A study on linguistic features of headlines in english and vietnamese electronic newspapers

To fulfill this objective, the study makes great effort to point out some similarities and differences between the use of linguistic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese elect

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÝ KIỀU HẠNH

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF HEADLINES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ELECTRONIC NEWSPAPERS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA TIÊU ĐỀ TIẾNG

ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TRÊN BÁO ĐIỆN TỬ)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2016

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LY KIEU HANH

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF HEADLINES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ELECTRONIC NEWSPAPERS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA TIÊU ĐỀ TIẾNG

ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TRÊN BÁO ĐIỆN TỬ)

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project

report entitled “A study on linguistic features of headlines in English

and Vietnamese electronic newspapers” submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2016

Ly Kieu Hanh

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr.Nguyen Thi Van Dong

(Signature and full name)

Date: October, 2016

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contribution from many people First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong for her useful advice and encouragement while I was working on the thesis

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all my teachers in M.A course at the Faculty of Graduate studies, Hanoi Open University, for their useful lectures, advice and suggestions

Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my family for their love, encouragement and support Without this, the completion of this study would be impossible

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ABSTRACT

This thesis is an attempt to deal with the linguistic features of headlines

in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers

To fulfill this objective, the study makes great effort to point out some similarities and differences between the use of linguistic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers The research

is not concerned with all the aspects of linguistic features Since the investigation is just carried out in linguistic features, syntactic and semantic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers are taken into consideration From the analysis, syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese headlines are identified and explained

Based on the findings, the thesis provides some implications for translators and linguistics to do research on linguistics especially in syntactic and semantic features and gives some suggestions for further research

Criticism and comments are welcome for more profession of the thesis

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EHs.: English headlines

VHs.: Vietnamese headlines

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Logos and name of some prestigious English online

Table 4.2 The frequency of appearance of semantic features in EHs

Table 4.3: The frequency of appearance of semantic features in VHs

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the Study: 2

3 Objectives of the study 3

4 Scope of the Study 3

5 Significance of the study 4

6 Organization of the Study 4

Chapter 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Review of previous studies 6

2.2 Review of theoretical background 7

2.2.1 Theoretical framework 7

2.2.2 Types of meaning 11

2.2.2.1 Denotation meaning 11

2.2.2.2 Connotation meaning 12

2.2.2.3 Stylistic devices 13

2.2.3 Theoretical background 17

2.2.3.1 Electronic Newspapers 17

2.2.3.2 What is meant by Headlines? 20

2.2.3.3 Functions of Headlines 22

2.2.3.4 The role of headlines 23

2.2.3.5 The Language of Headlines 24

2.3 Summary 29

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 30

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3.1 Research-governing orientations 30

3.1.1 Research questions 30

3.1.2 Research setting 30

3.1.3 Research approach(es) 31

3.1.4 Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 32 3.2 Research methods 33

3.2.1 Major methods vs supporting methods 33

3.2.2 Data collection techniques 34

3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 35

3.3 Summary 35

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 37

4.1 Syntactic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers 37

4.1.1 Syntactic features of headlines in English electronic newspapers 37

4.1.2 Syntactic features of headlines in Vienamese electronic newspapers 40

4.2 Semantic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers 45

4.2.1 Semantic features of headlines in English 45

4.2.2 Semantic features of headlines in Vietnamese 53

4.2.3 The similarities and differences between the use of semantic features in English and Vietnamese headlines 61

4.3 Implication 63

4.4 Summary 64

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 66

5.1 Recapitulation 66

5.2 Concluding remarks (on each of the thesis objectives) 66

5.3 Limitations of the current research 67

5.4 Suggestions for further research 68

REFERENCES 70 APPENDICES

The media is the whole body of communications that reach large numbers of the public via radio, television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the World Wide Web Instead of the only existence of print press, electronic or online newspapers have marked a milestone in media and become very popular to the public in modern life It has a variety of forms to present information ranging from an electronic edition

of the printed newspaper, search engines to search for news topics of interest to news websites which enable the user to browse items organized

in subject categories and sub-categories in given menus Therefore, electronic newspapers not only attract internet citizens with their

