MODUL 3 ENGLISH FOR BROADCAST (Juwarti Hafsah, SS, M.Si)

SUBJECT:

OTHER TIPS IN WRITING BROADCASTING ENGLISH NEWS

DESCRIPTION: This modul explain about how to use active and passive voice, the present and future

                       tenses.

  GOAL : By learning and understanding modul 3, wish the students can:

1.      Knowing how to make the active and passive  sentences correctly.

2.      Knowing how to use the appropriate tenses, such as present and future.

3.      Can make the short news text in English perfectly.

4.      Can do some exercises correctly.

REFERENCES:

1. An Indonesian-English Dictionary, written by John M. Echols and Hasan Shadily (Gramedia)
2. An English-Indonesian Dictionary, written by John M. Echols and Hasal Shadily (Gramedia)
3. Interchange, English for International Communication, written by Jack. C. Richards (Cambridge University)
4. Broadcast Journalism, written by Andrew Boyd (Focal Press)
5. English Pronouncing Dictionary, written by Daniel Jones (J.M. Dent & Sons, LTD, London)

            To write English text of the news, we need to know either the structure of sentences or tenses determination, we also need to know about the some tips in writing the English text.

Some of the tips, including:

1. Writing dates and days of the week
2. How to use last names and put the title first
3. Using phonetic spelling
4. Avoid abbrevations and be careful with acronyms

1. WRITING DATES AND DAYS OF THE WEEK

            To write date and days in English text, indeed has so different way with Indonesian habit. Let’s see the differences between Indonesia and English determination.

Indonesia, to explain day, date, month, year:

                        Jumat, 17 Agustus 1945

Without day:    17 Agustus 1945

English, to explain day, date, month, year:

                        Friday, August 17^th, 1945

Without day:    August 17^th, 1945

           

            In a glance, the way to write day, date, month and year in Indonesia and English looks like, but, in English way, sometimes we must put the “th”, after the date. In English there are 4 symbols kinds put after date, such as:

1. The ‘st’, usually put after date 1, 21, 31
2. The ‘nd’, usually put after date 2, 22
3. The ‘rd’, usually put after date 3
4. The ‘th’, usually put after others, excluded above.

In English way, particularly in America. To write day, date, months, and year on the bill, the people has particular way also. They write on bill likes:

Saturday, 10 January 2007 or if being shorted becomes  Saturday, 10 – 1 – 2007.

2. HOW TO USE LAST NAMES AND PUT THE TITLE FIRST

a. Marital Status

            The title in writing the status in English way are:

1. Mr, for either married man or single one
2. Mrs, for married woman
3. Miss, for single woman (teenager, adults)
4. Ms, for married or single woman. This title more usually used to sign the woman not only for the married one or single one. This title more general than Mrs or Ms. Today, American people using this title to avoid the mistakes in calling a woman if they don’t know about her marital status.

b. Educational Status

            The title in writing the educational status or title of somebody, such as:

1. BSc, for 1^st strata (S1), put after the name of somebody
2. MSc, for 2^nd strata (S2), put after the name of somebody
3. PhD, for 3^rd strata (S3), put after the name of somebody
4. Prof, for honored title, put before the name of somebody

Note: Actually, almost all of educational title of persons in English writing way, are put on after the name. Its same with Indonesian way. Only “Prof”, is put before the name. Prof, is often used to change the marital status.

Example: Bp. Prof. Muhammad Syauqillah (in Indonesia)

                  We don’t need to write Mr. Prof. Muhammad Syauqillah, but only

      Prof. Muhammad Syauqillah (in English)

Note: There’s almost no religious title in English, such as H, Hj or others.   

3. USING PHONETIC SPELLING

            Means how to pronounciate a word or a sentence correctly. There are two kinds of English sound values, vowels and consonant letters. The consonant letters, have their usual English sound values, such as:

            p, b, t, d, k, m, n, l, r, f, v, s, z, h, w

Key-words for the remaining English sounds are:

Vowels and dipthongs:

            i : bean                                    І: pit                             eI: bay                        

            α: barn                                     e: pet                           aІ: buy

             o: born                                    æ: pat                          oI: boy

            u: boon                                    ^: putt                          ∂υ: no                                                              З: burn                                     D: pot                          aυ: now

                                                            υ: put                           I∂: peer

                                                            ∂: another                    e∂: pair

υ∂: poor

Note:

oI also occurs as a variant of o: (as in ‘four’) or of υ∂ (as in ‘poor’)

* indicates a possible r-link before a following vowel.

Consonants

g  game                                   ŋ  long                                     ∫  shiP

t∫  chain                                   θ   thin                                     З  measure

dЗ  Jane                                  ð  then                                     j  yes

Note:

x occurs as a variant for k in Scottish words (as in ‘loch’); subscript, (as in ļ , ņ) indicates a syllabic consonant; a symbol in italic type indicates that the sound is often omitted.

Stress Accent

‘ the following syllable carries primary (tonic) stress;

‘ the following syllable carries secondary stress.

            In learning phonetic, we suppose to know about some kinds that included in phonetical field, such as; pronounciation model, the notation, and the characteristic of the model.

