British Newspaper Discourse Lesson 2:compression

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British Newspaper DiscourseLesson 2compression

• Headlines and the noun phrase

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headlines

• Last lesson we saw examples of headlines which
  were difficult to interpret
• Headlines are summaries and are very useful so it
  is a good idea to be able to work out their
  meaning
• Lets look now at some grammatial concepts which
  can be of use in interpreting headlines

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Word classes

• Part of the language system is the fact of having
  different classes of words which combine in
  particular ways. These word classes are often
  called parts of speech. (see WWT Unit 2)
• There are open and closed classes

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Open class words

• Open lexical or content words the main
  carriers of meaning in a text. Four main classes
  nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
• They can have a complex internal structure and
  they can function as the head of a phrase.

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Nouns

• One of the most prominent word forms.
• On average every fourth word is a noun.

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How would you divide up this sentence?

• Analyse this sentence into groups of words, which
  words seem to go together?
• That very tall boy in the black sweater was
  talking noisily to the group of girls in the
  second row.

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Phrases

• A group of words with a head word, modified
  either by pre- or post- modification
• the words seem to have a closer link to each
  other than to the rest of the sentence.
• We naturally organise our understanding and our
  reconstruction of sentences into phrases.

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Noun phrase

• The noun is the head of the phrase
• nouns can modify nouns, acting like adjectives.
• The more nouns used in pre-modification the more
  technical and precise the text.
• Premodification is very frequent in scientific
  texts but also in newspaper discourse.

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And..

• A noun modifier is when a noun functions like an
  adjective and modifies the meaning of the noun
  that follows it.
• A pronoun is a word that can substitute for a
  noun. But they belong to a closed class

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Adjectives

• Adjectives describe qualities or properties, of
  people, things, and states of affairs they are
  often complex, can occur as the head of an
  adjective phrase.
• They add information to a noun in a noun phrase

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Adverbs

• Adverbs qualify verbs they expand on the
  information in a verb phrase.
• Adverbials are often called adjuncts, they add
  extra information about the time, place or manner
  of the situation

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Phrases

• A group of words with a head word, modified
  either by pre- or post- modification
• We naturally organise our understanding and our
  reconstruction of sentences into phrases.
• Phrases do not contain a finite verb ( they may
  contain a verb in the infinitive or participle
  form but are not marked for who or how many were
  involved, the action is left timeless)

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• These minimal grammatical notions need to be
  understood to understand newspaper language.
• Lets now look at headlines

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Who writes the headlines?

• Usually the sub editor not the writer of the
  article
• Headlines and sub heads are added at the end

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Headline as text

• A text
• Makes sense
• Is complete
• Is coherent

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Headlines

• You need to be able to describe headlines in
  terms of their
• functions
• Language
• structure or grammar (phrases)
• - vocabulary

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Functions of the headline

• Attract the readers attention to the story (or
  paper, if on the front page)
• Tell the reader what the story is about
• summarising the content of the story
• indicating the evaluation of the story
• indicating the register of the story
• indicating the focus of the story

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The power of headlines

• Headlines are powerful framing devices and
  prepare the reader by priming their expectations
  as to evaluation

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Short and simple

• headlines take up space because of their size so
  need to use short words
• They try to be telegraphic
• This means using the content words more than
  function words
• Open class words rather than closed
• Meaning is compressed into as few words as
  possible

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Headline lexis

• Probe for inquiry
• Axe for dismiss
• Quit for resign
• Use of speech marks to indicate a quotation
  omitting the speech verb
• UK search engine could rival Google

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Headline grammar

• Existential verbs are eliminated
• Present tense is used to report events
• Infinitive is used for future time reference
• Past participle is used for passive
• Simple past is used for legal reports
• Any element which adds no information the readers
  cannot deduce for themselves is left out

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Differences in tone

• Doctors halt breast implants (Times)
• Dolly boob job banned by US (Mirror)
• Im staying Queen in TV (Mirror)
• Queen has no plans to abdicate (Times)
• Army kids killed in M-way fog carnage (Mirror)
• Four die in crash on foggy motorway (Times)

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Pre and post modification

• Information about the noun is added either by
  pre- or post modification of the noun.
  Determiners pre modify (articles, numerals,
  adjectives and other nouns)
• Girl (a noun)
• A really funny and brilliant girl
  (premodification)
• A girl who was standing next to the bar
• (postmodification by means of a relative clause)

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Noun noun

• A noun modifier is when a noun functions like an
  adjective and modifies the meaning of the noun
  that follows it.
• Newspaper prose continues to rely on a dense use
  of nouns and noun phrase constructions
• A reflection of the informational purpose and the
  pressure to communicate information as
  efficiently and economically as possible

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Noun phrases in headlines

• Baby rape fiend in dad date trick
• Tory councillor faces race hate charges
• Social worker rapist scandal
• Prayer book burning kindles feminist ire

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Headline Language - vocabulary

• Specialised vocabulary
• unusual
• sensational
• short
• e.g.
• killer ? e.g. killer bug
• peril
• horror
• terror

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Headline language Specialised vocabulary

• KILLER BUG AIR SCARE
• Mirror 20/05/2006
• A WOMAN who arrived in London on a flight from
  Africa yesterday is reported to have died from
  the deadly and contagious ebola virus.
• Killer bug inquiry to start
• Sun 30 Dec 2007
• A PUBLIC inquiry into the UK's second biggest
  outbreak of a deadly strain of the E.coli bug
  will start hearing evidence in the new year.