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independent forms but also satisfy readers of traditional press with electronic edition of printed ones

According to Ungerer (2000: 48), "a headline describes the essence

of a complicated news story in a few words It informs quickly and accurately and arouses the reader's curiosity." Newspaper headlines are

particularly important for the way readers comprehend a news text, “they are markers that monitor attention, perception and the reading process”

(Van Dijk, 1988) Nevertheless, many students find that electronic newspaper headlines are especially difficult to understand

It can’t be denied that it is the headline, which summarizes the content of a story, and entices an audience into reading the article, that has the highest readership Headlines nowadays become the concern of the linguists for the way the information is written to the readers and what meaning the information can give In this study, the writer has the ambition

to make a distinction of the syntactic and semantics features used in headlines between English and Vietnamese online newspapers with the aim to figure out the similarities and differences of headlines in both

languages Thus, the study entitled “A study on linguistic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers” was conducted to achieve this aim The findings of the study will hopefully lay

a solid foundation to both teachers and learners in the mastery of English and Vietnamese headlines; more importantly, create background for translation between the two languages and consequently, enhance the teaching and learning of English headlines

2 Aims of the Study:

The aim of this study is to do a research on the syntactic and semantic features of headlines in both English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers

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3 Objectives of the study

- To figure out the types of syntactic structures and semantic features of headlines on English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers

- To examine the frequency and roles of syntactic structures and semantic features that attribute to the success of headlines in Vietnamese and English electronic newspapers

- To discover the similarities and differences of syntactic structures and semantic features used in English and Vietnamese electronic headlines

- To suggest some implication for teachers and learners of English, especially journalism students concerning socio-cultural headlines

4 Scope of the Study

Among a large number of issues on various electronic newspaper headlines namely: Sport, Entertainment, Political, Society, Culture, Technology, Health, Business, etc, the author only focus on the linguistics features of socio-cultural headlines on English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers It is noted that the ubiquitous Internet has made it easier for readers to access to a wide range of online newspapers than ever before

Multitude of websites in English consist of bbc.com, telegraph.co.uk, dailytelegraph.co.au, the independence.co.uk; time.com, etc Likewise, newspapers in Vietnamese comprise a number of sites like baomoi, vnexpress, dantri.com, vietnamnet.vn, tuoitreonline.com, thanhnien.com,

and the list goes on Due to countless sites with numerous articles released and updated every minute daily, the author merely desires to select headlines related to socio-cultural field to analyze in depth

Within the limitation of a minor thesis, this study only attempts to analyze 510 selected English headlines and 510 Vietnamese headlines

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selected from the collection available on the above websites in order to confine the syntactic and semantic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese The deep investigation into the relationships between the content in socio-cultural headlines and the body of the commentaries is not the goal of the study

5 Significance of the study

This minor M.A thesis is expected to have some contributions in terms of theory and practice

- Theoretically, this study is hoped to pave the way for those interested in investigating the meaning of English and Vietnamese headlines on electronic newspapers The study aims to make a contrastive analysis on the use of English and Vietnamese words and structure in terms of the syntactic and semantic features to provide linguistic researchers a reference to the variety of language use

- Practically, the study gives the in-depth overview of the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese headlines on electronic newspapers It is hoped that the results of this study will be really useful for linguistic researchers especially those are interested in headline language

6 Organization of the Study

The thesis comprises five chapters, each of which is supposed to serve a specific function

Chapter I, The Introduction, serves as an explanation for the reason why the study is conducted, and worth being carried out In addition, the thesis also states the aims and objectives of the study, as well as the scope of the

Chapter III: The Methodology, discusses the method of the study

Chapter IV: The Findings and Discussion, have been proved and obtained from the analysis conducted in chapter III This chapter plays the role of a harvest for all what have been achieved

Chapter V: The Conclusion, provides a full summary of all what have been gained through the study and suggest some prospects for future researches The study is covered by a list of socio-cultural headlines on electronic newspapers that are selected for study

