A STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL FEATUES OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY.DOC

A STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL FEATUES OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY

Title: A STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL FEATUES OF

ENGLISH NEWS STORY(Graduation Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment for B.A Degree in English)

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced

by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that thereport is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

Date submitted: May, 13th 2008



There was the times I was so happy that moving to tears as I realizedthat people who are next to me, and who are remote to me also, though theyare still in my mind, always bring the happiness to me for what they havedone to me says they love me I am in debt to this life where I receive the hugloves

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my parents whohave been hardly supporting me They are always beside and motivate me in

my study and my life

I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Nguyen ThiVan Dong, Ph.D for her valuable and detailed comments, valuablesuggestions, enthusiasm, guidance, introductions and also materialsthroughout this study And my heart is also to the teachers at the faculty ofEnglish and Modern Languages for their kindness and willingness during thetime I carried out this task

Beside, my dear friends provide me with encouragement, support andinspirations especially when I got in trouble It is my debt of gratitude

Moreover, the shortcomings in this study are unavoidable Therefore, Ihope to receive the sympathy from teachers and friends

Last but not least, I would be grateful to any remarks from the readers!Thank you!

Ha Noi, May 2008Trinh Thi Ha

TABLE OF CONTENTS



Acknowledgements

Table of contents

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Aims of the study 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Methods of the study 3

4 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHARPTER I: THEORIES OF THE STUDY 5

1.1 News story and its functions 5

1.2 Types of news story 8

1.2.1 Political news story 9

1.2.2 Economic news story 10

1.2.3 Socio- cultural news story 11

CHAPTER II: ANALASIS OF THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY 13

2.1 Structure of paragraph 13

2.1.1 Headline in English news story 14

2.1.2 Topic sentence in English news story 18

2.1.2.1 Form features of the topic sentence 19

2.1.2.2 Content features of the topic sentence 22

2.1.3 Structure of news story’s body 25

2.1.4 Sub-title in English news story 29

CHARPTER III: SOME DIFFICULTIES AND REQUIRED SUGGESTIONS IN TRANSLATING NEWS STOR 33

3.1 Some difficulties in translating news story 33

3.1.1 Cultural difficulty 33

3.1.2 Linguistic difficulty 35

3.2 Some required suggestions for translation 37

3.2.1 Language skills 38

3.2.2 Cultural competence 38

3.2.3 Journalism 38

PART C: CONCLUSION APPENDIX 41

REFERENCES 57

SOURCE OF MATERIALS 58

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Aims of the study

News is sine qua non for active life None can ignore the milieu in which

he lives Only news keeps us in tough with the milieu in which we live Itgives us the insight to the dynamics that form the environment around us, it

be in local or regional or national or international level

The main conveyor of news is newspaper Neither the advent oftelevision nor that of internet could affect the importance of the newspaper.The reason for it is the width, breadth and the depth of news provided by thenewspaper, its low cost and the ease of providing the news at our leisure andcomfort as many time as we desire People of all profession need newspapers.Reading newspapers is a must for students and adults for growth andenlightenment irrespective of the class or field of their life And it is a veryimportant part with a remarkable position of newspaper news story

English is spoken over 70 countries and in 20; more English occupies animportant position Many newspapers are published in English It is estimatedthat the two thirds of all scientific newspaper are first published in English It

is also the most common international working languages

Therefore, to a developing country like Vietnam, English is a popularforeign language for all people They are trying their best to learn Englishwell due to the fact that English will help them to keep up with advancedtechnology, modern culture, and up-to-date information in the world Written-in-English journals are available in all news stands, so it is easy for us to getone

However, to study English with newspaper and magazines is not easy

We would not understand the information deeply in the newspaper if we arelack of any ability on analyzing the news, especially on structural analyzing

Information of the newspaper is transported to the readers under the text formwhich is very complicated and diverse Thus, it still has the main characters

that here, in this paper, I study on and choose the topic “A study on the

structural features of English news story” with the hope of giving the

readers the useful knowledge on newspaper, since better their insights to thechanging-world

News story plays an important role in newspaper that is occupied a greatnumber of English language one which is considered the internationallanguage Therefore, to understand about the all news deeply, the readers need

to know about English and more, about the structural analysis the text which

is a common difficulty for the reader as well as the English leaner

Being a student of English, I would like to present structural features ofthe English news story so that the readers and learner can understandcomprehensively about the topic As these learning, we can have some basicknowledge in getting information from news stories in newspaper written inthe international language, English, then develop the ability in translation andmany other related fields

2 Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of space and time, within the framework of thisstudy, this paper can not cover the whole features and details of news story.Since, I decided to analyze the structural features including headline, topicsentence, body-part structure, the sub-title, and the discourse of the newsstory

From which, I would like to draw some difficulties of Vietnamesereaders when they translate the news story

To sum up, the scope of the study may be shown as follow:

a) Analyzing some structural features of the news story

b) Suggesting some difficulties and strategies to cope with problemsrelating translating.

