11. Structural 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.

The function of brief news items, communiquйs and reports is to inform the reader. They state only facts without giving commentary. This accounts for the total absence of any individuality of expression and the lack of emotional colouring. The vocabulary used here is neutral and common literary. It is essentially matter-of-fact, and stereotypical forms of expression prevail. But apart from this, a newspaper has its specific vocabulary that can be found in its other features – editorials, articles, and advertisements.

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).

The headlines of news items, apart from giving information about the subject-matter, also carry a considerable amount of appraisal (the size and placement of the headline, the use of emotionally coloured words and elements of emotive syntax), thus indicating an interpretation of the facts in the news item that follows.

But the principle vehicle of interpretation and appraisal is the newspaper article, and the editorial, in particular. Editorials (leading articles ) are characterized by a subjective handling of facts, political or otherwise, and therefore have more in common with political essays or articles and should rather be classed as belonging to the publicistic style than to the newspaper. However, newspaper publicistic writing bears the stamp of its own style. Though it seems natural to consider newspaper articles, editorials included, as coming within the system of English newspaper style, it is necessary to note that such articles are an intermediate phenomenon characterized by a combination of styles – the newspaper style and the publicistic style. In other words, they may be considered hybrids.

The following grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are of paramount importance, and may be regarded as grammatical parameters of newspaper writing:

a) Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses, e.g.,

Although Mayfield denied any connection – he insisted his passport had expired last October and he hadn’t been out of the country in years – he was detained as a “material witness” in a grand-jury investigation while the FBI tries to build its case (Newsweek, 2004). (6 clauses)

b) Verbal constructions (infinitive, gerundial, participial), e.g.,

Since 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld has insisted on personally signing off on the harsher methods used to squeeze suspected terrorists held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Newsweek, 2004).

c) Syntactical complexes, especially the Nominative with Infinitive (The Complex Subject). These constructions are largely used to avoid mentioning the source of information or to shun responsibility for the facts reported, e.g.,

Demands from Washington are likely to worsen Blair’s relationship with serving generals. The White House wants more troops in Iraq – 2,000 is the rumoured figure – to replace the departing Spanish. If the Poles cut their forces, too, as they’re hinting they may, Washington will likely urge British troops to take over command of the holy Shiite city of Najaf, home to rabble-rousing imam Moqtada ai-Sadr (Newsweek, 2004).

d) Attributive noun groups are another powerful means of effecting brevity in news items, e.g., classic cold-war-style telephone diplomacy; government anti -terror policies; a new patented smoking cessation program; an exclusive worldwide assistance network; the normally self-assured Pentagon chief; the national income and expenditure figures.

e) Specific word order. Newspaper tradition, coupled with the rigid rules of sentence structure in English, has greatly affected the word order of brief news items. The word order in one-sentence news paragraphs and in what are called leads (the initial sentences in longer news items) is more or less fixed. Journalistic practice has developed the “five-w-and-h-pattern rule” (who-what-why-how-where-when) and for a long time strictly adhered to it. In terms of grammar, this fixed sentence structure may be expressed in the following way: Subject – Predicate (object) – Adverbial modifier of reason (manner) – Adverbial modifier of place – Adverbial modifier of time, e.g.,