1. Pronounciation model, includes sounds opposition.

            In the area of broadcast, pronounciation model can be meant as the style of pronounciation. On the other hand, pronounciation model is wellknown as ‘Received Pronounciation’ (RP). In the operational system of RP, there are some words to ilustrate RP:

a.    Vowels

Long                : bean, barn, born, boon, burn

Short               : pit, pet, pat, putt, pot, put, another

dipthongs         : bay, buy, boy, no, now, peer, pair, poor

b.    Consonants

Plosives           : pin, bin, tin, din, come, gum

Affricates        : chain, Jane

Fricatives        : fine, wine, think, this, seal, zeal, sheep, measure, how

Nasals             : sum, sun, sung

Lateral             : light

Approximants or semi-vowels : right, wet, yet

2. The Notation

            The notation remains basically phonemic (i.e. one symbol is assigned to each significant sound), but in the major change in this edition of the Dictionary concerns the symbolization of the vowels and dipthongs.

a. The RP vowels and dipthongs are now transcribed as follows:

 bean   barn     born     boon    burn                            

  i :          α:        o:          u:         З:

pit        pet       pat       putt      put       another

І:          e:         æ:        ^:           υ:           ∂:

bay      buy      boy      no        now     peer     pair      poor

eI:        aІ:        oI:        ∂υ:       aυ:       I∂:        e∂:       υ∂:

c.    The RP consonants are transribed, as in previous editions, as follows:

pin      bin       tin        din       come   gum     chain     Jane

p         b          t           d          k            g        t∫         dЗ

fine      vine     think    this       seal      zeal      sheep     measure       how

 f          v          θ          ð          s          z            ∫              З                 h                                             

             

sum     sun      sung    light      right     wet      yet

m         n          ŋ          l           r           w         j

3. Characteristic of the models

            There are 4 kinds of characteristic models, such as:

1. Vowels and dipthongs
2. Consonants
3. Stress accent
4. Weak forms
5. Syllable division                     

Talking about notation connected with talking about pronouns and spelling also. It means that to talk about notation, we need to know how to pronouns and spell the words first to know about notation of the sentences, later. Using pronouns in broadcasting requires a special discipline to get round the problem of muddling the listener who can’t go back over what has been said:

‘Film star Richard Cruise was involved in an ugly scene with fellow actor Tom Gere outside a Hollywood restaurant today. Cruise called Gere a has-been, and Gere responded by casting doubt on Cruise’s parentage. He said he would sue.’

Is Gere suing Cruise or is Cruise suing Gere? The way around this is to swap the pronoun for a name:

               ‘Cruise said he would sue.’

            Some people say spelling is irrelevant in broadcasting, but that is not strictly true. The listener may not know if we wurds are speld gud, but misspelled words can act like banana skins beneath unwary newsreaders and cause them to stumble or trip

            Foreign or unfamiliar names can also be a problem. The solution is to spell them fon-et-ik-lee (phonetically) – as they sound. It is also a good idea to warn newsreaders of a pronounciation trap by marking the top of the page. They can then rehearse the troublesome word.

 The name of people represent an enermous threat, particularly if they’re foreign name that you suddenly see for the first time.

                                                            ANNA FORD. UK NEWSREADER AND PRESENTER

If you get a difficult name to pronounce and you’re fairly uncertain in your own mind about it, there’s one golden rule – look the viewer straight in the eye through the camera lens, and say the first thing that comes into your head.

                                                            ANDREW GARDNER, BRITISH NEWSREADER

             

4. AVOID ABBREVATIONS AND BE CAREFUL WITH ACRONYMS

            Abbrevations in Indonesian language means, singkatan atau kata yang disingkat. And acronyms mean kumpulan huruf yang di rangkai dan memiliki kepanjangan.

Example: Abbrevations

1. yth       : yang terhormat
2. sbg      : sebagai
3. ttd        : tertanda
4. kpd      : kepada
5. dsb      : dan sebagainya

Example: Acronyms

1. HMI                 : Himpunan Mahasiswa Indonesia
2. Alutsista           : Alat Utama Sistem Pertahanan
3. ABRI               : Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia
4. BPK                 : Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan
5. UFO                : Unidentify Flying Object
6. UHF                : Ultra High Frequency

Abbrevations generally make sense to the eye, but not to the ear. All but the most common, such as Mr. And Mrs and USA should be avoided.

            Name organizations should be spelled out unless they are commonly known by their initials, such as the BBC. Never use abbrevations that the newsreader would have to translate, such as C-in-C for Commander in Chief. The newsreader may be thrown for a second or get them wrong.

            Some stations require abbrevation to be hyphenated, for example P-T-A, A-N-C, unless they form recognizeable words (acronyms), when they should be left intact, for example NATO. 

In writing an English news text, please be careful with abbrevations and acronyms. Don’t ever write an abbrevation that cannot be understood by other, especially by the news reader because it can affect the meaning and orientation of the news probably.

Acronyms. They are a lot of kinds of acronyms, either in Indonesia or English. Not all of English Acronyms will be read as match as its language. An English acronyms that adopted to be Indonesia, sometimes will be read as the Indonesian language, and sometimes unchanged. It depends on the acronyms. The Indonesian acronyms, must be read as the Indonesian also. But, if that Indonesian acronyms will taken and established from Indonesia, so the pronounciation of spelling it, cannot be changed, even it is read by foreigner. The thing that will be changed, is the meaning, probably.

           

EXERCISE.

1. Please find some abbrevations and acronyms that you got know of them perfectly!
2. Please write the short news text about someone that contains of date, day, month and year of her/his/their birth date or establishement. And please put the name of someone that has title either the marital status title or the academical/educational title! (1 paragraph is enough)