3 Methods of the study

In fulfilling this study, I have applied some methods such as survey,statistic and comparison

A reference of books from authors, materials from different sources andforeign languages also helps me a lot All English examples in the study were

taken from the International Herald Tribune newspaper which uses the

Standard English and updates information daily from all over the world.Furthermore, studying with it would help improve my English so much

Moreover, my supervisor, an experienced teacher, has helpfully directed

me to the appropriate ways to carry out this study

4 Design of the study

For the limited framework, this graduation paper is divided into threeparts as follow:

Part A is the Introduction of the study which introduces my reasons and

aims to write the thesis This part includes the aims, scopes, methods anddesign of the study

Part B is the main part of the study that consists of three chapters below

Chapter I focuses on the theories of the study.

Chapter II is an Analysis of the structural features of English

news story

Chapter III concentrates on some difficulties and strategies in

translating news story

Part C is the Conclusion of the study in which I give a summary of

major findings, an identification of limitation of the study and an exploration

the implication for the future research In the final part, bibliography andsources of materials for the study are listed.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT8

CHARPTER I: THEORIES OF THE STUDY

1 1 News story and its functions

Newspaper has played an important role in the modern society all overthe countries and its most important component is news

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, wrote that if he had to choose between government without newspaper or newspaper without government he would choose the newspaper Since the first newspapers were

published in Venice, Italy in 16th century, there have been thousands ofnewspapers and magazines born

According to UNESCO, there are more than 5300 press organizations allover the world with over 830 millions copies a day In United Kingdom alone,the newspaper publishing industry includes 2,000 companies with combinedannual revenue of $50 billions

Every newspaper or magazine has its own features with many articlesand column for daily events In addition, news story always plays animportant role and has a remarkable position in these ones

By nature, firstly, “what is news?” As for Lenin, “Any kind of goods possesses two characters; they are value for using and value for exchange.”

In fact, press is also a kind of goods because it also has two character likeothers goods Certainly, news story is one item of the goods The value forexchange of press in general and news story in particular is shown in the waythe journal or the magazines itself perform

People pay money for a journal in order to know what is happeningaround or simply to entertain News story has using value because it is

essential for human being News story will give people information; interpretdomestic and oversea events happening every day

Therefore, “what is news story?” actually, it is a difficult question for

not only the journalism studiers but also those learning about the world It isdifficult to define, as there is not and cannot be a single, universal answer.Besides, the answer always keeps changing for the world changing Thus,catching up with the latest events is a requirement to keep pace with and tojoin into the world

The Webster defines news story as “a report of a recent event; new information, fresh tidings… and matters regarded as interesting to newspaper readers or news broadcast audiences” The news events are known as the

current affairs happening within 24 hours, from yesterday to today andtomorrow

The saying “attracts many people’s attention” means that without this

attention it is not news story This fact is one of the social reasons thatdifferentiate between the English and Vietnamese news story in term ofpublishing

Experienced journalists and scholars disagree about what news story is and what it ought to be There are broad areas of agreement and here is the

collection I get from internet and some other sources:

- News story is a report of anything timely that interests a number ofpeople The more people it interests the better the news story is News story isthe difference between the world yesterday and the world today

- News story is what the well-trained reporter finds satisfaction ingathering and having published News story is what the well-trained editorputs in the newspaper

- News story is the report or accounts of events or occurrences brought

or coming to one as new information, new event as a subject of report on talk

- News story is anything that interests a large part of the community andhas been brought to their attention.

