新聞英語語言的簡潔性及其方法和途徑的研究
05-25, 2014
I. Introduction
With increasing international exchange between China and the other parts of the world, language study is becoming an indispensable part in daily life. Especially nowadays, as English has increasingly come into world-wide use, there has arisen an acute need for more information on the language and the ways in which it is used. Reading English newspapers opens a special window for people to be dipped into new things and stories that come forward everyday, and gives people the opportunity of picking up language. They are the primary mass medium from which people receive new information. Newspapers have a rich mix of contents — news, advice, comics, opinions, puzzles and data. Some people go right for the stock market tables, others to sports or a favorite columnist. While unlike radio and television, people don't have to wait for what they want. Newspapers are important in people’s lives, and as a medium they adapt to changing lifestyles.
Today, there are many media reporting news in English, but what they use is a common mode of English news internationally, that is, news English this particular style. However, the language used in English newspapers is quite different from general English to some extent. As a variety of mass media, news has played an important role in people’s daily life and become a study subject of a great number of intellectuals. News English is a special kind of English and it has several natures, one of which is simplicity. It is necessary to simplify news English on consideration of its features and functions. This paper studies the ways of simplifying news English from the angle of word and grammar. Thus the simplicity of news English and its ways is the focus of it.
The simplicity of news English is a necessity for news writing. It answers the requirement of all kinds of people — reporters, readers and publishers. The simplicity of news English saves their time, energy and help them to get or write news in a fast and easy way.
II. Understanding of News English
News English is a branch of English, and is not familiar to everyone, so it is necessary to understand what exactly news English is and what features make news English different from general English. The following two parts will introduce the definition of news English and its natures.
2.1 Definition of News English
To understand what is news English, one should know what news is at first. Ever since the news business appears, especially with the appearance of news research institutions and news universities, scholars, home and abroad, never stop seeking a scientific definition of news. The concept of news is rather elusive. There is no fixed, commonly accepted definition for news in the world up to now.
For example, many a columnist argue that news is supposed to be surprising, shocking and even abnormal. The famous line about news is that if a dog bites a man, it is not news; if a man bites a dog, then it is. And some reporters extend the definition for news so far that they claim anything of interest constitutes news. And according to several Chinese scholars, news is the special means that the mass media adopts to report or comment on the latest important facts to influence the public opinion.#p#分頁標題#e#
Even though a universally accepted definition of news is not available, all the definitions are interwoven and mutually complementary. To serve for the purpose of this thesis, I adopt the combined notion of news that news is information that is published in newspaper and broadcast on radio and television and online about recent events in the country or the world or in a particular area of activity. However, news is not simply that which happens, but that which can be regarded and presented as newsworthy.
2.2 Natures of News English
To figure out the natures of news English, it is necessary to know the natures of news. According to Zheng Baowei(2003), news has the following distinctive natures:
News must be new. It is said that the word “news” comes the word “new”. News is a kind of information conveyed to the people, but it is not the common information; instead it is about the things in its newest state. In other words, only those new things, new problems, new people, new ideas, and new experiences can become news. That news must be new is a fundamental feature of news, which differentiates news from history.
News must be timely. If the true and new facts were not released timely, news would become old and valueless. Therefore, the mass media must disclose the facts to the masses as soon as possible. Any delay or postpone should be avoided.
News must be made known to the public, in another way, it must be simple. In the modern society, the news media are the most important and most-frequently-used channel for people to get to know the outside world. Everyday newspapers, radio broadcasts and TV continuously release a large amount of news, and all the news is open to the public. It is obvious to see that everyone has access to the news, regardless of his intelligence and social status.
From the natures of news mentioned above, it is not difficult for us to understand the features of news English. On the one hand, lexically speaking, the words of news English are relatively short and simple which is easy to read, to understand as well as to write. This lexical characteristic answers the request of the nature that news can be accessible to everyone, regardless of wherever one comes or whatever one does. On the other hand, the grammars of news English are simple too which shows the simplicity of news. The frequent use of short and simple sentences, pre-modifications, active voice etc proves this point as well. Simple words and grammar help to release news timely to ensure the new nature of news. As what has been mentioned above, simplicity, one of the most important features of news English will be studied in this paper.
III. The Necessity of Simplicity of News English
News become more and more important in modern society, and it is even said that news is the center for the understanding of the international current events. Because of globalization, there is an increasingly strong desire from every corner of the world to learn about what is going on in the world. However, millions of pieces of news, from all over the world, happen everyday, and they are written in all kinds of languages. Then, how can people understand all these languages? Thus, English, as an international language, is used as a translator of all languages to give news readers a way to know about global news. In this situation, news English has to be simple so that it can benefit all kinds of people, for instance, news readers and reporters and even publishers.#p#分頁標題#e#
3.1 Readers' Requirement
Everyday sees hundreds of thousands of pieces of news printed in newspapers. One can not read all of them and it is unnecessary. People of all walks of life have their own preferences to news. Politicians prefer political news, economists prefer economic news, and scientists prefer scientific news and so on and so forth. Although they would not like to read all the news, they desire to read news of their preferences as many as possible. The simplicity of news English save readers' time. It makes news easy to read and there is no need to guess the meaning of certain words or to analyse the structure of the long and complicated sentences. Meanwhile, not all the people are well educated or proficient of English, so the simplicity of news English is required to make English news accessible to all readers. Here are some examples:
1.One sentence news:
Shenzhou VII is scheduled to blast off from Jiuquan in Gansu province tomorrow night. The exact time will be announced on Wednesday.
2.Simple sentences:
Every year, heaps and heaps of college students graduate from universities and institutes. They all want to find jobs, which they hope can offer them handsome salaries, but this is hardly possible. This sentence is changed into:
It is impossible for newly-graduated students to find well-paying jobs.
3.2 Reporters' Requirement
“New” and “timely” are two natures of news. To expose the two, news reporters are trained to write news as quickly as possible, so they write in a rush with certain pressure . Whenever one is in such situation, simple words and sentences just appear in ones mind and they take them down and, having no time to refine them. Especially in the war zone, the pressure becomes much heavier, and every second is close to death. More over, people eager to know the latest news of the war, all these naturally pave a way to the simplicity of news English. Examples like:
Pakistanis kill 15 militants in northwest clashes
KHAR, Pakistan – Pakistani security forces killed 15 militants in separate clashes in northwestern Pakistan, officials said Thursday. A captured commander who led troops to a militant hide-out also was killed in the fighting. (AP, Dec 3, 2009)
Grammatically speaking, the fact had already taken place, thus “past tense” should be used. However, the reporter use “kill” , the simple tense, to obey the news reporting rules.
