Newspaper style.

English newspaper writing dates from the 17^th century. The first of any regular English newspapers was the Weekly News which first appeared in May, 1622. The early English newspaper was principally a vehicle of information. Commentary found its way into the newspapers later. But as far back as the middle of the 18^th century the British newspaper was very much like what it is today, carrying foreign and domestic news, advertisements, announcements and articles containing comments.

English newspaper style can be defined as a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means which is perceived by the community as a separate linguistic unity that serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader.

Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

1) special political and economic terms (president, election);

2) non-term political vocabulary (nation, crisis, agreement, member);

3) newspaper cliches (pressing problem, danger of war, pillars of society);

4) abbreviations (NATO, BBC);

5) neologisms.

To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to analyze the following basic newspaper fea­tures:

1) brief news items,

2) advertisements and announcements,

3) the headline,

4) the editorial.

The headline is the title given to a news item or an article. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly what the text that follows is about. Composing headlines is a real art demanding much creativity on the author’s part. They’re usually written in a sensational way in order to arouse the reader’s curiosity. As headline writers try to catch the reader’s eye by using as few words as possible the language headlines use is jocularly called Headlinece. This sublanguage is characterized by a number of peculiarities:

1. concise syntax presented by different kinds of sentences:

- full declarative sentences (“ Allies Now Look to London ”);

- interrogative sentences (“ Do You Love War? ”);

- rhetorical questions (“ The Worth the Better? ”);

- nominative sentences (“Gloomy Sunday”);

- elliptical sentences:

(a) with an auxiliary verb omitted (“ Initial Report Not Expected Until June ”);

(b) with the subject omitted (“ Stole Luxury Cars by Photos ”);

(c) with the subject and part of the predicate omitted (“ Still in Danger ”);

- complex sentences;

2. specific use of grammar:

- simple verb forms used (“ Queen Opens Hospital Today ”)

- sentences with articles omitted (“ Royal Family Quits ”)

- phrases with verbals:

(a) infinitive standing for “going to happen” (“ President to Visit Russia ”)

(b) participial and gerundial constructions expressing present time (“ Speaking Parts ”)

- use of direct speech;

- emotive syntax and vocabulary suggestive of approval or disapproval;

- allusive use of set expressions and sayings;

- their deliberate braking-up (“ Cakes and Bitter Bear ”)

- deformation of special terms (“ Conspirator-in- Chief ”)

- use of stylistic devices producing a strong emotional effect.

The principal function of a brief news items is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving explicit comments. The basic peculiarities of news items lie in their syntactical structure.

- absence of any individuality of expression and lack of emotional coloring;

- matter-of-fact and stereotyped forms of expression;

- peculiar syntactical structure as the reporter is obliged to be brief:

(a) complex sentences with a developed system of clauses;

(b) verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerundial) and verbal noun constructions;

(c) syntactical complexes, especially the nominative with the infin­itive used to avoid mentioning the source of information;

(d) attributive noun groups;

(e) specific word-order;

The principal function of advertisements and announcements is to inform the reader. There are two basic types of advertisements and announcements in the modern English newspaper: classified and non-classified.

In classified advertisements and announcements various kinds of information are arranged according to subject-matter into sections, each bearing an appropriate name. This classified arrangement has resulted in a number of stereotyped patterns regularly employed in newspaper advertising.

Features:

- mostly neutral vocabulary with rare usage of emotionally colored words or phrases used to attract the reader's attention.

- fixed, often elliptical, pattern;

- telegram-like statements, with articles and punctuation marks omitted.

As for the non-classified advertisements and announcements, the variety of language form and subject-matter is so great that hardly any essential features common to all may be pointed out. The reader's attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphical and stylistic, both lexical and syntactical. Here there is no call for brev­ity, as the advertiser may buy as much space as he chooses.

The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. Editorials comment on the political and other events of the day. Their purpose is to give the editor's opinion and interpretation of the news published and suggests to the reader that it is the correct one. Like any evaluative writing, editorials appeal not only to the reader's mind but to his feelings as well.

- combination of different strata of vocabulary;

- use of emotionally colored language elements, both lexical and structural;

- accepted usage of colloquial words and expressions, slang, and professionalisms;

- usage of various stylistic devices but trite and traditional in nature;

18. Phonetic means of stylistics: English instrumentation and English versification.

Phoneme is the main unit of the phonological level. Its chief function is to differentiate meaningful units of the language. In contrast with the units of other language levels, phonemes have the expression side only, i.e. they are not twofold signs. As no phoneme can be stylistically marked in relation to another one, there are no EM on the phonological level. However, the English language can be characterised by certain patterns of sound arrangement. The use of these patterns (combinations and alterations of sounds in their syntagmatic succession) alongside with other language means may create various stylistic effects which give rise to SD on the phonological level.

The patterns of sound arrangement fall into:

a) versification, i.e. the art of writing poetry in keeping with certain rules based on language regularities and poets' experience, b) instrumentation, i.e. the sum total of sound selection and combination modes which impart to the utterance a certain sound organisation as well as emotional and expressive colouring.

There are three main modes of sound arrangement in instrumentation:

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