- News story = people + events + reader’s interest

- News story, while its definition varies from office to office, hascommon elements to all conceptions of news To be news story, an eventmust first be interesting to public Second, and equally important, it must benew (to the public)

- News story which is one of news, consist of full elements reportingmessages about features of contents or appearance of news itself

- News story is a report of words performing a news event and gettingmany people’s attention

Therefore, there are many definitions, some of which are accepted or not.Others are fairly news, among them you will have found some to agree partly

or wholly

Now and then the desire for news exists not always stays enough to bedescribed as a need but nonetheless, it is a wish to be told something strongenough to demand satisfaction

Therefore, news story has some main functions as follows:

- The purpose of news story is to report short, brief messages about some important problems and significant news events It only concentrates on

scale, form of the event and sometimes the importance of events

- News story has a duty to report briefly about new events in current life

by answering all the basic question of press: What?, Where?, When?,

Who?, How? All the contents of the news story can be shortened within 60

The following example in English newspaper is an illustration:

Online game merges Web with real-world rivalries

NEW YORK: This winter, the armies of Yale invaded Massachusettsand conquered Harvard Cornell’s troops turned Darmouth’s militia into avassal force Columbia allied itself with Yale and occupied Long Island,before getting routed by the Princeton-Cornell alliance

The historic rivalries of the Ivy League have reached the Internet

Eleven thousand Ivy students and alumni have played out these scenarios

as part of an online computer game called GoCrossCampus, or GXC Thegame, a riff on classic territorial-conquest board games like Risk, may be thenext Internet phenomenon to emerge from the computers of college students

(IHT March 22-23, 2008)

The above example shows the reader the information of a new onlinegame, “the next Internet phenomenon to emerge from computers of collegestudents” The characters of the timeliness, the immediacy, the impact and theinterest are all indicated into the news

1.2 Types of news story

There are many ways to classify the news story In this paper, I wouldlike to give the most common types classified by the popularity of these news

stories in press Moreover, these news stories are also the topics which areconcerned and reported on news story columns because of those importances.

1.2.1 Political news story

Political news story is a general thought of breaking news that is a timelystory of great import Political news story is one kind of news which covers alarge space in newspapers Usually, it appears on the first page and worldnews page with the most popular, up date and important news

Current, important occurrences are always political news story and itoften specializes in national and international news not all the political localnews Political news story is often about events which have just happened, arehappening or are going to happen Political news story has an importantimpact on current life and play a key role in a country’s government andinternational community So, it is always accurate, clear and immediate:

Example 1.2.1a:

Nga-Mỹ “hạ nhiệt” về lá chắn tên lửa

Nga và Mỹ vừa có dấu hiệu “hạ nhiệt” đầu tiên trong các cuộc thươngthảo đầy khó khăn liên quan đến kế hoạch của Mỹ lập lá chán phòng thủ tênlửa Đông Âu

(Thanh niên, 03-04-2008)

E.g.1.2.1b:

North Korea threatens South with destruction

After several days of escalating oratory against South Korea, Pyong-yangissued one of its toughest warnings in many years, threatening to turn itsneighbor into “ashes” with a “pre-emptive” military strike

(IHT, March 31, 2008)

1.2.2 Economic news story

Like political news story, economic news story also has a great position

in every newspaper With the daily changeable characteristic, economic newsstory has a duty to report all the noticeable national and world economicnews Economic is a very important field of society and is interested bymillions of businessman in general and common people in particular

Naturally, economic news story news is mainly reported on economicpage However, economic and political news sometimes are also edited on thesame page They call this economic-political page Despite the fact thateconomic and political news often makes the reader to distinguish, theeconomic news story still remains its own economic features

Example 1.2.2.a in Vietnamese newspapers:

Cửa hàng tiện lợi sắp đổ bộ Việt Nam

Ít nhất hai hệ thống cửa hàng tiện lợi là 7-eleven và 108 đang có nhữngbước khởi động để vào thị trường Việt Nam vào cuối năm nay hoặc đầu nămsau 7-eleven và 108 cùng nhảy vào Viet Nam kinh doanh, với kinh nghiệm

dư thừa họ sẽ là những thách thức mới cho các “đại gia” bán hang trong nước

(Thanh Niên, 03-04-2008)

Example 1.2.2.b in English newspapers:

Confused over the credit crisis? You are not the only one

Raise your hand if you don’t quite understand this whole financial crisis

It has been going on for seven months now, and many people probablyfeel as if they should understand it But they don’t, not really The part aboutthe U.S housing crash seems simple enough With banks whispering sweetencouragement, people bought homes they couldn’t afford, and now they arefalling behind on their mortgages

(IHT, March 19, 2008)