3.3 Publishers' Requirement
Apart from readers and reporters, the third genre of people closely related to news are publishers who put priority to the circulation of newspaper which is decisive to their profits. Because of this, they have to think about how to use obtain the maximum profit with the minimum cost. Obviously, the simplicity of news English is helpful to achieve the goal. Sometimes such kind of simplicity can save the area of the printed page and the printing ink as well. This can be seen especially in headlines where a special series of short words are employed. For example, the short word “air” is used to take place of the phrase “make known”, “back” is used instead of “support” . The usage of these short words is distinct and can be seen only in headlines of news. The examples are given as follow:#p#分頁標題#e#
Obama to attend end of Copenhagen summit (Reutres, Dec 5, 2009)
(=Obama to attend the end of Copenhagen summit)
Brazil get Portugal, England lucky in world Cup draw (AFP , Dec 5, 2009)
(=Brazil get Portugal whileEngland lucky in the world Cup draw)
IV. Ways of Simplifying News English
As discussed above, simplification is the universal tendency in journalistic writing, which justifies the wide-spread contractions in English news. Here are two main ways of simplifying news English: simplifying words and grammars.
4.1 Ways of Simplifying Words
4.1.1 Use of Short Words
On the one hand, economy in style is a must in English news; on the other, newspapers are written to be read hurriedly by persons of all walks of life. As a result, short words are called for to meet the needs of this kind. In some literature concerned with English news, short words are also named monosyllabic words or midget words. Midget words, the short and dynamic expressions, are preferred by journalists for their rich meaning and concise wording. The high-frequent midget words can be classified into two groups.
First, short words predominate over longer ones. As discussed above, readers show little patience to redundant words. Also they bear a resistance to complicated and long words, which, on the other hand, would be the second choice for news editors if other words are available to convey similar meaning while occupying a bit less space. Now take a look at the following examples which are taken from the American popular magazine, Time. “AT&T also upped the ante for its CEO, Robert Allen.” (Time, Mar.1, 1993, P49) “Tit-for-Tat strikes highlight the depth of Israeli-Palestinian strife.” The underlined words in the sample sentences above, “up” and “strife” are the synonyms of “increase” and “conflict” respectively. Obviously, they take less space in print-out and express the meaning thoroughly. Even though the word “up”used here as a verb is to some extent informal, it does not really contradict the essence of news stated “diversity” that is, it is “the mix of the serious and the less serious.”
Second, single words replace phrases. Some midget words are so frequently appearing in English news that they have formed the specific contextual meaning differentiated from their common usages and even some words come to be exclusively used in news reporting. A typical example is the word “woo”as used in the following news taken from BBC broadcast. “Arroyo set to woo China on trade: Philippines leader Gloria Arroyo aims to strengthen economic ties with China during a visit to Beijing.” Here the word “woo” takes the place of the phrase “seek to win”, which is widely used in the genres other than journalistic writing. Also, the replacement sometimes causes difficulties in news-reading if the audience is not sufficiently acquainted with news English. For example, Chinese readers, who know about the basic knowledge of British parties, would still be confused by the following news: “A Tory candidate says even a long-time Labor seat in a Notts former coalfield is a possible target” ,because “Tory”, as the substitution for “the British Conservative Party”, is quite new to them.#p#分頁標題#e#
Linguists H.L. Mencken and Simeon Potter once pointed out that excessive use of short words is one of the most distinctive characteristics of English news. The following short words often appear in English news:
aim — purpose, object, intention (目的，目標，意圖)
ban — prohibition ,restraint, interdict (禁止，遏止，制止)
meet — meeting, assembly, conference, convention (會議，集會，會談，大會)
key — very important (關鍵的)
now — at the present time
soon — in the neat future
4.1.2 Use of Abbreviations
“Abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. For example, the word abbreviation can itself be represented by the abbreviation abbr. or abbrev. ” ( Wikipedia ) From this definition, the advantage of abbreviation is shown, that is, “short” which is simple and easy to remember, reflecting the simplicity of news English. In news, it serves to save space. Besides, when the abbreviation is generally accepted by mass, it is much prefered than its full form which is visually complicated and bothors readers.
According to Wikipedia, normally initialisms and acronyms are regarded as a subgroup of abbreviations and as a type of word formation process, they are viewed as a subtype of blending. For the core of clipping is to “shorten” as well, the author groups it into abbreviation. In the following part, the use of these four types of abbreviations in news are to be discussed.
4.1.2.1 Acronymy
Acronymy is a type of word-formation which includes initialisms and acronyms. “Initialism is a type of shortening, using the first letters of words to form a proper name, a technical term, or a phrase; an initialism is pronounced letter by letter. For example, BBC( for British Broadcasting Corporation ) is pronounced/'bi:bi:'si:/. Similarly, acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of the name of an organization or a scientific term, etc. Acronyms differ from initialisms in that they are pronounced as words rather than as sequences of letters; NATO( the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ) is pronounced/'neit?u/, not/'en'ei'ti:'?u/.” (張韻雯，2004：72-73)
Initialisms and acronyms in news, headlines in particular, often appear in three main types:
1．Proper names of organizations:
CPPCC(The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference); UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific And Cultural Organization)
2．The names of usually used matter:
GMT(Greenwich Mean Time); PC(Personal Computer);
3．The names of professions or titles:
GM(General Manager); PM(Prime Minister); VIP(Very Important Person)#p#分頁標題#e#
Most of technical and medical terms are in the form of acronyms in news reporting on the ground that the original forms of these terms are usually too complicated for laypersons while the acronyms are much simplified and suited for mass audience. Readers are in fact more comfortable with such words as“DNA”, “LASER” than their original terms of “genetics deoxyribonucleic acid” and “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.
