论英美报刊的语言特色及阅读技巧

论文总字数：34600字

摘 要

本文以英美报刊的语言特点研究为理论基础，通过对语言特点的分析，总结出我们在阅读英美报刊时能够学习到的阅读策略。一则新闻的不同部分（标题，导语，正文等等）可能有不同的特点，例如词汇，语法，修辞手法。一则新闻的标题的作用是向读者介绍新闻的主题，或者是吸引读者的兴趣。在阅读新闻的不同部分时，要用到不同的阅读技巧。这就意味着研究英美报刊的语言特色，对于我们通过阅读报刊获取所需的信息以及提高我们的英语习得能力都具有极其重要的意义。

关键词：英美报刊；语言特点；阅读技巧

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1

2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………1

3. Language Features of English Newspaper……...…….………..………….3

3.1 Vocabulary…………………….…………………………………………4

3.2 Grammar………………….…………………………………………...6

3.3 Rhetoric…………………..…………………………………………...8

3.4 Title……………………………………………………………………9

3.5 Lead……………………………..………………………………….10

3.6 Body………………………………………………………………….10

4. Reading Strategies of English Newspaper…………...….………………..11

4.1 Learning to summarize the main idea………..……...……...…………….11

4.2 Paying attention to detailed information…….…………………...………12

4.3 Not trying to understand every single word or sentence……………...12

4.4 Mastering basic business words.…………………………………………12

4.5 Cultivating the habit of reading newspaper regularly…………..………13

5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………...14

Works Cited……………………………………………………………..........16

1. Introduction

With the development of global economy, the method of mass communication has gone through a rapid change, from newspaper, broadcast, to TV, telephone and now Internet. Different with the telephone and internet, as a type of traditional media that we get information, newspaper has many advantages especially the power of information. The first purpose for us to read English newspaper is to get useful information rapidly and correctly. For example: the contrast of the rate of economic growth between China and other English speaking country, and the economic policy made by American government that aimed at Chinese foreign trade. So, this thesis is based on the study of the English newspaper and discuss the reading skills of this kind of newspaper, and then improve the reader’s ability of reading English newspaper and teach them how to get useful information quickly. In conclusion, the role that newspaper plays in getting necessary information can never be ignored and the study of language features of English newspaper can also count very much.

正文字数在4000个单词左右。正文部分的除标题行外的其他内容：英文段首空格为五个字符，Times New Roman 小四号1.5倍行距，段前段后0磅，两端对齐；英文句号为实心点。

2. Literature Review

Due to the importance of the newspaper, English scholars have been devoted to study the development and function of English newspaper, which helps us learn the language and reading skills a lot further.

What is news? The official definition of news is the newly occurring facts. While as we know, not all occurring can be seen as a news. For example, the facts that a dog bite you or you bite a dog. Which one could be a news, of cause the latter one, cause that there are many elements that constitute a news, and in this one, it is its novelty that make the fact you bite a dog be an interesting news. However, it is known to us that news is a combination of information that people are or should be interested in and news values must include the following characteristics: timeliness, conflict, prominence, consequence and novelty.

One is timeliness. Timeliness is a very important measure of news. An accident today that held up the local rush hour traffic for one hour is timelier than one that happened three days ago with the same consequence. The stories of recent happening will get more attention in a newspaper.

Second is conflict. Most conflicts, whether they involve individuals, administrative bodies or sports teams, are newsworthy. Conflict often arouse emotions and can therefore be of enormous and immediate importance.

Third is prominence. Some occurrences are newsworthy simply because prominent people are involved. Whatever they do or whatever happens to them because its consequences. Big names make big news.

Then is consequence. Any events that affects many many people is newsworthy. For example, the impact of mass layoffs by major employers is not limited to the employees and their families only, but is also felt throughout their communities. It is not surprising that media give prominent play to these happenings.

The last is novelty. Readers and editors alike love novelties in the news: the three-eyed baby, the 60-kilo cabbage and so on. Anything unusual, even bizarre, has strong reader appeal.（Xu 2）

As we know, newspaper is now considered as an ideal tool of news applying. While at the beginning, newspaper was designed to communicate between royal family. Due to its production cost, only the upper class can have access to newspaper, so that the function as news applying had not been founded at that time. And as time goes on, newspaper have gradually developed into contemporary form and has its own unique effect.

