Language and Ideology in the Media - Germany's Janus-Faced Weekly DER SPIEGEL

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, University of Duisburg-Essen (Anglistisches Institut), course: Socio-Cultural Perspectives and the Study of Language Use (Applied Linguistics), language: English, abstract: Every piece of written or oral statement conveys some sort of ideology, whether it expresses its 'idea(s)' bluntly or - as is to be expected from, say, a high-quality read - by employing effective literary devices that are designed to convince its readership. A slovenly written book or text, on the other hand, can even carry ideological messages unknowingly and thereby lose all its credibility and in some cases even expose itself to ridicule. A thoughtless statement, remark or non-verbal expression (gestures / facial expressions) can challenge other people to intervene and, depending on the rhetorics of the speaker, debunk the utterance or the kind of expression / behaviour of the former. [...]