10. Lexical Peculiarities of the newspaper style.

To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to analyse the following basic newspaper fea­tures:

1) brief news items,

2)advertisements and announcements,

3) the headline,

4) the editorial.

It goes without saying that the bulk of the vocabulary used in news­paper writing is neutral and common literary. But apart from this, news­paper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

a) Special political and economic terms, e. g. Socialism, constitution, president, apartheid, by-election, General Assembly, gross output, per ca­pita production.

b) Non-term political vocabulary, e. g. public, people, progressive, nation-wide, unity, peace, A characteristic feature of political vocabulary is that the border line between terms and non-terms is less distinct than in the vocabulary of other special fields. The semantic structure of some words comprises both terms and non-terms, e. g. nation, crisis, agreement, member, representative, leader.

c) Newspaper cliches, i. e. stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases familiar to the readert e. g. vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger of war, to escalate a war, war hysteria, overwhelming ma­jority, amid stormy appiause. Cliches more than anything else reflect the traditional manner of expression in newspaper writing. They are com­monly looked upon as a defect of style. Indeed, some cliches, especially those based on trite images (e.g. captains of industry, pillars of society, bulwark of civilization) are pompous and hackneyed, others, such as welfare state, affluent society^^are false and misleading. But nevertheless, cliches are indispensable in newspaper style: they prompt the necessary associations and prevent ambiguity and misunderstanding.

d) Abbreviations. News items, press^ reports and headlines abound in abbreviations of various kinds. Among them abbreviated terms— names of organizations, public and state bodies, political associations, industrial and other companies, various offices, etc.—known by their initials are very common, e.g. UNO (t/nited Nations Organization), TUG (Trades Union Congress), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organiza­tion), AFL-CIO (Лтепсап Federation of Labour-Congress of /ndustrial Organizations), EEC (.European Economic Community), TGWU (Trans­port and General Workers Union), FO (Foreign Office), PIB (Prices and /ncomes Board),

e) Neologisms. These are very common in newspaper vocabulary. The newspaper is very quick to react to any new development in the life of society, in science and technology. Hence, neologisms make their way into the language of the newspaper very easily and often even spring up on newspaper pages, e.g. lunik, a splash-down (the act of bringing a spacecraft to a water surface), a teach-in (a form of campaigning through heated political discussion), backlash or white backlash (a violent reaction of American racists to the Negroes' struggle for civil rights), frontlash (a vigorous antiracist movement), stop-go policies (contradictory, inde­cisive and inefficient policies).

f) Lofty, bookish words including certain phrases based on metaphors and thus emotionally coloured: war hysteria, escalation of war, overwhelming majority, a storm of applause, post attack cleanup, global hunt for terrorists, a shot of power.

g) Foreign words. These have come from different languages. Some are traditionally used in newspaper writing, others have recently come from the areas of new technology (computers, Internet, business, entertainment and changes in society), for example, beaucoup (= a lot of money; from French); ad hoc (= specialized; from Latin); bona fide (= real, true and not intended to deceive somebody (from Latin): I wanted to prove my bona fides; curriculum vitae (CV) (= resume; from Latin); sine qua non (= something that you must have; from Latin); carte blanche (= complete freedom; from French); nouveau riche (= someone who has only recently become rich and spends a lot of money; from French); tРєte-Р°-tРєte (= a private conversation; from French); glitch (= a small fault in working of something; from German); macho (= a man who is always trying to show that he is strong, brave; from Spanish); schlock (= careless work / odd jobs, catchpenny job; from Yiddish).

The above-listed peculiarities of brief news items are the basic vocab­ulary parameters of English newspaper style.

The vocabulary of brief news items is for the most part devoid of emotional colouring. Some papers, however, especially those classed among "mass" or "popular" papers, tend to introduce emotionally col­oured lexical units into essentially matter-of-fact news stories, e.g.

As the newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on various social, political or moral matters, its language frequently contains vocabulary with evaluative connotation, such as to allege (the person who allegedly committed the crime), to claim (the defendant claims to know nothing about it). These cast some doubt on what is stated further and make it clear to the reader that those are not yet affirmed facts. Elements of appraisal may be observed in the very selection and way of presenting the news, not only in the use of specific vocabulary but in syntactic constructions indicating a lack of surity on the part of the reporter as to the correctness of the facts reported or his/her desire to avoid responsibility, e.g., Mr. J Brown was said to have opposed the proposal. He was quoted as saying… (The Complex Subject).