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Chapter 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of previous studies

Linguistic features has long been of great interest to many researchers Especially headines is one of the striking features of modern newspapers For instance, in her graduation paper, Bui Nguyet Anh (2003) has made an attempt to analyse some discourse features of newspaper headlines and article in English The thesis named “Some discourse features of newspaper headlines and article in English” emphasizes that the language of headlines is special, it often use passive structures, nonfinite phrase, modality to express the content of the news in Another study of Nguyen Thi Thanh Hao (2004) entitled “Linguistic features of film titles in English and Vietnamese, a contrastive analysis” also aims at analysing the use of language in depicting film content with attractive impression to viewers The study conducted a language use research in terms of gramatical and lexical features to identify the similarilies and differences

of English and Vietnamese in film titles The result of this study helps linguitics more in doing research on linguitic features and film producers could find good way to attract viewers It is also worth mentioning another research by Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet (2011) analyses lexical and structural ambiguity of humorous headlines in English electronic newspapers The author does the research to make it clear about the ambiguity of humorous headlines under language devices including grammatical devices and to provide non-native readers especially English learners with a profound and appropriate insight into ambiguity which will make a help for them to eliminate gradually the difficulties in understanding English electronic newspapers headlines The study also aims at making some contribution to journalists, to translators, to teachers and to learners of English in Vietnam

by giving some suggestions basing on the results of the investigation

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For Vietnamese linguistic researches, linguistic features have also been taken into consideration in the study entitled: “Đặc điểm của tiêu đề văn bản trong thể loại tin tức” by Tran Thi Thanh Thao (2009) which analyses features of headings specifically in terms of structures, quotation, language use, word choice, ect Another research by Tran Thi Thu Hien (2012) named “Đặc điểm tiêu đề văn bản báo chí” identifies different kinds

of text including journal headings and the situation related to each headings respectively

Apparently, among previous studies, none has been talked about the linguistic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers, to be more specific, socio-cultural headlines in English and Vietnamese newspapers This encourages the author to do research on this issue with the hope to point out the similarities and differences in the use

of syntactic structures and semantic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese online news

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Theoretical framework

The structures of headlines are very diverse in form, so finding a general criterion for classifying them are not simple However, from an overall perspective on the significant aspects, they can be divided into several basic types below:

2.2.1.1 Noun Phrase

Many headlines just consist of a phrase It means that it consists of a group

of words There are noun phrases, verb phrases, and adjective phrases The noun phrase typically function as subject, complement of sentences and as complement in prepositional phrases

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Noun phrase: typically constructed by either a noun or a pronoun as the head & other constituents as modifiers

For example: A nice girl leaning against the wall

According to Randolph Quirk, noun phrase can be divided into two type, basic noun phrase and complex noun phrase

Basic noun phrase consists of determiners and a head noun; determiners include words of close-system used before a N to “determine” the precise meaning of the noun Determiners consist of pre-determiner, central-determiner and post-determiners

Basic NP

Closed -system Premodifiers

Head noun

Predeterminers

(3 subclasses)

Determiners (6 subclasses)

Potsdeterminers (2 subclasses)

Determiners: 6 subclasses

a Article: definite a(n)/indefinite the; an old man, boys

b Possessive: my, your, his, her, their; my brother, their discussion

Noun phrase

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c Demonstrative: this, that, these, those; this book, these boys

d Interrogative: whose, which, what; which colour, whose books

e Indefinite: some, any, every, each; some water, any car (s), every student

g Quantifier: much, much water

In the basic NPs, these words are central elements of pre-modifiers

Pre-determiners (=words preceding Determiners):

a Inclusives: all, half (all the books)

b Multipliers: double, twice, three times; double your salary

c Fractions: one-third, two-fifths; one-third (of) this book/the student

Post - determiners (=words coming after Determiners): quantifiers,

numerals…

Normally, noun phrase used in headlines is complex noun phrase According to Randolph Quirk, noun phrase is formed as follows:

