Compared to English literary works, often highly-rated and praised, journalistic works tend to be susceptible to serious criticism and disapproval. In her book The Word Weavers: Newshounds and Wordsmiths, Jean Aitchison, one of the eminent scholars in the field of language and the media, explores the validity of the long-standing belief of the inferiority of journalism to conventional English literature by looking at the history of journalism and observing the finely-tuned but not easily recognized grammar of journalistic works.In Chapter 1, Aitchison problematizes the favoritism towards literary works. She highlights the fact that not only literary writers but also journalists consciously and skillfully "weave" their words into planned patterns. She also points out that the abilities of weaving language are based on unique human linguistic competences: unlike other animals such as birds, dolphins, and chimps, humans can produce language in creative ways, cover an unlimited range of topics, choose how to respond, and monitor their use of language.In Chapters 2 through 5, Aitchison demonstrates how modern journalism emerged from centuries-old oral traditions of telling stories and investigates the relationships among Greek oral epics, sage saws, folk-ballads, broadside ballads, chapbooks, newsbooks, and newspapers. In doing so, she proposes that the negative attitude attached to modern journalism might be a continuation of the earlier disapprovals of the precursors of modern journalism. Chapter 2 looks at the incorporation of the conventions of Greek oral epics, such as "recurring epithets," "repetition of verses with minor alterations," and "simple syntax" (p. 29) into British sage saws and folk-ballads. Additionally, this chapter touches on the unfair treatment of the British oral tradition by intellectuals who wrongly believe in the superiority of standard literature over oral genres. Chapter 3 deconstructs the mythical espousal of written literature over oral performances by examining the origin of the writing system and the validity of a pure dichotomous view of writing and speaking. She also mentions that speaking and writing are "equal but different" (p. 45), but the distinction between spoken and written styles are not always as clear as normally assumed, providing evidence through the cases of newspaper reportage and emails. Chapter 4 surveys broadside ballads, chapbooks, and newsbooks, which are all the "descendents of the earlier oral tradition" and "predecessors" of modern journalism (p. 213). According to the author, the invention of the printing method in the late 15 th century led traditional minstrelsy to be moved into single page papers and to be sold in the form of broadsides, or broadsheets, for the entertainment of and
