Glossary. Abstract, abstraction: A word or phrase that refers to ideas, relationships, generalities are abstract: e.g

Abstract, abstraction: A word or phrase that refers to ideas, relationships, generalities are abstract: e.g. truth, justice, realism, interdependent. Unlike concrete words, which name specific things, abstractions make little or no appeal to the senses: they are qualities, characteristics, or essences shared by a large class of things.

Abstractions must be used with caution. The number of abstract words in any composition will depend upon the writer’s subject and purpose: the philosopher discussing the nature of being will use more abstract words than a traveller describing the ruins of Rome. When the key words in any essay are abstractions, they should be defined and illustrated at the beginning.

Allusion: An allusion is a reference to a generally familiar person, place, or thing, whether real or legendary: Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra, Adam, Tom Sawyer, and the Eiffel Tower. Most allusions are taken from history, geography, the Bible, mythology, and literature. One value of allusion is their economy; they allow the writer to evoke in one or two words an atmosphere, a whole story, a period of history.

Appositive: A noun that stands after another noun and repeats the meaning of the first is an appositive: “Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas, was born at York House, his father’s residence in the strand, on the twenty-second of January 1561”. Here son repeats and further identifies Francis Bacon just as residence repeats and further identifies York House. In each instance the second noun is said to be in apposition with the first. The appositive is really an abbreviated clause in place of “who was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas” and which was his father’s residence in the strand”.

Audience: The group of consumers for whom the media text was constructed as well as anyone else who is exposed to the text.

Collocation: Arrangement, as that of words (coll.). A linguistic term used in such combinations as 'grammatical collocation' and 'lexical collocation'. Collocation grammatical is a phrase consisting of a dominant word (noun, adjective, verb) and a preposition or grammatical structure such as an infinitive or clause. Collocation lexical is an arrangement of words (an adjective and a noun) like 'green peace', 'green party'.

Comment: The texts, which reveal the presence of the author in the text. Such kind of writing is 'isolated' in special corners of a newspaper as, for example, in newspapers' columns like editorials and opinions. There are three types of comment: apparent, covert, and accidental.

Conjunctive adverb: A conjunctive adverb, like any conjunction, links two ideas. Like other adverbs, it answers the questions in what manner, under what conditions. Most conjunctive adverbs signify logical relationships like addition, contrast or contradiction, cause and effect. English is particularly rich in conjunctive adverbs. Among the most common are therefore, however, nevertheless, moreover, consequently. Unlike ordinary conjunctions, the conjunctive adverbs are absolute. They loosely modify the whole sentence and cannot coordinate clauses.

Connectives, connecting words: Any word or phrase that signifies a relationship between two words, phrases, clauses, sentences, or paragraphs can be called a connective. Thus, the term encompasses parts of speech like prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and conjunctive adverbs in addition to connective phrases like of course, for example, in fine, to be sure. Most beginning writers need to build their active vocabulary of connective words and phrases, for although it is possible to overuse them, the student writer seldom uses them enough. Connectives express, among others, such ideas as (1) addition (and, moreover, furthermore, in addition); (2) contrast or contradiction (but, yet, in contrast, however); (3) cause and effect (so, therefore, for this reason); (4) disjunction and division (some...others, either...or); (5) conclusion (finally, at last, ultimately). These are only a few of the great number of connectives and only a few logical notions they can express.

Connotation: The connotation of a word is not the thing or idea the word stands for, but the attitudes, feelings, and emotions aroused by the word. Connotations tend to be favourable or unfavourable. Thus village and hick town both refer to a small settlement. Village is favourable, or at least neutral, in its connotations, but hick town suggests the writer’s scorn or contempt. The denotation of a word refers only to the thing the word represents, stripped of any emotional associations the word might carry. The denotation of both village and hick town is the same: both identify a small community.

Construct or Construction: As a verb, the process by which a media text is shaped and given meaning through a process that is subject to variety of decisions and is designed to keep the audience interested in the text. As a noun, a fictional or documentary text that appears to be " natural" or a " reflection of reality" buut is, in fact, shaped and given meaning through the process already described.

Co-ordinate clauses: Two independent clauses of equal importance joined together are said to be co-ordinate. They are linked either by a semicolon or by one of the co-ordinate conjunctions - and, but, or, nor, for. See subordinate clauses.

