the language of the news
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THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEWS. THE PRESS IN BRITAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF HEADLINES NEWS LAYOUT DEVELOPING NEWS. THE NATIONAL BRITISH PRESS. DAILY PAPERS SUNDAY PAPERS LOCAL PAPERS EVENING PAPERS THE FREE PRESS. QUALITY AND POPULAR PAPERS. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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THE PRESS IN BRITAIN
THE IMPORTANCE OF HEADLINES
NEWS LAYOUT
DEVELOPING NEWS
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• DAILY PAPERS
• SUNDAY PAPERS
• LOCAL PAPERS
• EVENING PAPERS
• THE FREE PRESS
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QUALITY PAPERS: also known as HEAVIES, they deal with hard news (politics, home affairs, foreign affairs, finance, economics, etc); they are intended for a well-educated reading public.
POPULAR PAPERS: also known as GUTTER PRESS/TABLOIDS, they deal with soft news (human interest stories, about famous people); they are intended for the mass (ordinary people)
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QUALITY AND POPULAR PAPERS
DIFFERENCES IN THE APPROACH TO THE NEWS
Size
typography
news
paragraphs
lexis
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QUALITY PAPERS
Size: large format
Typography: few pictures
News attitude: hard news, both reports and comments
Paragraphs: long
Lexis: both neutral and non-neutral; complex and dense
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POPULAR PAPERS
Size: small format (tabloids)
Typography: large block headlines, a lot of pictures and photographs
News attitude: soft news (human interest stories)
Paragraphs: short
Lexis: simple, non-neutral, rich in contrasts (comparatives and superlatives)
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REPORTS
Any news article which gives information about something that has just
happened in order to narrate neutrally
COMMENTS/EDITORIALS
Any article which gives the writer’s opinion
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Most modern newspapers have three sizes:
BROADSHEET : generally associated with more intellectual newspapers. It is the largest of the newspapers formats and is characterized by very long vertical pages. The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of matters, from ballads to political satire.
The most important British newspapers in this format are :
The Daily Telegraph, the Times, The Financial Times, etc.
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TABLOID : is half the size of the broadsheet and focuses on local-interest stories and entertainment, emphasises sensational crime stories: gossip columns deal with the personal life of celebrities and sport stars, and also called “junk food news”.
The most important British newspapers in this format are :
The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror, etc.
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BERLINER : is slightly taller and marginally wider than the tabloid, and is both narrower and shorter than the broadsheet format
The most important British newspapers in this format are :
The Guardian and The Observer
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They regularly appear after 1870.The crucial factor in their evolution was the use of the telegraph in the
American civil war.
The functions of a headline are:
To attract the reader’s attention
To indicate the writer’s attitude
To summarize the content of the article
To indicate the focus of the article
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Newspapers headlines have special linguistic characteristics
SPECIALISED VOCABULARY: words are unusual, sensational and short; language is distinctive and telegraphic;
RHETORICAL DEVICES: headlines play with words (metaphors, puns, assonances, consonances, etc.);
INTERNALLY CONSISTENT GRAMMAR
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Newspapers headlines have special linguistic characteristics
THEY PLAY WITH KNOWLEDGE: they focus on the reader’s cultural knowledge;
REGISTER: the register differs according to field (economics, politics, science, etc), tenor (formal/informal, technical/non-technical, neutral/emotional, etc.);
MODE: formal vs informal
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Newspapers headlines play with the reader’s knowledge:
SUBSTITUTION: it occurs when a grammatical/lexical item, a homophone or a single letter is substituted
ABBREVIATION: a well-known expression is quoted in abbreviated form
INSERTION: an additional item is inserted into a well-known expression
REPHRASING: an expression is altered in some way
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Who writes the headline?
The subeditor/s
When does s/he does it ?
Before being printed, when the journalist has already written the article
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What do headlines convey?
They abstract the story, they do not have to begin it
Why are headlines personalised?
It depends on factors, such as the newspaper’s house style, and the subject matter. Some subjects
require formal treatment, others do not.