Closed-system Open-Class Adv.or

Pre.P

Non-finites Relative

clause Adjective Verb Noun

Examples: (These) beautiful girls

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Adj headN The approaching train

The beautiful girl sitting in the corner

2.2.1.3 Subordinate clause by structural type

Finite clause

- contains a subject and a predicate

- verb phrase having tense, person & number concord, & mood

For example: Mary often goes to the gym twice a week

Non finite clause

- Infinitive with “to”

Without Subject: The best thing would be to tell everybody

With Subject: The best thing would be for you to tell everybody

- Infinitive without “to”

Without Subject: All I did was hit him on the head

With Subject: Rather than John do it, I’d prefer to give the job to

Mary

- Ing-participle

Without Subject: Leaving the room, he tripped over the mat

With Subject: Her aunt having left the room, I declared my passionate

love for Celia

- Ed-participle

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Without Subject: Covered in snow, he looked like a snowman

With Subject: We left the room and went home, the job finished

Verbless clause

1 Ellipsis of the verb ‘be’

For example: Dozens of people died in the accident, many of them children

Whether right or wrong, he always dominates the arguments

2 Reduction of non-finite clauses

For example: Too nervous to reply, he stared at the book in front of him and dared not look up

2.2.2 Types of meaning

2.2.2.1 Denotation meaning

Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition." Denotation is the ability of a word to identify all those things

or objects that are correctly covered by it

The denotation of a word or expression is invariant and independent

utterance-Denotational meaning change

Meaning extended: more general or more inclusive than its historically earlier form

- The meaning is widened

e.g: Ready = Prepared for a ride

 Prepared for everything

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- The meaning is generalized

e.g: Camp = The place where the troops are lodged in tents

 Temporary quarters

To muscle in = To encroach upon the racket of other gangsters

 To encroach/to make one’s way by force

Connotational meaning change

• Degradation of meaning (deterioration): more negative or less favorable

e.g: Villain = Labourer attached to a farm

 A wicked schemer

• Elevation of meaning: the meaning of a word becomes more positive or favorable

e.g: Minister = A servant, an attendant

 Head of a state department

We may call one object by the name of another because we compare two objects and find some common features between them

Metaphor was traditionally viewed as an implicit comparison In cognitive viewpoint, according to Barcelona (2000:3) cited in Nguyen Hoa (1998; 106) “Metaphor is the cognitive mechanism whereby one experiential domain is partially mapped or projected onto a different experiential domain so that the second domain is partially understood in terms of the first one” In fact, metaphor makes the description more forceful and conveys the imagination of the language users As a result, it

is obviously more persuasive and effective in communication

Also, it is necessary to differentiate metaphor and simile because they are closely related and sometimes are misused Metaphor, unlike

simile, does not use formal element of comparison such as “like” or “as”

to indicate the comparison

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For example: Orlando Bloom Supported Katy Perry in a Sweet Way

at the DNC (EH64);

We’re all tuning in to the sweet sound of radio (EH44)

In these heading, it is easy to find that “sweet way” and “sweet sound” is the metaphor use which does not mean the taste of the way or the taste of the sound In this example, the word “sweet” has negative connotation as

“sweet” is thought to be very good or beautiful So this meaning is transferred to refer to the good taste of “sweet” to imply that “the way” and

“the sound” is also in good condition The similarity in this case between the taste (sweet) and a thing (the way, the sound) is about the quality

- Simile

The easiest stylistic device to find is a simile, because you only have to look for the words "as" or "like" A simile is a comparison used to attract the

For example: He looks like his father

- Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a figure of speech by which a part is put for the

whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus

(as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage) It occurs when a part of something is used to refer

to the whole Many examples of synecdoche are idioms, common to the language

- Metonymy

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, metonymy is defined from two different approaches In rhetoric, metonymy is the substitution of one word for another word with which it is associated In cognitive linguistics, metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity and is one of the basic characteristics of cognition It is extremely common for people to take one well- understood or easy- to- perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect for part of it

According to standard tradition, metonymy is defined as a “figure in which

on word is substituted for another on the basis of some material, causal, or conceptual relation.” Some substitutions include place-for- institution, thing-for-perception, object-for-processor, or part–for-whole or place-for-event

