Interview with Melita Osojnik

This is my interview with Melita Osojnik as a second project of our course. Hope you will enjoy it!

http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/109953/Interview%20Kaja

Mass Media in the Basque language

Among different types of mass media available in Basque language print has the largest amount audience. The newspapers with social initiation reach the highest amount of readers, but there are also specialist magazines in Euskara, which cover very different areas: from academic to entertainment - to approach to different specters of readers. In the case of television, programs in Basque, in comparison with those in Spanish, have larger audience while broadcasting genres with social characters, miscellaneous, cultural contents and sports - where audience can identify with the language. It is similar with radio. The media in Basque, in comparison with Spanish, in the Basque country, is never higher than 20%, but the number and the offer has been growing lately. So broadcasts in Spanish are still clearly favored and more numerous.
If we compare the case of Basque language with Catalane, which were both damaged during the Civil War – Basque was even banned, and in Catalan - a lot of books were burned and destroyed by the troops to prevent its usage. Nowadays their situation comparing to Spanish is quite similar – considering the percentages of released magazines, websites in those language and also the existence of the radios – locals and the ones broadcasting to the certain language-speaking area. Although, the number of media consumers in Catalane is much higher, we have to take into account that there is at least ten times more people literate in Catalan than in Basque. But the media in both languages is spreading its brunches – in press, TV, radio and also internet.

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GLOBALIZATION OF LANGUAGE

During our second week of the course, we were focusing on the globalization and influences of English language as a consequence of mass media. Our main reference for discussion on the subject was Stig Hjavard's (2004) article titled: The Globalization of Language. How the Media Contribute to the Spread of Emergence of Medialects (also available here: http://www.nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/157_075-089.pdf). The author's emphasis was on three main hypothesis.

The first is saying that »Media are both vehicles of Anglo-Saxon culture and contribute to the anglicization of global culture.« So there is more and more people that know, speak and hear English language because of it's appearance in high percentage of media, for example on television, commercials and especially in the internet. But it is not only influencing the foreign languages, but there is also a contribution to the spread of different English speaking cultures, habits and way of living, that comes along with all the media. There is a paramouncy of English over other principal languages, which have degraded in relation to English in last few decades.

The second hypothesis claims that »Human communication becomes mediatizated and that media-bound varieties of language will arise«. Author named those varieties so called »medialects«, which arise from specific media. For example, there are new medialects developing with the use of internet's chatrooms, e-mails and social networks, which have become an indispensable part of every day life. So in that case the »medialects« don't really have a geographical province, it is more about the type of media people use. One example for this are »emoticons«, which weren't used before the discovery of mobile phones and on-line chatrooms.

The last hypothesis is focusing on the » Linguistic effects of the media that play a part in processes of social and cultural distinction in Danish society and that it is not adequate to view these influences in national terms, as a question of Danish vs other languages«. The author is giving us the example of Danish language, but in general he was trying to emphasize, that there is more and more usage of English language not only because of the media among the domestic population, but has been also used as the company language or in politics to gain recognition internationally. Another example, which support's the hypothesis would be the number of words, that has developed in last 50 years - in Danish culture, there is a high percentage (38%), which have an English connection. Certainly, it is similar in other countries, too. Although, there is a lot of new words, that came with the internet, and we don't translate them, but use them in English, therefore more than half of worlds websites are in English.

WELCOME TO MYBILBAOLUM!

Now that i've explained the name or title of the blog, I would like to welcome everyone, that has stumbled upon it. This is a blog, that I'm going to use for my course at the University of the Basque Country called Language Usages of Media - one of my subject that I'm taking in Bilbao, Spain during my Erasmus exchange in 2011/2012.
Everything that we'll be doing in this semester, all of our projects are going to be posted here. I hope you like it, and I'm loking foward to reading your comments and posts!

"Hi-post"

MY - because I fell in love with culture, buildings, streets, people, arts & language - and it already feels like home -

BILBAO - blog location -

LUM - Language Usages of Media, the main reason why i created it -

-- so, HELLO everyone! --