| This study analyzes and compares language use in national evening television news in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. From a discourse-analytic perspective, the study (1) describes TV news as a form of public discourse in terms of its specific structural properties; (2) identifies and illustrates different linguistic manifestations in German and U.S. news. Based on the assumption that people use language in social contexts for various communicative purposes, a discourse model which integrates structure, meaning, and action is introduced and applied to TV news.;The study describes the overall structure of newscasts, i.e. their openings and closings, and their structural constituents such as sequences of news items and discourse types. This is followed by an analysis of how topics and topical relations are signaled at various levels of abstraction. Then, news items are discussed: their openings and closings, the overall textual structure of argumentative and narrative news discourse, and evaluation. The use of reported speech as an evaluation device is examined in detail, focusing on its function within the narrative structure, verbs of saying, and tense and mood shifts.;The analysis shows that TV news is a discourse genre in its own right, but also that profound differences exist between German and U.S. news. These differences are reflected in the speaker-hearer relation, the signaling of discourse organization, and the evaluation of news events. Here, the following results are obtained: U.S. news speakers are portrayed as individuals who report about events they witnessed, while German news speakers simply transmit 'facts'. U.S. news uses explicit discourse organizers; German viewers have to infer discourse organization based on extra-linguistic knowledge and on semantic content. Finally, U.S. news uses more implicit evaluation, which is typical of storytelling, than German news. Thus, U.S. news involves the audience in the recreation of news events. In contrast, German news creates the impression of objectivity through detachment.;The empirical analysis of approximately 10 hours of newscasts focuses on three interrelated aspects of discourse: (1) How newsmakers organize the discourse; (2) how they present ideas; and (3) how they key viewer understanding. These questions are addressed for different levels and units of analysis. |
