Language and Media Dictionary of Key Terms (April 2016) Martin Montgomery

diglossia LANG. n. the presence within a speech community of two related, but contrasting, linguistic varieties – one of which is high status, the other low status – which are used in complementary contexts. Thus the high variety will most likely be used for news broadcasts, religious services, newspaper editorials and traditional poetry, whereas the low variety will be used for everyday conversation, sports commentary, soap opera and other informal contexts. Clear examples of diglossia are to be found in the Arabic-speaking world. In most, if not all, Arab countries two varieties of Arabic exist side by side – Colloquial Arab learnt informally at home as the first language, and Classical Arabic acquired by explicit instruction at school. The grammar, pronunciation and some of the vocabulary of the two forms of Arabic are different. The language of the Qur’ān – the sacred text of Islam – is in Classical Arabic; and partly for this reason the high variety is fairly uniform throughout the Arabic-speaking world, despite strong regional variations in the local variety of Colloquial Arabic. Indeed, the availability throughout the Arab world of Classical Arabic helps to guarantee a degree of mutual intelligibility when speakers of quite divergent forms of Colloquial Arabic meet. Other diglossic situations may be found in Greece (between Classical Greek and Demotic Greek) and in Switzerland (between High German and Swiss German). While English-speaking communities do not seem to display such strong internal division into two contrasting varieties, it is still possible to recognize a cline or scale of competing varieties which are accorded differing degrees of prestige. => CODE, DIALECT. MMO

discursive gap media n. a breach in language that can exist between senders (such as television newscasters) and receivers (such as audiences). There is a distinction between the languages used; one is formal while the other is less formal therefore more personal. The popular press has attempted to close this gap by using primarily colloquial or slang language to engage their readers or audiences.

disinformation media n. a mode of discursive manipulation wherein deliberately inaccurate or false information, or partial truths are spread to audiences to convince them of false conclusions. mmo

documentary media n. a broad category of non-fiction film-making for cinema (and increasingly for television), it is designed to document or disclose some aspect of reality. Often shaped by didactic purposes or for the historical record, documentary film-making exploits cinema’s potential for observing and interpreting life. An early theorist of documentary, the Scottish film-maker John Grierson (1898-1972), described it as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’. Despite the broadness of the category, most commentary still treats it as a form distinct from reality television. mmo