A Research into the Stylistics of English and Slovak ...diplom.utc.sk/wan/825.pdf · A Research into the Stylistics of English and Slovak Newspaper Headlines ... Gabriela Mitrová

A Research into the Stylistics of English and Slova k Newspaper Headlines

Diplomová práca

Gabriela Mitrová

Žilinská univerzita v Žiline

Fakulta prírodných vied

Vedúci diplomovej práce: Prof. PhDr. Stanislav Kavka, CSc.

Konzultant: PhDr. Danica Maleková

Komisia pre obhajoby: Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry

Stupeň odbornej kvalifikácie: magister

Dátum odovzdania práce: 2006-04-15

Žilina 2006

Čestné prehlásenie

Čestne prehlasujem, že som túto diplomovú prácu napísala samostatne

s použitím uvádzanej literatúry.

2006 ...........................................

Poďakovanie

Ďakujem PhDr. Danici Malekovej za odborné vedenie pri písaní diplomovej práce

a za usmernenia pri konzultáciách.

ABSTRAKT

Práca sa zaoberá výskumom štylistického charakteru anglických a slovenských

novinových titulkov. Formálne je rozdelená do dvoch hlavných kapitol, ktoré obsahujú

niekoľko ďalších tematických podcelkov. V prvej kapitole sú teoreticky objasnené

základné pojmy štylistiky a sú v nej uvedené niektoré rozdelenia funkčných štýlov

podľa lingvistov zaoberajúcich sa touto problematikou v rámci štylistiky anglického

a slovenského jazyka. Druhá, praktická časť využíva prostriedky porovnávacej

štylistickej analýzy, ktorá zahŕňa skúmanie štylisticky príznačných morfologických,

lexikologických, syntaktických a grafických vlastností textu. Predmetom porovnávania

je korpus vytvorený z päťdesiatich anglických a päťdesiatich slovenských novinových

titulkov. Zdrojmi skúmaného materiálu sú denníky The Times a SME, ktoré sa podľa

prieskumov verejnej mienky v jednotlivých krajinách umiestnili na popredných

priečkach v rámci čitateľnosti. Všetky titulky uvádzajú články týkajúce sa

zahraničných udalostí vo svete a boli uverejnené vo výtlačkoch publikovaných

v rovnakých termínoch: 5.október 2005, 23.december 2005, 27.december 2005.

Skúmaním vybraných textov sme zistili väčšiu štylistickú príznačnosť a ekonomickú

úspornosť anglických novinových titulkov.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 7

1 THEORETICAL PART 9

1.1 The importance of newspaper headlines nowadays 9

1.2 Style as the main stylistic category 10

1.3 Approaches to the differentiation of styles 11

1.4 Functions and characteristic features of English and Slovak

newspaper headlines 14

1.5 General differences between English and Slovak newspaper

headlines 16

2 COMPARATIVE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND

SLOVAK NEWSPAPER HEADLINES 19

2.1 General notes on the method of stylistic analysis 19

2.2 Notes on the particular analysis 21

2.3 Morphological level of newspaper headlines 21

2.3.1 Parts of speech in Slovak newspaper headlines 22

2.3.2 Parts of speech in English newspaper headlines 25

2.3.3 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper headlines

from the morphological point of view 29

2.4 Lexical level of newspaper headlines 31

2.4.1 Lexical level of Slovak newspaper headlines 32

2.4.2 Lexical level of English newspaper headlines 37


from the lexical point of view 43

2.5 Syntactic level of English and Slovak newspaper headlines 45


from the syntactic point of view 53

2.6 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper headlines

from the graphical point of view 54

2.7 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper headlines

from the stylistic point of view 56

CONCLUSION 59

BIBLIOGRAPHY 62

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 Classification of styles 12

Table 2 Grammatical category of tense in Slovak

newspaper headlines 23

Table 3 Suffixes characteristic of the individual

parts of speech 38

Table 4 Number of words and sentences in English

and Slovak newspaper headlines 45

Figure 1 Density of Slovak parts of speech 22

Figure 2 Density of English parts of speech 25

LIST OF APPENDIXES

Appendix A Corpus of English newspaper headlines

Appendix B Corpus of Slovak newspaper headlines

INTRODUCTION

This thesis aims to compare the stylistics of English and Slovak newspaper

headlines. As this age of information makes people separate the information in the

most effective way, these ‘little texts’ have become the focus of a number of linguistic

studies. Among various types of ‘little texts’ (telegrams, product labels,

advertisements etc.), newspaper headlines are the most frequently analyzed. This

has many reasons—they are visible and attractive, they invite explanations for their

readers, and finally - the researched material is relatively easy to collect. Their

importance depends highly on the commercial atmosphere in the press business, as

they are primary means according to which readers decide to choose a particular

type of newspapers.

Our thesis is divided into two main chapters. The first one is introduced with the

section discussing the importance of headlines which is viewed as an extremely

increasing phenomenon of the last decades. It mainly concentrates on their

psychological and organizational functions. Further sections deal with the term style

as one of the main stylistic categories. We point out several different approaches to

style and choose the one that seems to be appropriate to define style of newspaper

headlines. In addition, we compare Galperin’s and Mistrík’s differentiations of

functional styles. As it is generally a contradictory discussion whether to classify

headlines under the publicistic or newspaper style, the main differences between

them are explained in more detail. In the next section, the main functions of

newspaper headlines are pointed out and the most significant features of English and

Slovak newspaper headlines are described. These features cover all the linguistic

fields – phonology, morphology, lexicology, syntax and graphology and the most

significant differences between English and Slovak headlines are compared.

As our material is researched by means of comparative stylistic analysis, the main

general features and steps of this process are introduced in the first section of the

second chapter. It also involves a brief presentation of particular material of our

analysis. Further sections compare English and Slovak headlines from the

morphological, lexical, syntactical, graphical and stylistic points of view.

In the field of morphology, we mainly concentrate on the density of particular parts

of speech used in the headlines of our corpus and on the stylistic effect which is

caused by their high or low frequency. In addition, we point out some other significant

morphological features and expressive means, for example the category of tense.

Morphology of English and Slovak headlines is researched separately and there is

one section devoted to the comparison of them.

In the same way, lexical character of English and Slovak headlines is described.

Firstly, we concentrate on the types of vocabulary which are specific for style of

newspaper headlines (informal words, publicisms etc.) and secondly some

expressive lexical means are analyzed and explained (metaphors, personifications

etc). Moreover, there are noted some of the most significant results of word-formation

processes.

The section dealing with the syntactical features involves comparison of English

and Slovak titles in the sense of their length, word-order and syntactic expressive

means.

As graphical means play a very important role in the attraction of headlines, they

are the subject of the next section.

The last section compares different approaches to the topics of articles discussing

the same event.

1 THEORETICAL PART

1.1 The importance of newspaper headlines nowadays

This time is often called ‘the age of information’. People have been receiving and

passing information by various means for several centuries. Since the time when the

bookprint was invented by Guttenberg, printed media have had a huge importance

for transmission of information. Principally, they are the main vehicles for information.

Nowadays, information of all areas of life can be found everywhere in an extreme

amount. This amount has increased especially during the recent decades when the

new types of e-media appeared.

In spite of this new phenomenon, the most popular and frequent kinds of the

media are still traditional newspapers. Due to the fact mentioned above, there is

a strong competitive rivalry among the traditional printed newspapers and the on-line

newspapers all over the world. Moreover, the printed newspapers do not resist only

the pressure of the new media but they have to keep abreast of the other printed

newspapers as well. Every publisher tries to gain and retain as many readers as

possible.

From the psychological point of view, the main result of this ‘information pressure’

is the fact that people are forced to chose the information which they are going to

read. Naturally, they do not lose their time by reading everything and they tend to

skim through newspapers quickly and then decide to read the article the headline of

which seems to be the most interesting for them. Due to this generally known fact,

journalists as the creative individualities have to be trained in writing newspaper

headlines properly to make them as attractive as possible. As we live in very

commercial time when success is measured according to saleability, which in the

case of newspaper business partially depends on the attractiveness of the headlines,

their importance is still getting increased. From the lay observer’s point of view,

interesting headlines can even sell the newspapers themselves. If we take the fact

that newspaper is a schematically organized unity into consideration then headlines

belong to the first opening category of this schema. They have to catch the reader’s

attention and at the same time to provide information about the content of the article.

These two main functions are moreover obstructed by the limited space which is put

at their disposal in the press.

1.2 Style as the main stylistic category

If we consider style as one of the main and basic terms used in stylistics, we

should take into account that there are no distinct boundaries which would

differentiate styles in general. Style is a very dynamic phenomenon which changes

and results from its new function in society. There are a lot of different definitions of

style but in fact it is very difficult to define it as there are several broad areas in which

it is used. In the field of newspaper headlines, one of the most appropriate seems to

be the Miššíková’s definition according to which “style can be seen as variation in

language use, whether literary or non-literary. The term register is commonly used for

systematic variations in linguistic features common to particular non-literary

situations, e.g. advertising, legal language, sport commentary” (Miššíková, 2003,

p.17). On the other hand, some authors prefer to use the term variety instead of the

terms style or register and the reasons are explained by R.Quirk and S.Greenbaum

as follows: “Varieties are often called ‘stylistic’, but ‘style’ like ‘register’ is a term which

is used with several different meanings. Variety includes the choice of linguistic form

that proceeds from our attitude to hearer (or reader), to the subject matter, or to the

purpose of our communication” (R.Quirk, S.Greenbaum, 1973, p.6). However, in this

thesis we subscribe to the theory according to which the term style is used to

describe a stylistic variation in language use. It is important to mention that: “Each

style of the literary language makes use of a group of language means, the

interrelation of which is peculiar to the given style. It is the co-ordination of the

language means and stylistic devices which shapes the distinctive features of each

style, and not the language means or stylistic devices themselves” (Miššíková, 2003,

p.114).

As we have mentioned above, every style has its own special function in society

and “in stylistics, the study of the function of linguistic elements in texts is central, not

only to their grammatical function, but more importantly to their function in relation to

the meaning of the text, their contribution to the overall theme and structure. This is

known as stylistic significance”(Miššíková, 2003, p.111).Generally, every style might

be characterized by certain number of language means and stylistic devices, the

interrelation of which makes it suitable to be used in different situations to achieve

different aims or effects. According to Miššíková: “A style of language can be defined

as a system of co-ordinated, interrelated and interconditioned language means

intended to fulfil a specific function of communication and aiming at a definite effect”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.114). Based on the idea of the fulfilling a specific function of the

language, stylistics in the tradition of Prague School which stresses function deals

with the term functional style.

1.3 Approaches to the differentiation of styles

In this section, we will mention some of the approaches which are used in English

and Slovak stylistics to divide the functional styles. Moreover, we will discuss some of

the most significant differences in the field of the accepted terminology and we will

pay special attention to the difference between the publicistic and newspaper style in

general.