4.1.2.2 Clipping
“The process of clipping involves the deletion of one or more syllables from a word( usually a noun ), which is also available in its full form. Examples are plane from airplane, and gym from gymnastics.” (張韻雯，2004：75)
In modern times, people tend to be economical in writing and speech to keep up with the tempo of new life style. To save time one is likely to clip words that are frequently used. Clippings may divided into four main types:
1．Back clippings: the deletion may occur at end of the word. This is the most common type of clipping. Examples are: ad ( =advertisement ) , and vet ( =veterinary surgeon; veteran ) .
2．Front clippings: the deletion occurs at the beginning of the word; bus ( =omnibus ), and quake ( =earthquake ).
3．Front and back clippings: the deletion occurs at both ends of a word: flu ( =influenza ), and fridge ( =refrigerator ).
4．Phrase clippings: this involves the shortening of a phrase, e.g. Perm ( =permanent wave ), and pop ( =popular music,concert, or record ).
Because they are much frequently appearing in news reporting, readers do not feel uncomfortable with the clipped words at all and some of them are so popular that readers would ignore or even forget their original forms.
4.1.2.3 Blending
“Blending is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms: e.g. Sitcom ( situation+comedy ) .” (張韻雯，2004：77) Structurally blends may be divided into four types:
1．The first part of the first word+the last part of the second one ( the most productive type ): brunch ( breakfast+lunch ) and motel ( motor+hotel ).
2．The first part of the first word+the first part of the second word:comsat (communication+satellite) and psywar ( psychological+warfare ).
3．Whole form of the first word+last part of the second one:airtel (air+hotel) and newscast (news+broadcast).
4．First part of the first word+whole form of the second word:Motown ( motor+town ) and medicare ( medical+care ).
A good many blends are news coinages. Earl Wilson, writer for the New York Evening Post, cynically coined Congressation (Congress+conversation, meaning“use-less talk” ).
4.1.3 Use of Popular Word-formation to Create New Words#p#分頁標題#e#
What are new words? This is definitely a hard question which can never be answered satisfactorily, because there is no certain yardstick to measure which words are new. As far as the new words contained in English news are concerned, they are any words, phrases or meanings that come into popular use in English or enjoy a vogue for the appearance of certain social phenomenon, advent of a new technology and the other new phenomena.
Nowadays, new words are entering the English language at an ever-increasing speed. People live in an age of knowledge explosion. With the development of science and technology in the modern society, high-tech products no longer belong exclusively to the science laboratories, but become part of people’s life. It has been gradually found that it is hard to express those new things and ideas with the existing words. In this case, new expressions have been created. The mass media take the responsibility to inform the audiences about the recent development of the technologies that have much impact on them or in which they may show great interest. That is why such news reports are crammed with the words and phrases created to describe new scientific discoveries or inventions or the associated concepts. It is well known that language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. Language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. In general, new words or expressions ate formed by some lexical devices.
Compouding, derivation, and conversion are the three major types of word-formation in contemporary English. New words in news are usually coined through these three ways, for they are familiar to the mass and readers can guess the meanings of the new words easily.
4.1.3.1 Compouding
“Compounding or composition is a word-formation process consisting of jining two or more bases to form a new unit, a compound word.”(張韻雯，2004：35) Today the largest number of new words are formed by compounding. It is a common device employed widely in news writing for it can “simplify the sentence and make it lively and jocular”( Bell,1991:45 ).
Compound words may be the following types.
1. Completely united
play + boy------playboy
2. Hyphenated
off + track------off-track
3. Accepted as standard phrase
microwave + oven------ microwave oven
Being created by combining words together, the above examples demonstrate the advantages compounding, they are, novel and space-saving. Such as the word “mouse mat” is accordance with the fast development of modern technology—computer.
4.1.3.2 Derivation
“Derivation or affixation may be defined as a process of forming new words by the addition of a word element, such as a prefix, suffix or combining form, to an already existing word. ” ( SBONE 1980)
“Derivation shows the relation between roots and affixes”. Some of the derivational morphemes are very popular in newspaper, such as pro-, anti-, eco-, etc.#p#分頁標題#e#
Moreover, a lot of new affixes are special to news English, among which “-gate” is the most typical one. “After the Watergate scandal in American in the 1970s, the word “Watergate” was used to denote any scandal”. Here are some examples:
tax + -phobia------taxphobia ( be dread of tax )
anti- + apartheid------anti-apartheid ( be against the segregation )
cyber- + community------cybercommunity ( the community on the Internet )
In pace with the rapid development of computer science and the Internet, “cyber-”, which means relating to electronic communication networks and virtual reality, has become a popular prefix in newspapers, as in “cyberspace”, “cybercafe”.
4.1.3.3 Conversion
“Conversion is a word-formation process whereby a word of a certain word-class is shifted into a word of another word-class without the addition of an affix.”(張韻雯，2004：55) From this definition, one advantage of conversion is presented, that is, to simplify the shift of word class by zero change of the word form which obviously saves space in newspaper.
Conversion facilitates the use of words interchangeably as verbs or nouns, verbs or adjectives, and vice versa. Sometimes a word may undergo multiple conversion, which enables it to function as a member of several word-classes. Someones say that this may confuse readers. The actual grammatical classification of any word, however, depends upon its use in a sentence. Notice how the word-class of round varies in accordance with its use in the following sentence:
The second round was exciting. (n.)
Any round plate will do. (adj.)
Some drivers round corners too rapidly. (v.)
The sound goes round and round. (adv.)
He lives round the corner. (prep.)
The above examples tell us a very important fact: because word order is more fixed in Modern English than ever before, functional shifts within sentences structures are possible without causing any confusion in intelligibility.
