Journalistic Language & Genres: Characteristics & Types

Journalistic Language Characteristics

Morphosyntactic Characteristics

• Tendency to place the subject at the end of the sentence.
• Lengthening of sentences through:
  • Verbal phrases and paraphrases.
  • Conjunctive and prepositional phrases.
  • Redundant expressions.
  • Appositions.
  • Clauses and subordinate explanatory phrases.
• Use of Gallicisms and morphosyntactic Anglicisms:
  • Misuse of "a + infinitive" as an agent complement.
  • Use of the periphrasis "be being + participle" (progressive passive).
  • Use of conditional for expressing possibility.
• Mixture of direct and indirect styles.
• Frequent use of the passive voice.

Lexical Characteristics

• Foreignisms, especially Anglicisms.
• Neologisms.
• Semantic calques.
• Words formed by standard language procedures:
  • Derivation.
  • Composition.
  • Compounding.
• Use of abbreviations and acronyms.
• Euphemisms.

Journalistic Genres

Journalism not only informs about reality but also interprets it. For this, it uses mechanisms of persuasion and sometimes manipulation.

Information Genres

Subgenres of Information

• News: Reports on important and recent events.
• Interview: Informs about the views of a person.
• Documentation: Provides data on an event or its relationship with what has occurred.
• Feature: A recent or relevant fact that happened earlier, or a topic of social interest. It can be of human interest, social, or opinion-based.

Characteristics of Information Genres

• Referential function.
• Cultivated language.
• Objectivity.
• Specialized vocabulary.

The News Article

A news article is a text that offers information about recent events from radio, TV, or print media.

Organization of a News Article

• Headline
• Lead/Introduction
• Source
• Body of the news

Opinion Genres

Subgenres of Opinion

• Editorial: Represents the newspaper's point of view.
• Criticism: An analysis or judgment of a cultural work.
• Article: Exposes personal opinions about reality.

Characteristics of Opinion Genres

• References to the sender (author).
• Dominated by evaluative adjectives and adverbs.
• Declarative verbs and constructions.
• Expressive resources.

The Opinion Article

An opinion article is a text that expresses personal opinions on facts or situations. The author is cited and is responsible for their evaluations.

Types of Opinion Articles

• Column
• Free Gallery (or Open Forum)
• Commentary
• Essay Article