1.2.3 Socio- cultural news story

Socio- cultural news story is a vast kind of news It often covers allaspects of daily life Socio- cultural news story will give the readers theinformation about all things in the world

From the socio- cultural term, we easily see that this type of the newsstory will report the national events, problems relating to society and culture,not only in our country but also foreign countries as well as internationalones It may consist of events in different fields of life such as: sport, culture,fashion, education, health…

Owing to the information events and the popularity in daily life, cultural news story is often reported in many kinds of newspapers and attractsmany readers’ attention As a mean of transporting spiritual food to thereaders, socio- cultural news story always has a key room in any newspaper.Example 1.2.3.a in Vietnamese newspapers:

socio-Giải quyết tình trạng học sinh bỏ hoc Ngành Giáo dục không đơn độc

Sau khi tình trạng học sinh bỏ học(HSBH) được dư luận lên tiếngcảnh tỉnh, không chỉ ngành Giáo dục đào tạo tìm kiếm giải pháp màtoàn bộ xã hội đã vào cuộc Cuộc tọa đàm “Thực trạng và giải phápđối với việ học sinh bỏ học” do Ban Tuyên giáo Trung ương tổ chứcngày 9-10 tại Hà Nội với sự tham gia của đại diện các địa phươngphía Bắc có số HSBH nhiều, một số cơ quan, đơn vị có liên quan và

sẽ được tiếp tục trong thời gian tới ở miền Trug là một minh chứng.Những ý kiến thẳng thắn và tâm huyết cúa các đại biểu tại cuộc tọađàm đã góp phần để Ban tuyên giáo có thêm cơ sở khoa học, thựctiễn đánh giá một cách khách quan tình trạng này, từ đó đưa ra kiếnnghị, như lời Phó trưởng ban Nghiêm Đình Vì đã khẳng định

(Hà Nội Mới, 10-4-2008)

Example 1.2.3.b in English newspapers:

Moving on the low carbon road

A meeting of United Nations member states in Bangkok onMonday to discuss climate change is the first in a series this year atwhich the action plan adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference

in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007, will be translated into concretesteps on the road to a new global climate change agreement

(IHT, March 31, 2008)

CHAPTER II: ANALASIS OF THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES

OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY

2.1 Structure of paragraph

News story appeals readers and affects them with the means of language

in the written form However, with the written language there is no commonsituation as there is in face-to-face interaction The situation, therefore, must

be interfered from the text Naturally, readers only pay attention to thecontents or news of the news story, they do not care how the story are written

or formed And the structure is one of the features of the news story’sparagraph

According to Do Huu Chau [2]: “Structure is an art of the performance

on content factors of the writers Structurally, the writers can change the orders of the contents of the news story”.

In fact, the paragraph of a news story is always brief, varying in lengthfrom fifty to one hundred words Each is a unit in itself and needs not o beconnected too closely with preceding or following paragraph The mostimportant idea is always placed at the beginning of a paragraph

Disregarding time order, the reporter can arrange his material in thedescending order of importance details for the second paragraph and save lessimportant details for succeeding paragraph The least important part comes atthe end and the story just stops abruptly

This way is called inverted-pyramid technique which has two

advantages, it enables the readers to get the gist of the story by reading onlythe headline or the first paragraph, and it enable the editor, when space islimited, to shorten story by cutting the paragraph from the end withoutrunning the risk of leaving out an unimportant fact

Basically, the structure of a paragraph or a news story consists of somecomponents which form the structure of the news story in English andVietnamese.

2.1.1 Headline in English news story

Unlike other news, the news story puts its climax at the beginning.Usually, the size and the blackness of the headlines are justified by theimportant of stories beneath them and do summarize the stories accurately

The headline generally answer the question ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘Why?’,

‘When?’, ‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ As I study, a good headline lays up (put

first) whichever one of these- the five W’s and the H- is the most significant

‘What’ and ‘Who’ frequently make the best beginning, ‘Why’ and ‘How’ areoften used, ‘When’ and ‘Where’ are least common

In a good headline the first sentence is not crowded as for the limitation

of space in a newspaper and to catch the reader’s attentions at their firstglances If the ‘What’ and ‘Who’ take up the whole sentence, the other W’sand the H are put into the second sentence or even into the second paragraph.Because the first part of the news must introduce the subject, the followingones must develop the action of that subject

Example 2.1.1.a:

Beckham comes to a halt as England slowly sinks

The main information is given in this story is:

