Abstract
Media Arabic - this relatively vague term is frequently used for a specific register of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as it appears in the Arab media and in the news media in particular. Despite the undeniable importance of the Arab media for the development of MSA and its spreading in a highly complex sociolinguistic situation of the Arab world, a comprehensive linguistic description of Media Arabic is still missing.
In this paper we address some more general questions concerning Media Arabic. We attempt to contribute to a more sophisticated definition and a more precise delimitation of so-called Media Arabic within the sphere of communication in MSA.
We intend to inquire into MSA from a viewpoint of functional stylistics. Such an approach enables us to divide the sphere of communication in MSA on the basis of the prevailing function(s) or the goal(s) of language communication.
We propose a preliminary classification of functional styles for MSA among which the journalistic (or publicist) style must, without any doubt, occupy a prominent position. Subsequently, we outline current research which has been done so far on Media Arabic presenting its most striking stylistic properties.
We focus mainly on its written form, as it is attested in printed media as well as in on-line media sources.