Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse

Published 2017.

The history of English news discourse is characterised by intriguing multilevel developments, and the present cannot be separated from them. For example, audience engagement is by no means an invention of the digital age. This collection highlights major topics that range from newspaper genres like sports reports, advertisements and comic strips to a variety of news practices. All contributions view news discourse in a specific historical period or across time and relate language features to their sociohistorical contexts and changing ideologies. The varying needs and expectations of the newspaper producers, writers and readers, and even news agents, are taken into account. The articles use interdisciplinary study methods and move at interfaces between sociolinguistics, journalism, semiotics, literary theory, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics and sociology.