Заголовок в английской прессе и его функции языка

Headline in British press and its language features

Contents

 

         Introduction

1. Headline in British press

1.1 Functions of English newspapers headlines

1.2 Types of headlines

1.3 Language features of English newspapers

2.   Examples of language features in newspapers

2.1 Grammatical features

2.2 Lexical features

  Conclusion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Nowadays communicating with the outside world is becoming more and more vital. As a result, information plays an increasingly important role in our daily life. As we all know, 21st century is an information era. With the information you will be superior to others, or you will lose the chance to win. What carries information? How can we get the information? The questions are easy to answer. It is the news that carries the information and we obtain the information by reading the newspaper.

What is “news”? The answer may seem obvious. News is what is new; what is happening. Look it up in the dictionary, and you will find news is described as “a report of recent events or previously unknown information.” And what is “newspaper”? A newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising. A piece of news in a newspaper usually has three parts: the headline, the lead and the body. The headline which is first read by readers seems greatly important to the news, because it may affect readers’  decision whether to read the news or not. Thus the news writers must convey as much information as possible in the headline, which will present with unswerving accuracy and highlight the important points of the news.

The object t of the research are the headlines of media texts of the quality British newspapers, as a subject of study examines the strategies interpreting the meaning of a newspaper headline used in the process of multi-level text processing.

The aim of the research is to examine the lexical and grammatical features of headlines in the English language. To achieve the stated aims of the study consecutively to solve the following tasks:

• to consider lexical and grammatical features of newspaper headlines in British press;
• to define the functions and types of  headlines in British press.

Investigations of this issue are involved by V.Z. Demyankov, V.I. Karasik, M.L. Makarov, Yuri Prokhorov, and many others.

Relevance of the research is due to conversion to the latest research paradigms make sense at the crossroads of linguistics, mass communication theory, linguistics, psycholinguistics, and ethnology. The topicality of the work is determined by the fact that it provides access to a higher level of interpretation and understanding of the meaning of a newspaper headline to view linguocultural and cognitive factors. Within the cognitive approach the meaning of a newspaper headline is important to investigate in connection with the peculiarities of the text encoding of information contained in the headline.

As for the structure of the work, it falls into two chapters.

The first chapter deals with the theory concerning newspaper headlines. It is divided into three parts: 1) functions of English newspapers headlines; 2) types of headlines; 3) language features of English newspapers.

The second chapter deals with detailed examples of the language features of headlines and falls into two parts: 1) grammatical features; 2) lexical features.

This paper aims to help English learners know English news well and read news efficiently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Headline in British press

The general definition of Headline is the name of literature, scientific or musical produce. Many dictionaries define Headline as a short summary of the most important items of news read at the beginning of a news programme on the radio or television. Headline is one of the basic newspaper features. The headline is the title given to a news item or newspaper article.

To make headlines (grab; hit) means to be an important item of news in newspapers or on radio or television. To headline (usually passive) means to give a story or article a particular headline:

War breaks out in Europe

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Man walks on Moon

Allen Bell has researched in the area of media language since 1970s, primarily in New Zealand and the UK. He developed an analytical framework in his book The Language of News Media (1991). In the book, Bell studied the main structure of “leads”, and its relationship with the headlines. Through detailed comparison between “leads”  and headlines, he found a high level of structural correspondence between them.

Van Dijk applied his discourse analysis framework to the study of news. In his book, News and Analysis (1988), he analyzed over 400 headlines in the Dutch press reporting the 1985 “Tamil panic”, an occasion of racial tensions between the Dutch and immigrant groups. He analyzed the topics and the thematic structures of the headlines and tried to find out what topics tend to be expressed in headlines. What inferences can be drawn from their structural forms or styles? He pointed out that the ideological implication of headlines was complex.

Generally speaking, a headline is the fundamental part of news. It stands out from the news and summarizes the news in a condensed or artistic way to attract readers’ interest. Because of all of these importances, the foreign scholars have studied its stylistic features and the skills of writing it. However, many of them lack the guidance of any theory. Even if some scholars have known the importance of language function and mentioned it, they didn’t apply it to the discussion of headline comprehensively and systematically.

 

1. Functions of English newspapers headlines

 

English news headlines are different with those of other styles of articles. It is one of the major means for readers to acquire the skill of skimming a piece of news. It is so particular and of such great importance that it attracts a lot of researchers to make investigation into it.

Generally speaking, English news headlines have four functions:

(1) Summarizing the news content

Naturally readers buy newspapers in order to get the information they want, but in one single country, there are at least dozens of different newspapers published daily. Even a piece of newspaper has several pages with each containing many items. Literally no one can read all the stories processed every day. Therefore many readers have formed the habit of skimming headlines, which makes possible rapid news comprehension. Thus the first and most important purpose of headlines is to inform readers quickly, which means that a well-written head immediately tells them the gist of the subsequent story.

Just glance at the headlines and the reader will know what the story is about. English headlines adopt accentuation, centering on the most important points of the news.

If headlines do summarize the news content, careful skimmers will get the general drift of events and slow up for an article that they consider worth perusal. In this sense we say that headlines help merchandize newspapers, which is very important in such a competitive society.