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Headline language Specialised vocabulary

• Israel warns of Iranian missile peril for Europe
• Telegraph 07/01/2008
• Iran is developing nuclear missiles capable of
  reaching beyond its enemies in the Middle East to
  Europe, President George Bush will be warned when
  he visits Israel and the Palestinian territories
  for the first time since entering the White
  House.
• The Earth today stands in imminent peril
• Independent 19 June 2007
• ...and nothing short of a planetary rescue will
  save it from the environmental cataclysm of
  dangerous climate change. Those are not the words
  of eco-warriors but the considered opinion of a
  group of eminent scientists writing in a
  peer-reviewed scientific journal.

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Headline language - vocabulary

• Specialised vocabulary
• Word play

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Headline language playing with words

• Homonyms
• Same spelling
• Same pronunciation
• Different meaning

• Kate scores 1.2m deal
• Sun, 25/11/2007
• KATE Moss was 1.2million richer last night
  after clinching her first modelling deal since
  her cocaine shame emerged.

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Headline language playing with words

• Homophones
• Same pronunciation
• Different spelling
• Different meaning

• Aisle Not Marry You, Sadie
• Sadie Frost has been dealt a wedding blow as her
  best pal and ex-hubby both plan lavish nuptials.
• While she may be tentatively looking at
  engagement rings, her toyboy lover Jackson Scott
  has declared "I am not going to marry her."

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• Twitchers flock to Norfolk
• Sun, 9/1/2008
• BIRDWATCHERS were hoping today that a rare
  American bird lodging in an English village would
  stay out of the clutches of a cat called
  Hooligan.

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Headline language playing with words

• Porpoise bite be Jaws victim
• Sun, 9/01/2008
• JAWS mania took a shark turn today after the
  savaged body of a porpoise was found off the
  coast of eastern England.
• might
• a sharp turn

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Headline language creativity

• Metaphor

• BLUNKET THROWS IN THE TOWEL

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• Immigration is like water out of control
• Evaluation?

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Headline language creativity

• Metonymy

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Headline language Playing with sounds

• Alliteration
• Classy Capello shines on debut
• Mirror, 12 2007
• Rhyme
• Tricky Dick, meet phoney Tony
• Guardian 5 2007
• What the end of Richard Nixon can teach us about
  the end of Tony Blair.

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Playing with knowledge Intertextuality
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Playing with knowledge Intertextuality

• Bible
• Literature
• Songs
• TV/film culture
• Proverbs

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Headline language

• Extended noun phrases
• Specialised vocabulary
• Playing with words (puns)
• Creativity metaphor / metonymy
• Playing with sounds
• Playing with knowledge
• Can you find examples?

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Newspaper prose

• Nominal premodification is common
• Long sequences of nouns combining premodifiers
  with head nouns are shorter and denser in terms
  of information conveying complex meanings in
  compressed form
• The reader has to understand the relationship
  between the two nouns

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Premodifying nouns

• Government action, approval, control, decision
• Business community, dealings, empire, ideas
• TV ads, appearance, cameras, channel,
  documentary
• School activities, boards, budget,
• Water authorities, bill, companies,

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• Air disaster
• Reprisal raid
• Baggage inspection
• Airline officials
• Blood pressure
• Glass bottle

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• Air disaster N1 expresses the location of N2
• Reprisal raid N1 expresses the purpose of N2
• Baggage inspection N1 expresses the patient of
  N2
• Airline officials N2 is employed by N1
• Glass bottle N2 is composed of N1
• Plastic surgeon?
• Criminal lawyer?

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Readers knowledge

• The pre-modifying nouns are from semantic domains
  most commonly associated with current events such
  as government, business, education, the media and
  sports where readers can be assumed to have
  well-developed pragmatic knowledge to be able to
  decode the relationship

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Other forms of compression

• Non restrictive relative clauses, for information
  that is tangential to the main point
• A visit to the former Portuguese territory, which
  Indonesia had de facto incorporated into its
  territory in 1976, was scheduled after repeated
  postponements
• Appositive noun phrases
• Gerard Yon, formerly sales and marketing manager
  of Chorus systèmes, the microkernel house and now
  president of VST, a French start-up in electronic
  document mangagement

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More postmodification

• To-noun-complement-clauses with common head nouns
  like chance, attempt, opportunity, decision,
  plan, bid
• A fresh bid to break the Arab-Israeli impasse
• Most of these head nouns are derived from verbs
  so the style is even more compressed
• In this way the agent can be left unspecified
• Regional nerves have been strained by a plan to
  cut off water from Syria

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Hands on

• Find examples of compression in the form of
  extended noun phrases, either pre-modification or
  apposition
• Post modification with to-noun-complement clauses
  following a nominalised verb ( e.g plan, bid,
  attempt to)

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Sources / Useful reading

• Morley, J. 1998. Truth to Tell Form and Function
  in Newspaper Headlines. CLUEB. pp 23-50
• Reah, D. 2002. The Language of Newspapers.
  Routledge. pp 13-33
• Aitchison J. and Lewis D. (eds) New Media
  Language