Conversions are mainly among nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the most productive type is noun to verb conversion. Converted words are often short, vivid and expressive. The following passage is taken from The Voice of America:
“The spokesman tailored his remarks to cushion the effect of a recent announcement that a project funded by the government had idled 10,000 workers. This is not the first time the government has been faulted on such an issue. Last month, when the number of unemployed peaked, it was charged that the figures had been processed with a mix of fact and fiction. As a result, the Statistics Bureau further distanced itself form the trade unions. One trade union leader complained: ‘ We don’t want a lot of hogwash. We want an administration that levels with us. From now on we’re going to monitor the situation more strictly. ’ No wander the bureau chiefs feel they are being pressured. ”#p#分頁標題#e#
In the above passage there are nine examples of nouns ( tailor, cushion, fund, fault, peak, process, distance, monitor and pressure ) used as verbs, two of adjectives ( idle and level ) used as verbs and one of verbs ( mix ) used as a noun. It is the converted forms that make this passage simple and vivid. If the converted forms wre not used, the first sentence would be like that: “ The spokesman prepared his remarks for the special purpose to quietly lesson the effect of a recent announcement that a project provided with money by the government had left 10,000 workers idle. ” It is quite a long and cumbersome sentence.
4.2 Ways of Simplifying Grammar
This part will focus mainly on the ways of simplifying grammar of news English. The language the news employs must be accurate, brief and comprehensible, and can not be as artificial and luxurious as literary language. Moreover, reporters try to present more news stories in the limited page space by employing all kinds of effective grammatical rules before deadline. Some grammatical skills will be discussed in the following part.
4.2.1 Ways Used in Headlines
Usually, the headline is short so as to fit the limited space of the newspaper.As a matter of fact, the language used in the headline has distinctive features. The lexical features are the same as this paper discussed previously, such as use of shortened words, abbreviations etc. So this part focuses on the grammatical features. The most prominent grammatical features in the headline are the use of the simple present tense andthe infinitive, as well as omission.
4.2.1.1 Use of the Simple Present Tense
It is known that news is reporting of events that have happened immediately or recently. According to grammatical rules,what is employed in the news is supposed to be simple past tense or present perfect. However, in English news, the simple presenttense is often adopted in order that the freshness and immediacy of news can be emphasized. Moreover, the precious space of the headline can be saved.
It is worth noticing that there is an exception. On occasion, the simple present tense can indicate something that is going on or will happen in future. It can also represent an objective fact. For example:
Beijing Dreams of 2008 (International Herald Tribune, Sept.7, 2000)
BEIJING—It seems recently that all of Beijing is flushed with Olympic fever,busy making preparations.
4.2.1.2 Use of the Infinitive
For the purpose of conciseness, the infinitive instead of the simple future tense is usually adopted in the headline of English news to refer to the future. The infinitive can be understood as a short form of “be going to” or “be to”. For example:
Jobs data to give steer on US recovery (Reutres, Dec 4, 2009)
(=Jobs data are to give steer on US recovery)
4.2.1.3 Frequent Omission of Certain Words#p#分頁標題#e#
Omission is one of the most distinctive characters of the headline. Generally, a headline should be originally a complete sentence,nevertheless, to highlight the most important content, some grammatical words such as articles, conjunctions, pronouns, linking verbs and auxiliary verbs are often omitted.
1.Omission of the Article
Russia nightclub blast kills 100 (CNN, Dec 5, 2009)
(=A Russia nightclub blast kills 100)
2.Omission of the Conjunction
Microsoft, Yahoo take next step in search alliance (CNN, Dec 5, 2009)
(=Microsoft and Yahoo take next step in search alliance)
3.Omission of the Linking Verb
1 shot, another beaten in fight at Baltimore hotel (AP, Dec 7, 2009)
(=1 was shot, another was beaten in fight at Baltimore hotel)
4.Omission of the Auxiliary Verb
Dems Doing Liberalism Badly (RealClearPolitics, Dec 7, 2009)
(=Democratics are Doing Liberalism Badly)
Here the auxiliary verb“be”used in the present progressive tense is omitted.
4.2.2 Ways Used in Bodies
There are several parts in news among which body is the longest one. Grammatical ways to simplify news language like use of pre-modification, short and simple sentences are to be introduced in this part.
4.2.2.1 Use of Pre-modification to Concise Sentences
Use of pre-modification is an effective way to make the sentence conciser, and therefore, it is frequently adopted in modern English. In news English, reporters have preference to pre-modification as it can simplify the structure of the sentence and save the page space. John Leo, American columnist, once said in one of his articles about news language that the pre-modification is“meat and potatoes of news language.” David Crystal and Derek Davy also pointed out the function of the pre-modification in their book English Style Investigate : “A dependent clause would of cause be possible but cumbersome,particularly if used often.The most noteworthy feature is the presence of much more complex pre-modification than we normally hear or write.” An example follows in order to show this point.
Since 1990,China has moved from its government-assigned housing system to a more market-driven one.
If this sentence is turned to normal expression, it should be like this:
Since 1990,China has moved from its system that government assigned the houses to one which was driven by market.
Obviously, the second one is not simple. Pre-modification saves words to explain. Some other expressions are given as follows:
money-oriented policies 金錢政治 see-while-you-talk phone 可視電話
4.2.2.2 Use of Active Voice
Generally speaking, reporters are supposed to be as direct and as brief as possible without losing any information in news writing. Sentences written in active voice are generally shorter and more emphatic than sentences written in passive voice. Similarly, reports written primarily in active voice seem much stronger, more definite, and more convincing than reports written predominantly in passive voice. As a result, reporters have preference to active voice. For example:#p#分頁標題#e#
The following four sentences contain the same information, but each presents it in a different way. Which presents its information most efficiently, most emphatically?
1. We were reesented at this year's business management conference by Karen.
2. Our representative at this year's business management conference was Karen.
3. At this year's business management conference we were represented by Karen.
4. Karen represented us at this year's business management conference.
Sentence 4 is preferred, because it is direct and emphatic. The active voice will help make reports seem much more definite, much more confident.
When the reporter does not know who the doer is, or prefer not to name the doer, or want to deemphasize the doer, then the passive voice has to be used. For example:
The budget was cut by 15%. (You don't know who cut it.)
When the active voice is used, reports are much shorter and easier to read. One of the major consequences of having too many passive sentences is that the reader is not fully comprehending or retaining the information, while active voice makes reports clear, concise and direct.
4.2.2.3 Use of Short and Simple Sentences
Usually people use a long sentence to express a complex or an important idea. But in making points, giving conclusions, stating facts or expressing emotion and excitation, a short sentence is preferred. Short sentences are easier to digest than long ones, so they can help readers think in a clear way and can also enable reporters to tell the news story clearly in a rush of time. It is usually better to use two short sentences rather than one long one, even though it may take up more words, for long sentences can distract readers from their primary goal of finding information.