It is the first intention for the reader to get information from the newspaper. The information includes many types of news, but we can generally classify them into two kinds：one is hard news, another is soft news. What is hard news? It is the news that closely linked with people’s life like the following news: The current slump has been a severe one in Italy as a whole, but things are worse in the south and worst around Naples, those news about business, politics or natural disasters are called hard news. And on the contrary, soft news is a term for all the news that isn’t time-sensitive, such as profiles of people, programs or organization. No matter what kind of news it belongs to, the information that newspaper apply can meet the reader’s needs to know the world.

The purpose for a person to launch a newspaper is to earn money. So how can he reach his purpose? The answer is advertisement. In other words, advertisement is another kind of information: production information. They display us the production that we intended to buy. While different with the news, we need to distinguish the true from the false. In all, it does provide us another choice when selecting commodities.

In order to attract reader’s interest, newspaper not only apply information but also can be regarded as a way to relax, especially sports news. In addition, there are usually some intellectual tests or continued novels in the newspaper, which is really an ideal way to relax after work at past when Internet cannot be acquired easily.

The newspaper is mainly written to be read in a hurry; therefore, in news writing simple and accurate and common words are preferred, unnecessary words should be eliminated, and sentences and paragraphs should be kept short. In other words, the basic news style consists of short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. Of course sentences must vary in length if the reader is to be kept interested, and some paragraphs are warranted by their content to be longer than others. Normally skilled reporters average 15 words per sentence and 40 words per paragraph. Besides, new stories are supposed to report issues objectively, rather than render verdicts or give judgment. The reporters should learn how to tell personal from facts. That is to say, let the fact speak for itself, either favorably or unfavorably. After all, news reports are written to express, not to impress.（Brooks 78）

Then, the structure of a news story is made up of the lead and the body. The opening paragraph or two of the story is called the “lead”. In a hard news story, the lead should be a full summary of what is to follow. It should incorporate as many of the 5 W’s of journalism ( who, what, when, where and why). The body of the story is the paragraphs after the lead to elaborate upon the 5 W’s outlined in the lead and the H (how) by combining the opinions of the people you interview, some factual data, and a narrative which help to weave the comments into a coherent whole. (Zheng 98)

3. Language Features of English Newspaper

News in English newspaper is often written in inverted pyramid form, in another words, the most important factors are in the head of the news. Considering the limited column of a newspaper, the language that news uses must be very concise so that the reader can get their aiming message quickly. After many years’ development, the language structure of news writing is now consists of four parts: title, lead, body, and ending. Then, this thesis will study the language feature of English newspaper from different aspects as following.

3.1 Vocabulary

News reporting covers the latest events and developments in all aspects of social life. However the reader’ cultural level is not uniform, which leads that the use of vocabulary tends to have a characteristic of diversity.

3.1.1 Abbreviation

News reporting is characterized by a strong timeliness, the faster the better. In order to improve the speed of news communication, concise words must be used. Sometimes, a simple word may express complex meaning or the length of the word must be controlled in 3 to 5 letters. In the news that “ China Vows to Ensure Food, Drug Safety (中国决心确保食品和药物的安全）”, “vow” is used to replace the word “determine”. This phenomenon is very normal, claim=deprive sb of his life, dip=decline or decrease and so on. Additionally, there are still some similar usage: ace=champion, statement=dispute that cannot be settled.

3.1.2 New words

In modern English, new things and new concepts usually first appear in English newspaper. Because the emergence of a new thing, first of all, is publicized to people through the media. What news pursue is new, as one of the carriers of news, the life of news language also lies in “new”. There are different sources of these new word, some are self-invented, some are borrowed, and these words reflect the development of the times and let the readers have a fresh feeling. For example: Though new antiterrorism laws are overriding fundamental civil rights and liberties, and racial profiling is now official police policy. “antiterrorism” is the combination of “anti” and the English word “terrorism”.

3.1.3 Borrowed words

The readers of English newspaper are extremely in different classes, and their ability to accept is also different, which requires journalists to use words that most people can understand without losing vivid image. It is the most effective means to borrow vocabulary from other field for reporters to achieve this goal. Those words from other fields can not only express their meaning accurately, but also play an important role in leaving readers a profound impression. For example: Washington and Moscow still dominate arms market. In this news, Washington and Moscow represent the USA and Russia. In English news reporting, the capital or famous architecture to represent their country. So is it in the following news；In line with such thinking, President Clinton argued last week for continued American assistance of the Kremlin (Russian’s most famous architecture) economic reform.

