CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

"Language and Media" is a comprehensive introduction to how language interacts with media. It investigates the forms of language found in media discourse; how patterns in such language use contribute to recognizable media genres and styles; and, broader social themes and consequences that arise from media language. It uses a wide variety of real texts from the media specifically from Magazines.

Boles (2012) believes that each magazine uses linguistic techniques these language features are creatively used in magazines by the writers to attract and entertain the target audience as they only have a small space and time to get the attention of the potential buyer of the product.

Bell (2010) emphasizes the importance of the processes which produce media language, as stories are molded and modified by various hands. He stresses it is indeed stories that journalists and editors produce, not articles. These stories have viewpoint, values and structure that can be analyzed. He is concerned, too, with the role of the audience in influencing media language styles, and in understanding, forgetting or misconceiving the news presented to it.

A feature story is a special human interest story article that is not closely tied to a recent news event. It focuses on particular people, places, and events, and it goes into great detail regarding concepts and ideas of specific market interest.

The study primarily aims to provide a contrastive analysis between the use of the variety of english in love songs. The study specifically aims to (1) determine the commonality and differences between American and Philippine English magazine feature articles, and (2) determine the moves present in the sample feature articles.

1.2. Research Questions

* What are the commonality and difference of the use of the variety of English in magazine feature articles? * What are the different moves used in magazine feature articles?

1.3 Significance of the Study

The study conducts a thorough research on the genre analysis specifically the moves used in the feature articles of American and Philippine Magazine. It can be considered as a substantial contribution to the existing body of knowledge and studies conducted and emphasized with regards to genre analysis. In a different perspective from what is usually seen, that is of undergraduate students, the moves was comprehensively examined with the existing evidences and information and by following the framework of Swales on genre analysis. The study’s worth lies in the fact that it attempts to find new perspectives in genre analysis by identifying and developing new categories of moves present in the feature articles and to provide clear comparisons between the uses of two varieties in writing feature articles.

1.3 Hypothesis of the Study

Through extensive research and study conducted by the researchers, with the aid and basis on the partial gathered data it can be predicted that, each feature articles contain different moves strategy in writing feature articles considering its distinct features and rules. And that each variety of English is different in use and features that also affects their writing styles.

CHAPTER 2
Review of Related Literature

A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. The purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style. Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action. (Swales, 1990, p. 58)

In this definition, Swales stresses the importance of communicative purpose, because it is the criterion to distinguish one genre from another. In addition, the contribution that Swales has made to genre is to consider genre from the perspective of the discourse community and to link writer, reader, and social contexts together, The concept of genre enables writing teachers to look beyond the content, linguistic forms, and processes of writing so that they can assist students in their attempts to communicate with their reader. However, Swales underplays psychological elements, thus undermining the importance of tactical aspects of genre construction (Bhatia, 1993).

The real world is not only complex but dynamic too; complex in the sense that it incorporates texts of various kinds, serving often overlapping and at the same time, conflicting communicative purposes. Recent genre literature will convince us of the complexities involved in the generic view of language, some of which one may find reflected in the following seven perceptions.

1. Although genres are identified on the basis of conventionalised features, yet we know they are constantly developing (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995).
2. We often find typical textualization patterns, yet we know expert members of professional communities exploit them to create novel patterns (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995).
3. We know that genres serve typical socially recognised communicative purposes, yet we often find genres being exploited to convey private intentions (Bhatia, 1993, 1995).
4. We all manage to identify individual generic artefacts, yet in the real world they are often seen in hybrid, mixed and embedded forms (Fairclough, 1993; Bhatia, 1997a, 1997b).
5. Genres are given typical names; yet different members of discourse communities have varying perspectives on and interpretations of them, which sometimes are contested (Candlin & Plum, 1999b; Bhatia, 1999b).

