Logovisuality, or the written word in the television discourse

Abstract

On television, more frequent are the secondary forms of written language; spoken language is not spontaneous either: this is the televisual situation, televisual context, televisual writing, therefore — telesituation, telecontext, and telewriting. The author argues that the written language that appears on television constitutes an example of logovisuality. The author is interested in one of the levels of television discourse: the relevant programs of Polish tv channels. The research conducted by the author demonstrates that there are two kinds of logovisuality present on TV: primary and secondary, as well as several subtypes of the latter. The use of the written word as a means of echoing a picture, a sound, or a word is always secondary and bears the traits of intersemiotics. Language that is primarily written is presented on television as a text that is read. The types of logovisuality that are discussed in the article are as follows: 1) the texts displayed during the announcement of the presenter, and the written information about the station and the programme, 2) written information concerning the contents of the programme that is being broadcast, 3) explanations, 4) short statements informing about something which is currently not being talked about in the programme, 5) screen banners with summaries of what has just been said, 6) screen banners presenting fragments of on‑going conversations, 7) quotations of texts read by the presenter, 8) visible on the screen translations from the language A into the language B, 9) text messages, e‑mails, posts written by the viewers that are visible on the screen.