Abstract

      The English print media in India has taken up the growing challenge of subscribing to a postcolonial, deviant use of language and preparing a linguistic model of Indian English. This paper tries to establish the above fact with data from certain national dailies during the late 1990’s when actually the print media went through a well perceived change in the use of language. The Times of India being the major source of the data provided seemed to be very bold in this regard. Tuned to the demands of a globalised India then, the change affected the earlier ‘core-meaning’ concept and put extra pressure on the semantic fold which led to greater elasticity and flexibility. In turn, the print media got a face lift by making its language more idiomatic, catchy like a fashion statement; in other words striking a saleable status for the new entries. My paper below states that the borders of semantic possibility have been stretched into an extreme across the newspapers which could further be explored for experimentation and use in the teaching/learning curriculum.

Key words: Canon, catchy, saleable, saffronisation, corporatisation of language, semantic, globalization, ambiguous, postcolonial, trendy.