For example: Exams, grammar schools, and the trouble with sorting the sheep from the goats

We can see “the sheep” and “the goats” in this headline refers to the good pupils and the bad pupils at school but not the animals as mentioned

- Parallelism

The similarity of syntactic structure in neighboring phrases, clauses, sentences or paragraphs

For example: No Subway No Buses No Uber No Problem.(EH66)

It is obvious to recognize that the structure of the above headlines consists of three sentences which have only one noun phrase

- Repetition

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Repetition is concerned with words that are repeated in a text This involves words which are inflected for tense or number and words which are derived from particular items such as Stu and Stuart

For example: The Ab Fab after-after-after party is well over

Such phrase after-after-after is used in order to emphasize the meaning of the head noun “party” in this headline

- Euphemism

A euphemism is a polite expression used in place of words or phrases that otherwise might be considered harsh or unpleasant to hear Euphemisms are used regularly, and there are many examples in every day language

Hiding the real nature of something unpleasant by using a mild or indirect term for it

For example: He passed away two years ago

In this example we can see that the verb “pass away” is used instead of

“die”

- Hyperbole

Hyperbole (from the ancient Greek, meaning excess or exaggeration) is understood as the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis Take the following examples:

These books weigh a ton (These books are very heavy)

I could sleep for a year (I could sleep for a long time)

He beat him into a pulp (He beat him very harshly)

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I’m doing a million things right now (I’m busy)

Boston House is the hub of the solar system (Boston

State-House is an important place)

I’m so hungry; I could eat a horse (I’m very hungry)

The effect of hyperbole is powerful It is used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression Therefore, they can stay in the readers’ mind for long But it is rarely meant to be taken literally In other words, hyperbole results when a statement makes a claim that strictly speaking is impossible

- Rhetorical question

A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of

a question that is asked to make a point rather than to elicit an answer.Though a rhetorical question does not require a direct answer, in many cases it may be intended to start a discussion or at least draw an

acknowledgement that the listener understands the intended message

A question to which the answer is obvious and therefore it is not expected In reality, rhetorical questions are a kind of statement

For example: Why don’t people talk more about stillbirth?(EH7)

The raising question does not aim at answering the reason why but it only aims at related issues facing of stillbirth at the real situation of modern women

2.2.3 Theoretical background

2.2.3.1 Electronic Newspapers

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Today the internet is becoming more and more important as an unlimited and invaluable source of information The interest of readers into websites providing information is prospering all over the world, too Many

of these informational websites can be regarded as electronic newspapers

as they display their information like articles in paper-based newspapers Besides, an electronic newspaper is also a self-contained, reusable, and refreshable version of a traditional newspaper that acquires and holds information electronically Therefore, electronic newspapers are often

associated with an existing newspaper in print The BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian or the Times are examples of electronic newspapers in

this case In brief, electronic newspapers can be defined as “a newspaper existing online or separately or as a version of a printed periodical” Most electronic newspapers do not have enumeration but they do have chronology, and many of them maintain archives of back issues online

According to Massey, BL & Levy, MR (1999), electronic newspapers have a variety of forms to present information ranging from an electronic edition of the printed newspaper, search engines to search for

news topics of interest to news websites which enable the user to browse

items organized in subject categories and sub-categories in given menus Most electronic newspapers do not have enumeration, though they do have chronology, and many maintain archives of back issues online

Electronic newspapers own typical features Ward, (2002: 202) claimed that striking characteristics of online news include hypertext, multimedia and interactivity Hyperlinks can be used to navigate through a news website and to connect the web-user to related content This related content may be located in the web pages of the news site or somewhere in the World Wide Web The use of multimedia is another vital element of online journalism News stories published on the web can be

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complemented with graphics, photographs, animations or video clips

