Newspaper Style

English newspaper style may be defined as 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 leader.

Since the primary function of the newspaper style is to impart information the four basic newspaper features are:

Brief news items and communiques;

Advertisements and announcement;

The headline;

The editorial.

Brief News Items

The function of a brief news is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. This accounts for the total absence of any individuality of expression and the almost complete lack of emotional coloring. It is essentially matter-of-fact, and stereotyped forms of expression prevail.

The newspaper style has its specific features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

Special political and economic terms.

Non-term political vocabulary.

Newspapers cliches.

Abbreviations.

Neologisms.

Besides, some grammatical peculiarities may characterize the style:

Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses.

Verbal constructions.

Syntactical complexes.

Attributive noun groups.

Specific word order.

The Headline

The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper article. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, i.e. they show the reporter's or paper's attitude to the facts reported.

The basic language peculiarities of headlines lie in their structure. Syntactically headlines are very short sentences or phrases of a variety of patterns:

Full declarative sentences.

Interrogative sentences.

Nominative sentences.

Elliptical sentences.

Sentences with articles omitted.

Phrases with verbals.

Questions in the form of statements.

Complex sentences.

Headlines including direct speech.

Advertisements and Announcements

The function of advertisements and announcements, like that of brief news, 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.

As for 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. Here there is no call for brevity, as the advertiser may buy as much space as he chooses.

The Editorial

Editorials are intermediate phenomenon bearing the stamp of both the newspaper style and the publicistic style.

The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. Editorials comments on the political and other events of the day. Their purpose is to give the editor's opinion and interpretation of news published and suggest to the reader that it is the correct one. Like any publicistic writing, editorials appeal not only to the reader's mind but to his feelings as well.