In general, simple sentences make articles clear to readers and it is easier for correspondents to write events clearly as quickly as possible. Particularly, application of simple sentences in succession rebounds to be aware of the development of events without ambiguity among sentences. In short, news style calls for short sentences, and simple sentences with only one subject-predicate structure are most preferred.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
Along with the globalization and the arrival of information tide, more and more people coming from different nations use English to exchange thoughts mutually. So English news has become the main communicating tool.
From the above discussion, the conclusion is news English is a special kind of English and it has several natures, one of which is simplicity. It is necessary to simplify news English on consideration of its features and functions. This paper explores the simplicity of news English and the ways to simplify it from the angle of word and grammar in an attempt to provide accurate ways to read English news and to identify some of the basic requirements in writing news.#p#分頁標題#e#
However, language is changing with the development of society, and so is the language of news English. News English covers various types, such as academic articles, stories for entertainment, advertisements, weather forecasts, editorials and so on, all of them can not be discussed thoroughly in the paper. News English still is a unique emerging discipline, which waits for people to make the further exploration and the research. Therefore, much work should be carried out to study the features of each concrete classification. What's more, news is a mirror of modern society, and news English catch up with the lately change of modern English, so the study of news English is an effective way to acquire modern English. Finally, it is hoped that this paper will be particularly useful to those who have strong interest in reading or writing English news.
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[8] 劉明景. “論新聞英語標題的詞匯變異” . 《湖南師范大學社會科學學報》 . 2003, (06).
[9] 王辛. “淺析英語報刊新聞標題的詞匯和語法特點” .《烏魯木齊成人教育學院學報》. 2003, (03).
With increasing international exchange between China and the other parts of the world, language study is becoming an indispensable part in daily life. Especially nowadays, as English has increasingly come into world-wide use, there has arisen an acute need for more information on the language and the ways in which it is used. Reading English newspapers opens a special window for people to be dipped into new things and stories that come forward everyday, and gives people the opportunity of picking up language. They are the primary mass medium from which people receive new information. Newspapers have a rich mix of contents — news, advice, comics, opinions, puzzles and data. Some people go right for the stock market tables, others to sports or a favorite columnist. While unlike radio and television, people don't have to wait for what they want. Newspapers are important in people’s lives, and as a medium they adapt to changing lifestyles.
Today, there are many media reporting news in English, but what they use is a common mode of English news internationally, that is, news English this particular style. However, the language used in English newspapers is quite different from general English to some extent. As a variety of mass media, news has played an important role in people’s daily life and become a study subject of a great number of intellectuals. News English is a special kind of English and it has several natures, one of which is simplicity. It is necessary to simplify news English on consideration of its features and functions. This paper studies the ways of simplifying news English from the angle of word and grammar. Thus the simplicity of news English and its ways is the focus of it.
The simplicity of news English is a necessity for news writing. It answers the requirement of all kinds of people — reporters, readers and publishers. The simplicity of news English saves their time, energy and help them to get or write news in a fast and easy way.
II. Understanding of News English
News English is a branch of English, and is not familiar to everyone, so it is necessary to understand what exactly news English is and what features make news English different from general English. The following two parts will introduce the definition of news English and its natures.
2.1 Definition of News English
To understand what is news English, one should know what news is at first. Ever since the news business appears, especially with the appearance of news research institutions and news universities, scholars, home and abroad, never stop seeking a scientific definition of news. The concept of news is rather elusive. There is no fixed, commonly accepted definition for news in the world up to now.
For example, many a columnist argue that news is supposed to be surprising, shocking and even abnormal. The famous line about news is that if a dog bites a man, it is not news; if a man bites a dog, then it is. And some reporters extend the definition for news so far that they claim anything of interest constitutes news. And according to several Chinese scholars, news is the special means that the mass media adopts to report or comment on the latest important facts to influence the public opinion.#p#分頁標題#e#
Even though a universally accepted definition of news is not available, all the definitions are interwoven and mutually complementary. To serve for the purpose of this thesis, I adopt the combined notion of news that news is information that is published in newspaper and broadcast on radio and television and online about recent events in the country or the world or in a particular area of activity. However, news is not simply that which happens, but that which can be regarded and presented as newsworthy.
2.2 Natures of News English
To figure out the natures of news English, it is necessary to know the natures of news. According to Zheng Baowei(2003), news has the following distinctive natures:
News must be new. It is said that the word “news” comes the word “new”. News is a kind of information conveyed to the people, but it is not the common information; instead it is about the things in its newest state. In other words, only those new things, new problems, new people, new ideas, and new experiences can become news. That news must be new is a fundamental feature of news, which differentiates news from history.
News must be timely. If the true and new facts were not released timely, news would become old and valueless. Therefore, the mass media must disclose the facts to the masses as soon as possible. Any delay or postpone should be avoided.
News must be made known to the public, in another way, it must be simple. In the modern society, the news media are the most important and most-frequently-used channel for people to get to know the outside world. Everyday newspapers, radio broadcasts and TV continuously release a large amount of news, and all the news is open to the public. It is obvious to see that everyone has access to the news, regardless of his intelligence and social status.
From the natures of news mentioned above, it is not difficult for us to understand the features of news English. On the one hand, lexically speaking, the words of news English are relatively short and simple which is easy to read, to understand as well as to write. This lexical characteristic answers the request of the nature that news can be accessible to everyone, regardless of wherever one comes or whatever one does. On the other hand, the grammars of news English are simple too which shows the simplicity of news. The frequent use of short and simple sentences, pre-modifications, active voice etc proves this point as well. Simple words and grammar help to release news timely to ensure the new nature of news. As what has been mentioned above, simplicity, one of the most important features of news English will be studied in this paper.