Critical: A reflective position on the meaning, biases or value messages of a text.

Critical Viewing: The ability to use critical thinking skills to view, question, analyze and understand issues presented overtly and covertly in movies, videos, television and other visual media.

Deconstruction: The process by which the audience identifies the elements that make up the construction of meaning within a text.

Discourse: Text plus social reality, and thus it is (1) an activity that can be specified and differentiated only within a socially marked setting; an activity that is always actual and manifested; (2) a representant of reality within a social setting (representing discourse communities, socially differentiated (marked) attitudes; it is a reflection of a subject-object and intersubject activities; (3) a functional set of signs (categories and codes), and hence it realizes all sign functions with a special focus on organization, orientation, actualisation.

Discourse analysis: The study of linguistic relations and structures in discourse.

Discourse markers: There are words or phrases that can be added to sentences to show your opinion of what you are talking about. These are often used at the beginning of a sentence or clause. E.g.: Alas, the relationship was not to last. Naturally, he didn't like being told off. Paradoxically, bullies often feel threatened by their victims.

Editorial: A genre that serves to establish a relationship between a particular printed medium and the community it serves.

Editorial criteria (also: criteria of journalistic value): One of 6 markers accepted as obligatory for a newspaper text from the point of view of the editorial board: impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, and bizarreness.

Framing words: To separate clearly and to introduce the several divisions of a subject or thought, the writer often uses framing words: First, Second, Third; First, Next, Last; The most significant effect, A less important effect, and so on. These usually occur in a paragraph introduced by an organizing sentence. See organizing sentence.

Genre: An element of speech behaviour of a newspaper or a magazine. It is the matter of both form and content.

Genre as a speech behaviour: The approach to genre classification regarded within the division of genres into open and closed, active passive groups, including 22 genres grouped into 6 sets: (1) reproduction of topical events (the of the contemporary world) as reporting on the events of home and foreign affairs coming together with cause-effect link; (2) public opinion polling as the open forum of politicians and public figures, representatives of different social and professional strata, (3) active genres (pragmatics as the expression of ideological and political credo of particular mass medium), (4) satellite genres, (5) cultural study genres, (6) adverts.

Newspaper genres (East-European tradition): Are considered within three groups: informative, analytical, and publicistic. The first group including a piece of information ('zametka'), interview, reportage (also report), report, sketch ('zarisovka'), annotation. The report (reportage) relates on whatever the writer has seen (within the very process of seeing); in case it includes opinions we would call it a synthetic reportage; the report states the content of some particular activity (directly or either topic- or focus-bias); sketch (zarisovka) employs the writer's imagination and position; caption is a description of a photo or its comment. The second group includes article (directed thought, argument usage); correspondensiya, which may be current and topical; comment (expression of attitudes and points of view); review (resenziya) - revision of particular films, books, performances. Among the publicistic genres there are feature (ocherk), pamphlet, essay, and felyeton.

Image, Imagery: At its simplest an image is a picture made with words. Images also may appear to touch, smell, hearing, and taste. Description and narration make frequent use of images, but imagery appears in exposition as well.

Inversion, Inverted word order: Any variation of the normal order of subject, verb, object (complement) is inversion. In some sentences the object stands first: «That story I did not believe.» Occasionally a verb appears before the subject: «In the far corner of the room sat a very old man.» Such inversions are emphatic, but like all variations of the normal their emphasis depends upon their rarity.

Jolts: Moments in a media text that are generated by a broad comedy, a violent act, movement within a frame, a loud noise, rapid editing, a profanity or a sexually explicit representation, all of which are calculated to engage an audience's excitement.

Metaphor: A metaphor is an implied comparison between two things seemingly quite different: “All the world’s stage, /and all the men and women merely players”. Or to take an example from prose: “Man’s imagination is limited by the horizon of his experience”. Since one term of the metaphor is usually commonplace and concrete, the metaphor nor only makes writing more vivid, it may help the writer to make his point clearly. Metaphors make the abstract, concrete; the elusive, definite; the unfamiliar, familiar.

Mass Media: Mass Media refer to those media that are designed to be consumed by large audiences through the agencies of technology.

Media Education: The process by which one learns the technical production skills associated with creating media texts. Traditionally, it has not included the intellectual processes of critical consumption or deconstruction of texts.

