Analysis of brief news items

CONTENTS 

 

INTRODUCTION……………………….……………………………….…….…3

CHAPTER 1

THE PECULIARITIES OF NEWS STYLES…………………………...…………5

1.1 Functional styles……………………….……………………………………….5

1.2 Publicist style………………………………………………………………...…6

1.3 Scientific Prose Style……………………………………………………….…..8

1.4 The Style of Official Documents……………………………………………….9

1.5 The Belles-Letters Style………………………………………………..……..10

CHAPTER 2

THE PECULIARITIES OF PUBLIC TEXTS IN ENGLISH…………………….18

2.1 Mass Media Language………………………………………………...………18

2.2 Broadcasting……………………………………………………………...…19

2.3 Weather reporting………………………………………………….………..19

2.4 Commentary…………………………………………………………...……20

2.5 Commercial Advertising……………………………………………………22

2.6 Analysis of brief news items……………………………………………….....23

SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………25

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………...26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

In Introduction I want to tell shortly what functional style is. It is a system of interrelated language means serving a definite aim in communication. It is the coordination of the language means and stylistic devices which shape the distinctive features of each style.

Each style, however, can be recognized by one or more leading features which are especially conspicuous. For instance, the use of special terminology is a lexical characteristics of the style of scientific prose, and one by which it can easily be recognized. A style of language can be defined as a system of coordinated, interrelated and inter-coordinated language means intended to full-fill a specific function of communication and aiming at a defined effect. The English literary system has evolved a number of styles easily distinguishable one from another. They are not homogeneous and fall into several variants of having some central point of resemblance or better to say. All integrated by the invariant the abstract ideal system.

They are:

1. Official (documents and papers);

2. Scientific (brochures, articles, other scientific publications);

3. Publicistic (essay, public speech);

4. Newspaper style (mass media);

5. Belles-lettres style (genre of creative writing);

Scientific style is employed in professional communication to convey some information. Its most conspicuous feature is the abundance of terms denoting objects, phenomena and processes characteristics of some particular field of science and technique. Also it is characterized by the clarity of logical cohesion. Official style is the most conservative one. It uses syntactical constructions and sometimes archaic words. Emotiveness is banned out of this style. Publicistic style is famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader in accordance with the argumentation of the author. Newspaper style special graphical means are used to attract the readers attention. Belles-lettres style is the richest register of communication. Belles-lettres style has a unique task to impress the reader aesthetically.

Includes informative materials: news in brief, headlines, ads, additional articles. But not everything published in the paper can be included in Newspaper Style (N.S) we mean publicist essays, feature articles. Reviews are not N.S. to attract the readers, attention by special means used by British and American papers for example: specific headlines, space ordering. We find here a large proportion of dates, personal names of countries, institutions, individuals, achieve an effect of objectivity in rendering some fact or event most of info is published anonymously, without the name of newsman who supplied it, with little or no subjective modality. But the position of the paper becomes clear from the choice not only of subj. matter but also of words denoting international or domestic issues. Sub styles 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) headlines; Brief items: its function is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. The vocabulary used is neutral and common literary. Specific features are: a) special political and economic terms; b) non-term political vocabulary; c) newspaper; d) abbreviations; e) neologisms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER  1

THE PECULIARITIES OF NEWS STYLES

          1.1 Functional styles

Functional styles (FS) are the subsystems of language, each subsystem having its own peculiar features in what concern vocabulary means, syntactical constructions, and even phonetics. The appearance and existence of FS is connected with the specific conditions of communication in different spheres of human life. FS differ not only by the possibility or impossibility of using some elements but also due to the frequency of their usage. For example: some terms can appear in the colloquial style but the possibility of its appearance is quite different form the possibility to meet it in an example of scientific style.