Who: Beckham

What: comes to a halt as England slowly sinks

According to Galperin [9], “English headlines are short and catching, they compact the gist of news, stories into a new eyesnaring words A skillful headline tells a story or enough of to, to arouse or satisfy the reader’s curiosity.” (P.57)

According to Nguyen Dinh Hoa’s statistic, all most topic sentences havemain contents as they are written at the headline The only difference betweenheadline and topic sentence is that, the topic sentence often develops more thecontents of the headline into the paragraph such as: circumstance, reason ortime of the main events This relation is performed through the lexicalreiteration, synonym substitution In another word, the topic is reported at theheadline and remained at the topic sentence.

- Let us consider the example 2.1.1b; the underlined is the lexicalreiteration

(IHT March 30, 2008)

From the above example, purchase and buy are the same meaning.

- Usually, the headline is often written briefly at average of 8-10 words

So the presentation of the topic sentence will help the headline give thereaders more information

Example 2.1.1.d:

Headline: Drug makers accused of stalling data

And the topic sentence:

The lead outside investigator on a crucial trial of two widely used heart drugs said in an economic-mail message last July that Merk and Schering- Plough, the companies that make the drugs, were deliberately delaying the release of the trial results “to hide something.”

- There is an interesting of headline in English news story, that is, most

of headlines are statement, full sentences or ellipsis sentences The majority

of the headlines are the simple sentences, and the others are nominal, indirectspeech and interrogative ones

Example 2.1.1.f for a headline with whole sentence:

Trouble still plagues new terminal at Heathrow

(IHT, March 30, 2008)

An interrogative headline sentence:

E.g.2.1.1.g1: Is the food still Italian if the chef is a foreigner?

E.g.2.1.1.h1: Hillary’s St Patrick’s Day massacre

Moreover, in some cases, using passive voice is more meaningful

because the writers can avoid mentioning the agent of the action However,this kind of headline rarely appears in newspapers

Grammatically, most of verbs used in the headline are in the present

simple tense According to Evans [7]“using verb in the present simple tense

is able to take the readers into the situation of the events happening Moreover, it will help the readers feel that the event has just happened.”

Example 2.1.1.1k1:

Olympic torch arrives in Beijing amid tight security

(IHT, March 31, 2008)

Or another one:

E2.1.1.k2

Militias resist Iraqi forces in fight for Basra

(IHT, March 28, 2008)

However, to report the event which is likely to happen, to infinitive is

more often used instead of using to be going or will/shall.

Example 2.1.1.l:

USB to write down additional $19 billion

(USB is going to write down additional $19 billion)

(IHT, April 4, 2008)

2.1.2 Topic sentence in English news story

The topic sentence is the most important sentence in the paragraph Itcontrols and limits the ideas that can be discussed in a paragraph

In grammar, that topic sentence has two parts: the topic and thecontrolling idea

- The topic sentence is the subject of the paragraph.

Eg:

The color yellow is the color of mental activity.

The topic: the color yellow

- The controlling idea limits or controls the topic to one aspect that we want to report about.

Eg:

The color brown is the color of material security.

Topic: the color brown

Controlling idea: material security

Or: Brown shows a desire for stability.

Topic: Brown

Controlling idea: a desire for stability

(Weaving it together, Book 3 Milada Broukal P.7)

Usually, a topic has more than one controlling idea In the exampleabove, the writer can write one paragraph about the color brown indictingmaterial security and another on the desire for stability

In some other experts’ opinions, if they are allowed to write a sentence toreport the event, that sentence must be topic sentence It means that the topicsentence must conclude important and remarkable information Here, thewriter can use the lexical reiteration and synonym substitution to report againthe most important news which has been reported at the headline

Therefore, in this part, I would like to analysis the form and contentfeatures, which are the most interesting one of the topic sentence

2.1.2.1 Form features of the topic sentence

Nguyen Hoa’s study [10] shows that 92.8% topic sentences are the firstones of the news story Therefore, they are meaning sentences and belong tothe types of the simple sentences, complex sentences and mixed sentences.And the majority of them has at least two clauses which can help the writerreport more information in a sentence usefully, indicating a good news story.E.g.2.1.2.1.a

The main headline:

Route 3, a highway to openness

The sub-title:

China-to-Bangkok road already changing isolated region

The topic sentence:

LUANG NAMTHA, Laos: The newly refurbished Road 3 that cuts through this remote town is an ordinary strip of pavement, the type of

two-lane road you might find winding through the backwoods of Vermont or sunflower fields in the French province.