The term ‘functional style’ is used both in English and Slovak stylistics to describe

the same phenomenon but there is a significant difference in the classification of

them. This noticeable difference is not only between the Slovak and English

classifications but it even differs from one linguist to another as well. In Czech and

Slovak linguistics we can find several traditional classifications of styles. The bases of

the theory of the functional styles were firstly found in Havránek’s work at the

beginning of the 30s. The first Slovak classification was described by Paulíny whose

work suggested one of the most representative and complex approaches introduced

by Jozef Mistrík. Mistrík outlined two main groups of styles: individual and

interindividual. These two groups were further subdivided as shown in the following

table:

Table 1: Classification of styles

Objective Objective-Subjective Subjective

scientific administrative aesthetic publicistic rhetoric essayistic colloquial

(based on Mistrík, 1985, p.423)

In the study of English stylistics, we can also find several different divisions for

example the classification of the Russian linguist Galperin who divided five basic

functional styles. It must be emphasized that this classification takes English

language for its starting point and thus it cannot be generalized for the other

languages. Every functional style is further subdivided into several substyles as noted

in the following part:

1. Scientific prose style

- style used in humanities,

- style used in the exact sciences ;

2. Style of official documents

- style of business documents,

- style military documents

- style of legal documents;

3. Belles-letters style

- poetry,

- artistic prose,

- drama;

4. Publicistic style

- manifestations in press,

- essays,

- articles in newspapers and magazines;

5. Newspaper style

- newspaper headlines,

- short reports,

- advertisements.

Comparing Slovak and English divisions of functional styles, we can notice several

differences of terminology. For example, the Slovak term ‘aesthetic’ corresponds to

‘belles-letters style’ in English and the English ‘style of official documents’ covers the

same area as the ‘administrative style’ in Slovak classification does. Another

significant and the most important for this thesis is the use of the terms ‘publicistic’

and ‘newspaper’ style. As we could notice above, these two styles are differentiated

only in the English classification and they both correspond to the term ‘publicistic’ in

the Mistrík‘s division. The boundaries between these two styles in English stylistics

can be better understood by using the definitions of them. While “the general aim of

the publicistic style, which makes it stand out as a separate style, is to exert

a constant and deep influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the

listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct

one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.116), the newspaper style can be defined as the style which is

purely informational in its character. Thus, the articles which tend to express author’s

opinions, stories, poems, crossword puzzles and the other materials which can be

found in the modern newspapers in order to entertain or influence the readers,

cannot be considered specimens of newspaper style in general. On the other hand,

we cannot claim that Slovak stylistics does not consider these specimens. “What in

English is put in different styles, Mistrík divides into three genre categories that cover

all aspects of newspaper or journalistic style. These genres are news genres,

focusing on providing objective information (news story, interview), analytic genres, to

some extent allowing subjective opinion (leading articles, in English language press

editorials, columns, articles, gloss, commentary), and belletristic genres that are the

most subjective form all three categories (report, essay)” (Miššíková, 2003, p.117).

We discussed the difference between the publicistic and newspaper style in more

detail to find the category under which the newspaper headlines should be classified.

As the above mentioned definitions are not enough to do this, we should also discuss

the features and main functions of the headlines. Some of them are common both for

English and Slovak headlines, some of them not. These differences will be outlined

later.

1.4 Functions and characteristic features of Englis h and Slovak

newspaper headlines

In this section, we will deal with the main functions and the most characteristic

features of newspaper headlines. Since, not only semantic but even linguistic

character of them is closely connected to the cultural and social development of each

country, there are a lot of significant differences between the features of Slovak and

English writing of newspaper headlines. Another reason for this difference might be

the historical development of the ‘culture of newspaper writing’. However, these

differences will be outlined further down after pointing out the main features of the

English and Slovak headlines separately.

There is no doubt that the first thing which the English and Slovak headlines have

in common is their function. Thus we can note a universal definition of Crystal and

Davy who claim that: “The function of headlining is complex: headlines have to

contain a clear, succinct and if possible intriguing message, to kindle a spark 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; and the chief means of

producing ‘eye-catching’ effects is by making use of the full range of graphetic

contrasts” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.174). Although headlines are very short pieces of

information, carefully chosen constructions are required to fulfil their main functions.

Another phenomenon which should be taken into consideration is a type of reader

who is going to read the newspapers. Of course, headlines should address a

universal type of the reader who the newspaper is aimed at. All these functions are

the main essences of art of headlining.

The main features of the English newspaper headlines can be briefly

characterized according to the following points:

1. As the headlines are the most condense pieces of information, they should

bring maximum of information on minimum space. This can be realized by

using of special headline vocabulary (ban, bid, crack, cut, dash, hit, move).

This vocabulary consists of short, monosyllabic and polysemic words with

universal character.

2. Sometimes, even the slang words are accepted.

3. Abbreviated words, nominal constructions and abbreviations are often used.

4. Although numbers are very common in English newspaper headlines, we

could hardly find two numbers in one headline.

5. Another characteristic feature is the use of punctuation symbols like: quotation

marks, hyphens, colons, dashes etc.

6. Omissions of articles and auxiliaries are very frequent.

7. Finite verb forms are frequently omitted.

8. Replacements of periphrastic verbal forms, such as those of continuous

tenses or of the present, etc. by the historical present tense or by some

nominal form derived from the verbal basis are common.

9. Frequent use of gerunds and infinitives makes the text more condense.

10. Nominal/condensed constructions are very frequent.

11. Headlines often contain alliteration or puns.

12. Long words are replaced by the short ones which sound more dramatic.

13. The use of the graphetic contrasts is very common to produce ‘eye-catching’

effects.

As we can notice, above listed features cover all the linguistic levels –

morphological, lexical, syntactical, graphical and stylistic as well. Similarly, some

linguistically significant features of the Slovak headlines can be outlined as shown in

the following lines:

1. Slovak headlines tend to be very general in their content.

2. There is the tendency to use the nominal sentences.

3. Slovak headlines bring only the most important information which is often very

symbolic and brief.

4. The ellipsis of the subject, auxiliary verb and predicate is commonly used.

5. Dashes, colons etc. are used to make the headlines more economical.

6. Numbers are expressed by words; symbols are used very rarely.

7. Only generally known abbreviations like: NATO, OSN, WHO etc. which are

common in spoken language are used.

8. Special words with the character of cliché are very popular to make headlines

more dynamic and attractive.

All the features that were pointed out in the previous lines reflect most of the

linguistically significant features of newspaper headlines. However, some more

features can be worded in terms of communication as well. If we view headlines as

some imaginary communication channel through which information is returned from

the writer to the readers, we should have in mind the following features and

characteristics:

- public character

- official character

- written character

- monological character

- absence of an addressee or addressees

- communicative function

(According to Findra, 2004, p.186, translated by author)

1.5 General differences between English and Slovak newspaper

headlines

The basic features from the section 1.4 suggested some of the main differences

between the Slovak and English style of headlines writing. Generally, English

headlining is more specific and special attention is focused on them in the field of

stylistics. One of the main reasons for this specification can be naturally bigger number of

the language means which are used to make the text more condense,

comprehensive and attractive. According to Findra: “The choice and the structure of

the language means, which are integrated in the text, is subordinate to the main

functions of the text” (Findra, 2004, p.188, translated by author). In English language,

the features of condensation, comprehensiveness and attraction are realised mostly

by abbreviated words, nominal constructions, numbers, punctuation and omission of

the elements as articles and auxiliaries. On the contrary, Slovak language disposes

of markedly less number of such language means but Slovak headlines have to fulfil

the conditions of the comprehensiveness and sententiousness as well. The most

significant consequence of this lack of language means is the fact that the content of

the article is quite often just indicated by using as few words as possible in the Slovak

headlines. Natural result of this fact is that the Slovak headlines do not carry as much

information as the English do and thus the readers get only scrappy information.

However, this problem is often solved by means of the subtitles which can add more

information about the content.

As it is listed above, phonetic stylistic devices such as alliteration or pun are quite

common in English press but the Slovak headlines contain them very rarely. Knittlová

points out that some examples of alliteration or pun can be found in our press mostly

in the sport columns and she presents some published examples as: Veselý nás

rozveselil, Kladne o Kladne. (Knittlová, 200, p.68, translated by author).

Another noticeable feature, which is not so significant in Slovak headlines, is the

important and quite specific function of English punctuation, especially inverted

commas, colons and dashes. However, the function of the inverted commas in

headlines is different than it is in the other texts. “They are used to separate those

attributes which belong together according to their meaning. Thus it makes the

reader to decipher the headlines which are not luminous at first sight” (Knittlová,

2000, p.68, translated by author). Similarly, the function of colon is different. It divides

the headline into two parts and it functions as a semantic copula (Knittlová, 2000,

p.68).

In both languages, the authors of headlines are still trying to find some

expressions which are not very trite and which would catch the reader’s attention.

However, this could be very dangerous because “these new expressions may

become established in the press and thus they might get the qualities of cliché.

Those headlines are no more vivacious and the readers have the tendency to skip

them without any notice” (Knittlová, 2000, p.70, translated by author).

Except these linguistic features, it is important to mention the fact that headlines

are generally understood as a part of the publicistic style in Slovak stylistics. An

explanation of this understanding is given by Knittlová who claims that: “Subjective

passing of information is characteristic for newspapers articles and thus headlines

likewise editorials come under the publicistic style in Czech and Slovak stylistics”

(Knittlová, 2000, p.54, translated by author). On the other hand, as illustrated earlier,

Galperin’s classification of functional styles resolutely considers the newspaper

headlines to be the substyle of the newspaper style.

In addition, it is important to mention that all these differences can be based on

absolutely different linguistic natures of both languages and to a certain degree on

the process of the historical development of English and Slovak press, as well. While,

English newspaper writing dates back to the 17th century and “it was only by the 19th

century that newspaper English may be said to have developed into a system of

language means which forms a separate functional style” (Miššíková, 2003, p.119),

Slovak publicistic style was finally established only after the second world war

(Knittlová, 2000, p.11, translated by author) .

Based on all the theoretical differences that were mentioned in this section, the

hypothesis of our analysis could be proposed as follows: English newspaper

headlines are generally more specific and stylistically significant than Slovak

headlines not only from the linguistic point of view but also even from the way of

expressing idea and content of the article.

2 COMPARATIVE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND

SLOVAK NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

2.1 General notes on the method of stylistic analys is

In this chapter, we will compare the stylistics of English and Slovak newspaper

headlines by means of the method which is called stylistic analysis. This way of

research must be viewed as a complex and multi-level procedure which “involves

taking the object of study – a particular piece of language, or text – and discussing it

in terms of a number of interrelated levels of description. At each level, we are

studying one aspect of the way in which language is organised: shall be

distinguishing phonetic/graphetic, honological/graphological, grammatical, lexical,

and semantic levels” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.15). According to this idea, our object of

study would be the corpus of English and Slovak newspaper headlines which were

chosen from daily ‘quality’ press in each country. Considering the interrelated levels

of stylistic analysis, it is important to mention that: “the order in which the levels are

studied is not significant” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.15) and there are no distinct

boundaries which would clearly differentiate these levels because of the overlaps

between the branches of linguistics.

It is also worth emphasising that: “the first step in any stylistic analysis must be an

intuitive one” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.12). This intuitive process makes a stylistician to

notice “a linguistic feature which he feels to be stylistically significant” (Crystal, Davy,

1969, p.12). Another important and the most complex step includes “using of

complex theoretical knowledge of all the linguistic branches by which a stylistician

can decipher the text and thus put the most significant features down on paper in

a systematic way in order to display their internal patterning to maximal effect”

(Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.12). The stylistician’s main competence is “to interrelate his

observations within the framework of some theory, and thus piece together any

general pattern of linguistic variation which may exist” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.12). In

other words, “the purpose of stylistic analysis is to explore the features which are

stylistically marked and thus stylistically relevant, i.e. they create particular style”

(Miššíková, 2004, p.8).