The classification of  Functional Style (F.S) is a very complicated problem, that is why we will consider ideas of I.R. Galperin, bearing in mind that I.R Galperin treats functional styles as patterns of the written variety of language thus excluding colloquial FS. Both scholars agree that each FS can be recognized by one or more leading features. But I.R Galperin pays more attention to the coordination of language means and stylistic devices whereas Arnold connects the specific features of each FS with its peculiarities in the sphere of communication. According to I.R. Galperin, a functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A functional style should be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of the language. These represent varieties of the abstract invariant and can deviate from the invariant, even breaking away with it. [2, 27]

Each FS is a relatively stable system at the given stage in the development of the literary language, but it changes, and sometimes considerably, from one period to another. Therefore FS is a historical category. Thus, for example in the 17th century it was considered that not all words can be used in poetry, and that a separate poetic style exists. Later, in the 19th century romanticism rejected the norms of poetic style and introduced new vocabulary to poetry. The development of each style is predetermined by the changes in the norms of standard English. It is also greatly influenced by changing social conditions, the progress of science and the development of cultural life. Every functional style of language is marked by a specific use of language means, thus establishing its own norms which, however, are subordinated to the norm-invariant and which do not violate the general notion of the literary norm. The writers of the given period in the development of the literary language contribute greatly to establishing the system of norms of their period. It is worth noting that the investigations of language norms at a given period are to great extent maintained on works of men of letters. Selection, or deliberate choice of language, and the ways the chosen elements are treated are the main distinctive features of individual style. Individual style is a unique combination of language units, expressive means and stylistic devices peculiar to a given writer, which makes that writer's works or even utterances easily recognizable. Naturally, the individual style of a writer will never be entirely independent of the literary norms and canons of the given period. But the adaptations of these canons will always be peculiar and therefore distinguishable. Individual style is based on a thorough knowledge of the contemporary language and allows certain justifiable deviations from the rigorous norms. Individual style requires to be studied in a course of stylistics in so far as it makes use of the potentialities of language means, whatever the characters of these potentialities may be. All men of letters have a peculiar individual manner of using language means to achieve the effect they desire. Writers choose language means deliberately. This process should be distinguished from language peculiarities which appear in everyday speech of this or that particular individual (idiolect). [12, 43]

1.2 Publicist style

The Publistic (P.S) style is a perfect for example: historical changeability of stylistic differentiation of discourses. In Greece it was practiced in oral form which was named P.S in accordance with the name of its corresponding genre. P.S is famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader and shaping his views in accordance with the argumentation of the author. We find in PS a blend of the rigorous logical reasoning, reflecting the objective state of things and a strong subjectivity reflecting the authors personal feelings and emotions towards the discussed subject. Sub styles: The oratory essays, journalistic articles, radio and TV commentary. Oratory it makes use of a great humbler of expressive means to arouse and keep the public's interest: repetition, gradation, antithesis, rhetorical questions, emotive words, elements of colloquial speech. Radio and TV commentary is less impersonal and more expressive and emotional. The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all sub styles of the publicistic style. It makes use of expressive means and tropes. The journalistic articles are impersonal.

The publicistic style of language became a separate style in the middle of the 18th century. Unlike other styles, it has two spoken varieties, namely the oratorical sub style and the radio and TV commentary. The other two sub styles are the essay (moral, philosophical, literary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic). The general aim of publicistic style is to influence the public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the expressed point of view. Publicistic style is characterized by coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and careful paragraphing. Its emotional appeal is achieved by the use of words with the emotive meaning but the stylistic devices are not fresh or genuine. The individual element is not very evident. Publicistic style is also characterized by the brevity of expression, sometimes it becomes a leading feature. [2, 34]

The oratorical style is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. Direct contact with the listeners permits a combination of the syntactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language. The typical features of this style are: direct address to the audience; sometimes contractions; the use of colloquial words. The SDs employed in the oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. As the audience relay only on memory, the speaker often resorts to repetitions to enable his listeners to follow him and to retain the main points of his speech. The speaker often use simile and metaphor, but these are generally traditional, because genuine SDs may be difficult to grasp. The essay is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a finished argument or a conclusive examination of the matter. The most characteristic language features of the essay are: brevity of expression; the use of the first person singular; a rather expanded use of connectives; the abundant use of emotive words; the use of similes and sustained metaphors. The language of journalistic articles is defined by the character of newspaper, magazine, as well as subjects chosen. Literary reviews stand closer to essays.

