Communication language

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As news language is referred to the particular style in which messages for radio and television are written and the listener or viewer is presented.

News editors in radio and television usually have their own rules for their news, but there are basic rules that are in principle recognized by all news editors. There are messages in the youth / pop waves 1LIVE of the WDR, as well as MDR SPUTNIK or in the children's news of the ZDF program logo! formulated differently than they appear in the news .

General requirements

In principle, messages for news broadcasts should be formulated precisely, briefly and understandably. In contrast to newspapers, a listener (even the listener of television news) cannot read a sentence again that he has not understood. This results in the requirement for spoken and heard messages that their sentences are catchy and not seduce to ponder or smile through strange choice of words or curious constructions and to ignore them through box sentences or foreign words. When listening to the news, the listener should not think about language or choice of words, but rather understand immediately what the editor wanted to convey.

Forms of meaning

The term message language has two aspects. On the one hand, he can mean the ideal of a language that is precise, direct and understandable. On the other hand, it can refer to the special sentence constructions, set pieces and journalistic mannerisms that occur particularly in news. These include parts of sentences such as "as it was called", "as it was said in well-informed circles" or words such as "meanwhile" or stringed together recurring substantiated verbs such as "agreement reached", "declaration issued" etc. This communication language is a structure that has grown in the tradition of reporting on political action and mostly catastrophic events as distantly and as carefully as possible. News always claimed not to be a mouthpiece for politicians or ideological groups, but at the same time never to evaluate or even interpret what they wanted to report. This creates distancing phrases such as "possible dangers" (a danger means the possibility that something bad will happen.)

Formulations

As a rule, the news editor receives his report from news agencies already pre-formulated on the table. Agencies often define the general usage of the language from which news editors often do not deviate. The language of the news in Germany is very much determined by the style of the news agencies, which also serve newspaper editors and adapt to this need. From this a kind of message slang or message code has developed with words and sentences that are out of date in everyday language and only appear in the news ("meanwhile") or seem downright nonsensical such as "Details were initially not known" or " there was a feverish search for survivors ”.

Indirect speech

Messages very often quote statements from social representatives. This does not happen in literal, but in indirect speech. Messages traditionally use the subjunctive I (“were”, “have”, “want” and not: “would”, “would”, “wanted”). However, indirect speech in the subjunctive I corresponds so little to everyday language usage that it has almost become a synonym for communication language.

Accurate, direct and understandable

Ideally, however, the news editor should be precise, direct and understandable. He avoids box sentences, prefers verbs to substantiated verbs, uses foreign words only sparingly and only those that are well introduced, does not use any technical terms and only rarely uses numbers. He eludes the suggestive power of the news German proposed by the news agencies.

example

A report comes from the news agency that begins with the sentence: "Federal Chancellor X has received French President Y for talks about the situation in Iraq." This sentence contains five pieces of information. (Name of the Chancellor, name of the French President, destination of the visit, topic of the conversation, act of reception.) However, if messages are to be precise, direct and understandable, it is advisable to first split the information into two sentences and use the nouns where possible to turn into verbs. Messages are always precise in the characterization of the actors, i.e. in their names and official titles. The message becomes direct if you first concentrate on what is happening: “Chancellor X has received French President Y.” The message is easier to understand if the goal of the meeting is mentioned in the second sentence and the noun “conversation” is again converted into a verb is transformed: “You want to talk about the situation in Iraq.” In addition, the German word “Lage” can be used for the foreign word “Situation”.