1、 （ 20_ _届） 本科毕业 设计 英语新闻标题的语言特色 A Study of the Linguistic Features Of English News Headlines 英语 I 摘要 英语新闻是融时效性、真实性和客观性于一体的特殊文体。英语新闻标题，作为英语新闻的“文眼”，是新闻不可分割的组成部分，具有简明精炼、形象生动、不拘一格的特点。它提纲挈领 ,具有与一般英语语法不同的独特的语法体系和语言特点。在新闻报道中起着举足轻重的作用。英语新闻 标题在词汇、语法、修辞、形式等方面具有自己鲜明的特色，构成了独特的标题语言。本文将在国内外英语新闻标题的研究成果的基础上，分别从词汇特点、
2、语法特点、修辞特点这三个方面浅析英语新闻标题的语言特色。措词上，它往往会更多得使用名词和简短小词的特点等来节省刊头空间，一定程度上反映了报刊对新闻的立场和态度；语法上，它偏向于使用现在时等特点，以增强新闻的现实感和新鲜感；英语新闻标题通常会使用一些修辞手法等特点，引人注目增强新闻的感染力。同时，本文将研究国内外对英语新闻标题词汇的运用时出现的一些问题给予分析，使读者能更好 更快得理解新闻的实质内容。 关键词 ： 英语新闻标题；语言特色；词汇特点；语法特点；修辞特点 II Abstract English news is a special style which has timeliness,
3、 authenticity and objectivity all in one. English news headlines, as the “eyes” of the English press, is the inalienable part to the news. They are concise, vivid and have different linguistic forms. English news headlines focus on the vital parts and have a unique grammatical system and linguistic
4、features which is different from general English grammar. They play an important role in news reports. English news headlines have their own distinct characteristics in lexical, grammatical, rhetorical features and their forms, forming a unique language of news titles. This thesis, on the basis of t
5、he research of English news headlines both at home and abroad, analyzes their linguistic features, respectively, from three parts: lexical, grammatical and rhetorical features. In wording, nouns and short words are often used to save space, to some extent, reflecting the newspapers positions and att
6、itudes on the news; in grammar, the present tense are often used to enhance the sense of reality and freshness. Some figures of speech are often used in English news headlines to draw peoples attention and enhance the appeal of the news. In the meantime, the writer in this thesis aims at finding som
7、e practical problems in the application of words in English news headlines both at home and abroad, making readers understand the content better and more quickly. Key words: English news headlines; linguistic features; wording; grammar; figures of speech III Contents 1 Introduction .1 2 The Lexical
8、Features . . 2 2.1 Use of Short Words and Nouns.2 2.2 Use of Vogue Words 4 2.3 Use of Abbreviations and Numbers . . . .5 3 The Grammatical Features .6 3.1 Use of the Present Tense .6 3.2 Use of the Non-finite Verbs. .7 3.3 Ellipsis . . . .8 4 The Rhetorical Features . .9 4.1 Conciseness .9 4.2 Diffe
9、rent Linguistic Forms . . .9 4.3 Use of Slang Words . . 9 4.4 Use of Idioms and Their Stories .9 4.5 Use of Figures of Speech . .10 5 Conclusion . .12 Bibliography . .13 Acknowledgements . . .14 - 1 - 1 Introduction Systemic functional linguistics think language is a kind of meaning potential. The f
10、unction of language is realized through the choice in language system. Choice is meaning and form is the embodiment of the meaning. English news headlines, as news discourse eyes, have the function of monopolizing the discourse. The different language forms of the title reflect different aspects and
11、 meaning of the news. Nowadays news is the main information channel via which people learn about the world. News headlines play the very important role in news. They are “the eyes of news reports”. So it is very necessary to learn more about news headlines. It enriches the basic content of the news
12、with economical text and extracts the essence of the news to attract readers. The headline of the news is characterized by its conciseness liveliness and has different linguistic forms. English news is a special style of timeliness, authenticity and objectivity all in one. English news headlines hav
13、e more unique connotation and representation with specific aesthetic function and informative function. When reading English newspapers, people are used to scanning news titles and then decide what they are to read. The headlines of English newspapers have unique grammatical system and linguistic fe
14、atures which is different from general English grammar. So far in the domestic research, some is about the Translation of English news headlines including its principles, skills, and strategies. Some talk about the ambiguity of English news headlines. Others mainly focus on the features of English n
15、ews headlines including its linguistic features, formal features and the differences between Chinese and English news headlines. This scope is too wide. But some just discuss one aspect of them. For example, in their linguistic features, they just talk about their rhetorical features, or just its le
16、xical aspect. They are all not complete. In most cases, in one English news headline, it both has the rhetorical and lexical features. Only if you completely understand these two features can you understand the headline well. So this paper will draw the strong points of others and offset the weaknes
