The English of Broadcast News: When English is Not the First Language of the Audience

This paper will look at some of the issues surrounding the English of broadcastnews from the point of view of both user and producer. It will refer toseveral frameworks derived from the teaching of English to speakers of otherlanguages to argue that a greater knowledge of the needs of the non-nativespeaker could be beneficial to broadcasters. It will consider various initiativesthat have been taken both to teach English through the language of the newsand to help learners maintain their existing level of English, and – by way ofexemplification – will also look briefly at the role of radio broadcasting inAfrica. Finally, it will look forward to the effect on news English of new technologyplatforms including online and mobile, and the predicted increase ininteractivity through blogs and vlogs, and will suggest two courses of actionfor future research on broadcast English