Colloquiality in the style of contemporary Czech journalistic writing

Abstract

Contemporary Czech journalistic writing increasingly makes use of language means which are primarily associated with spoken, spontaneous and private communication. This trend, which is called conversalization, colloquialization, informalization, etc., is briefly characterized in the first part of the article. The authors of journalistic texts make use of colloquial (informal) language means (colloquialisms), mainly in order to lessen the distance between the actors of communication as well as to better approximate the supposed speech habits of the recipients. At the same time, such texts raise the sense of immediacy, ease, naturalness and emotional engagement. They also attract attention to their own linguistic construction. The recurrent use of colloquialisms naturally leads to a loss of their impact. Their difference to synonymous terms hitherto regarded as standard and unmarked thus diminishes. The promotion of colloquialisms may reach the point whereby these terms become neutralized and push previously neutral terms to the point of becoming peripheral (bookish or antiquated). The main part of the article describes the occurrence of two types of colloquial lexical items in contemporary Czech journalistic texts. The areas of focus are as follows: (a) Univerbized words (such as kulturák ʻcultural centreʼ; lahváč ʻbottle of beerʼ) and abbreviated words (such as kilák ʻkilometreʾ), which are shorter than the standard expressions and often more of expressive and emphatic; (b) loanwords of German origin (for example mord ʻmurderʾ).