Seeking answer for the question whether the news broadcast through Uzbek national TV channels correspond to the audience needs and perception potential, one would get into another question whether linguistic and stylistic features of English-language news programs of national television correspond to the international standards of news casting. Why are international standards and foreign experience important? Not only because Uzbekistan’s journalism and media are actively striving for acquiring positive sides of global trends, introducing new media formats used in foreign media, but mostly because those standards are the results of many years of investigation, sociological research and analysis. It is important to understand that the world we are living in now appreciates the data science, analysis of data and investigation of public opinion. Global media companies, including European Euronews, have developed their own way of identifying whether they are casting the news in the right time, to the right people and in a right language and style.
Having operated for about a quarter century, the Euronews channel has become the leader in the continent in terms of audience’s attention grabbing, and its news currently has its own style and linguistic features, on which we will be focusing below.
As Euronews represents a dozen TV channels, being the first multilingual news company to broadcast continuously and simultaneously. The standards we will be considering will be Euronews English that is aired throughout the world for diverse public. According to the statistics from the end of 2013, “Euronews has a daily audience of more than 6,5 million television viewers and also reaches its audiences via multiplatform offerings that include apps for smartphones and tablets, web radio, a multilingual real time news website and VoD service” [1]
Another reason why the content of Euronews is a subject for comparison to Uzbekistan’s news programs in English language is that both of these media are directed to diverse public, not to a mass that is “homogenous” in terms of ethnic, political and cultural background.
Speaking about the specific features of the language and style in news programs of Euronews, one could summarize following qualities as the common ones:
First of all, Euronews stories, especially in such news programs as All Views, Prime Edition, No Comment and World News are famous for their headlines. The headlines in every story within the program are usually kept short (5–10 words) and follow SVO — subject-verb-object structure [2]. Here come some of them:
‒French elections under scrutiny
‒Russia to trial fan ID ahead of football World Cup
‒Turkeys encircling dead cat baffles internet
‒Londoners evacuated as quarter-ton WWII bomb found
‒High winds cause havoc across USA
These headlines help viewers catch the idea of the topic being reported at one glance and/or keep track of the news reporting’s special coverage from the channel’s or program’s perspective. According to The Elements of Style [3], the bible of media writing in English, headlines use present simple for past events (High winds cause havoc across USA), infinitives for future events (Russia to trial fan ID ahead of football World Cup) leave out auxiliary verbs, articles, “to be” (French elections under scrutiny) and follow other standards that ensure the best possible way of audience perception.
Secondly, it is seen in headlines, as well, in fact, intending to preciseness and compact messaging, the linguistic composition of news programs address shortened forms, abbreviations, acronyms and special phrases, sometimes “invented” and popularized by Euronews and other mainstream or social media. Migrant Crisis, Brexit, Travel Ban, Romanian Corruption Case, G8, Galaxy Note Scandals are some of the examples to state in this point.
Furthermore, quoting instruments used in each and every text of the news programs on this pan-European television channel provide not only accuracy and unbiased coverage of events, but also guarantee the perception by the audiences in the way that stakeholders, Euronews policymakers want them to. According to SOMEBODY,…, As SOMEBODY states,…, SOMEBODY says/states/confirms/reports/mentions that… structures are addressed very frequently. It is very important from both journalistic and manipulative viewpoints. On the one hand, TV channel spreads the message of its interest and at the same time keeps itself impartial, mentioning that the information derived from some other source. As for example, reporting about a terroristic act in Kenya, Euronews journalist can mention that “According to specialists, terroristic acts have roots related to local Islamist groups in Nairobi”. This is a manipulation over the viewer’s minds, as in this case Euronews is not showing its own position or point of view, but just quoting specialists.
Finally, one should emphasize that story structure that Euronews employs provide dynamic storytelling that eventually influences better digestion and comprehension of news in audience. Sentences in Euronews stories are kept short, 2 sentences of 7–10 words in the lead part and 4–5 sentences in the remaining part.
Nevertheless, there are various para-linguistic features, such as pronunciation, intonation, graphics, image-and-text-correspondence, which impact on the linguistic compound of the news programs. Here pronunciation of names of political figures and toponyms can be involved to exemplifying. A story about Turkey, certainly, should not only state a number of facts or inform people about the happenings, but at the end, influence the people. In order to, optimize the influential function of news programs, Euronews voice-overs attempt to give the feeling of one or another area that is being reported, say Turkey, in our case. Endeavors of journalists to read the name of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as close to the native language as possible. The same policy is followed upon pronouncing the names of places, cities, and countries.
To summarize the analysis of specific features of the news programs on the number one international television company based in Europe, it must be mentioned that the linguistic composition of news covering on Euronews is the result of long journey towards achieving comprehensive, effective and easy-to-perceive media content.
