INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background to the Study
In recent decades and in the contemporary globalizing world, the mass media has gained more power and women have gradually become more visible in the sphere of journalism. The growth in female contribution to the television reportage has been observed and many researchers argue that there is an increase in the influence of women in news reportage (Cann 2001, Mack 2003, Desmond 2009). However, a systemic approach to identifying and qualifying this contribution is yet to be proposed which is part of what this research seeks to address. Specifically, the study aims to identify differences in lexical choice and topic selection that are attributable to the speakers‘ gender in news reportage. Through the findings, the study hopes to offer some insights as regards how the choice of language features might affect the veracity and persuasiveness of news reportage. Ultimately, the goal of news reportage is to convey information and ideas and for the audience to have a better understanding of political and societal issues. In order to more successfully achieve that goal, it is necessary that news writers and reporters understand the effect that gender may have on the way that news is both conveyed and interpreted. It is on the basis of these observations that the researcher considers it worthy to carry out this study on gender variations in the language of television news reportage from the Linguistic Stylistic perspective. Language is all about experience, (a loaded weapon as Bolinger claims) it is all about communication and linguistics is the scientific study of language, which by implication is the study of our experiences and communications. Linguistics is sometimes defined as ―a language talking about language‖. It has developed from a discipline with narrowly defined formal concerns to a more comprehensive discipline in which the role of language in relation to the conceptualization and communication of meaning has been fruitfully investigated. Linguistics is a field that examines all aspects of human language through formal, scientific and variable measures. It draws from various disciplines for an understanding of different aspects of language in its various forms. From Human Psychology, it gains an understanding of the mental processes involved in the use of language; how language is stored, perceived and processed in the brain. From Anthropology and Sociology, it gains an understanding of human‘s behaviour in their use of language in various contexts, (Yul-Ifode, 2012). Hence, Linguistics has many branches which include Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Neurolinguistics, Anthropological Linguistics, and Stylistics (which is the focal point of this study). These branches study language with respect to the consequences of the interaction of human language with other disciplines. For example, Linguistic Stylistics which is the focus of this study is the linguistic study of the language of literature or text. In Stylistics one studies and analyses the language patterns and structure of a particular genre and in the context of this study, the genre to be examined comprises spoken texts of television. We can therefore, posit that Stylistics builds on linguistics and in return it challenges our linguistic frameworks, reveals their deficiencies and urges us to refine them. Sometimes Stylistics also assesses the aesthetic features of speakers‘ use of language and helps speakers or analysts to categorise or systemize them. This research hopes to assess the linguistic Stylistic variations found in the speeches of male and female reporters in British Broadcasting Corporation, Channels TV, and Nigerian Television Authority and attempt to analyse and systemize these variations. Stylistics is the scientific study of style and style is certainly a familiar word, but interestingly because of its multiplicity of definitions, the concept has been used to mean different things to different scholars, as such different definitions have been given to the term ―Style‖. For the purposes of this study, it becomes expedient to consider the various definitions of Stylistics that scholars have given. The term style first referred in English to a writing implement, then to ways of using it, and to ways of doing virtually anything.
Statement of the Research Problem
This study is motivated on the assumption that variety and variability are inevitable features of language use. Among the speakers of any language there are variations in the way they use language. There are also differences between the speeches of men and women. These variations are demonstrated by linguistic differences in terms of sounds (phonetics) and structures (grammar). However, these might be only slight variations between forms of a language, such as minor pronunciation of words or slight changes of grammatical structure that inhibit intergroup communication. Sometimes there are differences between the speeches of different social classes and differences between age groups. People will identify some of those features as making the ‗best‘ or most ‗beautiful‘ form of the language and other features will be considered nonstandard or undesirable. Some of these differences may impede intelligibility and inter group communication. The study also takes as its starting point the assumption that, different choices of Themes/Rhemes and their organization can elucidate ideological factors that underlie news reportage of the correspondents. Although many studies have been conducted in the fields of gender and news reportage, very few have attempted to investigate the roles of Themes and Rhemes in marked and unmarked thematic structure of the male and female correspondents. This is the premise upon which this research was conducted.
1.2 Research Questions
The present study is concerned with answering the following questions:
- What are the thematic and rhematic patterns of the male and female reporters of BBC, NTA and Channels Television?
- To what extent does gender variation affect the choice of sentence patterns and lexical items of the male and female reporters of BBC, Channels TV and N.T.A?
- To what extent does gender determine the choice of subject matters covered in the television news reportage?
- And what are the implications of the linguistic gender differences of the television reportage outfits on the target audience?
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to identify and assess the linguistic differences that contribute to gender language variations in news reportage. Specifically, the study hopes to achieve the following objectives:
i. to analyse the selection of the Themes and Rhemes in the clauses used by the male and female reporters of BBC, Channels TV and NTA (on the same beat reports)
ii. to identify the gender variations in the choice of sentence patterns and lexical items