It is necessary to mention that “by ‘features’ here, we mean any bit of speech or

writing which a person can single out from the general flow of language and discuss

– a particular word, part of a word, sequence of words, or way of uttering a word”

(Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.11). These features are realised by certain number of

language means which can be generally viewed as “stylistic means because of their

capacity to create certain stylistic effects” (Miššíková, 2003, p.29). All stylistic means

of a language can be divided into expressive means and stylistic devices. “The

expressive means of a language are those phonetic means, morphological forms,

means of word-building, and lexical, phraseological and syntactic forms, all of which

function in the language for the emotional or logical intensification of an utterance”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.29) .On the other hand, “according to I.R. Galperin a stylistic

device is a conscious and intentional literary use of some of the facts of the language

(including expressive means) in which the most essential features (both structural

and semantic) of the language forms are raised to a generalised level and thereby

present a generative model. According to Miššíková, most stylistic devices may be

regarded as aiming at the further intensification of the emotional or logical emphasis

contained in the corresponding expressive means” (Miššíková, 2003, p.31).

Generally, it should be noted that the main difference between the expressive means

and stylistic devices “can be worded in terms of the theory of information” (Miššíková,

2003, p.31) as “stylistic devices carry a greater amount of information because if they

are at all predictable they are still less predictable than expressive means”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.31).

As was mentioned above, all stylistic means of a language are intentionally

chosen by the authors to make the text more attractive, interesting and less

monotonous. If we regard the main functions of newspaper headlines which were

pointed out before, there is no doubt that one of the most effective ways to fulfil these

functions can be appropriate using of the expressive means and stylistic devices.

In the next sections, we will discuss those linguistic levels which seem to be the

most important and stylistically significant from our point of view.

2.2 Notes on the particular analysis

The analysis included in this thesis deals with a detailed description of English

and Slovak newspaper headlines. They are separately described from morphological

and lexical points of view and after these individual analyses, the most similar or, on

the other hand, different features are compared. The main reasons for these

separate analyses are natural differences between particular characters of

morphology and lexicology of English and Slovak language. On the other hand,

syntactical and extra-linguistic features are compared in one section as it is way that

is more demonstrative and the differences in those fields are not so significant and

thus they can be compared more unequivocally than morphological or lexical

features.

The corpus of our research consists of fifty English and fifty Slovak newspaper

headlines which were published in the printed form of ‘quality press’ The Times and

SME. The dates of the publications were chosen by coincidence. Choosing of the

particular newspapers was based on the recent public opinion surveys according to

which The Times and SME are the most popular and widely read daily press.

Moreover, both these newspapers have a strong tradition in both countries and thus

they are really considered to be the trustworthy sources of information.

All the articles titled with the headlines of our corpus deal with world news as it is

supposed to be one of the most reliable fields from the point of comparison, it means

that considerable number of articles might discuss the same topics and events.

2.3 Morphological level of newspaper headlines

In this section, we will discuss those morphological means which are the most

characteristic for the style of newspaper headlines. Naturally, all these means take

the main functions of the headlines for their starting point.

2.3.1 Parts of speech in Slovak newspaper headlines

Parts of speech can be characterised as the lexico-grammatical word classes and

their occurrence can be even stylistically significant for particular style (Mistrík, 1988,

p.102, translated by author).

The density of the individual and the most frequent parts of speech occurring in

the Slovak headlines is shown in the following figure:

Figure 1: Density of Slovak parts of speech

As we can see in the graph, the most numerous group of parts of speech in

Slovak headlines is a group of nouns. Nouns represent almost one half of all words

contained in the headlines. It is important to mention that most of them are proper

nouns (approximately 37%) denoting names of persons, countries, cities, institutions

etc.: Putin, New Orleans, Urbi et Orbi, al-Káida, Christian Wulff, Turecko, Vianoce

etc. In term of grammatical category of number, most of the nouns have a form of

singular.

Although the adjectives are very often used in the publicistic and newspaper

styles their occurrence in the headlines is not so frequent. The only reason for this

reduction of adjectives can be the economical one. As the headlines should be as

short as possible, the author has to choose only those parts of speech which seem to

be really unavoidable and the most informative in their character. Though the

adjectives make the text more impressive, they must be sometimes avoided in the

case of Slovak headlines. Thus, only those adjectives which carry some important

20%

10%

45%

21%

4%

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Numerals

Others

information or are the obvious parts of set expressions, are used, for example:

nacistický lekár, vtáčia chrípka, americký vojak, rakúske stanice, dopravný

kolaps, varovný systém, bulharské sestričky, oranžová nákaza etc.

As the main task of the newspapers is to acquaint the readers with the events

which happened in the past and “the grammatical category of tense reflects the

relationship between the action expressed with the verb and the time of performance”

(Ondruš, Sabol, 1981, p.177, translated by author), it is natural in Slovak language

that most of the verbs used in the newspaper headlines have the form of past tense.

Another common phenomenon is the use of the present tense. Sometimes, also

future forms are used but it is hard to find the passive constructions which are very

rare in the headlines writing. The occurrence of the grammatical tenses used in the

Slovak headlines can be figured in the following table:

Table2: Grammatical category of tense in Slovak newspaper headlines

Tense Percentage Examples

Past

56,45 % Jed dorazil do Chabarovska

Odsúdili tureckých novinárov

Zomrel nacistický lekár Heinrich Gross

Present

35,48 % Na rakúskych staniciach platí zákaz fajčenia

V Čečensku sa rýchlo šíri záhadná epidémia

Britskí konzervatívci hľadajú lídra

Future

8,06 % Líbya bude znovu súdi ť bulharské sestričky

O vstupe budú komplikovane rokova ť ešte najmenej

desaťrokov

Kim Čong-il má predstavi ť nástupcu

In some cases, present and past tenses are used in one headline to put two

phenomena in opposition; as an illustration, the following examples can be pointed

out:

Orbán obchádza krajinu, Gyurcsány začal rozdávať

Pre moslimov sa začal mesiac ramadán, al-Káida sa vyhráža

Not very numerous but quite interesting is a group of numerals. Although they

occur with four-percentage density, their role in newspaper headlines is very

significant, especially comparing with the English equivalents. Most of the numerals

used in Slovak headlines are written as words, for example:

Státisíce ľudí ešte stále žije v stanoch

Gotovina dostal stotisíc pohľadníc

O vstupe budú komplikovane rokovať ešte najmenej desať rokov

The numeral character is mostly used when dates are expressed:

Proces prerušili do 24.januára

Chorváti by chceli byť v únii v roku 2009

The last group which is named ‘others’ in figure1 includes those parts of speech

that are not so significant and numerous, most of them have only an organisation

function in the unit, these are adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and

particles. On the other hand, it is important to mention that adverbs and particles also

fulfil some stylistic functions; they make the text more coherent, subjective and

impressive.

2.3.2 Parts of speech in English newspaper headline s

Similarly as in the previous section, occurrence of English parts of speech can be

figured as follows:

Figure 2: Density of English parts of speech

According to this graphic presentation, the most numerous group of parts of

speech is a group of nouns as it was in the case of Slovak headlines. Approximately

20% of them are proper nouns, for example: Kofi Annan, The Times, UN, Beslam,

Pinochet, the Vatican, Japan, Sharon, Villepin, Lennon, Turkey, Perón, Bush etc.

Generally, concrete nouns are used more often but we can even find some abstract

nouns, as for example: euphoria, slog, impression, quality, life, response etc.

Approximately 23% of all the nouns have the form of plural, for example: supporters,

paedophiles, girls, years etc. Very significant is the group of compound nouns which

are generally more frequent and popular in style of newspaper headlines than in

other registers as they are able to condense the text effectively, for example: fair

play, checkpoints, footprints, cheesemakers, gunmen, showjumper, waterway etc.

Another group of parts of speech is the group of adjectives. They are used with 15

per cent density and some of them function only as adjectives, for example:

conservative supporters, hard slog, toxic spill, foreign students, free soup etc.

However, there is a huge number of adjectives which have the form of present

participle, for example: building plans, lasting impression etc. or past participle, for

33%

15%15%4%

4%

29%Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Numerals

Articles

Others

example: held hostage, unanswered questions, unborn girls etc. Almost all of them

have the predicative use as it is shown in the previous examples. The occurrence of

compound adjectives is quite frequent. Some of them are fixed in dictionaries, for

example: long-awaited talks etc. but some of them not and they are clearly

recognizable only after knowing some background of the news item, for example: oil-

for-Food questions, double-jawed trout etc. Due to this phenomenon, headlines are

a typical environment for new coinages.

Approximately with the same percentage (15%) as adjectives, verbs occur in

English newspaper headlines. We will mainly concentrate on the category of tense as

it is the most significant feature of headlines from the point of view of morphology.

“Among the morphological expressive means the use of the present indefinite instead

of the past indefinite is stylistically marked. This has already been acknowledged as

a stylistic mean and is named the Historical Present. In describing past event the

author uses the present tense” (Miššíková, 2003, p.29).

Historical Present is used with approximately 40 per cent density in our corpus of

English headlines. The main reason for this frequent and typical usage in English

press is its ability to make the text more topical and thus more attractive for readers.

Through this mean the topicality of events which happened in past is strongly

emphasized. Generally, the reader who is not familiar with this use of Historical

Present can decipher it only after reading the article and understanding its content

and meaning. For instance, in the article with the headline Nation rejoices at long-

awaited talks we do not know without reading the whole article whether the action is

held in present, or it is some scheduled action in future. However, if we take into

account a part of the article in which the following sentence is pointed out: “...Turks

celebrated yesterday the start of their accession talks with the EU” (The Times,

October 5 2005, p.39), it is clear that this article discusses the event which was held

in past. Similarly, the meaning of the title Gas attack on shops puts 66 in hospital is

more obvious after learning the fact that: “SIXTY-SIX people were taken to hospital

yesterday after inhaling a foul-smelling gas in St Petersburg”(The Times, December

27 2005, p.31).

Present Simple tense is used only to express direct speech as for example:

‘Let me prove I’m Perón daughter‘

I‘m still one of you, Bush tells angry conservative supporters

In the second example, the first part indicates the actual words of President Bush

which were told by him in past and thus Present Simple is used to express his words.

However, the verb ‘tell’ in the second part of this sentence has a form of Historical

Present as it refers to the past.

Futurity is not very frequent phenomenon (15, 7%) and it is usually expressed by

means of Present Simple or Present Continuous, for example: Simmering

exaspiration is beginning to boil over and thus, future character of verb can be more

obvious from context of the article or it is indicated by some adverbials of time, for

example:

Second toxic spill in two months poisons waterway

The most usual and frequent way of expressing futurity is using of to-infinitive in

English headlines, for example:

Killer to hang

Therapy and drugs to stop paedophiles committing sex offences

Future Present Simple is found only in one instance, for example: Villepin will find he

can’t have it both ways.

A significant number (approximately 25, 5%) of English headlines do not contain

any finite verb. In our corpus, most of such headlines introduce short articles

containing maximum three sentences. These are some examples of such nominal

constructions:

Massacre report

Trial for Pinochet

The unanswered questions

200 held hostage

Numerals create a four per cent group of parts of speech and one half of them are

written as words and the second half is realized by numerical symbols, for example:

Second toxic spill in two months poisons waterway

Today’s Joseph and Mary would face 15 checkpoints

The usage of cardinal numerals is more frequent and ordinals are used very rarely (in

only one instance): First Catholic for the Vatican.

