Channel

Stef Slembrouck

Table of contents

The first question we have to address is about the relationship between the notion channels of communication and the theoretical-linguistic concept of medium. Before answering this question, let me first draw attention to the different loads which these terms carry in social-scientific practice. The term channel mainly brings to the forefront the technological, physical and material aspects of language use. In that respect, its meaning overlaps with one use of the term medium, as the usage of the latter seems mostly to hover between a number of possible meanings, ranging from the channels of communication over the institutions in which these channels are established to the discourse practices characteristic of the institutionalized media. Indeed, the term media studies covers the three meanings, although its referential scope appears to be largely restricted to the so-called mass media (radio, television and printed periodicals). There is also another tradition in the use of the term medium, one which one mostly comes across in linguistic research. In this tradition, medium refers almost exclusively to one aspect of situational variation in language use, crucially seen along the axes of a basic polarity between spoken and written language. It is the latter theoretical outlook which I will essentially take issue with here.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price.

References

Barton, D.
1994Literacy. Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Coulmas, F.
1981Uber Schrift. Suhrkamp.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Durant, A.
1984The concept of secondary orality. Dalhousie Review 64/2: 332–353.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N.
1995Media discourse. Edward Arnold.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Goody, J.
1977The domestication of the savage mind. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gregory, M. & D. Caroll
1978Language and situation. Routledge.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K.
1978Language as social semiotic. Edward Arnold.  BoPGoogle Scholar
1989Spoken and written language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, S.B.
1982Protean shapes in literacy events. In D. Tannen (ed.) Spoken and written language: 91–117. Ablex.Google Scholar
Leutkemeyer, J., C. Van Antwerp & G. Kindell
1984An annotated bibliography of spoken and written language. In D. Tannen (ed.) Coherence in spoken and written discourse: 265–281. Ablex.Google Scholar
Murray, D.
1995Knowledge machines. Longman.Google Scholar
Slembrouck, S.
1992The parliamentary Hansard ‘verbatim’ report. Language and Literature 1/2: 101–119.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tannen, D.
(ed.) 1982Analyzing discourse. Georgetown University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
1984Coherence in spoken and written discourse. Ablex.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T.
1993Genre and field in critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society 4/2: 193–223. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar