Need seen for legal body to oversee language development

The Akkademja tal-Malti should be given legal recognition, perhaps becoming a government authority with full-time employees in order to do the vast amount of work needed to promote and preserve the Maltese language, akkademja president Charles Briffa said in an interview.

"There are so many sectors where the language needs to be introduced, such as on labels for food and other products. Labels of consumer products made in Malta contain details in several languages - except Maltese.

"Another case in point is the need for a body to oversee the development of the language in view of the planned official recognition of Maltese by the EU.

"The other day, for example, the President of Malta unveiled a plaque featuring the legend in Maltese with one of the words misspelt," Dr Briffa said.

Dr Briffa was contacted for his reaction to legal notice 134 of 2002 amending the Broadcasting Act. The notice, which will become effective on October 1, includes a code on the correct use of the Maltese language in the broadcasting media.

Among other things, the code calls on broadcasters to use the language correctly and on stations to have their own consultant "who is qualified in the Maltese language and who is well-informed in broadcasting".

At least one programme in each schedule of programmes should "advance in a proactive manner the Maltese language", the code stipulates.

The BA will be commissioning the akkademja to prepare a guide for broadcasters.

Dr Briffa said the akkademja had over the past three years voiced its concern - particularly to the government - about the need to improve the level of Maltese in the broadcasting media.

"The broadcasting media are, perhaps, the greatest influence on the public on how Maltese is spoken and written. The akkademja had joined forces with The Malta Press Club in a bid to improve matters," Dr Briffa said.

The akkademja had nominated three consultants to monitor the news bulletins on state broadcaster Public Broadcasting Services, as well as on Super 1 and Net TV.

The consultants were Dr Briffa, Carmel Azzopardi, and Alfred Degabriele. The BA also pays for the consultants that the stations make use of.

However, Dr Briffa said that the two options, of being physically present at the respective stations or for the station to call its consultant in case of difficulty, did not work out in practice.

Seeking another solution, the BA started organising courses for broadcasters, with expenses paid.

The only problem with these courses was that the people who most needed to attend were far too busy to do so, said Dr Briffa.

"One of the most irritating mistakes is the way in which presenters associate numbers, saying mitt suldati instead of mitt suldat or sitt elef liri instead of sitt elef lira," Dr Briffa said.

Asked if the Maltese language was not too limited for broadcasters and journalists to use correctly, Dr Briffa said the computer spell-checking software that would shortly be on the market included two million words and would be further developed to include eight million.

Paul Azzopardi, manager news and current affairs at PBS, was sceptical about how the use of Maltese could be improved by means of the code.

"This is not the first time an attempt has been made by the BA to improve the level of the language used on radio and television.

"The BA and language consultants have to bear in mind several factors, chief among these being the time constraints journalists work under. Another factor is that broadcast journalism is completely different from print journalism.

"One has to bear in mind that it is not a question of merely changing a word in a news item. Using words other than those reported could change the sense, particularly in the case of news items reporting political activities," Mr Azzopardi said.

Mr Azzopardi hoped that the BA would not be a "prude" when it came to interpreting the code as it was doing in interpreting the rules on advertising.

In France, he said, the language academy had a long tradition, apart from its strong legal standing, and the French were extremely proud of their language.

"Are the Maltese as proud of their language? One comes across cases of presenters who speak excellent Maltese during a coffee break but then resort to all sorts of words and expressions when facing a microphone. Listeners would need an Enigma machine to decipher the message!" he said.

"The BA did not ask for our feedback before this legal notice was published. That says a lot about how things are done in this sector," he added.

Pierre Portelli, head of news at Media.Link, said that such a code was important to make journalists aware of the need to make better use of the language.

The code, however, was difficult to put into practice because it did not reflect the situation in a newsroom.

"In our case, reporters compile news for a daily newspaper, a radio station and a television station and each reporter acts as the gatekeeper.

"Most newsrooms have just enough reporters to cope with the daily load of briefings and, therefore, cannot afford to have anyone go over the finer points of the language.

"The newsroom's main aim is to strike a balance between colloquial and grammatically correct Maltese. The newsroom is inundated with press releases which are often written in poor Maltese which is then repeated in news bulletins," Mr Portelli said.

It all depends, however, on whether the BA will stick strictly to the code with "a sword in its hand, or whether it will give stations the chance to adopt the code".

Media.Link, he said, had done its own update on the correct use of Maltese and would carry out another exercise to bring the newsroom in line with what the code entails. The BA had passed on a draft of the code to Media.Link asking for their opinion.

"The good thing is that with the code, the BA is apparently moving away from merely clock-watching stations," he said.

Robert Francalanza, assistant head of news at Super 1, said that in order to be faithful, reporters often resorted to reproducing verbatim parts of public speeches made by leading political figures.

The code, he said, was definitely a positive thing but the BA should first practise what it was preaching.

The BA, he said, often issued circulars and news releases in Maltese containing mistakes.

"About a month ago, Super 1 broadcast a feature on such circulars and releases and the mistakes in them but we have had no feedback from the BA on that feature. The BA should first see to its main obligations before it moves on to other spheres," Mr Francalanza said.