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Semantic
excess or new canons? Exploring the print media
Asima Ranjan Parhi
Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar
Arunachal Pradesh, India. E-mail:
asim.parhi@gmail.com
Accepted 19 November, 2009 |
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The English print media in India has taken up the growing
challenge of subscribing to a postcolonial, deviant use of
language and preparing a linguistic model of Indian English.
This paper tries to establish the above fact with data from
certain national dailies during the late 1990’s when
actually the print media went through a well perceived
change in the use of language. The Times of India
being the major source of the data provided seemed to be
very bold in this regard. Tuned to the demands of a
globalised India then, the change affected the earlier
‘core-meaning’ concept and put extra pressure on the
semantic fold which led to greater elasticity and
flexibility. In turn, the print media got a face lift by
making its language more idiomatic, catchy like a fashion
statement; in other words striking a saleable status for the
new entries. My paper below states that the borders of
semantic possibility have been stretched into an extreme
across the newspapers which could further be explored for
experimentation and use in the teaching/learning curriculum.
Key words:
Canon, catchy, saleable, saffronisation, corporatisation of
language, semantic, globalization, ambiguous, postcolonial,
trendy. |