Interactivity is another characteristic of online newspapers It allows users

to move through the sites to topics of specific interest by clicking on

relevant hyperlinks

Nowadays, there is an increasing number of online newspapers

offering news about all aspects of life ranging from education to business

Most visited newpapers in English include: BBC, CNN, the telegraph, etc

The logos of some best-known sites in English are presented below

Figure 2.1: Logos and name of some prestigious English online

newspapers

Regarding online newspapers in Vietnam, on November 19th 1997,

our country officially joined global information network as a direct

consequence of radical growth in online newspapers worldwide In

February 1998, the online version of “Que huong” became the first

electronic Vietnamese newspapers on the Internet Up to the present

days, Vietnam has witnessed a boom in the development of hundreds of

online newspapers The following logos represent prestigious sites of

reader’s attention According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,

“a headline is a line of words printed in large letters at the top of a page

or an article in a newspaper” (Hornby A.S et al,1999:551)

Many linguists seem to be interested in the concept of headline

Rober Grimmer (1997) proposed that the word headline is “a head of newspaper story or article printed in large type and devised to summarize the story or article that follow ” (p497)

Dunata Reah (2002) defined “the headline is a unique type of text It has a range of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content and

 How Bollywood is fighting 'irrational' censorship in India

 Ladybird spoofs pass two million sales mark

 The naked performers who shocked London

 Oscar Wilde work to be performed in Reading Prison

(http://www.bbc.com)

In brief, from the original literal meaning, headlines can be understood the short tittles above newspaper articles which are often written in bold and in a larger size than the article discourse to catch the readers’ attention

The Differences between a Headline and the Headlines

It is necessary to distinguish a headline with the term the headlines

At first glance, both terms seem to refer to the same thing with the same sound of ‘headline’ However, in fact, they are used differently with different grammatical forms and different meanings Let’s have a look at

the definition of a headline in comparison with that of the headlines:

 A headline is the title of a newspaper story, printed in large letters

at the top of the story

 The headlines are also the main points of the news which are read

on radio or television, e.g ‘And now for the main headlines again’

(Cobuild English Learner’s Dictionary, Larrousse; 1992:445)

The two definitions above show clear differences between a headline and the headlines First of all, they differ in the fact that the

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former can be used in the form of both singular (a headline) and plural ([the] headlines), whereas the latter is always used in plural form with definite article the Another difference lies in the semantic field The first

term refers to the heading which is a part of a news item and carries the

topic of the news discourse while the headlines refer to “a brief summary

of the most important items of news on TV or on radio” (Hornby A.S et

al, 1999:551)

2.2.3.3 Functions of Headlines

According to Dunata Reah (2002), the first function of headline is

“to attract the attention of the reader and interest him/her in reading the story” (p.28) It is not surprising that all the headlines in English

newspapers are printed in much larger size than the text of the main articles they refer to This feature is designed to create the eye-catching and help the reader locate the news that interests him most as quickly as possible

The second function of headlines is to introduce content of articles Like any title, every headline is aimed at introducing the news item, no matter whether it directly deals with the content of the discourse or indirectly represents the topic of the news through an image In other words, the content and the topic of an article can be expressed shortly and

generally by its headline Another function of headlines is that “they are written to influence the opinion of the reader” (Dunata Reah, 2002:28)

There is no doubt that all the facts in news items should be reported exactly and objectively Moreover, the news writers should not impose his/her personal ideas on the readership

To sum up, headlines are designed not only to grab a reader's attention, introduce content of a news item but also to influence the

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opinion of the reader “This mix of functions immediately presents a problem: headlines can often, in their attempt to attract a reader to a story, be ambiguous or confusing” (Dunata Reah, 2002:19)

2.2.3.4 The role of headlines

Newspaper healines represent the most important part of the articles

In order to use space economically headlines employ a special type of language called block language “Block language appears in such functions

as labels, titles, newspaper headlines, headings, notices, and advertisements” (Quirk et al.1985: 845) Block language typically employs

a simple clause structure often omitting “closed-class items of low information value” (Quirk et al.1985: 845), i.e words that are unnecessary and their omission does not affect the overall comprehensibility of the text,

such as articles, verb to be etc

Crystal (1969:174) states that: “the function of headlining is complex: headlines have to contain a clear, succinct and if possible intriguing message, to kindle a spark of interest in the potential reader, who, on average, is a person whose eye moves swiftly down a page and stops when something catches his attention ”

