Language games in the Polish television news services as a manifestation of phaticality and efficacy of contemporary media communication

Abstract

The aim of the article is to verify the assumptions concerning the phaticality and efficacy of contemporary media communication. The realization of this goal resulted from the assumption that the most spectacular manifestation of the changes taking place in the press, radio and television is the occurrence of language play in the messages treated as examples of information genres. According to this assumption, the television news programme „Fakty” TVN from June 25, 2017, was analyzed. As a result of this analysis, nearly 40 examples of language play have been identified in this service, the starting point of which is to emphasize the language (system or usage) rules used to construct a statement (or reception of this statement as a manifestation of paying attention to these rules) to intensify the reception processes and attribution of the phatic function to the statement. As calculated, language games were included in 67 % of all the parts of the analyzed program and 73 % of the so-called presenter’s entry. Formal transparency was preserved only in the statements bearing the so-called bad news. By comparing the results of the study on the incidence of language play in the 2007 and 2013 information services with the quantitative analysis for the purposes of this article, one can argue that the tendency of using language play to construct speech in television news services is permanent. Non-incidental, but repetitive use of language play in the news in which it (as traditionally expected) should not occur is considered to be a manifestation of the respect for the „participation pact” by the institutional broadcaster, a way of establishing or maintaining the contact, as well as creating sender-recipient communication roles.