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BRIEF NEWS ITEMS. The function of a briefnews itemis to inform the reader

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

It goes without saying that the bulk of the vocabulary used in newspaper writing is neutral and common literary. But apart from this, newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

a) Special political and economic terms, e.g., Socialism, constitution, president, apartheid, by - election, GeneralAssembly, grossoutput, percapitaproduction.

b) Non-term political vocabulary, e.g., public, people, progressive, nation - wide, unity, peace. A characteristic feature of political vocabulary is that the border line between terms and non-terms is less distinct than in the vocabulary of other special fields. The semantic structure of some words comprises both terms and non-terms, e.g., nation, crisis, agreement, member, representative, leader.

c) Newspaper cliches, i.e., stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases familiar to the reader; e.g., vitalissue, pressingproblem, well - informedsources, dangerofwar, toescalateawar, warhysteria, overwhelmingmajority, amidstormyapplause. Cliches more than anything else reflect the traditional manner of expression in newspaper writing. They are commonly looked upon as a defect of style. Indeed, some cliches, especially those based on trite images (e.g. captainsofindustry, pillarsofsociety, bulwarkofcivilization ) are pompous and hackneyed, others, such as welfarestate, affluentsociety, are false and misleading. But nevertheless, cliches are indispensable in newspaper style: they prompt the necessary associations and prevent ambiguity and misunderstanding.

d) Abbreviations. News items, press reports and headlines abound in abbreviations of various kinds. Among them abbreviated terms — names of organizations, public and state bodies, political associations, industrial and other companies, various offices, etc. known by their initials are very common; e.g. UNO (United Nations Organization), TUC (Trades (Union Congress), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), AFL-CIO (American federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organizations), EEC (European Economic Community), TGWU (Transport and General Workers Union), FO (foreign Office), PIB (Prices and Incomes Board). The widespread use of initials in newspaper language has been expanded to the names of persons constantly in the public eye and we find references to LBJ (Lyndon fiaines Johnson), JFK (John Fitzgerald.Kennedy). We even find whole statements referred to by their initials, e.g., UDI (trilateral Declaration of Independence /of Rhodesia/) and NIBMAR (No independence before majority African Rule).

e) Neologisms. These are very common in newspaper vocabulary. The newspaper is very quick to react to any new development in the life of society, in science and technology. Hence, neologisms make their way into the language of the newspaper very easily and often even spring up on newspaper pages, e.g., sputnik, tooutsputnik, lunik, asplash - down (the act of bringing a spacecraft to a water surface), ateach - in (a form of campaigning through heated political discussion), backlash or whitebacklash (a violent reaction of American racists to the Negroes' struggle for civil rights), frontlash (a vigorous antiracist movement), stop - gopolicies (contradictory, indecisive and inefficient policies).

The above-listed peculiarities of brief news items are the vocabulary parameters of English newspaper style.

The vocabulary of brief news items is generally devoid of any emotional colouring. Some "popular" papers, however, such as the DailyMirror, tend to introduce emotionally coloured elements into the matter-of-fact, linguistically neutral news stories, e.g.,

"Health Minister Kenneth Robinson made this shock announcement yesterday in the Commons." ( DailyMirror )

"Technicians at the space base here are now working flatout to prepare Gemini 6 for next Monday's blast-off." ( DailyMail )

Important as vocabulary is, it is not so much the words and phrases used in brief news items that distinguish them from other forms of newspaper writing. The vocabulary groups listed above are also commonly found in headlines and newspaper articles. The basic peculiarities of news items lie in their syntactical structure.

As the reporter is obliged to be brief, he naturally tries to cram all his facts into the space alloted. This tendency predetermines the peculiar composition of brief news items and the syntactical structure of the sentences. The size of brief news items varies from one sentence to several (short) paragraphs. And generally, the shorter the news item, the more complex its syntactical structure.

The following grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are of paramount importance, and may be regarded as grammatical parameters of newspaper style.

a) Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses, e.g.,

"Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster-General (Kingston-upon-Thames), said hehadbeenaskedwhatwasmeantbythestatementintheSpeechthatthepositionofwarpensionersandthosereceivingnationalinsurancebenefitswouldbekeptunderclosereview ." ( TheTimes )

" ThereareindicationsthatBOACmaywithdrawthreatsofall - outdismissalsforpilotswhorestrictflyinghours, a spokesman for the British Airline Pilots' association said yesterday." { MorningStar )

b) Verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerundial); and verbal noun constructions, e.g.,

"Mr. Nobusuke Kishi, the former Prime Minister of Japan, has sought to set an example to the faction-ridden Governing Liberal Democratic Party byannouncingthedisbanding of his own faction numbering 47 of the total of 295 conservative members of the Lower house of the Diet." ( TheTimes )

c) Syntactical complexes, especially the nominative with the infinitive. These constructions are largely used to avoid mentioning the source of information or to shun responsibility for the facts reported, e.g.,

"The condition of Lord Samuel, aged 92, wassaid last night tobe a 'little better.'" ( TheGuardian )

"A Petrol bomb isbelievedtohavebeenexploded against the grave of Cecil Rhodes in the Matopos." ( TheTimes )

d) Attributive noun groups are another powerful means of effecting brevity in news items, e.g., ' heartswap patient' ( MorningStar ), ' thenationalincomeandexpenditure figures' ( TheTimes ), ' Labour backbench decision' ( MorningStar ), 'Mr. Wilson's HMSFearlesspackagedeal ' ( MorningStar ), leapintospace age ( DailyWorker ).

e) Specific word order. Newspaper tradition, coupled with the rigid rules of sentence structure in English, has greatly affected the word order of brief news items. The word order in one-sentence news paragraphs and in what are called leads (the initial sentences in longer news items) is more or less fixed. Journalistic practice has developed what is called the "five-w-and-h-pattern rule" ( who - what - why-how - where - when ) and for a long time strictly adhered to it. In terms of grammar this fixed sentence structure may be expressed in the following manner: Subject — Predicate (object) — Adverbial modifier of reason (manner) — Adverbial modifier of place — Adverbial modifier of time, e.g.,..

"The US Consul-General, Mr. Maxwell McCullough, snooped incognito round the anti-Polaris art exhibition "Count Down" in the McLellan Galleries here thismorning ". ( DailyWorker )

It has been repeatedly claimed by the authors of manuals of journalistic writing that the "five-w-and-h" structure was the only right pattern of sentence structure to use in news reports. Facts, however, disprove this contention. Statistics show that there are approximately as many cases in which the traditional word order is violated as those in which it is observed. It is now obvious that the newspaper has developed new sentence patterns not typical of other styles. This observation refers, firstly, to the position of the adverbial modifier of definite time. Compare another pattern typical of brief news sentence structure:

Derec Heath, 43, yesterdayleft Falmouth for the third time in his attempt to cross the Atlantic in a 12ft dinghy. ( MorningStar )

Brighton council yesterdayapproved a £ 22,500 scheme to have parking meters operating in the centre of the town by March. ( TheTimes )

This and some other unconventional sentence patterns have become a common practice with brief news writers.

There are some other, though less marked, tendencies in news item writing of modifying well-established grammatical norms. Mention should be made of occasional disregard for the sequence of tenses rule (e.g., It wasannounced in Cairo yesterday that elections willbeheld ... DailyWorker ) and the rules for reporting speech (e.g., After offering "the hearty congratulations of myself and the federation I represent" and expressing his wish for "every success in the future," Mr. Holt concludes ... DailyWorker ). What is ordinarily looked upon as a gross violation of grammar rules in any other kind of writing is becoming increasingly common as a functional peculiarity of newspaper style.

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