 

1.3 Scientific Prose Style

The style of scientific prose has 3 subdivisions:1) the style of humanitarian sciences; 2) the style of "exact" sciences; 3) the style of popular scientific prose. Its function is to work out and ground theoretically objective knowledge about reality. The aim of communication is to create new concepts, disclose the international laws of existence. The peculiarities are: objectiveness; logical coherence, impersonality, unemotional character, exactness. The scientific prose style consists mostly of ordinary words which tend to be used in their primary logical meaning. Emotiveness depends on the subject of investigation but mostly scientific prose style is unemotional. Grammar: The logical presentation and cohesion of thought manifests itself in a developed feature of scientific syntax is the use of established patterns. - postulatory; - formulative; - argumentative; The impersonal and objective character of scientific prose style is revealed in the frequent use of passive constructions, impersonal sentences. Personal sentences are more frequently used in exact sciences. In humanities we may come across constructions but few. Some features of the style in the text are: - use of quotations and references; - use of foot-notes helps to preserve the logical coherence of ideas. Scientific popular style has the following peculiarities: emotive words, elements of colloquial style. [3, 45]

 

1.4 The Style of Official Documents

1. Language of business letters; 2. Language of legal documents; 3. Language of diplomacy; 4) Language of military documents; The aim: 1. to reach agreement between two contracting parties; 2. to state the conditions binding two parties in an understanding. Each of sub styles of official documents makes use of special terms. Legal documents: military documents, diplomatic documents. The documents use set expressions inherited from early Victorian period. This vocabulary is conservative. Legal documents contain a large proportion of formal and archaic words used in their dictionary meaning. In diplomatic and legal documents many words have Latin and French origin. There are a lot of abbreviations and conventional symbols. The most noticeable feature of grammar is the compositional pattern. Every document has its own stereotyped form. The form itself is informative and tells you with what kind of letter we deal with. Business letters contain: heading, addressing, salutation, the opening, the body, the closing, complimentary clause, the signature. Syntactical features of business letters are - the predominance of extended simple and complex sentences, wide use of participial constructions, homogeneous members. Morphological peculiarities are passive constructions, they make the letters impersonal. There is a tendency to avoid pronoun reference. It’s typical feature is to frame equally important factors and to divide them by members in order to avoid ambiguity of the wrong interpretation. [20, 65]

According to I.R Galperin: Functional Style is a system of interrelated language  means serving a definite aim in communication. It is the coordination of the language means and stylistic devices which shapes the distinctive features of each style and not the language means or stylistic devices themselves. Each style, however, can be recognized by one or more leading features which are especially conspicuous. For instance the use of special terminology is a lexical characteristics of the style of scientific prose, and one by which it can easily be recognized. Classification: 1. The Belles - Letters Functional Style. a) poetry; b) emotive prose; c) drama; 2. Publicistic Functional Style, a) oratory; b) essays; c) articles in newspapers and magazines; 3. The Newspaper Functional Style. a) brief news items; b) advertisements and announcements; c) headlines; 4. The Scientific Prose Style. a) sciences; b) humanitarian sciences; c) popular- science prose; 5. The Official Documents Functional Style. a) diplomatic documents; b) business letters; c) military documents; d) legal documents;

 

1.5 The Belles-Letters Style

According to I.R. Galperin, this is a generic term for three sub styles: the language of poetry; emotive prose (the language of fiction); the language of the drama. Each of these sub styles has certain common features, and each of them enjoys some individuality. The common features of the sub styles are the following:

The aesthetic-cognitive function (a function which aims at the cognitive process, which secures the gradual unfolding of the idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction which a reader experiences because he is able to penetrate into the author's idea and to form his own conclusions). 2) Definite linguistic features: Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices. The use of words in different meanings, greatly influenced by the lexical environment. A vocabulary which will reflect to a certain degree the author's personal evaluation of things or phenomena. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (drama), to a lesser degree (in prose), to a slight degree (poetry). The belles-lettres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties.