As numerals usually denote some price or value, in English press the symbols of

currency are very common, for example:

Town celebrates €510m windfall

Missed lunch costs $172m

Articles represent approximately 4 percents of all words used to create English

headlines in our corpus. The ratio of definite and indefinite articles is 2:10; it means

there is a major part of definite articles. On the contrary, we researched density of

articles in random chosen text classified as a piece of scientific prose style contained

of the same number of words. In this text, articles occur with approximately 9 per cent

density and this comparison can indicate the fact that occurrence of articles in

headlines writing is less frequent than it is in the case of other styles, especially

scientific prose style; it means that articles are very often omitted.

Parts of speech that are included in the group named ‘others’ in figure2 are not so

significant and as it was mentioned in the case of Slovak parts of speech, their main

function is to organise the unit, these are: conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs,

pronouns and particles.

Another morphologically significant feature found in English newspaper headlines

is the specific usage of possessive case. Due to the economical reasons, genitive

forms are often omitted, for example: ‘Let me prove I’m Perón daughter ’.

2.3.3 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper he adlines from the

morphological point of view

One of the main significant differences between English and Slovak newspaper

headlines is the number of nouns. As we can see in the previous figures, Slovak

headlines contain considerably higher number of nouns. Although proper nouns are

the most dominating in both languages, they are more frequent in Slovak headlines

and thus they are significantly more nominal in their character.

According to our research, there is also slightly higher number of verbs in Slovak

headlines than there is in English ones. However, this predominance does not

express that English headlines are less dynamic. Moreover, it is only the result of

very frequent omission of finite verbs and auxiliaries and the use of passive forms in

English headlines.

On the other hand, English headlines dispose of higher number of adjectives and

thus they seem to be more expressive. However, all the adjectives have very

objective character and they are restricted to their informative function, it means that

they do not tend to express author’s subjective attitudes or impressions. Some of the

English adjectives have specific compound forms which is generally not common in

Slovak language.

Although, percentage of the use of numerals is the same in both Slovak and

English headlines, there is some significant difference between them. While the ratio

of numerals written in words and symbols in English headlines is 1:1, Slovak

numerals are mostly written in words and the ratio is 5:3. Furthermore, as was

mentioned above, English numerals are very often used to express value and thus

the symbols of currency are quite common, for example:



However in Slovak language, wordy expressions are used instead of the symbols of

currency and thus we can usually find the expressions like: milión dolárov , tisíc eur ,

1, 5 milióna korún etc.

Another significant morphological feature of style of English newspaper headlines

is the use of articles. As noted earlier, there is a strong reduction of articles used in

English headlines writing. “Articles are usually omitted and they are maintained only

in those cases where they have referential function” (Knittlová, 1990, p.67, translated

by the author) or when the article is a part of some set expression or name, for

example:

After the euphoria, Turkey prepares for the hard slog.

In the article titled with this headline, author reacts to the euphoria of agreeing to start

talks about EU entry of Turkey and consecutive negotiations of EU leaders who ask

Turkey for great struggle to fully implement the harmonization laws.

Kofi Annan takes on The Times

It is clear that definite article ‘the’ is a component of the proper noun denoting the

name of newspaper.

First Catholic for the Vatican

Although this is a name of place, it is usually used with definite article.

Morphological expressive means the equivalent of which is not found in Slovak

language and the use of which is very specific even in English language is the

expressing of past by means of Historical Present. Generally, it is the most

dominating tense in English headlines. Due to this phenomenon, English and Slovak

headlines are hardly comparable from the point of view of tense. However, according

to its density and its semantic function in English headlines, past tense of Slovak

titles can be roughly seen as its equivalent although it is not so significant from

stylistic point of view. Historical Present is one of the main expressive means

emphasizing the topicality of the text and thus it causes strong effect on the receivers

of English headlines.

2.4 Lexical level of newspaper headlines

Language of newspaper headlines can be generally viewed as the written form of

language which is devoted to the public. Because of this fact, its vocabulary is

characterised by a significant range of lexical means that are often stylistically

unbalanced as it comes from different stylistic layers (Urbanová, Oakland, 2002,

p.36, translated by author).

Because newspaper headlines mostly share the features of objective styles, the

major part of used words and expressions belong to the standard and neutral

vocabulary of language. Although the occurrence of non-standard vocabulary is very

rare, it is not absolutely excluded. Sometimes even slang, familiar or dialect

expressions are used as they can make the text more expressive and genuine.

However, according to Urbanová and Oakland they are usually put in inverted

commas to denote that they are somehow ‘borrowed’.

If we consider the above researched frequency of usage of particular parts of

speech and the primary function of headlines which is to bring information, we can

generally declare that a group of nominal lexis is the most dominating group of

newspaper headlines from the lexical point of view. This group involves “lexis

denoting persons, animals, objects, materials, etc” (Miššíková, 2003, p.53). Although

it is significantly numerous group, it is usually stylistically unmarked and thus it is not

so interesting from the stylistic point of view. For example:

English nominal lexis: Turkey, Taleban, Bush, Nobel honour, The Times etc.

Slovak nominal lexis: Pakistan, Prezident Kaczyński, New York, iPod, Test DNA

etc.

On the other hand, qualifying lexis which “are mainly adjectives, adverbs and

numerals” (Miššíková, 2003, p.53) belong to the slightly less numerous group in our

corpus but they have a tendency to make the text more interesting and significant.

Those lexical expressive means which are able to bring the expressiveness to the

text are intentionally chosen by authors and their main task is to catch the readers’

attention or sometimes even persuade the readers. Thus, they are commonly used to

enrich the language of media. According to the psychologist L.V.Shcherba: “a

stylistically colored word is like a drop of paint added to a glass of pure water and

coloring the whole of

it”(http://ijl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/8/4.pdf).

2.4.1 Lexical level of Slovak newspaper headlines

As the Slovak headlines of our corpus discuss the world news, the most

significant lexical feature is their notional character which is partially the result of

frequent usage of proper nouns. It mainly depends on the author’s effort to present

as much information as possible and thus we can find several proper nouns in one

sentence, as for example the title: Blair a Rumsfeld v Iraku . In those cases, the lexis

which would make the text more subjective and thus stylistically more expressive is

often omitted and these nominal titles seem too informative to the readers.

It is important to mention that all the observed headlines introduce the articles

reacting to the actual world news and thus the names of some main protagonists are

already notoriously known in society. Due to this fact, most of them are even used in

the informal way, it means that the first name and the social status of persons are

often omitted, e.g.: Šaron ide na operáciu and they are only mentioned in the context

of the article, e.g.: “Izraelský premiér Ariel Šaron sa má do troch týždňov podrobiť

angioplastike...“ (SME, December 27, 2005). On the other hand, if the name is not so

famous or it is non-essential from the informative point of view, authors tend to point

out only the status of the person, e.g.: Japonský minister : Čína je vojenská hrozba

and the name is noted in the article or as in the case of this headline it is put down

under the demonstrative picture. Full name along with the expression of his or her

status or occupation is usually mentioned in those cases when the person is the main

subject of the article, e.g.: Zomrel nacistický lekár Heinrich Gross or it is noted in the

subtitle which usually specifies the words used in the main headline in more detail.

As a result of strong influence of other languages, new words have penetrated

into Slovak language. However, some of them are so frequently used that they are

already fairly adopted among people and common reader could hardly recognise

their foreign origin. These words are also very often used and create quite numerous

groups of words, for example: šou, agent, teror/teroristi, prezident, signál,

humanitárne organizácie, epidémia, radikáli, kolaps, systém, šéf, policajt, operácia,

sirény, turisti etc. Special subgroup of foreign words involves those expressions and

words which had to be adopted to Slovak language due to the actual and sometimes

unexpected events in society. Some of them are written in their original spelling, e.g.:

Urbi et Orbi while some of them were already given Slovak spelling, e.g.: cunami, al-

Káida etc.

Some words belong to the “stylistically significant group of words which are very

often used in socio-political spheres of life” (Findra, 2004, translated by author) and

these words are known in Slovak stylistics as ‘publicisms’, it means they are used

especially in publicistic and newspaper writing. Majority of ‘publicisms’ are words of

foreign origin, e.g.: proces, opozícia, priorita, únia, líder, republikán, demokrati,

minister, teror, radikáli etc.

Terms as a subgroup of special literary words denoting objects, processes,

phenomena of science, humanities, and technique are not very often used in our

corpus and only two instances were found: iPod, Urbi et Orbi.

As the number of words used in Slovak newspaper headlines is limited,

sometimes the process of ‘univerbalisation’ can be found. The main idea of this word-

forming process is to “reduce a noun phrase into a single word expression”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.53) and as the result of this change, formal expressions are

made more informal. In our corpus of Slovak headlines, we can find the following

examples of ‘univerbalisation’:

Podľa domácich to bola šou pre turistov

Britskí konzervatívci hľadajú lídra

In the first headline, single word expression ‘domáci’ serves for the noun phrase

‘domáci obyvatelia’.Although, the word ‘konzervatívci’in the second example is

commonly used in present-day Slovak language, it is univerbalised form standing for

the expression ‘konzervatívni politici’.

Since “everyday speech often provides many examples of metaphoric

expressions” (Miššíková, 2003, p.40), metaphor as a lexical expressive means

arising from the interplay between dictionary and contextual meanings of words is a

very rewarding means of language used to enrich headlines. Most of the metaphors

used in Slovak headlines are considered to be trite or dead, it means

that “they are highly predictable and their (metaphoric) motivation is apparent”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.40), for example:

Ďalšie obete vtá čej chrípky

Od ničivého úderu cunami prešiel už jeden rok

Pápež: Nestaňte sa obeťou svojho rozumu

Plynový útok v Petrohrade nebol dielom teroristov

Very often used type of metaphor ascribing human features to non-living things is

personification, for example:


Jed dorazil do Chabarovska

Do Betlehema sa vrátili Vianoce

However, sometimes even absolutely unexpected and unpredictable metaphors

created by author are used and the titles containing those expressions are very

impressive although a little bit ‘impenetrable’. Moreover, sometimes they can sound

more subjective than the ‘time worn metaphors’ and they might carry an ironic

connotation, for example:

Rusi prijali zákon proti oranžovej nákaze

Z kórejského Pána klonov sa stal Majster výhovorka

The article titled with the first headline deals with the passing of bill which would be

able to close out the appeal of non-governmental institutions supporting the

burdensome critics of regime as it was in the case of revolution in Ukraine the symbol

of which was orange colour. Thus, ‘oranžová nákaza’ symbolizes the possible danger

of similar redoubtable revolutions in Russia. The second headline contains two

metaphoric expressions with slight ironic connotations. By using the title ‘Pán klonov’

author denotes Korean scientist Hwang Wu-suk who was considered to invent

breakthrough in the search for a cure for diabetes and Parkinson’s disease by

cloning of human cells. Although, the results of his research were proved to be

rigged and fictitious, Mr. Hwang is still trying to defend himself and to find new

reasons for his excuses and thus the author of the headline labels him as ‘Majster

výhovorka’.

From the pragmatic point of view, authors of newspaper headlines sometimes

have to create new words to denote the phenomena discussed in the news items.

