Assignment on

Language and Electronic Media Course Title : Sociolinguistics and

Psycholinguistics Course ID : LE -616

Prepared by: Faysal Ahmed Roll No. : 15-1-377M.Ed. (Evening), IER, University of Dhaka

Submitted to:

Dr. Mohammod Moninoor Roshid Associate Professor, IER, University of Dhaka

Language and Media

• Language: • The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of

words in a structured and conventional way. The system of communication used by a particular community or country.

• Richard Moore, “Language is a field of battle, the media is the artillery, and vocabulary is the ammunition.”

• Media: • Communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data,

or promotional messages are disseminated.

• Media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet.

Media language:

• The way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text is called media language .

• Media language is the way in which the meaning of a media text is conveyed to the audience. One of the ways Media Language works is to convey meaning through signs and symbols suggested by the way a scene is set up and filmed.

Key Term: Semiotics

• Definition:

• The study of SIGNS (and the role of the sings in social life)

• Semiotics examines how signs construct meaning ( i.e. how the use of mise-en-scene, camerawork, editing and sound construct meaning in teaser trailer, poster or magazine cover)

Ferdinad de Saussure(1857-1913)

Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure was a Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major founders (together with Charles Sanders Peirce) of semiotics/semiology

Ferdinad de Saussure

• Ferdinand de Saussure provided the following equation to Semiotics:

The Sign= signifier + signified

CAT When we read the word “cat”, it creates an image of a small four-legged

furry animal in our brain and we visualize the animal in our brain. So here the word “cat” is a signifier which helps to visualize ……………………..

…… this animal which is commonly known to us as “cat”. Here the image of the animal is signified . That’s how the semiotic works.

Ronald Barthes (1915-1980)

Roland Gérard Barthes  was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology and post-structuralism.

Ronald Barthes

He considered that all cultural forms are essentially made up of a system of signs that could be deconstructed to reveal how cultural meanings are constructed. He analyzed the denotative and connotative level of signs in a media text.

Denotation which is similar to Saussure’s Signifier and Connotation as the

Signified. So basically both denotation and connotation are similar to signifier and signified.

Ronald Barthes

• According to Ronald Barthes all media texts have 2 layers of meaning. They are -

1. DENOTATIVE LEVEL:

What we actually see/hear 2. CONNOTATIVE LEVEL:

What we associate with the image

To understand the term Semiotics, here I have chosen an image from a creative and recently made TVC which promotes the brand WALTON, a

Bangladeshi manufacturing company which manufactures electronic products.

The following image portrays a gorgeous beautiful lady who is wearing a very fashionable dress which is also vey much trendy and vibrant in colour. In addition, it is seen that the lady is walking through a hot sandy land i.e. desert and the way she is walking through it seems nothing can bother her i.e. the hot sandy environment and it is also very visible that a kind of fine chill wind is flowing around her. In fact, the beautiful lady, the trendy dress, the vibrant colour of the dress, the hot sunny environment, the chill wind all are signifier and the object they signified is a …………………………………………………………………..

……….. a refrigerator. The soul purpose of the TVC portraying within the above mentioned signifiers is to represent the WALTON refrigerators which are the very fashionable, trendy, vibrant in colour, and it keeps everything fresh, chilled inside of it. So here the refrigerator is the signified object.

• Conclusion

Thus how the language which is actually the signifier is presented in the electronic media and each and every of them has a purpose to make. Most of the time it is seen that the language which is selected for the media is not chosen carefully and they fail to be tangible to the all class of viewers and they become distracted. Whatever the purpose of the language shown on electronic media, it must be tangible, reasonable, effective, and attractive depending on the age and class of the viewers.

References Media Language . (2010). Retrieved from SlideShare website:

http://www.slideshare.net/lilyjones/media-language-pptFerdinad de Sassure. (2016). Retrieved form Wikipedia website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure. Roland Barthes. (2016). Retrieved from Wikipedia website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes. PriceBD .(2016). Retrieved from

http://www.pricebd.net/walton-refrigerator-w585-2n5/BHRAT INTERNATIONAL. (2016). Retrieved from

http://www.bharatint.com/cats-grooming/cENCYCLOPEDIA BRITINNICA. (2016). Retrieved from

https://global.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-de-SaussureNatok24. com. (2016). Retrieved from

http://natok24.com/video/walton-fridge-tvc/hV1b2bP73oc.html