Skip to main content

Posts

Chapter 7: Style in Popular Texts

  Chapter 7: Style in Popular Texts •     The literariness of language is exploited in many mundane contexts, from the headlines in your daily paper to an advertisement for shampoo, and the patterns that we have been exploring within the domain of  ‘ literature ’    can be found pervasively (thoroughly) in all manner of popular writing.  •     In addition to identifying what we term the  ‘ literary potential ’  of language in popular texts, there are other stylistic features which tend to be more specific to the domains of media discourse—from a magazine and advertising copy to the language of radio DJs and television presenters. In this chapter, we will focus on some of these popular texts, and look at the language of newspapers, advertising and magazines to show how these media draw on the literary properties of language to produce certain effects. •     Media texts are not produced in a vacuum, for anyone...