For example, the article titled Putin by mohol viesť Ruskostan, deals with

hypothetical idea to create a new land which would come into existence by affiliation

of Kazakhstan to Russia. Thus the word ‘Ruskostan’ is a result of process of blending

due to which two different elements: Rusko + Kazachstan are fused together.

Abbreviations are used very rarely in Slovak newspaper headlines. Most of them

are commonly used and familiar for public, for example: DNA to denote

deoxyribonucleic acid or CDU which is an abbreviated form of Christian-democratic

Party in German.

As was already mentioned, major part of numerals is written in words. Some of

the numerals written in numbers are expressed with Roman numerals, especially

when they are parts of proper nouns and they pre-modify or post-modify them.

Roman numerals are quite often used in Slovak written styles and they have always

the forms of ordinals, for example:

Benedikt XVI. Má za sebou vianočnú premiéru

Kaczyński chce odštartovať IV. Poľskú republiku

According to Mistrík, prefixation is mainly used to form verbs in Slovak language

(Mistrík, 1998, p.152, translated by author). Verbs containing prefixes are also often

used in the headlines of our corpus. In the following lines we will point out some

examples in their infinitive forms: okrádať, ponižovať, vymýšľať, obviniť, zabiť,

vymierať, predĺžiť, nastúpiť, posvätiť, odsúdiť, odštartovať, zažiť, zadržať,

po rozumieť, rozdávať etc. However, there are some instances of prefixed nouns, for

example: zabitie, nástupca etc. and also adjectives, for example: proti ústavné. All of

the noted prefixes are of native origin, although foreign prefixes are quite often used

in modern Slovak language (ex-, de-, ante etc.) but they do not occur in our corpus.

To intensify some features of the concept, authors sometimes use a device called

simile. This device makes the text more expressive and sometimes it tends to bring a

kind of subjective evaluation. In the article describing an event during which the new

Polish president is going to take a presidential vow, the magnificent character which

is slightly criticised in the article is expressed by using simile in the headline:

Prezident Kaczyński nastupuje ako krá ľ

As the possibility to use expressive means and stylistic devices in newspaper

headlines is limited by the space which is on their disposal, enumeration or repetition

is very rarely used. However, there is a possibility for authors to expand a content of

main headline by these means especially in subtitles which are quite often used in

the Slovak press. As the main headline Saddám: Biely dom, to sú klamári is very

austere and not very informative, an author uses the subtitle to bring considerably

more information. Moreover, the subtitle gives an opportunity to express the content

of the article in more detail and thus enumeration as a lexical expressive means

causing an effect of graduation can be used: Tvrdí, že Američania ho mučili,

okrádali a ponižovali.

To make the headlines more authentic and dynamic, the real words which are

further mentioned in the article are used. However, direct speech noted in the main

headline is always followed by the subtitle in which an author and the situation or

event during which the words were published is specified. For example, article

interviewing German politician Christian Wulff is titled with his words mentioned

during the interview: Netrafili sme do prázdnej bránky. Although, it sounds impressive,

there is a significant lack of information. On this account, more informative and

describing subtitle is followed: Hovorí premiér Dolného Saska a vplyvný muž

kresťanských demokratov (CDU) Christian Wulff. Moreover, in this headline we can

find another stylistically significant phenomenon and this is allegorical expression:

Netrafili sme do prázdnej bránky as it is used to express the failure of Christian-

democratic Party of Germany lead by Christian Wulff in the last elections. In the

interview, the politician compares it to a sport match during which the chance of

scoring is defeated.

2.4.2 Lexical level of English newspaper headlines

One of the most stylistically significant groups of words used in English language

is a group of compounds. In our corpus of English headlines, they can be found

among nouns and adjectives however compound nouns are more frequent. In the

following lines, some examples of compounds found in English headlines of our

corpus are pointed out:

Nouns: windfall, showjumper, build-up, waterway, checkpoints, footprints,

cheesemakers, gunmen, flea market

Adjectives: oil-for-food, double-jawed, wind-up, long-awaited, transatlantic,

skinhead

However, it is necessary to distinguish between compounds and syntactic groups.

“Syntactic group is analysable as the additive sum of its elements. It is an informal

meeting, never a union of the constituents”

(http://ijl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/8/4.pdf). For example: gas

attack, toxic spill, bomb plot, heart defect, Lennon memorial etc.

Another common way of enriching vocabulary of English language is the process

of affixation which modifies meanings of words. This process involves two generally

known ways of forming words: suffixation (adding to the root of words) and prefixation

(placed in front of the root of words). In the following table we concentrate on the use

of suffixes which are characteristic of the individual parts of speech and all of them

occur in the English headlines of our corpus:

Table 3: Suffixes characteristic of the individual parts of speech

- er supporter, shopper, cheesmaker,

murder, showjumper, prankster, rider,

racer, killer

- ism criticism

- or collaborator

- ion question , generation , exasperation

- ity quality , minority

Nouns

- age hostage

- ing lasting , simmering , building , voting Adjectives

- ive conservative

As we can see in the table, there are no suffixed verbs. One of the reasons for this

lack can be generally lower number of verbs used in headlines and quite often use of

nominal constructions instead of sentences containing verbs. This economic reason

is also reflected in very rare occurrence of adverbs as no suffixed forms of adverbs

were found in the corpus.

Among prefixes the following examples can be found: unanswered, unborn,

impression etc.

Generally, historical development of English language is the most influenced by

Latin and Old French and thus huge amount of words of Standard English vocabulary

originate in these languages. For example:

Latin origin → collaborator, offence, generation etc.

Greek origin → toxic, euphoria etc.

Especially in English language, the process which is called conversion is quite

often used. This may be called derivation without a derivative morpheme (zero

derivation) or some linguists call it ‘functional change’. It means functioning of the

same word as a noun, an adjective or a verb, largely according to the place it

occupies within a sentence. Prof. Trnka called conversion a process which has

developed in English to a degree largely unknown in other languages and has

enriched the language by a great number of concrete, vivid expressions

(www.kaj.zcu.cz/cjkp/materialy/LA-Lexicology.doc). Generally, it is very often

phenomenon occurring in all spheres of English language. In the headlines, the

following instances of conversion are found:

verbs → nouns Second toxic spill in two months poisons waterway

Nation rejoices at long-awaited talks

UN calls for fair play in constitution vote

adjectives → nouns Battle Royal over castle’s flea market for the rich

nouns → adjectives Hurricane deaths

Skinhead racist murders spark protests from foreign

students

prepositions → adjectives Off the beer

Although, shortening or clipping are generally considered to be stylistically

significant phenomena used in English newspaper headlines, their occurrence is not

so frequent in our corpus. However, there is one example of word which was formed

by replacing a long word science fiction by its first stressed syllables and thus the

word sci-fi is commonly used, especially as its informal equivalent. Abbreviations

which are pronounced as words are another example of the phenomenon of

shortening, for example:

Oil-for-Food questions UN has still not answered...

(the abbreviation for the United Nations)

Court to rule on plea for former President to be exhumed for DNA testing (standing

for deoxyribonucleic acid)

Moreover, English headlines very often use the symbols and short forms for

expressing amount of money. The most frequent is the usage of letter ‘m’ standing

for the numeral ‘million’, for example:



As the researched headlines deal with the world news, the most discussed topic is

political situation and interesting events held all over the world. Due to this

specification, quite significant group of vocabulary consists of terms and expressions

commonly used in the field of international politics and the spheres of life which are

closed to it, for example: military secrecy, Terror Bill, protest, trial, constitution vote,

minority, death sentence, massacre report, conservative supporters, former President,

plea etc.

Due to the fact that newspapers are ‘written form of language’ denoted to public,

standard vocabulary is the most frequent. However, sometimes it is enriched and

diversified by using words of informal language, for example: slog, Royal (denoting a

member of the royal family), breed (denoting a type of person) etc. On the other hand,

some very formal words are used, for example: exhumed, rejoice etc.

One of the ways which make the titles shorter from the lexical point of view is

omission of some components. However, these components are usually words the

omission of which does not influence the intelligibility of the sentence. Moreover,

these components are always specified in the news item. To demonstrate this

phenomenon we can point out the following headline: Three share Nobel honour

which does not say directly who or what share Nobel honour but author has probably

taken for granted that the context is clear even without any noting of more information.

Naturally, he or she completes all the omitted facts in the article using the following

words: “John Hall, 71, and Roy Glauber, 80, of the US and Theodor Hänsch, 63, of

Germany have won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics…” (The Times, October 5

2005).

Slight informal character of headlines language is also achieved with the used

contracted forms which are very common in informal speech, for example:

Villepin will find he can’t have it both ways

‘Let me prove I’m Perón daughter’

Another significant and quite common phenomenon is the usage of phrasal verbs,

for example:


UN calls for fair play in constitution vote

Simmering exasperation is beginning to boil over

Usually, authors of newspaper headlines tend to use as many impressive and

stylistically marked words as possible. Their intention and aim is very simple – to

catch the readers’ attention and make the article worth reading. Thus, they often

choose words and expressions which exaggerate the content of the article. The

exaggeration the main task of which is “to intensify one of the features of the object”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.49) is called hyperbole. In newspaper headlines, the hyperbolic

character of language is mostly realized by words and expressions carrying the

exaggerative connotations. For example:

After the euphoria , Turkey prepares for the hard slog

The word ‘euphoria’ is used to express extreme happiness sometimes more than is

reasonable, it means that author wants to highlight the atmosphere and joyfulness of

the time after starting talks about EU entry of Turkey and on the contrary there is

used a word ‘slog’ which stands for “a great struggle to fully implement the

harmonisation laws” (The Times, October 5 2005, p.39). Similarly, in the title: Military

secrecy alarms Japan the verb ‘alarm’ can be replaced by more neutral verbs ‘warn’

or ‘caution’ to express its meaning which is “to make people aware of the danger of

something” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2003, p.28). However, the

verb ‘alarm’ sounds more dramatic and thus it is more suitable to use it in this context.

Another lexical means used to enrich the text is based on the interaction of

dictionary and contextual meanings. These are the metaphoric expressions which are

“based on the affinity or similarity of certain properties or features of the two

corresponding concepts” (Miššíková, 2003, p.40). Although, the primary meaning of

verb ‘spark’ fixed in dictionaries is “to emit sparks of fire or electricity” (The New

Oxford Dictionary of English, 2001, p.1784), it is used in its figurative meaning which

is to cause the start of something in the following headlines:

Radio prankster’s joke call sparks transatlantic dispute

Skinhead racist murders spark protests from foreign students

Quite frequent usage of this figurative meaning of verb ‘spark’ can even suggest the

character of newspaper cliché. Similar and even metaphorically more significant is

the use of the word ‘hurdle’ in the following example:

Showjumper lowers the hurdles for a generation of black riders

Although the word ‘hurdle’ is known according to dictionaries as “a frame or fence for

jumping over in a race” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2003, p.616), it is

metaphorically used in this context to denote imaginary hurdles in racial prejudices

among people. However, especially foreign readers who do not have enough

language intuition can decipher this metaphoric meaning only after reading the article

which deals with the success of South Africa’s first black showjumper who proved the

fact that this sport is exclusive territory of white people.

Some English headlines are full of metaphors, for example: Wind-up handle

opens window on world . As the expression ‘window on world’ is very often used in

common speech, it is classified as dead or trite metaphor and due to its frequent

usage it is already fixed in dictionaries to denote “a means of observing and learning

about” (The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2001, p.2115). Moreover, in the

above mentioned title there is used one more kind of metaphor based on ascribing a

human ability to non-living object and thus the phrase handle opens can be viewed

as personification.

The article discussing the rising frustration with American President is also titled

with the metaphorical expression the intention of which is to dramatize the real

situation. The annoyance of Bush’s critics is labeled as simmering exasperation and

the possible danger which it might cause is compared to boiling liquid which can be

soon boiled over: Simmering exasperation is beginning to boil over.

Another phenomenon which is able to enrich lexical character of English

headlines is the usage of proverbs which make the language of headlines more

interesting and familiar, for example: Villepin will find he can’t have it both ways.


lexical point of view

Comparing all the mentioned lexical features of Slovak and English headlines, we

can find several differences in the vocabulary used. Some of them depend on the

natural character of both languages.

One of those differences is the frequent occurrence of compound nouns which is

generally significant feature of English language while it is very rare in Slovak

language.

On the other hand, very often usage of lexis as nouns and proper nouns makes

the Slovak headlines more nominal in their character.

As English is said to be the most widespread world language, it naturally

influences Slovak vocabulary. This influence has been expanded especially during

the period after the revolution in 1989, after which the usage of words originated in

English has started to be very popular. Due to their frequency in language of

common people, some of those words are already adopted and used in the language

of press, for example: šou, líder etc.

The influence of words and terms of Greek and Latin origin is significant in both

languages; however it is more characteristic for the English because of its historical

development.

One of the primary differences between Slovak and English newspaper headlines

is the number of contained words. Generally, Slovak headlines used in our corpus

consist of 419 words while English headlines consist of only 339 words. These

numbers also involve the subtitles which are quite long and more descriptive

especially in Slovak newspapers. Different character of sub-titles is mainly caused by

the lack of means of Slovak language to shorten the words. On the other hand,

English disposes of wide range of abbreviations and symbols due to which the

authors are able to solve the problem of space limitation more effectively. Moreover,

authors of English newspaper headlines often tend to use the shorter equivalents of

words (especially verbs) which are known as a group of ‘headline vocabulary’. This

group involves short monosyllabic words with the universal and polysemantic

character, for example: ban, bit, claim, crack, crash, cut, dash, hit, move, pact, plea,

probe, quit, rap, slash etc. (Knittlová, 1990, p.67). In our corpus we can find these

examples of monosyllabic words: call, flea, pay, plot, slog, spark etc.

What is more, one of the advantages of English language to create short pieces of

information is the ability of prepositions or phrases which have their own semantic

meaning. Although the title Off the beer is very short it effectively brings all the

important information in a very eloquent and economical way as the adverb ‘off’ can

carry the same meaning as the longer expression ‘no longer served’.

Although some abbreviations which were mentioned in the section dealing with

Slovak lexicology are used, the symbols of currency are almost excluded in Slovak

newspapers. From time to time, in Slovak headlines we can find some instances of

shortened words, e.g.: ‘Ruskostan’ which are caused by the process which is known

as ‘blending’ in English.

Comparing the metaphoric character of Slovak and English headlines, we can

declare that Slovak headlines are a little bit poorer in the occurrence of metaphors

and the most frequent kind of metaphoric expressions is personification. This lack

mainly depends on the limited space of titles and the tendency of journalists to bring

as much information as possible through these short pieces of text. Thus, they prefer

to use more informative and matter-of-fact titles. On the contrary, English authors of

headlines often try to make the text more expressive and attention-catching even by

using of phonetic expressive means which may sound rhythmical, for example: Sci-fi

to sky high or they use the means of alliteration or pun.

Some metaphoric expressions have already got the status of cliché due to their

frequent usage. This phenomenon is extremely popular in press and even in style of

newspaper headlines of both languages. These are some examples found in our

corpus:

Radio prankster’s joke call sparks transatlantic dispute


2.5 Syntactic level of English and Slovak newspape r headlines

In this section we will deal with syntactical features of English and Slovak

newspaper headlines. Firstly, we can analyze them statistically; it means we will

concentrate on the length of sentences, number of words, types of sentences etc.

and secondly some syntactic expressive means will be discussed.

The first syntactical phenomenon which should be mentioned here is the number

of words and clauses contained in fifty English and fifty Slovak main headlines. From

this point of view, Slovak main headlines of our corpus consist of almost the same

number of words as English titles. Some of the main statistic particulars are

described in the following table.

Table 4: Number of words and sentences in English and Slovak newspaper

headlines

English Slovak

Total number of words 283 291

Average number of words in one

title

5,66 5,82

Total number of sentences 50 53

Scope of words in one title 2-14 2-12

It is worth noticing that length of sentence is one of the “features characterizing

particular style”(Mistrík, 1988, p.246, translated by author). According to Mistrík,

“titles have the forms of very short sentences as they only inform about the topic of a

particular idea and they do not analyze it” (Mistrík, 1988, p.246, translated by author).

It is evident from the previous table that no English title consists of more than one

sentence. On the other hand, some Slovak headlines include more sentences but at

most two sentences were found. Connection of one sentence formed as a question

followed by declarative sentence is the most common, for example:

Plechové domy? Tak v tom my bývať veru nechceme

Turecko v únii? Zatiaľ vzdialený sen

However, we can also find two declarative sentences used in one title, for example:

Na plážach hučali sirény. Ako spomienka. All these titles sound more dramatic and

the combination of more sentences of even different types posses strong emphatic

impact. On the other hand, English headlines exclusively consist of only one

sentence.

Analysing the number of words in more detail, we can declare that more than half

of the English and Slovak titles have the form of short sentences which do not consist

of more than six words. However, two-word sentences which are very frequent in

English headlines writing (18%) are very rare in Slovak press, except one found

instance: Japonsko vymiera.

Considering four major syntactic classes “whose use correlates with different

communicative functions” (Quirk, Greenbaum, 1973, p.191), we can declare that

most of the headlines, both English and Slovak, have the form of declarative

sentences. These “sentences expressing announcements are stylistically neutral,

unlike other types of sentences which are usually stylistically marked, expressive”

(Miššíková, 2003, p.60). In English titles there is found only one imperative sentence:

‘Let me prove I’m Perón daughter’ but there are not found any interrogative or

exclamatory sentences. Similarly, there is one imperative sentence used in Slovak

titles: Nestaňte sa obeťou svojho rozumu. It is quite interesting that all the examples

of imperative titles express direct speech and thus the possibility of authors’

subjective influence is avoided. Moreover, Slovak headlines include two instances of

interrogative sentences which are always used with the statements functioning as the

answers to these questions as was pointed out earlier.

As simple sentences are the most dominating types used in headlining of both

languages, we will deal with them in the first place. However, before analyzing simple

sentences it is important to mention that noun phrases which may be also called one-

member sentences are significant contributors to style of English headlines writing.

Main reason for their frequent usage (approximately 14%) is their economical

character. At the same time, they carry the most important information and thus they

are considered to be suitable means fulfilling the basic tasks of headlines. Usually

they consist of pre-modified noun, for example:

Beslan ruling

Lennon memorial

The unanswered questions

Noun phrases used to title the newspaper articles are separately used only in two

instances (approximately 4%) of Slovak headlines of our corpus. These headlines

usually consist of noun which is pre- and also pos-modified, for example:

Ďalšie obete vtáčej chrípky

Ďalšie obvinenie republikána DeLaya

Generally, noun phrases standing separately are less frequent in Slovak press than

in English newspapers. However, some of them are used in titles consisting of two

sentences, for example: Na plážach hučali sirény. Ako spomienka and sometimes

they function as the answer to the previous question or vice versa as the question

followed by the answer. One-member sentences used in such combinations make

the title very expressive and dynamic, for example:



Noun phrases denoting the name or social status of the authors of ideas are usually

followed by colon and their occurrence is quite frequent in Slovak press, for example:

Pápež: Nestaňte sa obeťou svojho rozumu

Japonský minister: Čína je vojenská hrozba

All the mentioned noun phrases cause strong telegraphic effect which is quite

suitable for headlines writing because of its ‘space-saving’ character.

Due to the fact that “most of the endings of parts of speech were lost during the

historical development of English language, the relationships among the elements of

English sentence are mostly signalled by relatively fixed word order” (Urbanová,

Oakland, 2002, p.91, translated by author). The basic word order of English sentence

can be schematically presented as Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O) and it is considered

to be unmarked or neutral. Neutral S-V-O word-order is quite often extended by

adding other clause elements, especially adverbials (A) or complements of subject

and object (Cs, Co).

On the other hand, Mistrík claims that Slovak is characterized as ‘flectional

language’ and thus the relationships and functions of words within a sentence are

signified by means of grammatical suffixes. Moreover, he compares Slovak and

English word-order and demonstrates the fact that although subject of English

sentence mostly precedes verb and object, it is not so obligatory in the case of

Slovak sentences (Mistrík, 1988, p.178, translated by author). Due to the fact that

Slovak word-order is more independent, there is a significantly higher number of

various types of word-order.

However, the most dominating type of word-order of both languages is already

mentioned S-V-O pattern which occurs in more than twenty percents of all simple

sentences of English and Slovak headlines, for example:


↓ ↓ ↓

S V O

Kim Čong-il má predstaviť nástupcu

↓ ↓ ↓

S V O

This pattern can be sometimes extended by using adverbials or one more object in

Slovak headlines, for example:

Taliansko obvinilo amerického vojaka za zabitie agenta

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

S V O A

Irán nechce dať svoje jadro Rusom

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

S V Od Oi

Although English adverbials are generally considered to be mobile elements

capable of occurring in more than one position in the clause; they usually tend to

come towards the end of a clause. “The stylistic point to be made is that when an

adverbial whose normal position is post-verbal is brought forward from this position,

and put anywhere near the beginning of the clause, then it fulfils a strongly emphatic

function” (Crystal, Davy, 1969, p.182), for example:

After the euphoria , Turkey prepares for the hard slog

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

AT S V O

This example can be viewed as ‘fronting’ from stylistic point of view. Simply said, it is

“syntactic shifting of elements, usually for highlighting or emphasis” (Miššíková, 2003,

p.63)

The unmarked S-V-O word-order can be changed by means of inversion. One of

the significant types of inversion is replacement of object in front of subject and verb.

This type of inversion is found in both languages but it is considered to be more

neutral in Slovak language, for example:


↓ ↓ ↓

O S V

Tymošenkovú už Rusi nestíhajú

↓ ↓ ↓

O S V

Inversed V-S pattern is more common in Slovak headlines and it is not found in

English corpus, for example:

Zomrel nacistický lekár Heinrich Gross

↓ ↓

V S

Due to the significant flectional character of Slovak language, subject is omitted in

approximately eighteen percents of all the simple sentences. However, it is indicated

by the inflections of verbs and thus the agent of action could be represented by

personal pronouns which are usually covert, for example: V Pakistane zadržali

hovorcu Talibanu. In this example, the agent is not so important but theoretically it

could be substituted by personal pronoun ‘oni’. On the other hand, subject is

considered to be obligatory clause element in English language and thus it is not

omitted in any title of our corpus.

Because of space limitation, pre- or post-modifiers are considerably less frequent

in style of newspaper headlines than in other styles, e.g. prose style or even

publicistic style. Moreover, modifying elements tend to be as short as possible and

they usually carry only the most important and essential pieces of information.

Generally in both languages, pre-modifiers are more frequent than post-modifiers.

However the most significant difference is their length as English pre-modifiers are

considerably longer, for example: Radio prankster’s joke call sparks transatlantic

dispute than Slovak which hardly contain more than one element. This is natural

result of the different characters of both languages as long strings of nouns are more

common in English language. Although post-modifiers are not so often used, they are

usually longer, for example: Showjumper lowers the hurdles for a generation of

black riders and there is not so significant difference between English and Slovak

post-modifiers in their length. Moreover, in Slovak headlines we can notice modifiers

which occur in both pre- and post- position, for example: …zverejniť kompletné

zoznamy bývalých agentov tajnej služby je protiústavné.

Another typical phenomenon used in English headlines writing is the syntactic

expressive means known as ellipsis. According to Miššíková “elliptical constructions

are closely connected with the sitautedness of utterance” (Miššíková, 2003, p.61).

Moreover, these constructions are great contributors to headlining, as they are

capable of shortening the sentences. Naturally, only those elements which are not

essential can be left out, for example: Three share Nobel honour. Normally the

numeral ‘three’ followed by some noun would be expected but due to the contextual

consideration it can be omitted. There is no doubt that reader skimming this title will

easily recognize that Nobel honour can be only shared by a team of people acting in

science.

One of the most frequent types of ellipsis is realized by the omission of auxiliaries

in English style of newspaper headlines. However, they are considered to be

essential components from grammatical point of view, they can be omitted without

any influence on semantic structure of the sentence. Thus, we can notice the

following examples of omitted auxiliaries in English titles:

Chinese facing jail to protect unborn girls

↕

Chinese (are) facing jail to protect unborn girls

Colour as important as quality to new breed of Cape cheesemakers

↕

Colour (is) as important as quality to new breed of Cape cheesemaker

Especially in Slovak press, the headlines having the form of questions-in-the-

narrative are used from time to time. This phenomenon “changes the real nature of a

question and turns it into a stylistic device. A question in the narrative is asked and

answered by one and the same person” (Miššíková, 2003, p.76). For example:



Complex sentences are generally very rarely used in headlines writing. Only few

of English titles have the form of complex sentences. Analysing their structural type,

all of them belong to the class of finite relative clauses and all the subordinate

clauses function as an object, for example:

Villepin will find he can’t have it both ways

↓ ↓ ↓

S V O

On the other hand, Slovak titles contain more complex sentences however most

of them are included in the subtitles. Similarly, almost all of them are finite relative

clauses functioning as an object, for example:

Test DNA ukáže, či Ameri čana nepopravili predsa len omylom

↓ ↓ ↓

S V O

Only one of the subordinate clauses functions as object complement, for example:

… bude to prvý signál, že Poľsko sa mení

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

V S O Co

Compound sentences do not occur in the English headlines of our corpus but they

sometimes used in Slovak one. The most frequent types of compound sentences are

copulative sentences. It means that one title actually consists of two sentences which

are put together by means of some conjunctions (a, i, aj keď…). However, the usage

of conjunctions is not very frequent in headlines because of space limitations and

thus the copulative function is realized by punctuation marks, especially commas, for

example:

Pre moslimov sa začal mesiac ramadán, al-Káida sa vyhráža

Orbán obchádza krajinu, Gyurcsány začal rozdávať


syntactic point of view

The syntactic analysis shows several significant differences between English and

Slovak style of headlines writing.

Firstly, English titles tend to be shorter in their length even if the difference

between the average numbers of words is not so significant. However, from the lay

observer’s point of they seem to be shorter as the special “headlines vocabulary”

including short words is preferred. Moreover, suffixed words are more common in

Slovak language and thus most of them are longer than words of English vocabulary.

Another reason for the shorter character of English titles is frequent ellipsis of

auxiliaries, prepositions, articles and even some nouns. On the other hand subject is

usually covert in Slovak language as it is expressed by the inflected verb. Moreover,

Slovak headlines contain more sentences and even the subtitles which are usually

longer and more frequent in Slovak press.

Secondly, one of the main differences is viewed in the field of word-order. Even if

the S-V-O type is the most frequent in both languages, the Slovak titles are

considerably more independent from the fixed word-order due to its flectional

character. Thus, there is found much wider range of various types of word-order in

Slovak press and generally in Slovak language.

From the point of pre- and post-modification, we can declare that in both

languages it is very rare and limited. However, it is significantly more frequent and

longer pre-modification in English titles.

Analyzing complex and compound sentences, there is significantly higher number

of them used in Slovak headlines writing. It can be the result of more frequent and

structurally more complicated subtitles used in Slovak newspapers. However, the

complex sentences of both languages are mostly of the same type – finite relative

clauses functioning as object. No compound sentences were found in English corpus

though they were used in Slovak one.

2.6 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper head lines

from the graphical point of view

As newspaper headlines should mainly catch the readers’ attention, their

graphical character is significantly different from other parts of newspapers. Generally,

they are graphically differentiated as they are supposed to organize the whole

structure of newspapers and at the same time to present the main topics of the

articles.

Since modern printed newspapers cover various fields of social and political life,

particular parts must be differentiated as well. The headlines of our corpus discuss

the international events and thus they belong to the part which is marked as

“WORLD NEWS” in English The Times and “ZAHRANI ČIE“ in Slovak SME. These

headlines are typed boldly and they are put in header of every page as their main

function is to organize the structure and to help the readers to better orientation.

Moreover, their size is bigger and in English press even colored differentiated on the

first page of this part.

General graphical character of all the newspaper headlines is their bold type of

script. The only pragmatic reason for this differentiation is organizational and eye-

catching function of headlines. Usually, the titles introducing head and longer articles

are even bigger in size. In both languages, shorter, “telegraphic” articles are arranged

in columns. These columns are put at the end of “world news” part in The Times

while they always stay at the beginning of this part in Slovak newspaper SME.

Another significant graphical feature of newspaper headlines is omission of

punctuation. Although most titles are formulated as declarative sentences we would

hardly find punctuation marks at the end of them. In English headlines, punctuation

markers are sometimes put to indicate the unfinished idea the continuation of which

is given in another article, for example:


...and the Annan response

Expressing direct speech is very specific from graphical point of view. Even if

some titles carry the real words, the inverted commas are very often omitted. In

English headlines, direct speech is indicated by comma which divides the title into

two parts, for example: I’m still one of you, Bush tells angry conservative supporters.

On the other hand, if the title does not involve any commentary and it only consists of

real words, the inverted commas are kept, for example: ‘Let me prove I’m Perón

daughter’. In Slovak press, omission of inverted commas is a very common

phenomenon as well, for example: Saddám: Biely dom, to sú klamári.

Headlines can be described in more detail by means of sub-titles. Their script is

not so big and bold but it is still more expressive than the script of text in the body of

article. English sub-titles usually do not involve only more detailed information but the

emphasized name of reporter is put there as well.

Newspaper headlines of both languages are often supported with pictures most of

which are black and white. The pictures are always introduced by short texts.

2.7 Comparison of English and Slovak newspaper head lines

from the stylistic point of view

Considering all the mentioned linguistic features of newspaper headlines, we will

now concentrate on their stylistic value. This section also involves the pragmatic point

of view that influences the effect of headlines on their readers. We must take into

account that it is the cooperation of the linguistic features, which plays the most

important role in the stylistic character of any piece of text.

Before comparing stylistic features of English and Slovak headlines it should be

reminded that there are three main functions of headlines: to attract attention, to

provide information and to manipulate opinion.

One of the primary means causing the attraction of readers’ attention is the

graphical presentation of newspaper headlines. However, this phenomenon is

subjectively influenced by authors’ points of view or by marketing strategy. By

marketing strategy here we mean hypothetic different interests of readers. These

differences might depend on cultural differences of society or on the individual

interests of readers. Since Britain is generally a more influential country in

international politics than the Slovak Republic we can find more articles discussing

the international British activities in English press. Moreover, those headlines are

usually put on the front pages of ‘world news’ part and they are visibly more

graphically emphasized.

As the headlines of our corpus were chosen from the English and Slovak

newspapers published on the same dates, some of them introduce articles

discussing the same topics. However, they are often discussed from different points

of view and thus the formulation and character of titles is sometimes different. For

example, the event of awarding Nobel Prize for physics was described in both

newspapers. While The Times discuss this event only by short telegraphic article

titled: Three share Nobel honour, Slovak newspaper brings a considerably longer text

supported by photo and also its title is more descriptive and informative: Nobelova

cena za to, že porozumeli svetlu.

On the other hand, natural catastrophe which happened in New Orleans is

discussed in more detail in British press however Slovak newspaper does not pay so

much attention to it. Comparing these two headlines, we can declare that English one

is more descriptive and even more impressive, for example:

Struggle for the living as search for the dead ends

V New Orleanse prestali hľadať mŕtve telá

As Slovak language does not dispose of so many means, which could shorten the

text, some titles are longer than the English equivalents and thus they sound less

dynamic, for example:

Taleban arrest

V Pakistane zadržali hovorcu Talibanu

Generally, headlines should provide those pieces of information which are usually

chosen from context of the article and seem to be the most important or attractive. As

importance and also attractiveness are very subjective phenomena there can be

found several differences caused by authors’ subjective attitudes to the topic. As we

can notice, both following headlines title the articles reacting to the same topic – gas

attack in St Petersburg:

Gas attack on shops puts 66 in hospital

Plynový útok v Petrohrade nebol dielom teroristov

Comparing them, we can sum up that the English headline pays more attention to

the victims of the attack while Slovak one concentrates more on the previous

hypothesis that this attack was probably a black-mail attempt.

Similarly, we can observe more subjective and impressive expression in the

English title of article discussing Sharon’s next operation. As we can see in the

following examples, English author uses the verb ‘need’ which makes the meaning of

the statement more impressive and it causes much stronger effect than Slovak usage

of ‘ide’, for example:

Sharon needs surgery on heart defect after stroke

Šaron ide na operáciu

Another phenomenon that should be mentioned talking about stylistics of

newspaper headlines is the usage of sub-titles. Generally, they are more frequent in

Slovak press and they are different in their semantic and stylistic character. Slovak

sub-titles usually add more information to the main headlines; it means that they tend

to provide more detailed information about the article and thus they are said to fulfil

the descriptive function, for example:

Na plážach hučali sirény. Ako spomienka

Indonézia, Thajsko, Srí Lanka a India spomínali na obete vlaňajšieho cunami. Podľa domácich to bola

šou pre turistov

The same descriptive function is obvious in English sub-titles; but they contain the

author’s name in addition. What is more the reporter name is sometimes even boldly

emphasized, for example:

Military secrecy alarms Japan

A minister’s criticism of the Chinese arms build-up departs from the official line, Jane

Macartney and Leo Lewis report

This form of expressing journalist’s name is more common in publicistic style and it is

avoided in newspaper style of Slovak language. The main reason for this difference

might be an effort to reduce possible subjective effect.

CONCLUSION

The main aim of this thesis is to compare style of newspaper headlines found in

English and Slovak press. The basic instigation for this research was the fact that

well-developed headlines influence the readers’ decision to choose particular type of

newspapers and because of this to increase the saleability of them. This

phenomenon which is generally considered to play predominating role nowadays, is

the main reason for frequent stylistic analyses of newspaper headlines.