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VERBALISATION VS NOMINALISATION
The headline is verbalised when the main clause is not dominated by a
noun phrase but by a verb.Ex: Phones are the new cars E- commerce takes off PssT, wanna buy a kidney? Can Angel Merkel hold Europe together? That’s all folks Don’t lie to me Argentina We like to move it move it Come and get me
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VERBALISATION VS NOMINALISATIONThe headline is nominalised when the main clause is dominated by a
noun phrase.Ex: Out of the limelight Time for super Mario Out with the long Less Mary Poppins Mamma mia Decision time Of music, murder and shopping No time for doubters
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VERBALISATION
The verb gives energy, liveliness and pace to the headline
The message is clear, unambiguous, and not deviant The journalist’s position is neutral It has a reporting function
NOMINALISATION
It obstacles the reader’s interpretation It makes the message more ambiguous, the language is more deviant
It underlines the journalist’s position/opinion It attracts the reader’s attention It is an excellent tool to summarize the article
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While writing articles the journalist must respect the rules of
communication:
QUALITY: do no say things which are not true
QUANITY: do not say either too much or too little
RELEVANCE: do not say things which are not connected with the discourse
MANNER: be brief, be ordered, be clear, be simple
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News stories are socially created; to be published they must respect the general criteria of newsworthiness. News must be:
Real: no invention
Unambiguous: clearly developed and respectful of the cultural proximity
In agreement with the reading public as much as possible
Clearly stereotyped: the readers are supposed to understand
Topic-oriented: the importance of a subject depends on where it is seen from
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As Labov (1969) stated, stories have a beginning, a middle, and an
end. A fully-formed narrative story respects the
following pattern:
AbstractOrientation
ActionEvaluation
Result or resolutioncoda
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NEWS STORIES have a structure, direction, point, and a Viewpoint (Bell: 1991, 1995,1996)
Abstract vs Lead
The abstract corresponds to the lead/1st paragraph and
the headline: the lead summarizes the central action and
it establishes the main point of a news story. The headline is the abstract of the abstract, it appears as the
first abstract in the printed story.
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The orientation
In narratives and news stories it sets the scene: who the
actors are, where, and when the events take/took place,
what the initial situation is/was. In the news it is
necessary. For journalists who, what, when and where
Are the basic facts which are concentrated at the
beginning of the story, but may be expanded further
down.
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Action
At the heart of a personal narrative the action corresponds to
the sequence of events which occurred, it is the temporal
sequence of its sentences; in news stories, by contrast, events
are seldom if ever told in chronological order (the body of the
story).
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evaluation
The evaluation, which in narratives distinguishes a directionless
sequence of sentences from a story, in news stories has the
same function; it establishes the significance of what is being
told, it focuses on the events, and justifies them claiming the
reading public’s attention.
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ResolutionThe personal narrative moves to a resolution. News stories often do not present such clearcut results. When they do, the result will be in the lead rather than at the end of the story.
News stories are not temporally structured, or turned in a finished fashion.
codaThe coda, which is widely used in personal narratives, does not
appear in news stories.
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There are three additional categories in news stories:
Background: it represents the past; it covers any events prior to the current action-story.
Commentary: it represents the present, it provides the journalist’s present-time observations on the action, assessing, and commenting on events as they happen. It may provide the context to assist understanding of what is happening, evaluative comment on the action, expectations of how the situation will develop.
Follow up: it represents the future; it covers the story future-time, any action subsequent to the main action of an event. It can include verbal reaction by other parties or non-verbal consequences.
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THE INVERTED PYRAMID CONCEPT(Van Dijk, 1988)
Concentration of information in the lead, headline, sub-headline
Developing of information in the body/action, where events are not developed respecting a chronological order
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HOW DO THE JOURNALISTS DEVELOP THE NEWS?
While communicating there must be a balance between new information and given information.
given information generally comes at the beginning (theme);
new information generally comes at the end (rheme);
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HOW DO THE JOURNALISTS DEVELOP THE NEWS?
While communicating the new element(s), the journalist keeps the readers interested because this is new for them; they are told something they did not know. If all the information were new, without any anchor in shared knowledge, they would not be able to absorb the load.
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BREVITY AND EFFICIENCY: information is incapsulated into limited spaces, with respect for the effect it has on the audience
IMPRESSIVNESS : sensational words are chosen
DEVIANCE: deviant language is used to attract, to persuade
PERSUASIVENESS: relevant lexical and grammatical items are selected
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QUOTATIONS(journalists quote for three main different reasons)
1. NEUTRALITY : a quote is an unquestionable fact
1. DISTANCE: to absolve the journalist
TRUTHNESS: to add the story the flavour of the newsmaker’s own words
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LANGUAGE (to attract the reader’s attention, the journalist
uses)
COLLOQUIAL TERMS: spoken language allow everybody to feel comfortable with both given and new information
FIGURES OF SPEECH: to produce high deviance, suspense, colourfulness and liveliness