1、Stylistic Analysis of News Reports1Conclusionl Graphological Features 语相特征 l Lexical Features 词汇特征l Syntactic/Grammatical Featuresl Semantic Features 语义特征Stylistic features of English news reports include:句法和语法特征2Analyzing Passage one:A Linguistic Descriptive Approach（P161）p Please pay attention to
2、the characteristics of sentences in this news report.Points:p Please mark all the punctuations in this news report.p Please observe the structure features.3n Eye-catching headlines Eye-catching headlines To produce prominent eye-catching effects,“Baghdad Market Is Hit by 3 Bombs”is printed in bold t
3、ype,and in large fonts that forms a sharp contrast with the news lead in smaller fonts.n Short paragraphsShort paragraphsThe use of short paragraphs is easy and convenient for the potential readers to follow.As we can see,passage one is split into 12 smaller paragraphs containing 19 sentences.Theref
4、ore,we can easy to know the background of the terrorist attack-the time,the maker and the injured people.4uAt the lexical level n The use of Arabic numerals The use of Arabic numerals Journalists have a preference for Arabic numerals:1)Arabic numerals can make things more reasonable;2)Arabic numeral
5、s can be understood universally;3)Arabic numerals take less time and space to be printed than English equivalents.It uses a lot of Arabica figures to illustrate the number of injured or dead people,the related dates,and the distance of some locations.n The use of abbreviations The use of abbreviatio
6、ns To save time and space,abbreviations are used in the news report.5n The use of short power wordsThe use of short power wordsShort powerful words are very simple and easy-to-understand and space-saving.These words also sound vivid and exciting,especially in the headline.n The use of names The use
7、of names of places and peopleof places and people To make the news appear precise and concrete,lots of names of places and people are given prominence.n The use of clichs and set expressionsThis news report was posted on the same day that the car bombing happened.Under great time pressure,the editor
8、 has to rely on those handy and labor-saving clichs and set expression to post the news onto the webpages as soon as possible.6uAt the syntactical/grammatical leveln Sentence types and complexity Sentence types and complexity In this news report,these are altogether 19 sentences,all of which are sta
9、tements suitable for the dominant function of giving information.Besides,the journalists usually alternate between the use of long and short,complex and simple sentences to make the reading easier and give variety to the rhythm of the article and to break the boredom of reading.7n Frequent use ofFre
10、quent use of quotationsquotations Most of the sentences follow the usual“subject-predicate”order,since most of the sentences in news reporting are declarative sentences.But when it comes to verbs indicating the idea of say,the normal“subject-predicate”order may become“predicate-subject”order.n Tense
11、s in headlines and bodyTenses in headlines and bodyThe headline is written in the simple present tense to convey a sense of freshness,while the simple past tense is used in the sub-headline to highlight a past fact.The simple past tense is used in the body text,since most news reports convey informa
12、tion of the events that just happened.8uAt the semantic level Analysis of the features of journalistic English at this level mainly focus on the realization and interpretation of the meaning of the sample news report.nThe headline The headline In the straight headline“Baghdad Market Is Hit By 3 Bomb
13、s”seven simple powerful words are used to convey the“where,what,why”information to the massive audience of the word.Furthermore,the sub-headline-“At Least 51Dead In Coordinated Attack on Shiites”is used to explain the situation of the news in detail.9n The leadThe leadThe opening paragraph of the ne
14、ws report is the lead-the gist of the whole message,which is an important character of news reporting.What:triple car bombing struck Where:a busy shopping district When:Saturday How:killing at least 51people and wounding more than 90 in an attack timed to inflict as many casualties as possible.10n T
15、he use of vague termsThe use of vague termsAlthough news reporting is often considered to have the features of accuracy of its contents,brevity of its language and clarity of its construction,vague terms and expressions still exist to a considerably large extent.The reason for the use of vague terms
16、 may be diplomatic considerations,contextual appropriateness,and for being informative and relevant.11u Text presentationText presentation The events of the news report are arranged according to the relative importance of the details of the events.This is advantageous to both the reader and the editor.That is to say,the sample report of the news event goes in a logical order:The most important thing comes first,then follows detailed information in a logical order and the least important comes last.12Thank you!13