3.1.4 Ambiguous words

The accurate and concise use of language is the basic requirement of news writing and the goal that reporters pursue. However, in practice, there is no absolute boundary between different things because objective things are constantly changing and moving. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to describe complex nature and society in exact language. As a result, it is necessary for reporters to use some ambiguous words such as probably, more or less, somewhat, basically, in a sense and so on.

For example: At least 35 people perished last week when a truck erupted in flames deep inside the tunnel that links France and Italy. The fire quickly engulfed some 30 other vehicles and burned for two days before firefighters finally put it out. This phenomenon can usually be found in the report on disaster news, which increases the credibility of news and reflects the spirit of truth-seeking.

3.1.5 Vivid words

News writing need to be made more vivid by various means in order to attract the attention and interest of the readers. In general. These vivid words can increase the expressive ability of the news and cater to the reading principles of the readers at all classes because they have some characteristics in the context. (Zhu 72) For example:

1. Luxury cars steal the show in NYC
2. US warplanes rained bombs on Kandahar

(3) The war and other difficulties dog the Arab summit.

3.1.6 Chinese characters

With the development of our country’s economy and the improvement of our country’s status, the interest of foreigners in China has increased day by day. When reading English newspaper, they usually meet some words related to Chinese politics, economy or culture and other aspects, which is difficult for them to translate in exact English words. Therefore, some English words borrowed from Chinese character can be found in English news reporting, and this phenomenon has been wildly accepted by English speak country.

1. NPC to put “ Three Represent” (三个代表）into Constitution.
2. Hukou (户籍制度）system must reform step by step.

3.2 Grammar

As a special language styles , grammar used in English news is significantly different from literary English, science and technology English, business English, medical English and legal English, etc. Its unique features can be found in tense, voice, sentence structure and other aspects.

3.2.1 Tense

The use of tense has its own unique features in English news, especially in the title. In order to give readers a sense of reality and timeliness in the news, the title usually use simple present tense, infinitive or present participle. For example:

1. Hillary Clinton suffers collapse .
2. US senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton has collapsed during a public appearance in Buffalo, New York state.

Thing that Hillary collapsed happened in the past, however the news use present tense no matter in the title or text.

In addition, the inconsistency of tenses is another feature of English news writing. In general style, according to the traditional English grammar rules, tenses of predicate verbs in object clauses are subject to the tenses of predicate verbs in the main sentence, which is called the sequence of tenses. Similarly, when the indirect speech is changed to the direct one, the verb form should be adjusted accordingly. English news writing should follow the changing rules of tenses as well. However, in the actual news reporting, the use of tenses is not confined to this language rule at some time, but is according to the actual situation. For example, verbs like said, reported, told, added are followed by the verbs which use inconsistent tenses

Take the following news as an example: Their only worry in Group C was Turkey, who they have played just once in their history unfriendly in1956. According to the grammar rules, the clause should use past perfect rather than present perfect. The purpose of the reporter is to emphasize the relation with the reality in the news.

3.2.2 Voice

Passive voice is widely used in English news. There are two main reasons, on the one hand, the most important role of news is to report the latest and significant events and information to the public, and the key point is the six factors that we all know: who, what, when, where, why, how. In order to give emphasis to these key points, the reporters usually use passive words in news writing. (Zhang 107)

On the other hand, in order to attract readers’ attention rapidly, the reporters have to use passive voice for it gives readers a sense of timeliness and can be attracted by this usage easily.

3.2.3 Sentence structure

First is simple sentences. In order to achieve the functions of communication of English news and adapt to the readers at all levels, English news writing must use simple words and sentences as much as possible. The purpose of people to read newspaper is to get more information as soon as possible, and as a result, simple sentences can usually be founded in English news writing instead of complex sentences. English news usually use participle phrases, prepositions, noun phrases and other ways so that the news can be more clear. For example:

Screaming and weeping mourners clambered around the flag-draped coffin carrying the body of former Prime Minister Hariri as hundreds of thousands of people turned out for his burial Wednesday, two days after a huge bomb killed the man credited with rebuilding post-civil war.

In addition, another reason for the extensive use of simple sentences is due to the restriction of space in a newspaper. Journalists often try to report as many facts as possible and provide wide knowledge in limited space of a page.

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