17、s, focusing on the linguistic features of English newspaper headlines. It briefly deals with their lexicological, grammatical and rhetorical features by collecting, analyzing data and giving examples. By means of its analysis and discussion, readers can better understand and master the characteristi
18、cs and skills of English news headlines and smoothly read English newspapers. As a result, readers can get more information from English news headlines soon and understand what the report wants to emphasize and the main point. 2 The Lexical Features 2.1 Use of Short Words and Nouns Generally speakin
19、g, masthead of newspapers and magazines is extremely valuable with the - 2 - minimum length to accommodate the biggest information. But sometimes it needs sentences to express the information of English news headlines. In order to save space, the function words (sometimes including link word “be”) a
20、re omitted and the notional words are remained, especially nouns. Sometimes even the function words in phrase titles are omitted. Thus the nouns are placed together to express some semantic relations which are hidden without anything to link them as a whole. From the perspective of nouns itself, the
21、y have a strong ideographic function with much information and extensive grammaticality. It can act as various parts of speech, such as adjectives, verbs and adverbs to express complete syntactic concept with contracted structure form. It just reduces the space of English news headlines. Therefore n
22、ouns accounts most parts of English news headlines. The phenomenon of several nouns linked together is widespread in English news headlines, such as, The Population Surprise (人口减少 ) This title has two nouns “population” and “surprise”, meaning the decline of population; Borderline Insanity (国境线上的疯狂
23、) This headline contains two nouns “borderline” and “insanity”, meaning that something insane happened on the borderline; The Columbine Tapes (影带惊魂 ) “Columbine” refers to the school shootings which occurred in Columbine Middle School, Jefferson County, Colorado on April 20, 1999. “Tape” refers to t
24、wo young students who shot 12 twelve students and a teacher dead recorded their weapons and how they kept them at home undetected. In these nouns phrases above, other nouns before the last one serve as the function of adjectives. The phenomenon of noun used as an adjective is a sign of contemporary
25、English towards brevity. This tendency appears especially clear in English news headlines. Compound nouns, verbal nouns, acronyms are all nouns phrases as well. They can not only take the place of adjectives but also include phrases and clauses. The noun phrases concentrate the meaning of phrases. F
26、or example: 1) Palestinians Welcome U.N. Call, Israel Critical. (联合国撤军呼吁巴勒斯坦人的欢迎，却遭到以色列人的批评 ) U.N. Call is short for U.N. Security Council resolution for an Israel withdrawal from Palestinian cities. 2) “Monkey Boy” Come Back from the Wild. (“猴娃 ”回家 ) Monkey boy is short for the boy like a monkey. 3
27、) Atlanta Olympics Are the Biggest in History. (亚特兰大奥运会 历史之最 ) Atlanta Olympics is short for the Olympics that have been held in Atlanta. The noun phrases enrich the meaning of clauses, such as ,The Population Surprise (人口下降 ) it replaces the sentence of The decrease of the population surprises peop
28、le; Super - 3 - kids? (超级儿童之谜 ) it replaces the sentence that can supermen create super kids? But sometimes several nouns linked together would cause ambiguity so that it has difficulty understanding the news headlines for readers. For example, “Labor” in “Labor Milestone” means “Labor Party” or “La
29、bor Movement” or has other meanings? It is hard to judge if you dont read the news content. For another instance, in modern American English, “burn bags” means confidential documentation package to be destroyed. Accordingly, the title “State Government Staff Burn Bags” can be understood as “State Go
30、vernment Staffs confidential documentation package” which needs to destroy. At the same time, the title can also be understood as a sentence which means an event happens, namely State Government Staff destroyed confidential documentation package. English news headlines always try to express the news
31、 content in words as little as possible. For this purpose, in wording, it pursues economical, short and clear expression to convey information and prefers to choose dapper verbs at least letters. Two lines are avoided in news headlines but how to accommodate headlines in limited space? Minor terms a
32、re often used to solve this problem. Minor terms have less letters and wide meanings, lively and flexible. This expression is in favor. “Hit, harm, hurt, ruin or wreck” are used instead of “damage” to express the harm caused to something. “Drop, give up, quit, skip or yield” are used instead of “aba
