Linguaggio dei media

Unit 1: The language of the media

Lesson 3: Text 1 - Words are weapons

What do you know?

1. When was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York?

2. Who organised the attack?

3. Where does the US government keep al-Qaida prisoners?

4. Who is Donald Rumsfeld?

5. What are WMD?

Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD was voted word of the year for 2002 by the American Dialect Society.

Language note

The American Dialect Society is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it. The Society holds an annual meeting every year and nominates a winner for Word of the Year. The Words (or phrases) of the Year are the words which most color the nation's lexicon or otherwise dominate the national discourse. Words of the Year are those that reflect the concerns and preoccupations of the year gone by. They need not be new, but they usually are newly prominent.

Other candidates for Words of the Year – 2002 were:

• Google (verb): to search the Web using the search engine Google for information on a person or thing
• Blog: from weblog, a website of personal events, comments, and links
• Among the most creative: Iraqnophobia - strong fear of Iraq; and Saddameter - meter on television showing daily likelihood of war with Iraq.
• Among the candidates for Words of the Year — 2003 there were weapons of mass deception: the hunt for weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war; and weapons of mass distraction.
• Among the most euphemistic: pre-emptive self-defense: noun phrase, an attack made before a possible attack.

Weapon of Mass Distraction: Something that distracts large numbers of people from thinking about important issues. It is a pun-perfect play on weapon of mass destruction.

Examples of citation:

• A New York Times article published on May 30, 2004, was titled: “Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction?”
• “For a few hours at least today, the heat will be off George W. Bush as America switches focus from Baghdad to San Diego. Maybe the Super Bowl will be the weapon of mass distraction that Bush has been praying for.” (from James Corrigan, "Cinderella really goes to the bowl," Independent on Sunday (London), January 26, 2003)

Language note

A pun is a play on:

• Words which have more than one related meaning (polysemic words). For example, almost all names for parts of the body have metaphorical meanings as well: head can be head of the body, of the table, of department, of a phrase... mouth can be mouth of the body, of a river, of a fountain…
• Words which are etymologically and semantically different (unrelated meanings and often different word class - verb, noun…) but are written and pronounced in the same way (homonyms). For example: see = vedere/sede, fair = bello, onesto/fiera, seal = foca/sigillo, sigillare, book = libro/prenotare, face = viso/affrontare, tender = imbarcazione d’appoggio/tenero…
• Words which have different meanings and are differently written but are pronounced in the same way (homophones). For example: rite = rito/write = scrivere/right = destro, giusto, diritto/wright = artigiano; male = maschio/mail = posta; Wales = Galles/wails = gemiti/whales = balene; seen = visto/scene = scena; they’re/their/there; to/too/two…
• Words which are written in the same way but have different pronunciation and meaning (homographs). For example: lead (li:d) = guidare/lead (lɛd) = piombo; wound (wu:nd) = ferita/wound (wa nd) = past of to wind = snodarsi, cingere…

Puns are usually used for humour or memorability. We often find them in recent ads (in British ads more than those in the US) on headlines of popular press front pages or on broadsheets’ sports pages. Advertisers want you to look twice, and so do many authors, to make you appreciate the multiple shades of language.

Pre-reading exercise 1: Key vocabulary

Fill the gaps using the words from the box:

• Crusade
• Emancipation
• Oppression
• Autocratic
• Martyr
• Hell-hole
• Ambiguity
• Propaganda

1. A martyr is someone who dies for their political or religious beliefs.

2. Propaganda is information, especially false information, that governments and the media spread in order to influence people’s opinions.

3. A crusade is a kind of holy war.

4. A place that is extremely dirty, dangerous or unpleasant can be described as a hell-hole.

5. Ambiguity is something that is not clear because it has more than one possible meaning.

6. The process of giving rights and freedom to someone is called emancipation.

7. Unfair and cruel treatment by a powerful person or government is known as oppression.

8. An autocratic government rules with complete power.

Exercise 2: Connotation

Decide which of these words have a positive association and which have a negative association and put them into the corresponding box:

• terrorist
• uncivilised
• freedom-fighter
• liberation
• occupation
• oppressor
• militant
• martyr
• self-determination
• hero
• rogue states
• dark forces

Positive

• Freedom-fighter
• Liberation
• Self-determination
• Hero

Negative

• Terrorist
• Uncivilised
• Occupation
• Oppressor
• Militant
• Rogue states
• Dark forces

Language note

Denotation and connotation

Denotation is what a word means (if you look it up in the dictionary), that is its literal meaning. Connotation describes all the other possible meanings associated with a word. The connotations of certain words will differ depending on the context.