III. The Necessity of Simplicity of News English
News become more and more important in modern society, and it is even said that news is the center for the understanding of the international current events. Because of globalization, there is an increasingly strong desire from every corner of the world to learn about what is going on in the world. However, millions of pieces of news, from all over the world, happen everyday, and they are written in all kinds of languages. Then, how can people understand all these languages? Thus, English, as an international language, is used as a translator of all languages to give news readers a way to know about global news. In this situation, news English has to be simple so that it can benefit all kinds of people, for instance, news readers and reporters and even publishers.#p#分頁標題#e#
3.1 Readers' Requirement
Everyday sees hundreds of thousands of pieces of news printed in newspapers. One can not read all of them and it is unnecessary. People of all walks of life have their own preferences to news. Politicians prefer political news, economists prefer economic news, and scientists prefer scientific news and so on and so forth. Although they would not like to read all the news, they desire to read news of their preferences as many as possible. The simplicity of news English save readers' time. It makes news easy to read and there is no need to guess the meaning of certain words or to analyse the structure of the long and complicated sentences. Meanwhile, not all the people are well educated or proficient of English, so the simplicity of news English is required to make English news accessible to all readers. Here are some examples:
1.One sentence news:
Shenzhou VII is scheduled to blast off from Jiuquan in Gansu province tomorrow night. The exact time will be announced on Wednesday.
2.Simple sentences:
Every year, heaps and heaps of college students graduate from universities and institutes. They all want to find jobs, which they hope can offer them handsome salaries, but this is hardly possible. This sentence is changed into:
It is impossible for newly-graduated students to find well-paying jobs.
3.2 Reporters' Requirement
“New” and “timely” are two natures of news. To expose the two, news reporters are trained to write news as quickly as possible, so they write in a rush with certain pressure . Whenever one is in such situation, simple words and sentences just appear in ones mind and they take them down and, having no time to refine them. Especially in the war zone, the pressure becomes much heavier, and every second is close to death. More over, people eager to know the latest news of the war, all these naturally pave a way to the simplicity of news English. Examples like:
Pakistanis kill 15 militants in northwest clashes
KHAR, Pakistan – Pakistani security forces killed 15 militants in separate clashes in northwestern Pakistan, officials said Thursday. A captured commander who led troops to a militant hide-out also was killed in the fighting. (AP, Dec 3, 2009)
Grammatically speaking, the fact had already taken place, thus “past tense” should be used. However, the reporter use “kill” , the simple tense, to obey the news reporting rules.
3.3 Publishers' Requirement
Apart from readers and reporters, the third genre of people closely related to news are publishers who put priority to the circulation of newspaper which is decisive to their profits. Because of this, they have to think about how to use obtain the maximum profit with the minimum cost. Obviously, the simplicity of news English is helpful to achieve the goal. Sometimes such kind of simplicity can save the area of the printed page and the printing ink as well. This can be seen especially in headlines where a special series of short words are employed. For example, the short word “air” is used to take place of the phrase “make known”, “back” is used instead of “support” . The usage of these short words is distinct and can be seen only in headlines of news. The examples are given as follow:#p#分頁標題#e#
Obama to attend end of Copenhagen summit (Reutres, Dec 5, 2009)
(=Obama to attend the end of Copenhagen summit)
Brazil get Portugal, England lucky in world Cup draw (AFP , Dec 5, 2009)
(=Brazil get Portugal whileEngland lucky in the world Cup draw)
IV. Ways of Simplifying News English
As discussed above, simplification is the universal tendency in journalistic writing, which justifies the wide-spread contractions in English news. Here are two main ways of simplifying news English: simplifying words and grammars.
4.1 Ways of Simplifying Words
4.1.1 Use of Short Words
On the one hand, economy in style is a must in English news; on the other, newspapers are written to be read hurriedly by persons of all walks of life. As a result, short words are called for to meet the needs of this kind. In some literature concerned with English news, short words are also named monosyllabic words or midget words. Midget words, the short and dynamic expressions, are preferred by journalists for their rich meaning and concise wording. The high-frequent midget words can be classified into two groups.
First, short words predominate over longer ones. As discussed above, readers show little patience to redundant words. Also they bear a resistance to complicated and long words, which, on the other hand, would be the second choice for news editors if other words are available to convey similar meaning while occupying a bit less space. Now take a look at the following examples which are taken from the American popular magazine, Time. “AT&T also upped the ante for its CEO, Robert Allen.” (Time, Mar.1, 1993, P49) “Tit-for-Tat strikes highlight the depth of Israeli-Palestinian strife.” The underlined words in the sample sentences above, “up” and “strife” are the synonyms of “increase” and “conflict” respectively. Obviously, they take less space in print-out and express the meaning thoroughly. Even though the word “up”used here as a verb is to some extent informal, it does not really contradict the essence of news stated “diversity” that is, it is “the mix of the serious and the less serious.”
Second, single words replace phrases. Some midget words are so frequently appearing in English news that they have formed the specific contextual meaning differentiated from their common usages and even some words come to be exclusively used in news reporting. A typical example is the word “woo”as used in the following news taken from BBC broadcast. “Arroyo set to woo China on trade: Philippines leader Gloria Arroyo aims to strengthen economic ties with China during a visit to Beijing.” Here the word “woo” takes the place of the phrase “seek to win”, which is widely used in the genres other than journalistic writing. Also, the replacement sometimes causes difficulties in news-reading if the audience is not sufficiently acquainted with news English. For example, Chinese readers, who know about the basic knowledge of British parties, would still be confused by the following news: “A Tory candidate says even a long-time Labor seat in a Notts former coalfield is a possible target” ,because “Tory”, as the substitution for “the British Conservative Party”, is quite new to them.#p#分頁標題#e#
Linguists H.L. Mencken and Simeon Potter once pointed out that excessive use of short words is one of the most distinctive characteristics of English news. The following short words often appear in English news:
aim — purpose, object, intention (目的，目標，意圖)
ban — prohibition ,restraint, interdict (禁止，遏止，制止)
meet — meeting, assembly, conference, convention (會議，集會，會談，大會)
key — very important (關鍵的)
now — at the present time
soon — in the neat future
4.1.2 Use of Abbreviations
“Abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. For example, the word abbreviation can itself be represented by the abbreviation abbr. or abbrev. ” ( Wikipedia ) From this definition, the advantage of abbreviation is shown, that is, “short” which is simple and easy to remember, reflecting the simplicity of news English. In news, it serves to save space. Besides, when the abbreviation is generally accepted by mass, it is much prefered than its full form which is visually complicated and bothors readers.