The language of poetry is characterized by its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactic and semantic peculiarities. There are certain restrictions which result in brevity of expression, epigram-like utterances and fresh, unexpected imagery. Syntactically this brevity is shown in elliptical sentences, in detached constructions, in inversion, etc. Emotive prose shares the same common features, but these features are correlated differently than in poetry. The imagery is not so rich as in poetry; the percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high. [19, 56]

Emotive prose features the combination of the literary variant of the language, both in words and in syntax, with the colloquial variant. But the colloquial language in the belles-lettres style is not a simple reproduction of the natural speech, it has undergone changes introduced by the writer and has been made "literature-like". In emotive prose there are always two forms of communication present - monologue (the writer's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters). Emotive prose allows the use of elements from other styles as well. But all these styles undergo a kind of transformation under the influence of emotive prose. Passages written in other styles may be viewed only as interpolations and not as constituents of the style.

Language of the drama is entirely dialogue. The author's speech is almost entirely excluded except for the playwright's remarks and stage directions. But the language of the characters is not the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language. Any variety of the belles-lettres style will use the norms of the literary language of the given period. The language of plays is always stylized, it strives to retain the modus of literary English.

English newspaper writing dates from the 17th 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 18th century the British newspaper was very much like what it is today, carrying foreign and domestic news, advertisements, announcements and articles containing comments.

Not all the printed materials found in newspapers come under newspaper style. Only materials which perform the function of informing the reader and providing him with an evaluation of information published can be regarded as belonging to newspaper style. English newspaper style can be defined as a system of interrelated lexical, phrase logical and grammatical means which is perceived by the community as a separate linguistic unity that serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader. Information in the English newspaper is conveyed through the medium of:

brief news items;

press reports;

articles purely informational in character;

advertisements and announcements.

Official documents

The newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on political and other matters. Elements of appraisal may be observed in the very selection and way of presentation of news, in the use of specific vocabulary, casting some doubt on the facts recorded, and syntactical constructions indicating a lack of assurance of the reporter or his desire to avoid responsibility. The principle vehicle of interpretation and appraisal is the newspaper article and the editorial in particular. Editorial is a leading article which is characterized by a subjective handling of facts. This purpose defines the choice of language elements which are mostly emotionally colored. Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

special political and economic terms (president, election);

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

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

abbreviations (NATO, EEC)

neologisms.

The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper magazine article. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, i.e., they show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported. English headlines are short and catching, they compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skillfully turned out headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader`s curiosity; (George C. Bastian, 1956. Editing the Day`s News. N.Y.) In most of the English and American newspapers and magazines sensational headlines are quite common. The practice of headline writing is different with different editions. [4, 36]

In many newspapers, there is, as a rule, one headline to a news item, whereas some others more often than not carry a news item or an article with two or three headlines.

The headline in British and American newspapers and magazines is an important vehicle of both information and appraisal, and editors give it special attention, admitting that few read beyond the headline, or at best the lead. To lure the reader into going through the whole of the item or at least a greater part of it takes a lot of skill and ingenuity on the part of the headline writer.

For examples: BUSH IS `JUST AS BAD AS SADDAM' While President George W. Bush drew applause in America for his plans to destroy the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad yesterday there were only jeers and scoffs.

"Bah. These are just gestures that mean nothing," said Zaineb Hamid, a 30-year-old typist.

The most important structural element of a story is the lead (or "intro" in the UK) — the story is first, or leading, sentence. (Some American English writers use the spelling lead, from the archaic English, to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from the metal lead or the related typographical term leading.

Charley states that "an effective lead is a brief, sharp statement of the story's essential facts. The lead is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. The top-loading principle (putting the most important information first - see inverted pyramid section below) applies especially to leads, but the unread ability of long sentences constrains the lead's size. This makes writing a lead an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lead should answer most or all of the five Ws, few leads can fit all of these. [17, 64]