Review: Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. Roger Fowler. 1991.

Several years ago, I attended a teacher-training workshop for English A2, the course that, to some degree, was the precursor to today’s Language and Literature course. There was a woman who talked a great deal. She had many opinions and a few questions too. Eventually, as the workshop was nearing its end she said in a moment of catharsis that she wasn’t comfortable teaching language, particularly the language of media texts. She was, she said, a teacher of English literature, and she shouldn’t be expected to teach anything else. Rather harshly, and much too directly, I suggested that she should embrace some risk. Today, I wouldn’t respond the way I did then. Hopefully, at least, I would display greater tact. And, since then, I have heard many teachers express a similar sentiment to that expressed by the woman described. What she was really saying, with some justification, was that she didn’t feel comfortable or able to teach certain aspects of language analysis since she had never had the training.

Put as a question, I have heard many teachers ask what aspects of language they should teach to students on the Language and Literature course. There is too, I think, a concern with terminology – the nomenclature of language analysis. Correspondingly, I have heard a range of significantly divergent responses to the question. I don’t intend arrogantly to address the question here in a dogmatic once-and-for-all way. However, I do subscribe to the view that some awareness of critical linguistics can be useful for Language and Literature students, and that this awareness has benefits for many parts of the course, but particularly Paper 1.

There are many books on critical linguistics or, as it is sometimes called, critical discourse analysis. Some or many of these books are theoretically dense and esoteric, written in arcane academic jargon. There are, fortunately, a few exceptions. The best book, by some margin, I have read on the subject of critical linguistics for accessibility and clarity is Roger Fowler’s Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. Admittedly, the examples Fowler uses are dated, and there is a strong Anglocentric bias. That notwithstanding, the lessons in language analysis are as relevant as they ever were. 

Fowler helps the reader comprehend what critical linguistics is, why it is relevant, and how to go about doing critical language analysis. Whilst the focus of the book is print news, it is not difficult to appreciate the wider application of Fowler’s ideas. Fowler writes that ‘critical linguistics seeks, by studying the minute details of linguistic structure in the light of social and historical situation of the text, to display to consciousness the patterns of belief and value which are encoded in language’. Fowler suggests, then, that ideology is embedded in language, and that any critical consideration of language must take place with contextual awareness. The Language and Literature course endorses this kind of reading practice. Fowler goes on to contend that ‘even if, in principle, any aspect of [language] structure could be ideologically significant, as a matter of fact it is predicted by theory, and confirmed by experience, that certain areas of language are particularly implicated in coding social values’. The importance of this claim cannot be understated. Fowler is suggesting that critical linguistics anticipates a priori the significant linguistic features in a text. This is not to say that students should approach a text in a formulaic checklist kind of way. Texts must, to some degree, speak for themselves. As Fowler writes, ‘I do not want to give the impression that critical linguistics is a mechanical procedure which automatically yields “objective” interpretations. Critical interpretation requires historical knowledge and sensitivity, which can be possessed by human beings but not by machines’. The good news, however, is that meaningful language analysis is not guesswork.

Much of Fowler’s book is then taken up by introducing the tools and skills of critical language analysis. And thus Fowler begins to discuss concepts such as transitivity, modality, and nominalization. These ideas, if they are unfamiliar, may sound complex, but they aren’t really. With reinforcement, students begin to get the ideas, and the study of grammatical and syntactic structures can move from potentially boring and abstract to interesting and meaningful. Note, however, that I do not advocate that student’s use Fowler’s book; rather, I suggest that teachers introduce the tools of critical linguistics to students as appropriate as they discuss texts in the Language and Literature classroom.

Ultimately, of course, what teachers teach or don’t teach will depend a great deal on the students they have. It would be pedagogically specious conceit to prescribe or proscribe to teachers the skills they should teach to their students. However, if like the woman at the workshop you lack confidence in teaching textual analysis in media texts, then Fowler’s book is an excellent place to begin to address your uncertainty.