— 12 —
U N I T 3
HEADLINE FEATURES OF THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
The
headline
is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the
article below it.
A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. It is generally
written by a copy editor, but may also be written by the writer, the page layout designer,
or other editors. The most important story on the front page above the fold may have a larger
headline if the story is unusually important.
1. Read and remember the following linguistic peculiarities of the newspaper headlines:
1. Newspaper headlines can be arranged with the help of noun phrases. Headlines
often contain a noun phrase with no verb. A noun phrase describes a noun.
E x a m p l e
Under Pressure from Boss.
2. Noun Strings. Another common headline form is a string of 3, 4 or more nouns
together (i. e. Country Leader Question Time). These can be difficult because the words
don't appear related by verbs or adjectives.
E x a m p l e s
Widow Pension Pay Committee.
Landscaping Company Disturbance Regulations.
Mustang Referral Customer Complaint.
In the case of a noun string, it's helpful to try to connect the ideas by reading backward.
F o r e x a m p l e
Mustang Referral Customer Complaint
By reading backwards, we can guess that:
There is a complaint made by a customer about a referral
program for Mustang cars.
3. Because space is limited, headlines are written in a compressed telegraphic style,
using special syntactic conventions, for example, various Verb Changes. The most common
cases are:
a) simple tenses are used instead of continuous or perfect forms.
E x a m p l e
Forgotten Brother Appears. = A forgotten brother has appeared (after a long period of absence);
b) the infinitive form refers to the future.
E x a m p l e
Mayor to Open Shopping Mall. = The mayor is going to open a new shopping mall;
— 13 —
c) auxiliary verbs are dropped in the passive form.
E x a m p l e
Man Killed in Accident = A man has been killed in an accident.
4. Deletion of Articles.
E x a m p l e
Passerby Sees Woman Jump = A passerby has seen a woman jump (into the river).
5. Elliptical constructions - omission of parts of a word or sentence.
E x a m p l e
4 Killed in M-way Crash= Four people were killed in a motorway crash.
6. Possessive Case with inanimate objects instead of of-phrase (to economize space).
E x a m p l e
Price’s Control Discussed
7. Inversion (to emphasize certain words).
E x a m p l e
Aromatherapy has no therapeutic effect,
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: