The Stylistic Analysis of a News Report from The Times

ISSN 1009-5039htp://www.overseaen.comOverseas English海外英语Tel:+86- 551-5690811 5690812The Stylistic Analysis of a News Report from The Times张博(中南民族大学,湖北武汉43004)Abstract: The syle of newspaper reporting, with 2 variety of genres employed in the newspaper, has is special features fom the point ofsyistis. This atidle is making tentative atempts to discuss the usual features through anlying the news report entided Half ofChina AE-fected in Worst Floods Since 1930s chosen from The Times.Key words: newpaper reporting; stylistic features中图分类号:H313文献标识码:A 文章编号: 1009- -0392012)11-0281-021 Introduction3.1 Analysis of its headlineGenerally speaking, the style of newspaper reporting refers toThe headlines play an important role in sports news, even ina variety of genres employed in newspapers: news stories or e-all kinds of news reporting. News headline is the first thing thatports, eitrials, feature aricle, book review. In modem society, calches the readers' eyes when they open a newspaper. The head-newspeper reporting has become an important part of people’' 8line fllows the principles of simplicity, informativeness, clarty,life. In fcet, it ses that the cncepcep of the lngupe of newspaper and eye eaching In this aricle the hedline is very impesive.reporting is not as meaningful出is gencrally asumed. So, our dis-Finstly, it is bold, which is the most obrious visual freature. So, itcussion need to be restricted to one kind of newspaper reportingseems more prominent and special at the first glance. Secondly, thelanguage only, namely, that ilustrated by the article chosen fromheadline is simple, short but informative and altractive. In it, half,the Times, July 19,1991. The aims of this study on stylistics is toworst, 1930s'are well-chosen words.‘half’ indicates to whatanalye the language use of news repont fro The Times with the extent Chira is fecte by the fos. Clery. the dstncion is地purpose of denifing some lngisie fetures, ranging from the rious. ' Worst' means the foodes are worse than ay preriusgeneral mass of linguistic fealures w those which are retricted to one. ' 1930s’ migh give the reades the hinl that people mightnot be well prepared for the natural disaster psychologically sincesome social contexts.there haven' t happened such serious fods for 80 many years.2 General Study of the ArticleThe three words are very expressive respectively, when put togeth-This repont strikes us most in two aspects: one lies in its time-er, sfcces to imply the devaslation caused by the foods is unprec-lines, and the other the author' 8 obervant, vivid and humanisticeedented. Thirdly, the passive voice is used here although the activedeseritin. This report about the dister conditious is released .voice is often preferable. The structure chosen in such a case isvery instantly efectively highlights the first important factor ofpossibly determined by the author' s point of view, by the contextnewspaper一timeliness. Since it is a report about a serous top-that might require a particular ordering of informnation items in theie一natural disaster, covering many things, thus it is informative,sentence. More emphasis is laid on the‘recipient’- half of Chi-is kind of hard news, but the lead describes it openly, therefore.ma rather than the ‘agent’ 一worst floods, but the latterserves the readers with fresh, impressive delight. Apart from itsshouldn' t be omitted. Fourthly, we can easily find that the auxilia-timeliness, the news author doesn’t employ many adjectives orry verb‘was' front of‘afected'is omitted and the definitesensational words to describe the disaster. Objectively and humani-article ‘the' in front of the superlative“worst" is also omittedtarianly, he just presenls the reders with enough details including because of the need of conciseness, limited space, simplicity andthe ofieial statistics. So the report is considered much more read-clarity.able, reliable and moving.3.2 Analysis of the lead3 Detailed Analysis of the ReportThe lead of a news report is usually the frst natural paragraphThe news report generally consists of three parts: headline,that leads to the main body. In this article, the lead is very typical,lead and body, thus we can simply analyze the stylistic feature oftaking the form of one stalement like those of other aricles, whichnews report from those three aspects, with an aim lo make moreserves to answer the five wh questions: Who(massive looding),careful study of detailsof it.when(yesterday)， where(the northem and westem provinces),中国煤化工YHCNMHG收稿日期:2012-03-20修回 日期:2012- -04-10作者简介:张博(1983-),男,湖北黄冈人,硕士研究生,研究方向为应用语言学,英语教育。栳资任编辑:谳竣嫒建281Oversees Englisn荡外舞i2012年06月whafafected half of China), why(orrential rains brought devasta-‘ along the banks' and ‘In her family' B small tent’are ffection to vast areas of the northem and westem provinces).tive in leading readers to what he is trying to narrate. If one triesAs is mentioned above, the lead is a very succes, a glance ofplanning any of these towards the end of the sentence, one findswhich helpe the readers get a general idea of what is told about inthat the interest and impetus of the narrative is greatly released.the fllowing lines.3.3.3 Discourse features3.3 Analysis of the bodyUsually, in a news story, the lead ofters the most essential ele-3.3.1 Lexical featuresments, tlling who what when where why (how) of the story. The sec-In this article the author uses some short but expressive wordsond paragraph has less important informnation and begins to fill inlike surge, threaten, prompt to make the description vivid and pow.details about the lead. Later paragraphs contain still less importanterful. In addition, the author uses such different words as engulf,information. This way of framing a news story is called the‘invert-submerge, swamp to express the same meaning, adding to the inten-ed pyramid' . This article was framed in that very way. The para-sity of the report, avoiding the depression in wording, The muchgraphs fllwing the lead were arranged in the order of their impor-use of number is another feature lexically. 1930s, two weeks, 50tance in the story. This kind of framing made the readers catch themillion, 1,700, 4.5 bllion, 25 percent, 600,00, 1931, 1954, 400,important information easily and greatly added to the report' 8 in-000, a, half a doen and several pains used logether to describe thefluence, exaggerating and dramatic eee. One more point to be nodisaster, which impresses the readers with accuracy and truth ofticed about its structure is is paragraphing. The beginning word ofeach paragraph seems nothing special individually but if put togeth-the report.er, seem more meaningful. The expresions Massive looding, east-3.3.2 Grammatical featuresem and central districts, more than 50 million acres, the floods, a ,Apart from the headline, the most obvious visual feature mightsenior ofcial, the national prosecutor' s ofice, oficials, villagersbe the paragraphing, the way in which the narative a8 a whole wasseem to focus on discussing the cause effct relationship. Thesplit into smaller units. As the study of sentence slructure, we' d cause (masive fooding) brought about extreme devastation to arlike to discuss it from paragraph structure. Take the simple mea-eas (eastem and central districts, more than 5o million acres) andsure of the number of sentences composing each pargraph: it haspeople who lived there and foreed people concerned (a senior off-8 paragraphs, of which two are composed of one sentence, three ofcial, the national prosecutor' s ofice, vllagers) to take necessarytwo, one of three, one of four and one of eight. In the case of the aractions against the disaster.ticle, there' s only one paragraph with more than 5 sentences. Ob-4 Conclusionviously, the author breaks up the text into very short paragraphs ofAs analyzed above, the style of news report, a epecial varietya few lines each, making it much easier to read. There are obviousfree spacs for the eyes. The readers can catch the key points veryof genres employed in the newspaper, has is special features at thelexical, gamatical and textual level from the point of view of sty-easily and needn' t concentrate for long periods.One of the most significant features within the broad categorylistics. Obviously, the article chosen for our discussion is a good re-of statement- type sentences concerns the position of adverbialsport in temms of stylistic features, a thorough study of which canwith the clause. Adverbials are extremely common in newspaper remake us clearly understand the language in news reporting.porting, but their positioning is also very interesing. Apart fromReferences:that small group of adverbs which have a relatively fixed position[1] Huang Chonghen. PPT of the Course of StlicicZ1.2009.before the verb (such a just, adverbials tend to come towards the[2] Qin Xiubai Essentials of English Syistics[M].Shanghai:Shang-end of a clause, either after the verb, or at the very end, when every-hai Foreign Language Education Press,2002.thing else has been said. The stylistic point to be made is that when[3] Wang Shouyuan.Essentiale of English Stylistics[M]Jinan:Shan-an adverbial whose normal position is post-verbal is brought for-dong University Pes,2000.ward from this poeition, and put anywhere near the beginning of the[4] Zhang JianJoumalstic English: Style and Analyis[M].Shang-clause, then it fulfls a strongly emphatic function. 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