Приложение №1 newspaper style

1. The History of English Newspapers

Newspaper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing. English newspaper writing dates from the 17^th century, though short news pamphlets began to appear already at the end of the 16^th century.

[A pamphlet is a small book usually in paper covers, which contains arguments on a subject of current interest].

Any such publication dealt with one specific subject or presented news from one source. But these pamphlets appeared only from time to time. Nevertheless they can be looked upon as the immediate forerunners of the British press.

The 1^st regular English newspaper was the “Weekly News”. It appeared in 1622 and was the issued for nearly 20 years. The first daily newspaper in England ‘The Daily Courant” [ku’r nt] appeared in 1702. The newspaper contained news, largely foreign, and no comment. Such was the principle of the editor, which he stated in the first issue of the newspaper. Commentary appeared later. Besides home and foreign news, “The Daily Courant” contained advertisements, and announcements.

It took the English newspaper more than a century to establish its own style and standard. Only the 19^th century newspaper style can be regarded as a functional style.

English newspaper style may be defined as a system of interrelated (lexical, grammatical, phraseological, etc.) language means which is perceived by the bearer of the language as a separate unity the main purpose of which is to inform and instruct the reader.

2.What Printed Matter Comes under the Title of Newspaper Style?

Not all the printed matter found in newspapers comes under the title ‘newspaper style’. Modern newspapers publish materials of diverse character. On their pages one can find news, comments, poems, stories, articles in special fields, chess problems, puzzles, etc.

Since the primary function of the newspaper style is to impart (сообщать, передавать) news, only printed matter serving that purpose can be regarded ‘newspaper style proper’, namely:

1. Brief news (короткие заметки информационного характера) and communiques [,k ‘mju:nikeiz] (официальные сообщения правительства);

2. Press reports (of parliamentary or court proceedings and the like);

3. Articles of purely informational character;

4. Advertisements and announcements.

To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style we shall analyze the following basic newspaper features:

1. Brief news items;

2. Advertisements and announcements;

3. The editorial;

4. The headline.

The Headline

The headline is the most concise (сжатый) form of English newspaper. The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper article. The main function of the title is the same as that of the newspaper style in general – to inform the reader – of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal (оценка), i.e. they show the reporter’s attitude to the facts reported. English headlines are short and catch the eye. A skillfully turned out (worked out) headline tells enough of the story to arouse or satisfy the reader’s curiosity.

e.g. Black blood in the pipeline.

In most English and American newspapers sensational headlines are quite common.

Different newspapers have a different number of headlines before items or articles, and groups of headlines present almost a summary of the information of the article that follows.

The vocabulary of the headline is the same as in brief news items. But unlike brief news items, headlines may contain emotionally coloured words and phrases. Moreover, basic peculiarities of the headlines lie in their structure. Syntactically, headlines are usually made of short sentences and phrases of a variety of patters:

1. Full declarative sentences;

2. Interrogative sentences;

3. Elliptical sentences;

4. Sentences with articles omitted (omit – опускать);

5. Nominative sentences;

6. Questions in the form of statements;

7. Complex sentences;

8. Headlines including direct speech introduced by a full sentence or elliptically (with/without quotation marks);

9. Phrases with verbals.

Besides, these grammatical peculiarities, headlines may contain a number of different Ems and SDs, idioms, and other phraseologicals units, names of books, plays - all of them made to suit a particular need.

Brief News Items (BNI)

The function of BNI is to inform the reader. A BNI only states facts without giving commentary - that is why it is basically matter-of-fact (деловой) and almost devoid of emotional colouring. What really distinguishes BNI from other forms of newspaper writing is their syntactical structure but not their vocabulary. As a reporter is obliged to be brief, he naturally tries to squeeze as many facts as possible in the space allotted (предназначенное). That is why the shorter the news item the more complex its syntactical structure is. BNIs usually contain complex sentences with a developed system of clauses, verbal constructions, attributive noun groups, where word order is very important.