论新闻英语的文体特征(3)

In News English reporting writing, when journalists want to mix two

sentences into one sentence, they usually employ participle phrase to simplify them. By this way, they can make one sentence include as much information as possible. It is a very common writing skill in News English. If we master this kind of skills, not only can we improve our reading speed but also increase the ability of writing and translation. In this paper, participle phrases are used as a methodology to study the stylistic of News English. On one hand, participle phrase are often used as adverbial clause.

(2)Mitt Romney was the winner of the Republican presidential primary Sunday in Puerto Rico, (The voice of America, 2012/ 3/ 18)

The underlined part is used as a participle phrase, it includes further information about Mitt Romney.

On the other hand, we should also pay attention to another kind of this structure “Leaving (leave) + n + adj”. It is continually used in News English.

(3)A powerful earthquake struck North Yemen on Monday, (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

In this sentence, “leaving more than 600 people dead and injured, the official said” offer the consequence of the earthquake to readers, it offers

its necessary information in one sentence and simplifies the sentence.

Sometimes participle phrases are used as adverbial method to explain its background or pattern.

(4)The assault team also confiscates a wealth of material, (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

The underlined part works as an adverbial method to explain what is confiscated, and make sentence simpler.

Finally, participle phrase can also serve as preposition.

(5)Decades ago, ensured that the ranks of flight attendants remained young. (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

The underlined parts are used as prepositions to express its background and method.

4.1.4 Voice and Tense

When reading News English, it is easy to find that active voice and passive voice are both used in English headlines. In general, the writers prefer to use the active voice. Compared with passive voice, it is far more frequently used and easy to be seen in various mass media.

(6) in Egypt Amid Church’s Struggles (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

(7) (The voice of America, 2012/ 3/ 18)

(8) Five suspects in Bali anti-terror raids (The BBC News, 2012/ 3/ 18)

In News English reporting, active voice is more colorful and appealing, more powerful in transferring meanings. In headlines it is more often used than passive voice.

Generally speaking, the events reported in the newspaper have happened actually. According to the English grammar principle, writers should use past tense. In fact, it tends to use simple present tense to make readers feel that the news is fresh and timely when reading.

Journalists employ present tense because the verb in simple present tense is shorter than the one in the past tense. Another reason is that the simple present tense is active and it is easy to let readers understand the news, which are preferred in the headlines. The present tense makes the news reporting more fresh, new, vivid and interesting to read.

(9)Putin Higher Oil Prices to Pay for Campaign Promise (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 16)

When refer to the action in process, “be +-ing” is employed in headlines to present progressive tense. Usually the word “be” is omitted, only the present participle “ing” remains.

(10)= Cosmeceuticals (is) gaining popularity (The China Daily, 2012/ 3/ 19)

There are also infinitive phrases in the headlines, the writers often

use “be+ verb infinitive”, but the word “be” is usually omitted to save the space. We can always say the future tense is expressed by to-infinitive verbal in headlines.

(11) (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

4.1.4 Ellipsis

Ellipsis refers to the omission of some words. It is another important grammatical feature of News English in headlines. Headlines are usually not whole sentences, they consist of nouns and verbs, which can emphasize the important content and information in the whole text. Omissions are used whenever and wherever necessary in headlines. Articles, personal pronouns, linking verbs and auxiliary verbs are usually omitted. For example:

(12)Challenges Facing the Constitution= (The) New Challenges (is) facing to the Constitution (The New York Times, 2012/ 3/ 18)

(13)Chen calls on US to loosen restriction=Chen calls on US to loosen (its) restriction (The China Daily, 2012/ 3/ 19)

(14)Bankers Silent as Dollar Falls= (The) Bankers (keep) Silent as Dollar Falls (The China Daily, 2012/ 3/ 19)

In the above examples, the right sentences are the whole ones, while the left ones are full of omissions. Nearly almost every word in the headlines is a key word, with the use of omission, it saves much space.

When those omissions appear in the body, the readers can easily understand the content of passage, which the writers created is optimal relevant.

4.2 Lexical Features of News English词汇特征

As a distinctive kind of language, News English has its own features in vocabulary. Journalists always want to write the report easy to be understood and eye-catching. But when reading the news reports, readers still feel it difficult to understand sometimes. Because of the limited space and time, journalists always make great effort to use fewer letters to convey possible information. Hence they usually employ simple and strict words.

4.2.1 Use of Short Words短字

In English newspapers short words are widely used. Writers can use many English words to express the same meaning, but they consist of different letters, some of them are long, some others are shorter and fewer. Therefore, it is obvious that journalists prefer to employ short ones for saving space.

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