According to Wikipedia, normally initialisms and acronyms are regarded as a subgroup of abbreviations and as a type of word formation process, they are viewed as a subtype of blending. For the core of clipping is to “shorten” as well, the author groups it into abbreviation. In the following part, the use of these four types of abbreviations in news are to be discussed.
4.1.2.1 Acronymy
Acronymy is a type of word-formation which includes initialisms and acronyms. “Initialism is a type of shortening, using the first letters of words to form a proper name, a technical term, or a phrase; an initialism is pronounced letter by letter. For example, BBC( for British Broadcasting Corporation ) is pronounced/'bi:bi:'si:/. Similarly, acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of the name of an organization or a scientific term, etc. Acronyms differ from initialisms in that they are pronounced as words rather than as sequences of letters; NATO( the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ) is pronounced/'neit?u/, not/'en'ei'ti:'?u/.” (張韻雯，2004：72-73)
Initialisms and acronyms in news, headlines in particular, often appear in three main types:
1．Proper names of organizations:
CPPCC(The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference); UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific And Cultural Organization)
2．The names of usually used matter:
GMT(Greenwich Mean Time); PC(Personal Computer);
3．The names of professions or titles:
GM(General Manager); PM(Prime Minister); VIP(Very Important Person)#p#分頁標題#e#
Most of technical and medical terms are in the form of acronyms in news reporting on the ground that the original forms of these terms are usually too complicated for laypersons while the acronyms are much simplified and suited for mass audience. Readers are in fact more comfortable with such words as“DNA”, “LASER” than their original terms of “genetics deoxyribonucleic acid” and “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.
4.1.2.2 Clipping
“The process of clipping involves the deletion of one or more syllables from a word( usually a noun ), which is also available in its full form. Examples are plane from airplane, and gym from gymnastics.” (張韻雯，2004：75)
In modern times, people tend to be economical in writing and speech to keep up with the tempo of new life style. To save time one is likely to clip words that are frequently used. Clippings may divided into four main types:
1．Back clippings: the deletion may occur at end of the word. This is the most common type of clipping. Examples are: ad ( =advertisement ) , and vet ( =veterinary surgeon; veteran ) .
2．Front clippings: the deletion occurs at the beginning of the word; bus ( =omnibus ), and quake ( =earthquake ).
3．Front and back clippings: the deletion occurs at both ends of a word: flu ( =influenza ), and fridge ( =refrigerator ).
4．Phrase clippings: this involves the shortening of a phrase, e.g. Perm ( =permanent wave ), and pop ( =popular music,concert, or record ).
Because they are much frequently appearing in news reporting, readers do not feel uncomfortable with the clipped words at all and some of them are so popular that readers would ignore or even forget their original forms.
4.1.2.3 Blending
“Blending is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms: e.g. Sitcom ( situation+comedy ) .” (張韻雯，2004：77) Structurally blends may be divided into four types:
1．The first part of the first word+the last part of the second one ( the most productive type ): brunch ( breakfast+lunch ) and motel ( motor+hotel ).
2．The first part of the first word+the first part of the second word:comsat (communication+satellite) and psywar ( psychological+warfare ).
3．Whole form of the first word+last part of the second one:airtel (air+hotel) and newscast (news+broadcast).
4．First part of the first word+whole form of the second word:Motown ( motor+town ) and medicare ( medical+care ).
A good many blends are news coinages. Earl Wilson, writer for the New York Evening Post, cynically coined Congressation (Congress+conversation, meaning“use-less talk” ).
4.1.3 Use of Popular Word-formation to Create New Words#p#分頁標題#e#
What are new words? This is definitely a hard question which can never be answered satisfactorily, because there is no certain yardstick to measure which words are new. As far as the new words contained in English news are concerned, they are any words, phrases or meanings that come into popular use in English or enjoy a vogue for the appearance of certain social phenomenon, advent of a new technology and the other new phenomena.
Nowadays, new words are entering the English language at an ever-increasing speed. People live in an age of knowledge explosion. With the development of science and technology in the modern society, high-tech products no longer belong exclusively to the science laboratories, but become part of people’s life. It has been gradually found that it is hard to express those new things and ideas with the existing words. In this case, new expressions have been created. The mass media take the responsibility to inform the audiences about the recent development of the technologies that have much impact on them or in which they may show great interest. That is why such news reports are crammed with the words and phrases created to describe new scientific discoveries or inventions or the associated concepts. It is well known that language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. Language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. In general, new words or expressions ate formed by some lexical devices.
Compouding, derivation, and conversion are the three major types of word-formation in contemporary English. New words in news are usually coined through these three ways, for they are familiar to the mass and readers can guess the meanings of the new words easily.
4.1.3.1 Compouding
“Compounding or composition is a word-formation process consisting of jining two or more bases to form a new unit, a compound word.”(張韻雯，2004：35) Today the largest number of new words are formed by compounding. It is a common device employed widely in news writing for it can “simplify the sentence and make it lively and jocular”( Bell,1991:45 ).
Compound words may be the following types.
1. Completely united
play + boy------playboy
2. Hyphenated
off + track------off-track
3. Accepted as standard phrase
microwave + oven------ microwave oven
Being created by combining words together, the above examples demonstrate the advantages compounding, they are, novel and space-saving. Such as the word “mouse mat” is accordance with the fast development of modern technology—computer.
4.1.3.2 Derivation
“Derivation or affixation may be defined as a process of forming new words by the addition of a word element, such as a prefix, suffix or combining form, to an already existing word. ” ( SBONE 1980)
“Derivation shows the relation between roots and affixes”. Some of the derivational morphemes are very popular in newspaper, such as pro-, anti-, eco-, etc.#p#分頁標題#e#
Moreover, a lot of new affixes are special to news English, among which “-gate” is the most typical one. “After the Watergate scandal in American in the 1970s, the word “Watergate” was used to denote any scandal”. Here are some examples:
tax + -phobia------taxphobia ( be dread of tax )
anti- + apartheid------anti-apartheid ( be against the segregation )
cyber- + community------cybercommunity ( the community on the Internet )
In pace with the rapid development of computer science and the Internet, “cyber-”, which means relating to electronic communication networks and virtual reality, has become a popular prefix in newspapers, as in “cyberspace”, “cybercafe”.