It can be asserted that genres are independent of disciplinary variation, yet we often find disciplinary conflicts in many of them, especially in academic genres (Bhatia, 1998b, 1999b).It can be often associated with genre analysis with a typical textual investigation, finding good analyses using a variety of methods, including textual analyses, ethnographic techniques, cognitive procedures, computational rigour and critical awareness, to name only a few.

Bignell (1997) argues that the magazine is "just a collection a signs" (Bignell 1997: 78). These signs may include paradigmatic and syntagmatic elements such as the title of the magazine, the fonts used, the layout, the colors, the texture of the paper, the language adopted, the content of the articles and so on, and each of these signs have been chosen to generate a meaning. The magazine is therefore a complex collection of signs that can be extensively decoded and analyzed by its reader - "women's magazines communicate their mythic meaning by means of signs, thus their representations of the imaginary are dependent on the symbolic, the signs which do the communicating" (Bignell 1997: 78).

Signs however, consisting (according to Saussure) of two elements, a signifier and a signified, only gain meaning when "it has someone to mean to" (Williamson 1978: 40). The reader is therefore very important and will bring his/her own interpretations to the texts by drawing on their own cultural values and perceptual codes. As Daniel Chandler argues, "'decoding' involves not simply basic recognition and comprehension of what a text 'says' but also the interpretation and evaluation of its meaning with reference to relevant codes" (Chandler, web source: Semiotics for Beginners). As the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary and meaning is rooted in cultural values, we can argue that the potential interpretations of any given magazine are therefore endless.

Accordingly, Fairclough's (1995:16) view on the language analysis of media is that "we need to analyze media language as discourse, and the linguistic analysis of media should be part of the discourse analysis of media." He affirms that discourse analysis is concerned with both texts and practices. Fairclough explains the meaning of discourse practices as how texts are produced by media institutions; received by audiences; and socially distributed. His view of texts, in accordance with Cotter, includes both spoken and written language.

While Wardhaugh (1992) believes that language is both an individual possession and a social possession. When a person behaves linguistically similar to another, we can expect them to belong to the same speech community. By sharing the same language, dialect or variety, individuals in this speech community are said to have achieved group identity and group differentiation from other speakers; creating a specific culture.
CHAPTER 3
Method of the Study

The study follows the framework of Swales in determining and categorizing the different moves present in the thirty (30) recently published feature articles of Candy Magazine Philippines. The study also proposes to analyze the gathered data thoroughly to address the research questions. The researchers gives emphasis on the presented sources and frameworks that will support on the possible findings of the study.

The study proposes to gather and discuss data from selected leading magazines in the Philippines and America, namely, Candy Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Total Girl. The study shall focus on feature articles from the aforementioned magazines. A minimum of five and a maximum of 10 feature articles from different editions will be collected from each magazine written and recently published.

REFERENCES

About news. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015, from What are feature stories?: http://journalism.about.com/od/writing/a/whatarefeatures.htm Bell, Allan. The Language of News Media. Retrieved on Aug. 22 2014 from http://www.media.uoa.gr/lectures/linguistic_archives/mda0405/notes/Bell_Media_and_Language.pdf Bhatia, V. K., (1999b): “Disciplinary Variation in Business English”, in M. Hewings & C.
Nickerson (eds.) Business English: Research into Practice, Prentice Hall (129-143).

Bhatia, V. K., (1999c): “Analysing Genre: an applied linguistic perspective”, a Keynote address given at the 12th World Congress of Applied Linguistics in Tokyo (1-6 August, 1999).

Bhatia, V. K., (2000): “Genres in Conflict”, in A. Trosborg (ed.) Analysing Professional Genres,
Benjamins Publishing Company in the series Pragmatics and Beyond, Editor: Andreas
H. Jucker.

Candlin, C.N., & G. A. Plum, (1999): “Engaging with challenges of interdiscursivity in academic writing: researchers, students and tutors”, in C. N. Candlin & K. Hyland (eds.)
Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices, London, Longman, (193- 217).

Swales, J. M., (1990): Genre Analysis - English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.