Newspaper headlines and their linguistic peculiarities

Syntactical features of newspaper headlines

From the communicative point of view most of the newspaper headlines are:

- declarative sentences:

Chinese Premier Declares Inflation Victory. – Китайский премьер заявляет о победе над инфляцией;

That’s Rich. – Богатые по-своему воспринимают мир;

- interrogative sentences:

Will the US Lose Europe to Russia? – Уступят ли Соединенные Штаты Европу России?;

Is This the Start of Civil War? – Это гражданская война?;

- nominative sentences:

Wonder Cure for Diabetes. – Чудесное лекарство против диабета;

IMF Loan Accord Вelay. – Задержка соглашения о кредите МВФ;

- сomposite sentences:

Whatever Obama Decides, Brown Must Set Withdrawal Date. – Что бы ни решил Б. Обама, Г. Браун должен назначить дату вывода британских войск из Афганистана;

- sentences containing direct discourse (or quotation):

Cameron: UK Caused Many of the World’s Problems. – Д. Камерон заявляет о том, что Великобритания является источником многих мировых проблем;

- verbal structures (an infinitive, participle and gerund):

Britain Urges Arab Countries to Train Rebels. – Великобритания призывает арабские страны готовить повстанцев;

Fighting Wages. – Борьба за повышение заработной платы;

Keeping up the Pace. – Сохраняя темп / Идя в ногу;

Police Cars Axed in Petrol Crisis. – Топливный кризис вызвал сокращение количества полицейских патрульных машин;

Betrayed: Soldier Who Lost Both Legs in Afghanistan Kicked out of Army on Cameron’s Cuts. – Предательство: солдат, потерявший в Афганистане обе ноги, уволен из армии из-за бюджетных сокращений, начатых премьер-министром;

- elliptical sentences:

Obama Rallying Support. – Обама стремится заручиться поддержкой.

Very often a part of the predicate is omitted:

8-Year-Old Boy Kidnapped in Miami. – Восьмилетний мальчик похищен в Майами;

All Piers Paralysed on East Coast. – На восточном побережье парализованы все пирсы.

Sometimes the subject of the sentence can be omitted:

Hires Teen-Agers as Scabs. – Подростков используют в качестве штрейкбрехеров;

Want No War Hysteria in Toronto Schools. – Кампания «Нет военной истерии!» в школах Торонто.

Quite often articles are omitted in the headlines:

Portugal in Plea for EU Bail-Out. – Португалия умоляет Евросоюз оказать ей финансовую помощь;

Same Old Mistakes in New Afghan War. – Старые ошибки в новой афганской войне.

Grammatical features of newspaper headlines

Verbal tenses is an essential feature of a newspaper headline that makes it different from other functional styles of modern English. As a rule, English and American newspaper headlines do not use perfect tenses.Recent events are reflected by the Present Historical Tense:

Russia Condemns West Provocation. – Россия осудила провокацию Запада;

Concorde Lands at Heathrow. – «Конкорд» приземлился в Хитроу.

Such headlines are the most widespread type of headings. Present historical tense gives them vivacity, nears the reader to the unfolding events.

The use of the Simple Past Tense in the headline refers it to past events, especially when the headline contains an adverbial modifier of time. Another case of the Simple Past use is when the reader is aware of the fact that the event in the spotlight occurred at a certain moment in the past:

Husband Disappeared Two Years Ago. – Муж пропал два года назад;

Wave of Peace Action Swept the Nation. – Волна мирных акций охватила страну.

To refer to the future action an infinitive is widely used:

America To Resume Testing. – Америка возобновляет испытания;

World Unions To Fight Monopoly. – Профсоюзы многих стран мира будут бороться с монополией.

Lexical characteristics of newspaper headlines

In terms of lexical features manyEnglish newspaper headlines are characterised by frequent use of a limited number of special words making some kind of “a headline slang” (ban, bid, claim, crack, crush, cut, dash, hit, move, pact, plea, probe, quit, quiz, rap, rush, slash, etc.):

Bid to Stop New Police Powers. – Призыв не допустить расширения прав по­лиции;

Fury as Our EU Bill Hits £9 bn. – Наш ежегодный взнос в бюджет ЕС превысил 9 миллиардов фунтов стерлингов!

Newspaper headlines widely employ colloquial lexical units:

Report Raps Lack of Law Reform. – Доклад резко критикует отсутствие законодательной реформы;

Dief Lends JFK a Helping Hand. – Диеф протягивает руку помощи Дж.Ф. Кеннеди.

Newspaper headlines are characterised by the same lexical features as newspaper style in general. They list abundance of names and political terms, abbreviations and attributive groups, colloquial and slang words.

Stylistic features of newspaper headlines

A number of newspapers use humour, pun, alliteration or other word play devices in their headlines. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, derision or mockery.

Equally, the need to keep headlines brief occasionally leads to unintentional double meanings, if not double entendres. For example, if the story is about the president of Iraq trying to acquire weapons, the headline might be Iraqi Head Seeks Arms, or if some agricultural legislation is defeated in the United States House of Representatives, the title could read Farmer Bill Dies in House.

Headlines contain emotionally coloured words and phrases. A deliberate breaking-up of set expressions is also common as in Cakes & Bitter Ale (an allusion to “Cakes & Ale”by W.S. Maugham), or To Save or Not to Save (an allusion to “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare).

Large eye catching front page headlines ran by tabloids are known as captions.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14