourse Analysis. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
46.
Ritchie, G.
(2004) The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes.
London
and New York:
Routledge .
47.
Schaffer, D.
(1995)
`Shocking Secrets Revealed! The Language of Tabloid Headlines'
, ETC: A Review of General Semantics52(1):
27-46.
48.
Scollon, R.
(1998) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of
News Discourse. Harlow:
Longman .
49.
Talbot, M.
(1995) `A Synthetic Sisterhood', in
K. Hall
and
M. Buchholz
(eds) Gender Articulated. Language and the Socially Constructed
Self, pp. 143-65.
London
and New York :
Routledge.
50.
Ungerer, F.
(2000) `News Stories and News Events. A Changing
Relationship' , in
F. Ungerer
(ed.) English Media Texts - Past and Present: Language and Textual
Structure, pp. 178-95.
Amsterdam
and Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins.
51.
Van Dijk, T.
(1988) News as Discourse. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum
Associates.
52.
Van Dijk, T.
(in preparation)
Context
. A Multidisciplinary Theory , 2 vols.