Gained its independence from Soviet Union and started actively integrating to global community, joining international organizations and linking diplomatic relations with foreign countries, the Republic of Uzbekistan launched its public diplomacy through television quite successfully. The central television channel of the country, Uzbekistan24, started broadcasting daily News 24, just last year. News on social, political, cultural issues and other types, prioritized considering the interests of a target audience, that is diplomatic corps of Uzbekistan, guests of the country and the rest of English-speaking contingent. Stories have carried mostly formal character and followed the good old style inherited from classical journalism. When it comes to speaking about the language of English TV news in Uzbekistan, one should mention about the overused passive-voice-sentences, calques characteristic to Russian and Uzbek languages.
Here some phrases come for example:
Headofourstate (Глава нашего государства)
…Were discussed at the meeting (…былиобсужденынасовещании)
About 2000 similar points will be opened across Uzbekistan (Около 2000 подобныхпунктовбудутоткрытыповсейтерриторииУзбекистана)
Media formats of Uzbekistan’s broadcast media have not varied widely and for past 20 years format of the program have not faced big changes.
Concluded after some period, new Uzbekistan24 was more open to new media formats, including space bridge, diagrams, interview and visual graphics, which actually made it different from other news or analytical television projects. Viewing some of the series of the News24, specialists can notice that TV program team tried hard to have a specific ton of voice and style that would be as close to native as possible. Recent News24 is giving a quick picture of the latest trends on Uzbekistan in a well-structured, comprehensive and fluent English, according to the results of a sociological survey conducted among foreigners who were shown the program.
Starting from 2017 total informative channel started providing the foreigners and diplomats segment with the news in the lingua franca. It addresses both traditional and new media formats and methods of news casting. Anchoring is characteristic to all news programs cast in English language in Uzbekistan, making them widely different from Euronews that focuses on dynamic and quick reporting.
Particularly analyzing the linguo-stylistic features of Uzbekistan TV News, several conclusions can be made:
Frequent grammar mistakes originated from calques:
On 17/18/19 of March\April\May was held aconference/festival/contest at… (the sentences of this kind lack the predicate and breaks the strict word order of English)
Constant use of passive voice sentences:
During the meeting, the guest was informed about the work conducted by the committee. (newspaper style, especially the language of television programs should try to avoid passive voice)
According to TV reporting manual of Irving Fang, “the good writer will choose sentence structure from the rich variety afforded by the English language, including long, short, active, declarative, periodic, and passive constructions, although the active voice is preferred to the passive. Clauses may begin sentences or appear between subject and verb or between verb and object.” [4]
In addition, there is a privately-owned new TV channel — Uzreport TV, where some of the news programs and analytical stories are broadcast in English language. Relevantly new, with its launch in 2014, Uzreport has hired plenty of fluent-in-English personnel, who have been reporting about mostly economic news. Uzreport news do not have a big difference from other TV channels in terms of media formats and the language, though training sessions conducted for nongovernmental media representatives by foreign specialists is believed to come with their results.
Contrasting Euronews, the news broadcaster with complex news reporting and presenting strategy and commercial interests with Uzbekistan’s national TV news programs, which are mostly directed to national interests representation, propaganda of the country’s wise and constantly-working policy, several conclusions can be made in terms of the language and style of these two news market players.
Above all, Euronews tends to pay essential amount of attention to headlines, as they consider it to be important attention grabbing tools. News24 TV program, as well as other news programs cast in English gives much accent on anchoring. Secondly, sentence structures are carefully set and news writers follow particular standards in Euronews (developed through many years and by high caliber internationally hired specialists), while one can notice some calques and minor grammar and stylistic errors in News24 with young perspective journalists.
As one of the newest types in journalism, the language of television is a subject for continual investigation from the angle of audience perception. In one of his monographs [4], Irving Fang explains the evolution of differences in writing news for print media and television as the condition of journalism’s strivings towards influencing viewers’ minds. The professor of University of Minnesota, a respected journalist states that there are several criteria to identify if the television news correspond the perception potential and needs of viewers. Those criteria include both linguistic and paralinguistic factors effecting on the way people perceive, get impacted and consume the media product.
On the whole, global news broadcasters, including Euronews make a big emphasis on meeting the consumer needs. At the same time, there are media outlets of new and fast-growing, independent Republic of Uzbekistan that keep the conquest of foreign audience through news broadcast in English language, There is a need to scrutinize Uzbek national news programs led in English language from the viewpoint of linguistic and stylistic peculiarities.
References:
- Kevin, Deirdre; Pellicanò, Francesca; Schneeberger, Agnes. Television News Channels in Europe — European Audiovisual Observatory, 2013
- Meyer, Charles F. Introducing English Linguistics — Cambridge, 2009
- Strunk Jr, William. The Elements of Style — Pearson, 1999
- Fang, Irving. Writing Style Differences in Newspaper, Radio, and Television News — Minnesota, 1991
