INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: general features

1. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: general features • ‘Journalese’ is always very eclectic from the stylistic point of view. Besides news-items, we find within its pages articles, reviews, imaginative writing of various kinds , advertising, etc. • Since it encompasses various subcosds, the attention is restricted to what is considered to be the central function of a newspaper, that is the most representative genre within it, namely to inform , and consequently to the notion of newspaper reporting. • What linguistic features, if any, can be associated with this? • While it is possible to make a few generalization about the way language is used, it is also impossible to be comprehensive and final in these statements. • In the sense that , while they do have a certain amount in common, their overall styles are very different.

2. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: general features • One othe strategy is the concentration and compression of information into a limited space, into easily-accessible ‘chunks’, because of need for clarity and the avoidance of ambiguity. • Graphetic and graphological variation is of great importance in defining the distinctness of this kind of English: between the beginning and end of an article one always finds different sizes and shapes of style juxtaposed.

3. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Visual features:headline and the lead: ‘eye-catching’ effect • the most noticeble device is of course the graphetic highlithing of the headline., which is meant to catch the reader’s attention and curiosity. What function is conveying in doing this? • The functioning of the headline is complex: headlines have to contain a clear, succint and intringuing message to kindle a spark of interest in the potential reader, whose eyes move swiftly down and stops when something cathes his/her attention.

4. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: general features • Headline and the lead: content • Since the encompassing and encapsulating of information remains a very important factor due to limited space, only the most important lexical items are present , while the redundant grammatical items may be removed: • Channel rail link decision this week (The Independent 15-3- 93) • Copular verbs: • Fresh fruit the pick of the bank this week (The Times 29-7-94) • connectives: • The company facing death by burocracy (The Daily Telegraph 29-8-94)

5. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Headline and the lead: content • Since the encompassing and encapsulating of information remains a very important factor due to limited space, only the most important lexical items are present , while the redundant grammatical items may be removed: • possessive : • Mother tells of baby’s death at hospital (The Independent 23-3-93)

6. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Headline and the lead: linguistic features: • Headline: finite verbs: Planners compete ro rebuilt Bombay City • Lead: nominalizations : The multi-million pound rebuilding • Headline: finite verbs: America closes tourism office • Lead: nominalizations : The decision to close the United States Travel and Tourism Administration

7. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Thematic structure • The concentration of information at the beginning of the article has consequences of the journalistic report. The news story departs from the typical chronoplogical narrative according to the following pattern: • theme A + rhemeA, • theme B (= rheme A) + rheme B, • theme C (= rheme B) + rheme C, • Etc.… • Rarely an article unfolds consistently in this way , but there is a general tendency in more or less this linear mode.

8. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • English and Italian newspapers • Many of the features of the English model can be observed in the Italian press, although there are some net differences: The Italian headlining system is often more elaborate, as it consists of an ‘occhiello’ (pre-headline) a headline proper and a sub-headline, though these fulfil much the same fucnction of the English model.

9. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Quotation • Newspapers regularly quote direct or indirect participants in the events they report. • According to Bell (1991: 207), speech is reported by journalists for three main resons: • a quote is valued as a particular incontrovertible fact; • to distance and to disown, to absolve the journalist; • to add to the story the flovour of the newsmaker’s own words;

10. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Quotation • The Italian tripartite headlining system gives ample scope for this device. It is therefore more common in Italian reports. Nevertheless is far from clear whether the quote is genuine or not . In the following Italian ‘occhiello’ the quotation seems to be attributable to the former Lega Nord Leader Bossi: • Il leader della Lega si corregge dicendo che ‘in ogni accordo bisogna dare per ricevere qualche cosa’. (Corriere della Sera 28-2-94) • In other cases the attribution of the quote is much less certain and seems to much of an interpretation of events: • Tornati in libertà , i capi della rivolta di ottobre in Russia rilanciano la sfida al Cremlino ‘Eltsin, non hai più futuro’.

11. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Quotation • Whether genuine or contrived, in both languages quotation is a way of creating interpersonal communication between writer and the reader by exploiting may features of the spoken language . • Unlike the previous examples English journalists tend to postopone the speaker: • It’s time for the IRA truce, says Adams. • The more widespread use of quotation in Italian is the use of the first names of important persons, and the use of question to create a kind of dialogue: • Helmut, l’inamovibile • E adesso chi governa?

12. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Punctuation: commas • Commas are absent in from many places where they would normally be expected; for instance there is a tendency to omit them after initially placed adverbials: • (lines: 53, 58, 90); • and almost always between coordiantions; • Or between sequnces of adjectives; • The reason is probably to avoid disturbing the ‘tempo’ of reading more than is necessary.

13. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Punctuation: dashes • the use of dashes is also interesting , in both texts they are use to mark a parenthesis (e.g. 171): • The effect of putting dashes rather than commas is to give the parenthetic phrase a greater independence, as can be seen from a comparison of the following pair of sentences: • But only a few – from weather ships - are made from sea areas; • But only a few, from weather ships, are made from sea areas; • Dashes also give the impression of informality and chattiness to a piece of a written utterance.

14. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Phonology: rhytmical effects • In a newspaper auditory effects can also be found, which presumably reverberate mentally and have rythmical effects: What is the linguistic function at play? • First article:Alliterations in I: to give added zest to the story : (e.g. 14, 26, 43) • Second article II: in the second one there is is a more complex rhytmical effects, using balance phrases and antitheses (e.g. 130). • In the first one, more informal article, the phonological structure of the words is relatively uncomplicated and this adds a great deal of its redeability.

15. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • There are two main areas of stylistic importance : • A) sentence structure and • B) group structure • A) sentence structure • Both I and II have a great deal in common, sentence types are largely statements (as one might expect) , with the normal order of elements, SVO. • Occationally in the language of reporting in British press we will find a question. There are two questions in II (107, 206) • Occationally we find an imperative (headline in I) • And we may even find minor sentences functioning as exclamation , usually in headlines.

16. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statemts type sentences concern • 1) the position of the subject in relation to the verb; • 2) The position of the adverbials within the clause; • 3) And the type of phrases and clausesstructure which may occur within any given sentence;

17. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statemts type sentences concern • 1) the position of the subject in relation to the verb; • The first phenomen, is exemplified only once (64), but its importance is considerable in this type of English style as a whole: the normal SV word-order becomes VS – “said Dr Mason”. • It does not imply any general permission for word-order flexibility such as ‘went Dr Mason’ as it is impossible in newspaper reporting as in anywhere else. • This occurrence is restriceted to verbs of a large class to do with speaking: “verbal processes” eg: say, declare, explain, state, affirm, announce, claim, maintain, pronounce, etc.

18. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 2) The position of the adverbials within the clause; • Adverbials are extremely common in newspaper reporting (as one would expect from the need to be explicit as to the place and time of the activities). Their position is interesting. Apart from the small group of adverbs (just, etc.). • The stylistic point to be made is that when an adverbial whose normal position is post-verbal is brough forward from this position and put near the beginning of the clause, it fulfils a strongly emphatic function.

19. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 2) The position of the adverbials within the clause; • The distinction in position seems to be made only for the sake of varying emphasis within a given sentence and no more. • We may compare the normal placement of yesterady (21), in one and a half hours (25), a month ago (39) where the reporting is factual and devoid of any special prominence; and the following, where the items are brough in to the forefront of our attention for the sake of of emphasis:

20. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 2) The position of the adverbials within the clause; • up to now (53), in a few more months (58), already (66), for the first time in routine procedures (89) for the purpose of the Meteological Office (153), • If one tries placing any of these towards the end of the sentence, one finds that the impetus of the narrative is greatly reduced (Crystal and Davy 1995).

21. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 3) And the type of phrases and clauses structure which may occur within any given sentence; • coordination, subordiantion, and parenthesis • II is much more complex than I. The first one has hardly any coordiantion at clause level. II has substantial coordination, between main clause (138, 197). The variety of coordinating devices is a feature of the structure of II, almost absent in I.

22. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 3) And the type of phrases and clausesstructure which may occur within any given sentence; • coordination, subordiantion, and parenthesis • Parenthesis eg – a 500,000 computer- tend to be short and simple, in view of the danger of losing thought begun in the superordinate structure.

23. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • A) sentence structure: the three most significant features within the broad category of statements type sentences concern • 3) And the type of phrases and clausesstructure which may occur within any given sentence; • Neither of them go far towards a complexity which could produce obscurity or unintelligebility. Newspaper reporting tend to distribute information in short sentences which aids redability and comprension. • In addition, some newspapers puts themselves in intimate relationship with us. And this accounts for the tone of familiarity which we feel in the opening sentences: “that big black clouds, those ‘Yah , ha-ha…’ • Devices of this kind are very common in more informal style newspaper-reporting English.

24. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • B) groupstructure • Apartfrom the featuresoperating at sentencelevel and betweensentences, itispossibleto note certaindistinctivecharacteristicsoperatingwithin the NP and the VP. • nominalgroup • Pre- and post- modification are common. Itisnoticeable in I fewnounsfunctions on theirown, without some formofadjectives, but the normisto introduce adjwhereverpossibletoadddetail and colourto the story, thuswefindnot just acomputer: • - £ 500,000 computer- etc. (16)

25. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • B) groupstructure • nominalgroup • wefindnot just single adj, but the coiningofnew and sometimesoutlandishadjectivalformation, suchas: • Weather-conscious(11), continuing dry (13), seven-to-ten-hour(56), fasterarriving(74), computer-made(100), etc. • In II vividdescriptionisreplacedby more technicaltermsfuntioningas a modifieradjectives, in the formofcompoundnouns: eg. routine procedure (90), electronic computer (91), forecast chart (92), pressuredistribution(97);

26. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • B) groupstructure • verbalgroup • the simplepasttermis the dominantform, present (especially II) and modals are alsofrequentlyused. Passive are rare, but II has 32 passive, becauseofitsscientific nature, giving the impressionofneutral, objective, factualreportingasoccurs in scientificlanguage. I hasonly 3 passive forms.

27. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Style: • Vocabulary • Turningnowtovocabulary, the moststrikingfeatureis word formation in I, wherethereis a greaterinventiveness in compoundingthan the standard English language. • Amountofinformality: won’t (11), weather’s (1), Yah, ha-ha… (9); etc. • An idiomsuchas: joined the ranksof (19), come up with (24); • Personificationofobject: MrComet in I, comparedwith the sober: knownasCometin II (175). • In II the tone ismuch more formal and restrained: contributed (91), persisted (112), • attained (131). The humandetailsof I contrastswith the reseachdetailof the second.

28. INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF NEWSPAPER REPORTING: • Conclusions • It should be clear that from all this how different these two types of reporting language are, despite the many points of similarity which have emerged. • On this basis, the language of newspaper reporting is evidently a very general label which should be used with care. There are certain linguistic features which are idyiosincratic and tend to occur only in a journalistic context, but it is unlikely that all or the majority of these would occur in any given newspaper report.