Regarding the length of headlines in electronic newspaper, they are usually shorter and more engaging compared to headlines in broadsheet newspapers which are longer and more informative This is due to the audience this type of media is focused on, that is, people which are interested in sensational news rather than serious issues discussed in broadsheet newspapers, therefore they have to, as has already been mentioned previously, be eye-catching and attractive

Another important feature of headlines is the graphetic layout This will vary according to the newspapers Electronic newspapers tend to draw

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the attention of the readers by big letters of headlines written in bold easily distinguishable from the rest of the text Many times the headline refers to the picture accompanying it and would be difficult to understand without the picture “The picture adds”, as Reah (1998: 24) claims, “an extra dimension of meaning” As to the punctuation in the headlines, there is none used

Headlines do not reveal a sufficient amount of information in their content They do so in order to encourage the reader into reading further They should be vague to arouse curiosity and draw attention “In a spoken

or written, visual or auditory discourse the speaker must enable the addressee to identify the entities mentioned in the text by using appropriate referring expression A speaker who uses a definite referring expression presupposes that a mental representation of the entity being referred to exists in the addressee’s mind” (Kronrod & Engel, 2001) That is, the speaker should provide enough information for the reader to decode the meaning of such text successfully

2.2.3.5 The Language of Headlines

The Vocabulary of the Headline

The language of the newspapers headlines is quite special which is normally very brief, elliptical and compressed Overtime, headline writers have developed a vocabulary that fulfils the requirements of the headline, using words that are short, attention-getting and effective Many of words that are ‘typical’ of the headline are probably rarely found outside this particular text type The following table gives some examples of distinctive vocabularies which are used frequently in newspaper headlines

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(Dong, Nguyen Thi Van 2001:46)

What the Headline Writer Omits

It can’t be denied that English newspaper headlines which are compressed and condensed have their own special rules and regulations It

is because, as Fairclough (1995) says, "headlines have distinctive syntactic properties, which make them a grammatical oddity" (p 21) The headline

writer needs to include the factual detail of the story in a way that will attract the reader’s attention Given space is limited, lexical words (words that have meaning such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are far more useful to the writer than grammatical words (words that signal

grammatical relationships, such as determiners – the, a, this, that, etc., auxiliary verbs be, have, do) But “it can occasionally lead to ambiguity,

as many lexical words depend on grammatical words to establish which

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word class they are.” (Dunata Reah, 2002:19) This can lead to ambiguous

headlines such as:

1 BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLAND ISLANDS

2 LUNG CANCER IN WOMEN MUSHROOMS

3 RED TAPE HOLDS UP NEW BRIDGE

RAYWALKERS

5 PROSTITUTES APPEAL TO POPE

6 SQUAD HELP DOG BITE VICTIM

(Dunata Reah, 2002:19) The first two headlines are difficult to interpret because the word

class of ‘left’ and ‘mushrooms’ isn’t clear, and the context leads the reader

towards the wrong choice The reader is likely to make the obvious

interpretation of ‘British left’ as Subject and Verb in a sentence However,

it is intended as a noun phrase The word ‘mushrooms’ is most frequently used as a noun This expectation leads the reader to see ‘women mushrooms’ as a noun phrase In this case, ‘mushrooms’ is being used as a

verb, giving structure:

Lung cancer in women mushrooms

S V

In headlines 3 and 4, the ambiguity is caused by the different

possible meanings of the phrases ‘hold up’ and ‘run down’ Something

similar is happening in headline 6 It is not possible to tell whether the verb

used is the phrasal verb ‘appeal to’ or the single verb ‘appeal’ In headline

5, the ambiguity occurs because of the different but closely linked

meanings of ‘make’ In headline 7, It is impossible to tell if ‘dog bite

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victim’ is a noun phrase In the headline, it looks more like a noun

followed by a verb and direct object

In general, the absence of grammatical words in headlines obviously decreases the clarity of meaning and leads to ambiguity in many cases