(IHT March 31, 2008)

From the above example, the topic sentence reports more information

about the places the new road passes through It has two sub-clauses: “that cuts through this remote town”, “the type of two-lane road you might find winding through the backwoods of Vermont or sunflower fields in the French province.”

And other following examples:

Example 2.1.2.1.b of the topic sentence reporting of scenery:

The headline:

In life and death, Tibet victims belie official account

The topic sentence:

In life, the five young women who burned to death in a Chinese clothing store during rioting in Tibet on March 14 were not the types who would make headlines.

(IHT March 29-30, 2008)

 Example 2.1.2.1.c of the topic sentence reporting about time:

The headline:

Maoists nearing a majority in Nepalese election

The topic sentence:

Nepal’s former rebels moved closer Tuesday to winning half of the

direct elected seats in the special assembly that will shape the nation’s political future.

(IHT April 16, 2008)

Example 2.1.2.1.d of the topic sentence reporting about place:

The headline:

Muslims in northwest add to Chinese unrest

The topic sentence:

SHANGHAI: Acknowledging a recent protest there, the Chinese government has announced that Islamic separatist groups are seeking to

foment unrest in Xingjian, a northwestern region that is predominantly

Hong Kong recovers 2 bodies from capsized boat

The topic sentence:

HONG KONG: Divers recovered two bodies Wednesday from a tugboat that capsized in Hong Kong waters and searched for 16 more Ukrainian sailors believed to be dead after being trapped in the

overturned hull last weekend, the Hong Kong government said.

(IHT March 27, 2008)

And more another example 2.1.2.1.e2:

The headline:

Party goes on at Sevens, market troubles or no

The topic sentence:

HONG KONG : Hong Kong’s annual rugby sevens tournament, a lure for bankers in the Asia Pacific region and beyond, sold out in record

time this year and needs a new stadium to cope with demand, tournament

officials said.

(IHT, March 29-30, 2008)

- At the beginning of some topic sentences, we can easily see that thename of a country, a city or a place which is to inform where the source of thenews comes from.

E.g.2.1.2.1.f1:

The headline:

Goalie saves Australia in China

The topic sentence:

KUNMING, China: Mark Schwarzer saved Shao Jiayi’s penalty two minutes from time as Australia held China, 0-0, Wednesday to collect

a valuable away point in Asian qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.

Move is used as basis for legal challenges

The topic sentence:

WASHINGTON: When CIA officers destroyed hundreds of hours

of videotapes documenting harsh interrogations in 2005, they may have believed they were freeing potentially serious legal trouble

(IHT, March 29-30, 2008)

2.1.2.2 Content features of the topic sentence

It is the topic sentence that decides the whole structure of the news If itscontent cannot create a certain connection to the readers, they would stoptheir reading as the topic sentence has the duty to attract them to the wholenews So, according to Bush [1], topic sentence has some features as follows:

- The topic sentence is first to inform the main content or the gist of theevent decided by the writer In another word, due to the writer’s purpose, this

aspect or others of the event will be the main content This function is

sometimes called “playing the feature” that means to highlight the chosen

Wartime powers made interrogators exempt, legal brief contended

The topic sentence:

WASHINGTON: The Justice Department gave military interrogators broad authority in 2003 to use extreme methods in questioning detainees and argued that wartime powers largely exempted interrogators from laws banning harsh treatment, according to a publicly disclosed memorandum.

(IHT April 3, 2008)

In this example, the writer wants to report the information of the publiclydisclosed memorandum that the U.S administration authorized the extrememethods to the detainees in 2003 but still argued to largely exempt them fromlaws banning harsh treatment This is a good attraction to any reader whocares for the peace

- The second function of the topic sentence is to join the reader into thenews by using various ways And a special one is the use of the questions Forexample 2.1.2.2.b:

The headline:

Dylan fans grapple with his Pulitzer

The sub-title:

Does prize lessen his rebel status?

The topic sentence:

How did it feel? Perhaps you were thrilled last week when Bob Dylan

earned a special award from Pulitzer board for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

R.E.M wakes to old fans, but with something new

The topic sentence:

On the ground floor of a nondescript building, a few blocks from University of Georgia campus here, sits a little room stuffed with instruments and decorated with Christmas lights, lava lamps, old concert posters and tacked-up 45s.