Generally said, headlines create a special stylistic group. For this reason, the

question about their classification under one group of functional styles is discussed

frequently. There is polemic whether to put hem under the categories of publicistic or

newspaper style. All the researched features of headlines found in our corpus bring

us to our understanding of newspaper headlines as pieces of text sharing mostly the

features of newspaper style. However, they also include some expressive means

(personifications, metaphors, informal language etc.) and due to this fact, one might

not be sure about their proper sub-classification under the newspaper style. To solve

this problem we can look at the newspaper headlines as at the texts sharing the

features consolidating with the style of whole article.

Stylistics as a branch of linguistics involves the study of particular material from

various points of view. Our analysis compares the stylistically significant

morphological, lexical, syntactical and graphical features of English and Slovak titles

and their supposed effect on readers.

To summarize morphological character of English and Slovak headlines, we can

declare that English headlines consist of considerably less verbs which is mainly

caused by omission of auxiliaries and frequent usage of nominal constructions

standing in isolation. On the other hand, Slovak headlines are hardly used without

any verbs.

Talking about the parts of speech it is important to mention that English headlines

are considerably more distinctive than Slovak headlines and the difference between

the Standard English and language of headlines is more obvious. The main reason

for this is omission of articles and some prepositions which is very common in

English press. Another different phenomenon is the expression of numerals which

are written in symbols more often in English language of headlines.

The most stylistically marked morphological expressive means is dominating

occurrence of Historical Present. Its main role is to emphasize the topicality of

described events.

Comparing lexical character of English and Slovak headlines, we find the most

significant difference in more frequent occurrence of informal and compound words in

English press. On the other hand, Slovak headlines consist of higher number of

nominal lexis, especially proper nouns. In English language, special ‘headlines

vocabulary’ is very often used which is not significant in Slovak headlines.

On the other hand, we can declare that headlines of both languages are the same

from the point of view of the used metaphorical language. Especially, personifications

and metaphors are frequent, most of which have the character of cliché as the result

of their frequent usage. Alliteration can be found in English headlines while it is very

rare in Slovak press.

According to our research of syntactical character of English and Slovak headlines,

English headlines are significantly shorter and they do not contain more than one

sentence. On the other hand, declarative sentences are the most common types

used in both languages. As Slovak language is typical for its flectional character,

there is considerably larger extent of used types of word-order. However, all the non-

standard types of word-order in English headlines cause strong stylistic effect. Due to

the economical character of newspaper headlines, longer modifications are generally

avoided. Especially English headlines are typical for frequent usage of ellipsis as

their significant syntactic feature.

Newspaper headlines of both languages are very specific in their graphical

character. Generally they are emphasized by usage of bold script which is longer in

size. This is the main means which causes their eye-catching effect. Punctuation is

more specifically used in English headlines as it is usually omitted.

Another difference between English and Slovak headlines is represented by

different focusing of information. This phenomenon suggests subjective choice of

author who has the possibility to present his or her point of view.

To sum up all the mentioned features we can declare that the authors of

headlines try to use those language means which would attract the readers’ attention

and this is the main common feature of English and Slovak newspaper headlines.

Moreover, all the headlines of our corpus try to bring as objective pieces of

information as possible. Before we finish let us appreciate the work of those

journalists who follow the words of L.Sellers who claims that “Headlines should tell

the story”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALEXANDER, L.G.: Longman English Grammar. London: Longman, 2001

CRYSTAL, D., DEREK, D.: Investigating English Style. London: Longman, 1969

FINDRA, Ján.: Štylistika slovenčiny. Martin: Osveta, 2004

HANKS, Patrick.: The New Oxford Dictionary of English. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2001

KNITTLOVÁ, Dagmar.: Funkční styly v angličtině a češtině. Olomouc: rektorát

Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, 1990

KVETKO, Pavol.: English lexicology. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta Univerzity

Komenského, 1996

MISTRÍK, Jozef.: Moderná slovenčina. Bratislava: SPN, 1988

MISTRÍK, Jozef.: Lingvistický slovník. Bratislava: SPN, 2002

MIŠŠÍKOVÁ, Gabriela.: Linguistic stylistics. Nitra: FF UKF, 2003

MIŠŠÍKOVÁ, Gabriela.: Working with texts in stylistics. Nitra: FF UKF, 2004

ONDRUŠ, Š., SABOL, J.: Úvod do štúdia jazykov. Bratislava: SPN, 1981

QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM, S.: A university grammar of English. London: Longman,

1973

ŠTEKAUER, Pavol.: Rudiments of English Linguistics. Prešov: SLOVACONTACT,

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URBANOVÁ, L., OAKLAND A.: Úvod do anglické stylistiky. Praha: Barrister &

Principal, 2002

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2006]. Available from world Wide Web:

< http://ijl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/8/4.pdf>

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APPENDIXES

Appendix A

The Times, October 5, 2005

1. Battle Royal over castle’s flea market for the rich

2. Villepin will find he can’t have it both ways

3. After the euphoria, Turkey prepares for the hard slog

4. Nation rejoices at long-awaited talks

5. UN calls for fair play in constitution vote

Sunni minority says that changes to voting rules would have left it no say in

country’s future, James Hider reports

6. Sci-fi to sky high: rocket racers set to leave Formula One in the pits

7. Death sentence for bomb plot

8. Massacre report

9. Taleban arrest

10. Hurricane deaths

11. Sars suspect

12. Lennon memorial

13. I’m still one of you, Bush tells angry conservative supporters

14. Simmering exasperation is beginning to boil over

15. ‘Let me prove I’m Perón daughter’

Court to rule on plea for former President to be exhumed for DNA testing, reports

Fiona McCann

16. Three share Nobel honour

17. Typhoon deaths

18. Off the beer

19. Struggle for the living as search for the dead ends

The Times, December 23, 2005

20. Kofi Annan takes on The Times

21. The unanswered questions

22. Oil-for-Food questions UN has still not answered...

23. ...and the Annan response

24. First Catholic for the Vatican

25. Double-jawed trout hooked out

26. Free soup causes offence

27. Town celebrates €510m windfall

28. Radio prankster’s joke call sparks transatlantic dispute

29. Showjumper lowers the hurdles for a generation of black riders

30. Military secrecy alarms Japan

A minister’s criticism of the Chinese arms build-up departs from the official line,

Jane Macartney and Leo Lewis report

31. Second toxic spill in two months poisons waterway

32. Missed lunch costs $172m

33. Collaborator jailed

34. Turkey told to pay

35. Killer to hang

36. Terror Bill passed

37. Today’s Joseph and Mary would face 15 checkpoints

38. Footprints in the sand give a lasting impression of life 20,000 years ago

The Times, December 27, 2005

39. Skinhead racist murders spark protests from foreign students

40. Gas attack on shops puts 66 in hospital

41. Therapy and drugs to stop paedophiles committing sex offences

42. Wind-up handle opens window on world

43. Sharon needs surgery on heart defect after stroke

44. Chinese facing jail to protect unborn girls

45. Colour as important as quality to new breed of Cape cheesemakers

46. Gunmen shoot five shoppers

47. 200 held hostage

48. Trial for Pinochet

49. Building plans

50. Beslan ruling

Appendix B

SME, October 5, 2005

1. Turecko v únii? Zatiaľ vzdialený sen

O vstupe budú komplikovane rokovať ešte najmenej desať rokov. Európa si stále vôbec nie je istá,

či o Ankaru stojí

2. Napätie a hromženie v Ankare

3. Ďalšie obvinenie republikána DeLaya

4. Kim Čong-il má predstaviť nástupcu

5. V Pakistane zadržali hovorcu Talibanu

6. Britskí konzervatívci hľadajú lídra

7. Chorváti by chceli byť v únii v roku 2009

8. Nobelova cena za to, že porozumeli svetlu

9. Maďarsko: zverejniť kompletné zoznamy bývalých agentov tajnej služby je

protiústavné

10. Orbán obchádza krajinu, Gyurcsány začal rozdávať

11. Pre moslimov sa začal mesiac ramadán, al-Káida sa vyhráža

12. Netrafili sme do bránky

Hovorí premiér Dolného Saska a vplyvný muž kresťanských demokratov (CDU)

Christian Wulff

13. Putin by mohol viesť Ruskostan

14. V New Orleanse prestali hľadať mŕtve telá

SME, December 23, 2005

15. Saddám: Biely dom, to sú klamári

Tvrdí, že Američania ho mučili, okrádali a ponižovali. Američania hovoria, že si vymýšľa. Proces

prerušili do 24.januára

16. Taliansko obvinilo amerického vojaka za zabitie agenta

17. Blair a Rumsfeld v Iraku

18. Ďalšie obete vtáčej chrípky

19. Srbi sú vraj bližšie k Mladičovi a Karadžičovi

20. Japonsko vymiera

21. Zomrel nacistický lekár Heinrich Gross

22. Japonský minister: Čína je vojenská hrozba

23. Senát Bushovi predĺžil zákon o terore iba o pol roka

24. Prezident Kaczyński nastupuje ako kráľ

Nový poľský prezident si dá moc posvätiť vo varšavskej katedrále sv.Jána, bude

to prvý signál, že Poľsko sa mení

25. Na rakúskych staniciach platí zákaz fajčenia

26. Kalamita v Japonsku

27. Odsúdili tureckých novinárov

28. Od ničivého úderu cunami prešiel už jeden rok

Státisíce ľudí ešte stále žije v stanoch, humanitárne organizácie hovoria, že do pol roka by sa

malo začať vo veľkom s výstavbou domov

29. Plechové domy? Tak v tom my bývať veru nechceme

30. V Čečensku sa rýchlo šíri záhadná epidémia

31. Fidesz desí svojimi radikálmi

32. Jed dorazil do Chabarovska

33. New York zažil dopravný kolaps

SME, December 27, 2005

34. Pápež: Nestaňte sa obeťou svojho rozumu

Benedikt XVI. má za sebou vianočnú premiéru. Požehnanie Urbi et Orbi predniesol iba v 32

jazykoch, kázeň bola strohá

35. Rok po cunami vyskúšali varovný systém

36. Do Betlehema sa vrátili Vianoce

37. Šaron ide na operáciu

38. Odsúdili egyptského šéfa opozície

39. Irán nechce dať svoje jadro Rusom

40. Rebeli v Iraku zabili päť policajtov

41. Líbya bude znovu súdiť bulharské sestričky

42. Plynový útok v Petrohrade nebol dielom teroristov

43. Na plážach hučali sirény. Ako spomienka

Indonézia, Thajsko, Srí Lanka a India spomínali na obete vlaňajšieho cunami. Podľa domácich to

bola šou pre turistov

44. Cheneyho iPod mal najvyššiu prioritu

45. Gotovina dostal stotisíc pohľadníc

46. Tymošenkovú už Rusi nestíhajú

47. Test DNA ukáže, či Američana nepopravili predsa len omylom

48. Rusi prijali zákon proti oranžovej nákaze

49. Kaczyński chce odštartovať IV. Poľskú republiku

50. Z kórejského Pána klonov sa stal Majster výhovorka

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A Research into the Stylistics of English and Slovak ...diplom.utc.sk/wan/825.pdf · A Research into the Stylistics of English and Slovak Newspaper Headlines ... Gabriela Mitrová