Stylistic Features in News Report

錢蔚

【Abstract】We live in a world that news reports are explosive everyday. Learning styles of news help us have a better understanding of the news report. Distinctive from other genres， news report is characterized by its own styles. This paper， taking Healing Wars Wounds as an example， through syntax， aims to illuminate the stylistic features of news report.

【Key words】news report； style； three levels； feature

News report is defined in Longman dictionary as “information about something that has happened recently” （Longman 1316）. In this way， news report reflects the latest happening event in the world， so it has its own characteristics. News report style refers to the style used in news report and comments by media like news paper， magazine， broadcast， television， etc. since news report is characterized by promptness， and it should convey more information within less space. In addition， the readers cannot interact with the reporters， nor can they spend much time reading each item of news in detail， news report is expected to be concise， time-saving， and whats more， objective and easy to understand for news reports serious events to the public. All these features are reflected in its meaning potential. Halliday says all sorts of texts have three meanings： ideational meaning， interpersonal meaning and textual meaning. Then how these stylistic features are realized according to three meanings？This paper， taking a piece of news Healing Wars Wounds published in Newsweek September 11， 2006 as an example， aims to analyze how stylistic features are realized in news report from the angle of syntax.

The stylistic feature of news report reflected in syntax is that there are more long sentences than short sentences. Long sentences suggest complicated process and a formal meaning， which fits the form of news. This item of news comprises 9 paragraphs （including the guideline）， 56 sentences， 1234 words. In average， every sentence includes 22 words， the longest sentence has 51 words while the shortest has 4， from the form below we can see the containing word amount of the passage， the maximum amount of sentences ranges from 21 to 30 words.

Another feature is that the concentration of meaning in news report requires more complex structures， that is to say， by making use of less space to convey more information. The concentration of preposition is an obvious feature. For example， in sentence 10， “The three-foot-long missile…h(huán)elp him”， the preposition three-foot-long is transformed by phrases and clauses， it can be disintegrated into a postposition element as “ the missile is long and has three feet”.endprint

Not only longer sentences abound in news report， but also the sentences vary in their structures and forms. Some common sentence structures like periodic sentence， ellipsis sentence and inverted sentence realize their stylistic features. Periodic sentence is a sentence form in which main clause is put after all supplementary information. The sentence is grammatically incomplete until the end is reached and it functions as for emphatic or climatic effect （11）. Sentence 45 is a periodic one， “Free from …like kids”， here the adverbial elements are put at the beginning while the subject and predicate are put behind， signifying that the focus is the content behind. So in this sentence “Smith and the oth?ers spend their days splashing like kids” is emphasized， suggesting that Smith and other wounded soldiers become happy after the testing approach of Pentagon. Inverted sentence is a sentence in which normal order of sentence is changed to achieve particular effect. （Zhang， 140）. It has three functions： for emphatic purpose； to avoid awkward， loose style； to achieve coherence. In this report， there are two inverted sentences： sentence 17 and 28， take sentence 28 for instance， “Of special concern are…for years”， the normal sequence should be the service members， like Smith， classified by the Pentagon as “severely in?jured…special concern”， but the sentence is intentionally inverted to put the focus behind， the reasons are， on the one hand， the subject is too long to be put at the beginning， on the other hand， the author aims at drawing the readers attention to the end， the more important expectation.

This essay offers an angle to learn that news style is different from the style of other genres like novel， poetry， or text books. It is beneficial for the readers to learn the distinctive style of news report.

References：

[1]Halliday，M.A.K.An Introduction to Functional Grammar[M].London：Edward Arnold，1994.

[2]Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2005.

[3]張德祿.語言的功能與文體[M].北京：高等教育出版社，2005.endprint