FUNCTIONAL STYLES (II)

NEWSPAPER STYLE
Newspaper style is a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means which
is perceived by the community speaking the language as a separate unity that basically serves the
purpose of informing and instructing the reader.
To attract the reader’s attention specific headlines, space ordering, a large proportion of dates,
personal names of countries, institutions, and individuals are used. Since the primary function of
newspaper style is to impart information, only printed matter serving this purpose comes under
newspaper style proper.
The newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on political and other matters.
To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to
analyse the following basic newspaper features:
1) brief news items,
2) advertisements and announcements,
3) the headline,
4) the editorial.
BRIEF NEWS ITEMS
The principal function of a brief news item is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving
explicit comments, and whatever evaluation there is in news paragraphs is for the most part implicit
and as a rule unemotional. News items are essentially matter-of-fact, and stereotyped forms of
expression prevail. As an invariant; the language of brief items is stylistically neutral.
Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:
1) Special political and economic terms, e. g. Socialism, constitution, president, apartheid,
by-election, General Assembly, gross output, per capital production.
2) Non-term political vocabulary, e. g. public, people, progressive, nation-wide, unity, peace.
3) Newspaper cliches, i. e. stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases familiar to the
reader, e. g. vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger o f war, to escalate a war, war
hysteria, overwhelming majority, amid stormy applause.
4) Abbreviations. News items, press reports and headlines abound in abbreviations of various
kinds. Among them abbreviated terms-names of organizations, public and state bodies, political
associations, industrial and other companies, various offices, etc. - known by their initials are very
common, e. g. UNO ( United Nations Organization).
5) Neologisms. These are very common in newspaper vocabulary. The newspaper is very quick
to react to any new development in the life of society, in science and technology. Hence, neologisms
make their way into the language of the newspaper very easily and often even spring up on newspaper
pages, e. g. sing-in (a musical act or event in which the audience serves as a chorus or joins in the
singing).
The following grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are of paramount importance, and
may be regarded as their grammatical parameters:
1) Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses,
2) Verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerundial) and verbal noun constructions,
3) Syntactical complexes, especially the nominative with the infinitive. These constructions are
largely used to avoid mentioning the source of information, e. g. A large chunk of ice, believed to
have fallen from an aircraft, crashed through the roof then through the bedroom ceiling of a house
in Leamington, Warwickshire, yesterday.
4) Attributive noun groups are another powerful means of effecting brevity in news items, e. g.
heart swap patient, the national income and expenditure figures,
5) Specific word-order. The word-order in one-sentence news paragraphs and in what are
called "leads" (the initial sentences in longer news items) is more or less fixed. Journalistic practice
has developed what is called the "five-w-and-h-pattem rule" (who-what-why- how-where-when) and
for a long time strictly adhered to it. In terms of grammar this fixed sentence structure may be
expressed in the following manner: Subject - Predicate (+ Object) -Adverbial modifier of reason
(manner) -Adverbial modifier of place - Adverbial modifier of time.
ADVERTISEMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
The principal function of advertisements and announcements is to inform the reader. There are
two basic types of advertisements and announcements in the modern English newspaper: classified
and non-classified.
In classified advertisements and announcements various kinds of information are arranged
according to subject-matter into sections, each bearing an appropriate name: BIRTHS, MARRIAGES,
DEATHS, IN MEMORIAM, BUSINESS OFFERS, PERSONAL, etc.
This classified arrangement has resulted in a number of stereotyped patterns regularly employed
in newspaper advertising:
1) elliptical pattern of the sentence,
2) the absence of all articles and some punctuation marks,
3) sentences which are grammatically complete also tend to be short and compact,
4) The vocabulary is on the whole essentially neutral with a few emotionally coloured words or
phrases used to attract the reader's attention. Emotional colouring is generally moderate.
As for the non-classified advertisements and announcements, the variety of language form and
subject- matter is so great that hardly any essential features common to all may be pointed out. The
reader's attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphical and stylistic, both
lexical and syntactical.
THE HEADLINE
The headline (the title given to a news item or an article) is a dependent form of newspaper
writing. It is in fact a part of a larger whole.
The main function o f the headline is:
1) to inform the reader briefly o f what the text that follows is about,
2) to show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported or commented on,
3) to instruct the reader.
Usually there is only one headline to each article. But in some newspapers the articles go with
two or three or even four headlines.
FIRE FORCES AIRLINER TO TURN BACK
Cabin Filled With Smoke
Safe Landing For 97 Passengers Atlantic Drama In Super VC 10 (The Times)
Such group headlines are almost a summary of the information contained in the news item or article.
The specific vocabulary of headlines includes:
1) emotionally coloured words and phrases: eg. No Wonder Housewives are Pleading: 'HELP'
 2) deliberate breaking-up of set expressions, in particular fused set expressions, and
deformation of special terms, a stylistic device capable of producing a strong emotional effect: eg.
