Германские языки | Филологический аспект №4 (48) Апрель 2019

УДК 81

Дата публикации 30.04.2019

Лингвистические особенности газетных заголовков Британской прессы

Комарькова Мария Александровна
Ассиcтент, Финансовый Университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации

Аннотация: Данная статья затрагивает такие вопросы как лингвистические особенности газетных заголовков британской прессы, а именно, синтаксические, лексические и грамматические характеристики, использование которых преследует цель сделать заголовок живым, емким и информативным, что будет способствовать привлечению большой аудитории читателей. Газетный текст имеет разнообразие функций, например, информативную, воздействующую, образовательную, популяризаторскую и теоретическую. Газетный заголовок должен привлечь внимание читателя и направить фокус его внимания на те или иные события и мероприятия. В качестве образовательной функции в контексте лингвистики в газетных статьях используется нормативная форма языка. Итогом материала, приведенного в статье является тот факт, что британ6ская пресса представляет собой отдельный жанр со своими лингвистическими особенностями.
Ключевые слова: Британская пресса, лингвистические особенности, нормативная форма языка, заголовок, лексические характеристики, синтаксические характеристики, грамматические характеристики

Linguistic peculiarities of newspaper headlines of British press

Komarkova Mariya Alexandrovna
Assistant, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation

Abstract: This article is concerned with such issues as linguistic peculiarities of newspaper headlines of British press namely syntactical, lexical and grammatical features that are used purposely to make a caption more vivid, short, informative and attractive for great amount of readers. There is a variety of newspaper’s functions, for example, informative, influentional, educational, promotional and theoretical. Captions must catch reader’s minds and make them focus on these or those events, news, performances. To implement educational function in the context of linguistics newspaper articles present standard variety or standard language. The conclusion for all the information contained in the article is the fact that British press represents separate genre with its specific language features.
Keywords: British press, linguistic peculiarities, standard language, headline, lexical features, syntactical features, grammatical features

The major  role of mass media is  informing people about significant and important events, forming opinions, analyzing political situation. Many great  linguists such as  M.P. Brandes, P. Bromhead, A. McLean took  language of British press  into consideration to point out some peculiar features and characteristics.

The language of the media is used as a tool to transmit messages. There is no interсommunication, so the receiver can not interrupt.

The main goal of this article is to reveal  key characteristic features of  high-quality British press in whole that  contains different journalistic and advertising gimmiks  to attract people’s attention to various events, news, issues around the world.

In this article The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph were used as an essential  material for appreciation and analysis of  language.

To find out and show some linguistic  peculiarities and features of  British press  there have been used different methods and approaches such as comparative approach, generalization, formalization and synthesis.

The media is a new channel of vocabulary and idioms, as it shows  innovations and spread new forms of language. They can also act as a guide to the standard variety of the language.

Standard variety or standard language is used for public aims and has undergone a process of standardization. Standardization includes a specified  orthography,  regulation  in authoritative grammars and dictionaries and public approval of these standards.

The English language has been an important agent of the press for approximately 400 years. Research of university libraries in any country shows that  the most academic journals with an international audience  are published in English. In the 1990s the journal Linguistics Abstracts made an overview of  the content of over 160 linguistics journals across the world: approximately 70 per cent were published entirely in English.

Appealing to history of British press it becomes clear that the primary English newspaper, called «The News of the Present Week» was published in 1622. Before that there had been periodic news leaflets. Thanks to the law that didn’t allow  usage of  the printing press without king’s personal order,  all the items of information  that were  published in the leaflets were strictly examined. At  the end of the 17th century after liquidation  of this law the history of the English journalese started. For years newspapers have prevailed  in releasing information and thanks to their availability in the Internet they keep their head above water up to the present day. Nowadays exist about 130 daily newspapers, 1800  weekly and 7000 periodicals. The language that we see on the newspaper pages has its own lexical and stylistic distinctive features. These features that are reflected in headlines will be analysed in this article.

The main characteristic of an English headline is reductive structure and entry-level grammar.

Lack of the verb ‘to be’ mostly in constructions of passive voice:

Stamps sent to charities fund criminal gangs (The Guardian)

Violent fathers given access to children even after 50 deaths (The Guardian)

Usage of the Present Simple even though events are hold in the Past Simple. The Present Simple tense gives a reader the feeling of coincidence of events:

Ring belonging to Pontius Pilate gets seal of approval  (The Guardian)

World pays tribute to George Bush  after death at 94 (The Guardian)

The use of quotations and direct speech is widely  spread in English headlines:

Raheem Sterling interview: I don’t see negatives. I thrive off trying to prove people wrong. (The Guardian)

Tyson Fury: I’ve found my calling. It’s not boxing (The Guardian)

Indirect speech is also sometimes presented:

We must continue to fight Isis, says defence secretary Gavin Williamson (The Times)

Northeast’s reliance on oil must be reduced, says Sir Ian Wood (The Times)

It should be pointed out that the main function of English headlines is the informative function, firstly the author transmits the message of the main issue of the article and only after that tries to draw attention and advertise his work:

Tory hardliners reconsider May deal amid fears that Brexit could be blocked (The Guardian)

Venezuela street clashes and military unrest pile pressure on Maduro (The Guardian)

It should be mentioned that headlines have their own struсture. More often  a headline is a two-member sentence which has a subject and a predicate. Single words and phrases seldom make headlines:

‘Self-centred’ Instagram model Stephanie Scolaro spared jail for importing python skin hats; Brexit preppers have the wrong priorities (The Times).

It’s very important to mention lexical and syntactical peculiarities of an English article and their role in informative function.