(2)Attracting readers’ attention

Newspaper-reading is in fact a kind of communication—the communication between news writers and readers. And we know that a successful communication is possible only when the communicator has obtained, in one way or another, the attention of the receiver. In newspaper communication the attention-getting function is performed largely by headlines. In fact, this function is closely related to the first function. Just as we have said, a good headline which puts the gist across will draw readers’ attention to the article they want. Even to those they don’t want, the news writers may try means to make them appealing. That is why the typeface of headlines is so different from that of the body and its grammar so distinctive, and why headline writers employ so many rhetorical devices.

(3)Commenting on the news

This function is most striking in the commentary and column headlines. Newspapers, as a propaganda tool, are sure to express their standpoints in headlines in order to persuade readers.

Besides, with different type sizes, headlines also grade the news; namely, they tell readers those of larger typeface are important and those of smaller typeface are less important or unimportant.

(4)Dressing up the page

A final purpose of headlines is to stimulate the reader’s artistic sense. A dull head makes a dull page. But when heads are well written and well placed in forms that have been thoughtfully designed, the pages are clean and good-looking enough to make readers interested in the stories.

Obviously not all headlines can achieve all the four functions, but they always work towards these functions.

 

2. Types of headlines

 

1.1 Categories according to their forms.

1.1.1 flush left headline

In a flush left headline, every word takes up one line and begins at the very left. That is the common form of modern English newspapers. The following example can show you what is a flush left headline.

e.g. IMF

WILL

HAVE

SAY

1.1.2 Banner headline

Every headline word in it is large and bold and the whole headline often covers several columns. It is also called first large headline and often used in front page for its attraction.

e.g. House Passes Bush Plan to Cut Taxes

1.1.3 drop form headline

It looks like a ladder. There are several lines in it and the following line draws back several letters from the above one. Beauty and nice are its merits.

e.g. FBI Agrees to Cease

Its Illegal Surveillance

                            Of the Research Institute

1.1.4Inverted Pyramid headline

It is also popular for nice looking. It forms a Pyramid-looking headline.

e.g. Factory Walkout

            Threat Over

                Sacking

1.1.5 Double headline

This kind of headline is used mostly for the report of big events. It has two lines: one is main headline and the other auxiliary headline.

  (1) e.g.1 Expect to Go to U.S.

Castro to Free Thousands of Prisoners

    (2) e.g.2 It Isn't the Cow That Are Mad

                            It's the People That Are going Mad

1.1.6 Jump head headline

The headline is divided into two parts: original head and jump head. A original part is in one page, but after the body jumps pages, the original head will be changed into a jump head which uses different words from original one to express the same meaning.

e.g. Pentagen Plans

System to Flight

Russia Satellites

(original)

U. S. Plans Weapon

      Against Satellites

        (jump head)

1.2 Categories according to their meanings

1.2.1 Strait headline

This kind of headline tells us strait about the subjects of news. This is the most common one and is easy to understand.

(1) e.g.1 Railroad Workers Strike in Argentina.

(2) e.g.2 Man Jailed for Murder

(3) e.g.3 Oil Tanker Fire

1.2.2 Questioning headline

Question marks often be seen in this kind of headlines but most of them do not have meanings of questioning. They often give a clue of possibility or writer's doubt about the reality of some facts.

(1) e.g. Oil Price to Rise?

(2) e.g. New Cabinet Today?

(3) e.g. Jones Planned to Kill Bush?

(4) e.g. Police Allowed Jail Break?

1.2.3 Feature headline

It is often to use feature headline when a piece of news is unusual or readers will be quite interested in it. Such headlines are not easy to understand, sometimes the whole news should be read.

(1) e.g. Down in the Mouth, News for Dentists.

This report is about a kind of vaccine, which is studied out and will be used for preventing teeth decay.

(2) e.g., The Man Who Reign over UK's Queen

Reign means rule over and it is only used for a queen or a king. So the connection of 'man' and 'reign' may get readers confused, then they may be eager to find why. Not until the whole news are read. They find the man is just a captain of a ship named Queen Mary.

1.2.4. Oration headline

This kind of headline can be divided into:

(Ⅰ ) Use of sayings as headlines

e.g. 'We Owe Our Lives to Our Pilot'

(Ⅱ ) Quote words from interviewers or reporters or other people heard by writers.

(1) e.g. 'We Have to Save Our People'

(2) e.g. 'We won't Quit'

(Ⅲ ) Choose one sentence, some words or one word from the whole news as a headline.

(1) e.g. I Have A Dream

(2) e.g. Mugwump Britain

      'Mugwump Britain' criticize Britain is a double-dealer. She at one hand keeps a special relationship with US but at the other hand she claims to be aside with west Europe.

(Ⅳ ) Some words in a headline with quotation marks are usually not their original meanings.

e.g. Norse Invasion

The headline does not indicate the invasion by north Europe in ancient. It really tells that Norway men go shopping and touring in a large group as invasion. So this so called invasion is not its original meaning.