Cakes and Bitter Ale.
3) the pun: eg. And what about Watt, alliteration: eg. Miller in Maniac Mood.
Syntactically headlines are very shaft sentences or phrases of a variety of patterns:
1) full declarative sentences,
2) interrogative sentences,
3) nominative sentences,
4) elliptical sentences: a. with an auxiliary' verb omitted, b. with the subject omitted, c. with
the subject and part of the predicate omitted,
5) sentences with articles omitted,
6) phrases with verbals - infinitive, participial and gerundial,
7) complex sentences,
8) headlines including direct speech: a. introduced by a full sentence, b. introduced
elliptically.
THE EDITORIAL
The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain
facts. Editorials comment on the political and other events of the day. Their purpose is to give the
editor's opinion and interpretation of the news published and to suggest to the reader that it is the
correct one. Like any evaluative writing, editorials appeal not only to the reader's mind but to his
feelings as well. Hence the use of specific vocabulary:
1) emotionally coloured language elements, both lexical and structural,
2) political words and expressions, terms, cliches and abbreviations,
3) colloquial words and expressions, slang, and professionalisms.
The use of stylistic devices both lexical and syntactical is largely traditional. Editorials abound in
trite stylistic means, especially metaphors and epithets,
Traditional periphrases are also very common in newspaper editorials.
But genuine stylistic means are also sometimes used, which helps the writer of the editorial to
bring his idea home to the reader through the associations that genuine imagery arouses.
A similar effect is frequently achieved by the use of metaphor, irony, the breaking-up of set
expressions, the stylistic use of word-building, by using allusions, etc.
The emotional force of expression in the editorial is often enhanced by the use of various
syntactical stylistic devices: various types of repetition, rhetorical questions and other syntactical
stylistic means. Yet, the stylistic background of editorials is neutral. The majority of stylistic devices
used are trite. Original forms of expression and fresh genuine stylistic means are comparatively rare in
newspaper articles, editorials included.
THE STYLE OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OR OFFICIALESE
The substyles of official documents style are:
1) the language of business documents;
2) the language of legal documents;
3) the language of diplomacy;
4) the language of military documents.
It is the most conservative style, preserving cast- iron form of structuring and using syntactical
 constructions and words long known as archaic and not observed anywhere else. All emotiveness
and subjective modality are completely banned out of this style.
The aim of this style is to state the conditions binding two parties in an undertaking, to
reach agreement between two contrasting parties. These parties may be: the state and the citizen, or
citizen and citizen; a society and its members (statute or ordinance); two or more enterprises or bodies
(business correspondence or contracts); two or more governments (pacts, treaties), etc.
The characteristic features of this style are:
1) conventionality of expression - a special system of cliches, terms and set expressions by
which each substyle can easily be recognized: I beg to inform you, provisional agenda, on behalf of
Each of the subdivisions of this style has its own peculiar terms, phrases and expressions which
differentiate it from other substyles:
Finance: extra revenue, taxable capacities,
Diplomatic: high contracting parties, to ratify an agreement, extra - territorial status,
Legal: summary procedure, a body ofjudges.
2) the encoded character of language symbols - the use of abbreviations, conventional symbols
and contractions: M.P., $,
3) the use of words in their logical dictionary meaning,
4) the absence of emotive words,
5) definite compositional patterns of documents: eg.: the structure of a business letter includes:
1) address of the sender, 2) the date, 3) the address of the addressee and his name, 4) salutation, 5)
the body of the letter itself, 6) conventional good-bye phrase, 7) the enclosure if there is any, a
general syntactical mode of combining severe pronouncements into one sentence.
Here is a sample of a business letter:
Smith and Sons
25 Main Street
Manchester
9th February, 1967
Mr. John Smith
29 Cranbourn Street
London

Dear Sir,
We beg to inform you that by order and for account of Mr. Julian of Leeds, we have taken the
liberty of drawing upon you for £ 25 at three months' date to the order of Mr. Sharp. We gladly take
this opportunity of placing our services at your disposal, and shall be pleased if you frequently make
use of them.

Respectfully yours,
Smith and Sons by Jane Crawford

Almost every official document has its own compositional design. Pacts and statutes, orders and
minutes, notes and memoranda—all have more or less definite forms, and it will not be an
exaggeration to state that the form of the document is itself informative, inasmuch as it tells something
about the matter dealt with (a letter, an agreement, an order, etc). In this respect we shall quote the
extract from the Charter of the United Nations which clearly illustrates the most peculiar form of the
arrangement of an official document of agreement.
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
"We the Peoples of the United Nations Determined
TO SAVE succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which
twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
TO REAFFIRM faith in fundamental rights, in the dignity
and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and
women and of nations large and small, and
TO ESTABLISH conditions under which justice and respect
for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
TO PROMOTE social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom....

As is seen, all the reasons which led to the decision of setting up an international organization
are expressed in one sentence with parallel infinitive object clauses. Each infinitive object clause is
framed as a separate paragraph thus enabling the reader to attach equal importance to each of the items
mentioned.