Role of passive voice in English is very significant and it’s more popular in English speech than in Russian. Consequently, without doubts that a specific of language of British press is usage of passive voice. It is especially evident in news reports:

More than 150 people have now been rescued since the beginning of last month. (The Times 26.12.2018)

Syria’s state news agency, Sana, reported that missiles were fired late last night (The Times, 26/12/2018)

Besides passivizing, key element is the amount of non-finite verbs: gerund, participal 1 and participal 2, that make the text more informative and logical:

Speaking from the White House, where he spent Christmas after failing to reach a deal…… ( The Times)

Drone detection systems will be introduced at airports throughout the UK after chaos caused at Gatwick airport last week (The Times)

Ben Wallace said there were no easy solutions to tackling drones but that those caught using them illegally or “recklessly” (The Times 26/12/2018)

Usage of linking words is very popular to make information in articles more clear and transparent and coherent. For example, according to state media report, on  the one hand … on the other hand, on the agenda, meanwhile etc.

Meanwhile, debtors have become convenient scapegoats amid the rising populist mood (The Guardian)

Rate rise is on the agenda (The Times)

One more grammatical aspect that deserves attention  is Complex Subject, such as:

Brown Ale and teaching Martin Tyler to swear – manager behind FA Cup’s lowliest side (The Times)

Bank advised us to ‘go into arrears’ (The Times)

There happen to be some foreign words that are not translated to express the atmosphere of reported events, circumstances and surroundings:

…..he advent of mass tourism has left it struggling with how to deal with the near-constant hordes who trudge around its precious sites, through its 11th century basilica, over its famous Rialto bridge, and along its maze of winding calle……(The Guardian).

To express informative function in the text to the full extent newspaper articles are also rich in complex and compound sentences:

I remain extremely concerned about the number of schools gaming the system and fiddling exam league tables through off-rolling, and I hope that Ofsted will grasp this opportunity to come down hard on schools who are letting down some of the most vulnerable children….. (The Guardian)

Campaigners for a second referendum are thrilled because they believe it is now more likely. (The Guardian)

According to  analysis of articles from various sources of  Britih press (The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph) usage of parenthesis is wide  for example: under smth, although, on the face of it, meanwhile, it is thanks to, at first glance, therefore.

Under all the usual rules of politics, it would be over for Theresa May and her European policy. (The Daily Telegraph)

On the face of it, there are grounds for talks. (The Daily Telegraph)

It is thanks to the efforts of a small conservation group that Grade II* listed Shurland Hall…. (The Daily Telegraph).

Newspaper articles are rich in phrasal verbs, that are the features of colloquial speech: come up, turn in, draw up, dry up, bring on, cash in, stand up, sum up, put off, get by, watch out etc.

Every week, the Telegraph’s Property Doctors bring expertise on renovations and DIY…. (The Daily Telegraph)

Millions of taxpayers who will be scrambling to complete their tax returns in the coming weeks have been warned to watch out for changes since last year. (The Daily Telegraph)

Frequent usage of  abbreviations also takes place: VAT(Value Added Tax) GDP (Gross Domestic Product), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation); V-E day – Victory in Europe day, GP (general practitioner) PR (public relations):

A union representing FBI agents warned on Tuesday that the partial federal government shutdown has “hindered” the bureau’s ability to conduct operations and pursue investigations (The Guardian)

Abe said child poverty has fallen during his administration, and that Japanese GDP has grown by 10.9%, or $490bn.(The Guardian)

A significant part of the UK fossil fuel subsidies identified by the commission is the 5% rate of VAT on domestic gas and electricity…(The Guardian)

Along with abbreviations the articles contain  shortenings. Due to the fact that The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph  are high-quality press, not so many shoternings can appear  here as in tabloids.  However, some common ones occur in particular  articles of concrete theme:  teens instead of teenagers, high-tech instead of high-technology, ad instead of advertisement  etc. Such usage of shortening can be explained by two reasons for the first it’s the intention to economize speech, increased speed of transmitting messages, and for the second, it is  one of  key characteristic  of newspaper articles – simplicity and clarity  to every member of society. Apart from all that, the usage of shortenings makes the speech more modern, fresh and expressive. And due to the fact that all the used shortenings come to newspaper language from everyday life, the reader has no problem to paraphrase  them. Usage of shortenings is a very convenient way to avoid excessive repetition and at the same time  to show and express all the attributes of the events and circumstances.

The outcome of the research reveals some distinctive features of  English newspaper article that emphasize it as a separate genre: lexical multiplicity (from colloquial to scientific terms), usage of stylistic expressive means and tropes which realize the authoritative function of newspaper texts. The syntax of the articles contains such patterns as complex sentences, non-finite verbs, gerunds, direct and indirect speech. All these features of newspaper article are determined by the striving for shortness, quick delivery of information as well as authoritative function.


Список литературы

1. Scannell, P. “Texts and audiences”// London: Sage, 1990
2. Almeida E. P. “A category system for the analysis of factuality in newspaper discourse”, 1992
3. Boyd-Barrett “Language and media: A question of convergence”//UK: Multilingual Matters and Open University, 1994
4. New Media Language, edited by Jean Aitchison and Diana M. Lewis// Taylor&Francis e-Library, 2004.
5. Швейцер А.Д. Контрастивная стилистика. Газетно-публицистический стиль в английском и русском языках. М.: Либроком, 2009.
6. Яковлева А.Р. Иностранный язык (английский): особенности языка современной англоязычной прессы, Уфа: УГУЭС, 2013.
7. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/
8. https://www.theguardian.com/international
9. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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