(IHT April 3, 2008)

The above topic sentence describes the scenery of the concert rehearsed

by an old band The usage the image words like “a nondescript building”, “a little room”, “Christmas lights” …ect helps the reader know what is new at

the concert

Most of the social and political news stories are brief in not only themain content but also the main events In detailed, according to some experts,

the topic sentence must provide the information of 5 Wh-’ questions: Who?,

What?, Where?, Why? And one “H”- How?

The following topic sentence is an example:

E.g.2.1.2.2.d:

Coalition forces were drawn deeper into Iraq’s four-day-old crackdown on Shiite militants on Friday, launching airstrikes in Basra for the first time and battling militants in Baghdad.

(IHT, March 29-30, 2008)

This topic sentence gives the reader the news of:

Who: Coalition forces

What: were drawn deeper into Iraq’s four-day-old crackdown… When: Friday

Where: Basra and Baghdad

The elements of “Wh” or “H” of the topic sentence depend on thewriter’s aims Thus, the main tendency in this text is using the topic sentencewith the contents of “Who” and “What” In addition, the topic sentencefocusing on time with “When” element is rare

E.g.2.1.2.2.e:

The headline:

10 years old, bloated Citi struggles to find footing

The topic sentence:

Ten years ago this Sunday, on April 6, 1998, Sanford Weill rewrote the rules of Wall Street.

(IHT April 4, 2008)

The information of time: “Ten years ago this Sunday, on April 6, 1998”

is the main news of the story Throughout the story, the writer mentions to thedays and events relating to this main news

2.1.3 Structure of news story’s body

The structure of an essay, a graduation paper usually has three parts: thebeginning, the development and the conclusion Thus, a news story innewspaper is reported in a brief way, its structure is quite different from these

MacDougall stated, “Every news in newspaper needs escaping frompartially and subjective ideas, and press should have equality and balancewhen giving news to the reader.”

For that, news story in newspaper, especially in English has only twoparts: content summary and content development In addition, every newsstory in English in general has an identical structure consisting of a headline,

a topic sentence and a content development

According to Nguyen Hoa, “the main tendency in English news story isthe using the mixed sentences including compound and complex sentences”E.g.2.1.3.a:

LONDON: The European Commission said Tuesday that legitimate European worries about human rights and Tibet should not be “walled off” from a trading relationship with China but that it did not support the idea of boy-coots.

(IHT April 16, 2008)

This using would trouble the reader in understanding sentences andcreate long sentences However, every event will be put in its correct relationdue to mixed sentences rather than the simple ones

Moreover, the length of a sentence also relates to the difficulty or theeasiness of the story to read It is a common advice to the journalists and the

correspondents that “Press needs to easy for readers to understand and they can read fast One of the ways to gain this target is to use shot sentences.” According to Bush, “the reasonable length of a sentence is 20 words.”

The readers who have average educational level and rarely readnewspaper could remember immediately 8 words; and 16, at maximum, tohigh-educational level readers Another study shows that average educationallevel readers have capable of remembering 12 words It is okay if there are 12words in a sentence But when reading a 17-word sentence, readers remember

only 12 words, which means that out of every two words, only one isremembered.

Similarly, if a sentence is 40-word long, the reader can remember only

12 words, of which 10 in the first half and 2 in the second one Such asentence can exist only when each half of it is an independent unit ofinformation Under that circumstance, the reader needs not to read this half tounderstand the other one It means that the sentence can be divided intoseparate parts or sentences In brief, each unit of information must not bemore than 17-word long

E.g.2.1.3.b:

Each required three million rivets, and shortage peaked during Titanic’s construction.

(IHT April 16, 2008)

Thus, the sub-clause should not be abused If not, each sentence consists

of no more than 12 words Imagining that we insert a clause or phrase that hasmore than 12 words between the subject and the object of a sentence, thereader might understand the whole sentence by reading the second time.Therefore, each unit of information contains at most 17 words is an effectiveway to form

Reading is a psychological process The reader can normally rememberand understand ideas one by one If there is too much information packed into

a sentence, it will cause difficulties to the reader As a result of this, suchsentences should be avoided

E.g.2.1.3.c:

On Thursday night, the Obama campaign, in an effort to shift the spotlight to the Clintons, provide The New York Times with a picture of Wright and President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1998, at a breakfast meeting with religious leaders just hours before the report on