This article uses Zbikowski’s theory of ‘musical grammar’ to analyse Radiohead’s song ‘Paranoid Android’ from their 1997 album OK Computer. Invoking the close structural and compositional parallels between language and music, Zbikowski’s approach appropriates some of the core elements of cognitive linguistics to provide a means of ‘translating’ music into meaning-bearing conceptual structures via the construction of ‘sonic analogues’, which are a type of conceptual construct formed when incoming perceptual information is compared to existing cognitive knowledge stored as image schemas. The result is an analysis of the interactions between the linguistic and aural constructions of a multimodal text that not only sheds new light on the text’s meaning-making devices, but also endeavours to unlock the strategies through which such distinctive semiotic modes act and interact within texts to create meaning potential.
As the influence of the media continues to growlargely powered by everchanging and increasingly rapid technological changescontinued investigation into how it uses language to create meaning is crucial. In addition, media institutions play a significant role in society as they simultaneously construct and maintain societal norms and values. Media English is a broad term referring to the ways in which language is used to construct reality on media platforms, ranging from the front cover of a print newspaper to magazine advertisements, radio programmes, text messages and tweets. This chapter summarises the key linguistic approaches to and debates within the study of Media English. It explains key contemporary media terminology; considers the dominance of English in Media English; and details research into media power and representation(s) in terms of social class, race, ethnicity, gender and so on. Both 'traditional' and 'new' media texts are considered while changes wrought by digitisation in general are discussed, particularly in terms of the rise of social media. The chapter concludes with a look at future directions in the study of Media English, highlighting new and developing research on the changing communicative choices and shifting contexts of media output.
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