33、ndon”. “Blast, crash, ram or smash” are chosen instead of “explode”. “Ban” is used instead of “prohibit, forbid, interdict, restraint, restriction”. “Bid” is chosen instead of “try, offer, attempt, effort, proposal or endeavor”. “Cut” is used instead of “fall, decrease, decline, deletion, shortening
34、, abbreviation or abridgement”. Short words are also used in nouns. For instance, “Talk” equals to “address, lecture, oration, speech, monologue, allocation”. “Pact” equals to “compact, contract, convention, agreement, alliance, bond, treaty”. “Job” equals to “task, work, enterprise, undertaking, ac
35、hievement, mission or business”. “Probe” equals to “investigation, inspection, inquisition, examination, inquiry, exploration or search”. These words are called Synonyms of All work in journalistic English. When expressing each meaning of each group above, the reporters will take preference to the w
36、ords underlined for its less letters and wide meanings. In addition, “dad, cops, kids, Dem, GOP” instead of “father, police, children, Democrat, the Republican Party” is used in local news headlines. These all belong to minor terms. 2.2 Use of Vogue Words “New” is the life of news language which is
37、determined by news contents that are being reported. News reports are following the pulse of the times, closely related to our social life. All of the new things, new phenomena, new ideas and new fashion always first appear in the news media, and spread to the broad masses of the people. Therefore t
38、hese words and - 4 - expressions are so-call vogue words. So how these new words generate? The famous linguist Chen Yuan thinks that there are two ways to create them: one is self-creation, another is borrowing other language. These words reflect the track of development. Vogue words can be divided
39、into two types: one is adding new meanings to existing words. For example, “clone” generalizes its meaning to copy; bug is narrowed from machine problems to the year 2000 computer bug problem; because the terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre in the United States Sep. 11 or 9/11 has a special m
40、eaning which refers to the 9/11 terror attacks. The Internet Revolution spawned a large of such vocabulary: mouse, web, line, net, windows, interface, and driver, disk, desktop, link, platform, interactive and so on. Another type is completely new words, covering the majority in scientific and techn
41、ical fields, such as com, e-mail, and e-commence, e-machine, e-tail, e-campaigning, cyberspace, cyber-chat, bio-chip, and techno-millionaire and so on. Look at the vogue words in the application of news headlines: Year 2000 Bug Unstoppable for Some Companies (计算机千年虫问题迫在眉睫 );American Online: Often Do
42、wn, Never Out (美国在线公司：屡挫不倒 );You Wanna Use “9/11”, Pay Up! (想用 “9/11”，请付费 !); Farmers Planting More Biotech Crops (转基因作物赢得越来越多的农民 ); Giving it a whirl: MIT develops minicopter (麻省理工学院着手誓言研制微型直升机 )These words underlined above are all vogue words. Buzz words are the products of the times, the crystall
43、ization of social and economic change and scientific and technological revolution. But whether these words is able to withstand the test of time needs to prove. 2.3 Use of Abbreviations and Numbers Using abbreviations in English news headlines is also on account of the limited space in the masthead
44、as well as minor terms. Mr. Lu Guo-qiang (1984) divided abbreviations into two kinds: one is called lipped words, namely abbreviating a part of letters in the words. For example, omit the underlines part in the word “zoological gardens” and get the abbreviation “zoo”; another is called acronyms, whi
45、ch is to link the initial letters in the main words of the word phrase. For example, laser= light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Using abbreviations can reduce the number of letters of the headlines as far as possible, save space and avoid two lines. There are many acronyms in En
46、glish news headlines. For example: 4) WTC Flag Returned to NY Delegation (世贸大厦重新成为纽 约市象征 ) “WTC” in this headline means the World Trade Centre; “NY” means New York. 5) Ex-NYPD Officer Indicted on Perjury (前纽约市警察局警官被控作伪证 ) “NYPD” in this title means the New York Police Department. - 5 - 6) UNC Offers
47、 Multimedia Bootcamp For Journalists (北卡大学为记者提供多媒体技术培 训营 ) “UNC” means the University of North Carolina. 7) Study supports link between SIDS and Smoking (研究表明婴幼儿突然死亡与吸烟有关 ) “SIDS” means the sudden infant death syndrome. There are also many lipped words in English news headlines. For example: 8) Wall
48、 St. Giants Offered Grants for Staying Put (政府资助华尔街巨头以稳定人心 ) “St.” is short form of “Street”. 9) Feds Seek Fast OK for Water Release (联邦生态学家为放水寻求可行依据 ) Feds is short of “federal biologists”. 10) Armenian Govt Will Close TV Station (亚美尼亚将关闭其电视台 ) “Govt” is short of “Government”. 11) Rain, Colder Temps Move In Wednesday (星期三有雨 气温下降
