Syntactic Complexity in Danish Radio News

Abstract

The present article documents a diachronic decline in syntactic complexity in manuscript- based radio news on the primary Danish public service channel, DR, from 1946 to 2006. This decline corresponds to a general shift in radio news language from a traditional formal news style to a modern news style based on the principles of natural spoken language. It is, however, hard to assess whether the syntactic changes have had an effect on how easy or difficult it is to understand what is being said on DR – a topic that has been frequently and fervently debated in the Danish press.