Narrative: How the plot or story is told. In a media text, narrative is the coherent sequencing of events across time and space.

Newspaper: ( 1) holistic unit (a complex language sign) with its own profile: a set of topics and the way they are treated; (2) typical unit, representing its group (serious or qualitative, popular or tabloid, party or ideology-bias, and specialized); (3) exclusive unit (exclusiveness comes with particular vision of the material, particular people working for it, and particular codes.

Newspaper content: Consists of whatever the journalist assembles through a process of research and interviewing, that is all the facts, statistics, quotes that go into the stories etc. Current thematic range of newspapers can be reconsidered within the following groups: (1) economy; (2) politics and defence; (3) legislation and human rights; (4) crime; (5) cultural issues, entertainment, sport; (6) match and dispatch.

Newspaper form (the form of presentation): Involves that which is called style, but also a judgement about the story (event, person, etc) the editor (the journalist) chooses to present to his readers.

Organizing sentence: Standing at the beginning of a paragraph or a major section of an essay or at the beginning of the composition, an organizing sentence indicates the subject to be treated, how it is to be divided, and into how many parts the division falls: “There were four underlying causes of World War II”. Same as “Topic sentence” or “thesis statement”.

Parallel, Parallelism, Parallel construction: Constructions are parallel when two or more words, phrases, or clauses of the same grammatical rank are related in the same way to the same word or words. Thus two or more subjects of the same verb are parallel; two or more verbs with the same subject are parallel; two or more adverbial clauses modifying the same verb are parallel; and so on. Parallelism appears in both formal and informal writing. In skilful hands it is an interesting variation of the normal sentence pattern, allowing the writer to compress many ideas into a small space. Parallelism may be used to sustain a mood or to suggest rapid action.

Periodic sentence: A sentence, which delays the expression of a complete thought until the end, or until near the end, is called periodic. Although it appears in all kind of writing, the periodic sentence, especially when long, is more suited to the formal than to the informal level of usage. If overused, the periodic sentence becomes an irritating mannerism, but it is extremely useful for variation and emphasis.

Point of view: In the study of prose, a writer’s point of view does not mean the writer’s attitudes or values, his way of looking at things in general, his viewpoint. Rather a writer’s point of view is the grammatical person of his composition. He may use I, explaining what happened to him, what he thought, or what he saw happen to others. This is the point of view of autobiography, much narrative, and often of the personal essay. The third-person point of view detaches the writer from any personal relationship with his material. In place of I, the writer uses a noun or third-person pronoun: “I like to travel”, but “Travelling is the best of educations”.

Political discourse: A set of discourses that are functioning in a society: discourse of power and opposition, public rhetoric that either strengthens the existing system of public relations or destabilizes it.

Representation: The process by which a constructed media text stands for, symbolizes, describes or represents people, places, events or ideas that are real and have an existence outside the text.

Subordinate clause: A clause functioning within a sentence as an adjective, adverb, or noun is said to be subordinate. Since it is grammatically less important than the main clause, a subordinate clause should express ideas of less importance.

Theme: A subject or topic of discourse of artistic representation.

Tone: A writer’s tone results from (1) his attitude toward his subject and (2) his attitude toward his reader. A writer may love his subject, despise it, laugh at it, or seem detached from it. He may wish to shock his reader, outrage him, play upon his prejudices, amuse him, or merely inform him in the briefest and most efficient way possible. A writer conveys his tone largely through his diction, through the connotations of the words he uses. But tone can be carried by sentence structure as well.

Topic: (1) The subject of a discourse or of a section of a discourse; (2) one of the general forms of argument employed in probable reasoning.

Topic sentence: A sentence that states the main thought of a paragraph or of a larger unit and is usually placed at or near the beginning.

Understatement: To understate is to play down or soften something that is starling, horrifying, shocking, painful, or otherwise deserving of more emotion and attention that the writer gives it. The striking contrast between what the subject calls for and the restrained treatment with which it is dealt, effectively calls attention to the subject. Understatement, or litotes, is therefore a device of emphasis. It has the additional advantage of relieving the writer of any charge of exaggeration or emotionalism. One possible disadvantage of understatement is that an uneducated audience may not respond to it, but may instead regard the writer as callous. Reader of any experience or sophistication, however, often prefers understatement to exaggeration - a more obvious form of emphasis.