How the Headline Writer Reorganizes Language

In order to produce punchy, economical texts, headline writers also plays about with the standard order of words and phrases According to

Dunata Reah (2002), “they often put information into the modifier slot in the noun phrase, to produce a form of shorthand that is very distinctive feature of newspaper style” For example, the story covered by the headline quoted in The Language of Newspapers: ‘BANDIT’ CAR

CHASE POLICE INSTRUCTOR FINED $750 AFTER DEATH OF NURSE is about a police driving instructor involved in a fatal car crash when he was chasing another car as part of a training exercise This fairly complex piece of information is encapsulated in a long noun phrase The

phrase ‘the police instructor’ gives information about the person responsible for the accident The phrase ‘car chase’, used to modify police instructor gives the event, and the word ‘bandit’, graphologically marked

with inverted commas to indicate that this was not a real police chase, give the context in which the event took place

In The Language of Newspapers, Dunata Reah states that “many words have the capacity to class-shift to operate as more than one word class” (p21) For example, ‘chase’ can be a noun or a verb, ‘a chase’ or

‘to chase’ By using ‘chase’ as a noun in the above headline, the writer

manages to include the action-chase-without having to include it as a verb Some headlines omit the verb completely by implying the action within the

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noun phrase The capacity the noun phrase has for modification makes this particular structure a very flexible one, and therefore extremely useful to

the headline writer

In summary, this chapter gives a brief view of electronic newspapers headlines which deals with their concept, functions, and linguistic characteristics Headlines are known as a head of newspaper story or article which serves as to attract readers’ curiosity and to summarize the story or article that follows The language of the headlines is quite special which is normally very brief, elliptical and compressed It is the feature of omitting the grammatical words that make headlines ambiguous in many cases

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2.3 Summary

In short, Chapter 2 has reviewed prior studies of linguistic features

on headlines in general Some related studies are mentioned in order to make a basic background for the author to do further research in this thesis This chapter gives a brief view of electronic newspapers headlines which deals with their concept, functions, roles and linguistic characteristics, on the other hand, consists of the working definitions of the key terms in the study such as Phrase Structure Rules, Subordinate clause by structural type including finite and non-finite clause, Linguistic realizations of headlines, types of meaning, stylistic services used in headlines, especially socio-cultural headlines as defined in this writing It is hoped that the information above provides general knowledge and overview for readers to continue reading this research in more details

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Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research-governing orientations

3.1.1 Research questions

In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, the study is intended to

find out the answer to three following research questions:

1 What are the syntactic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers?

2 What are the semantic features headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers?

3 What are the similarities of the semantic and syntactic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers?

4 What are the differences of the semantic and syntactic features of headlines in English and Vietnamese electronic newspapers?

3.1.2 Research setting

The paper chooses to analyse linguistic features of headlines as many linguistic phenomena appeared in English and Vietnamese headlines during skimming headlines on electronic newspapers Since electronic newspapers are easily accessed and blooming on various websites both in local and foreign newspapers Newspaper headlines are considered very important since headlines could attract someone to read the newspaper Newspaper headlines are able to reach much more readers than the articles because it is the headline that those who would generally glance

at first before they decide whether a particular issue is worth reading to them or not Newspaper headlines should be brief, eye catching and impacted; yet, they are memorable and effective Therefore, they are written in short words which are quickly read and easily fitted into small space on the newspaper Thus, newspaper language headlines are

3.1.3 Research approach(es)

To attain the contrastive analysis of syntactic and semantic features of headlines used in English and Vietnamese online newspapers, the thesis adopts the following steps and corresponding methods:

Step 1 - Qualitative method: description and interpretation of some

notions based on the works of gurus and outstanding authors related to syntactic and semantic features of headlines used in English and Vietnamese online newspapers

Step 2 - Quantitative method: Each type of syntactic and semantic

features in both English and Vietnamese headlines are discovered, then counted separately, and finally calculated into the form of percentage for comparison