 

3. Language features of English newspapers

 

   In a generally accepted sense, the language features of English news headlines are so different from other kinds of titles that they are often discussed separately. Why do these differences exist? This is because news is about the latest things happening home and abroad. Usually, it is short and full of information. And the news headlines are the summaries of the news. Often these headlines are condensed-written. In this way, readers will get what he wants at a glance. Therefore, we can tell that journalists attach much importance to news headlines. The language features of English news headlines will be researched in order to make it easier for readers to have a better understanding of news. Generally speaking, the language features will be described in four aspects: the lexical features, the rhetorical features, the grammatical features and the features of the usage of punctuation.

 

4.1 Lexical features

   Headlines must be of clarity and impact. What is clarity? It means that the wording conveys to readers what the copy editor intends to without confusion or ambiguity. And what is impact? It means that the effect of the words is strong enough to persuade readers to continue reading. The lexical features of headlines reflect these two functions. In order to use the minimum room to convey the maximum information, midget words, clipped words and initialisms are often adopted. And to attract readers, vogue words are often used. Here, these special words will be introduced in detail.  

4.1.1 Use of midget words

Midget words are extremely small words, that is to say, they are the words that are of less letters than the ones that have the similar meaning. Journalists like to use midget words to write headlines in limited room. The characters of these midget words are that they have few letters but a wide range of meanings. Here are some midget words that are frequently used in headlines.

Aid=assistance, crash=collision, probe=investigation, cut=decline, poll=election poll, ties= (diplomatic) relations, glut=oversupply.

4.1.2 Use of clipped words and initialisms

Clipped words are those words that omit a part of letters in the word. TV is a clipped word, because it removes letters of E-L-E-I-S-I-O-N. There are more examples which are often used in headlines. They are listed as follows. 

Ad=advertisement, van=caravan, Calif. =California, St. =street, Capt. =captain, Gov’t=government 

Initialisms are those consisting of the first letters of a phrase. In some aspect, they are newly-created words. We take WTO as an example. In the word of WTO, W stands for world, T stands for trade, and O stands for organization.

An example is given to show the use of initialism in English news headlines: Italy’s quake town marks anniversary with candles and whistles at PM. Here PM is the initialism of Prime Minister. 

4.1.3 Use of vogue words

Vogue words are those faddish, trendy, ubiquitous words that have something new about them. Journalists like using these words in the headline-writing because these words will reflect that the news keep in line with the events happening in the society. It also shows that news is related to human’s social lives. All of the brand-new things, fresh ideas and up-to-date phenomena first appear in the media, and then they will be spread to the folks. All these new things are expressed by those called vogue words. There are two ways to produce vogue words. The first way is initiated by the writers, and the second way is borrowed from foreign countries. There are two types of vogue words. The first kind is that former words have new meaning with the development of society. The word mouse can be viewed as an example. It used to refer to a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents, and now it can also mean a pointing device in computing that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface [12]. There are also many other examples, such as web, net, line. The second kind is that the word is totally new, which often occurs in the field of science and technology, for example, e-tail, bio-chip, and cyber-chat, which were not used before.    

4.2 Rhetorical features

Using rhetoric can make the news more interesting and more vivid. Readers will be deeply attracted and they will feel that they were in the spot of the events. Therefore, news without rhetorical skills seldom appears in the newspaper [13]8.

4.2.1 Use of metaphor

Metaphor is a kind of frequently used rhetorical device. It is an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of one word in place of another [12].

Different to simile, metaphor is a kind of substitute. In the headline of Fossil from cave is a ‘missing link’, fossil is compared to a ‘missing link’. The connection between them is that fossil is becoming less and less and it is not so easy for human beings to find out, so it is like something that is missing. On the other hand, fossil links the past and the present. The writer uses the metaphor to portray the fossil as a missing link in an image-bearing way.

4.2.2 Use of rhyme

      Rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is more often used in poetry and songs [12]. Using rhyme in news headlines can make it pleasant to hear. Rhyme also serves as a powerful mnemonic device, facilitating memorization, the regular use of tail rhyme helps to mark off the ends of lines, thus clarifying the metrical structure for the listener. There are two examples. In the headline of How Haiti Helped the U.S., How, Haiti and Helped make up the alliteration, which is of more readability. And another example is the headline of The Context of Content, the letter CON showing it clearly that this headline uses rhyme.

 

4.2.3 Use of antithesis

      Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition [12]. Antithesis is used to make the headlines emphasize much on the importance of the articles. There is a headline from Times Judge with no jury convicts Heathrow robbery gang. In is very interesting to see the contrastive meaning of the two parts in the sentence. In common sense, no jury means one can not be judged guilty. However, Heathrow were convicted robbery gang. It is the use of antithesis.

4.2.4 Use of pun

      Pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play that deliberately exploits an ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect [12]. In the headline of Drill baby, drill: Obama opens up America’s coasts to oil companies, the first drill is a noun, meaning tool or machine with a detachable pointed end for making holes, while the latter drill is a verb, meaning make a hole in some substance. The writer uses the different meanings of the word drill to show the humorous effect that is, America is a baby in drill, but Obama still opens up its coasts to oil companies to drill.