4.1.3.3 Conversion
“Conversion is a word-formation process whereby a word of a certain word-class is shifted into a word of another word-class without the addition of an affix.”(張韻雯，2004：55) From this definition, one advantage of conversion is presented, that is, to simplify the shift of word class by zero change of the word form which obviously saves space in newspaper.
Conversion facilitates the use of words interchangeably as verbs or nouns, verbs or adjectives, and vice versa. Sometimes a word may undergo multiple conversion, which enables it to function as a member of several word-classes. Someones say that this may confuse readers. The actual grammatical classification of any word, however, depends upon its use in a sentence. Notice how the word-class of round varies in accordance with its use in the following sentence:
The second round was exciting. (n.)
Any round plate will do. (adj.)
Some drivers round corners too rapidly. (v.)
The sound goes round and round. (adv.)
He lives round the corner. (prep.)
The above examples tell us a very important fact: because word order is more fixed in Modern English than ever before, functional shifts within sentences structures are possible without causing any confusion in intelligibility.
Conversions are mainly among nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the most productive type is noun to verb conversion. Converted words are often short, vivid and expressive. The following passage is taken from The Voice of America:
“The spokesman tailored his remarks to cushion the effect of a recent announcement that a project funded by the government had idled 10,000 workers. This is not the first time the government has been faulted on such an issue. Last month, when the number of unemployed peaked, it was charged that the figures had been processed with a mix of fact and fiction. As a result, the Statistics Bureau further distanced itself form the trade unions. One trade union leader complained: ‘ We don’t want a lot of hogwash. We want an administration that levels with us. From now on we’re going to monitor the situation more strictly. ’ No wander the bureau chiefs feel they are being pressured. ”#p#分頁標題#e#
In the above passage there are nine examples of nouns ( tailor, cushion, fund, fault, peak, process, distance, monitor and pressure ) used as verbs, two of adjectives ( idle and level ) used as verbs and one of verbs ( mix ) used as a noun. It is the converted forms that make this passage simple and vivid. If the converted forms wre not used, the first sentence would be like that: “ The spokesman prepared his remarks for the special purpose to quietly lesson the effect of a recent announcement that a project provided with money by the government had left 10,000 workers idle. ” It is quite a long and cumbersome sentence.
4.2 Ways of Simplifying Grammar
This part will focus mainly on the ways of simplifying grammar of news English. The language the news employs must be accurate, brief and comprehensible, and can not be as artificial and luxurious as literary language. Moreover, reporters try to present more news stories in the limited page space by employing all kinds of effective grammatical rules before deadline. Some grammatical skills will be discussed in the following part.
4.2.1 Ways Used in Headlines
Usually, the headline is short so as to fit the limited space of the newspaper.As a matter of fact, the language used in the headline has distinctive features. The lexical features are the same as this paper discussed previously, such as use of shortened words, abbreviations etc. So this part focuses on the grammatical features. The most prominent grammatical features in the headline are the use of the simple present tense andthe infinitive, as well as omission.
4.2.1.1 Use of the Simple Present Tense
It is known that news is reporting of events that have happened immediately or recently. According to grammatical rules,what is employed in the news is supposed to be simple past tense or present perfect. However, in English news, the simple presenttense is often adopted in order that the freshness and immediacy of news can be emphasized. Moreover, the precious space of the headline can be saved.
It is worth noticing that there is an exception. On occasion, the simple present tense can indicate something that is going on or will happen in future. It can also represent an objective fact. For example:
Beijing Dreams of 2008 (International Herald Tribune, Sept.7, 2000)
BEIJING—It seems recently that all of Beijing is flushed with Olympic fever,busy making preparations.
4.2.1.2 Use of the Infinitive
For the purpose of conciseness, the infinitive instead of the simple future tense is usually adopted in the headline of English news to refer to the future. The infinitive can be understood as a short form of “be going to” or “be to”. For example:
Jobs data to give steer on US recovery (Reutres, Dec 4, 2009)
(=Jobs data are to give steer on US recovery)
4.2.1.3 Frequent Omission of Certain Words#p#分頁標題#e#
Omission is one of the most distinctive characters of the headline. Generally, a headline should be originally a complete sentence,nevertheless, to highlight the most important content, some grammatical words such as articles, conjunctions, pronouns, linking verbs and auxiliary verbs are often omitted.
1.Omission of the Article
Russia nightclub blast kills 100 (CNN, Dec 5, 2009)
(=A Russia nightclub blast kills 100)
2.Omission of the Conjunction
Microsoft, Yahoo take next step in search alliance (CNN, Dec 5, 2009)
(=Microsoft and Yahoo take next step in search alliance)
3.Omission of the Linking Verb
1 shot, another beaten in fight at Baltimore hotel (AP, Dec 7, 2009)
(=1 was shot, another was beaten in fight at Baltimore hotel)
4.Omission of the Auxiliary Verb
Dems Doing Liberalism Badly (RealClearPolitics, Dec 7, 2009)
(=Democratics are Doing Liberalism Badly)
Here the auxiliary verb“be”used in the present progressive tense is omitted.
4.2.2 Ways Used in Bodies
There are several parts in news among which body is the longest one. Grammatical ways to simplify news language like use of pre-modification, short and simple sentences are to be introduced in this part.
4.2.2.1 Use of Pre-modification to Concise Sentences
Use of pre-modification is an effective way to make the sentence conciser, and therefore, it is frequently adopted in modern English. In news English, reporters have preference to pre-modification as it can simplify the structure of the sentence and save the page space. John Leo, American columnist, once said in one of his articles about news language that the pre-modification is“meat and potatoes of news language.” David Crystal and Derek Davy also pointed out the function of the pre-modification in their book English Style Investigate : “A dependent clause would of cause be possible but cumbersome,particularly if used often.The most noteworthy feature is the presence of much more complex pre-modification than we normally hear or write.” An example follows in order to show this point.
Since 1990,China has moved from its government-assigned housing system to a more market-driven one.
If this sentence is turned to normal expression, it should be like this:
Since 1990,China has moved from its system that government assigned the houses to one which was driven by market.
Obviously, the second one is not simple. Pre-modification saves words to explain. Some other expressions are given as follows:
money-oriented policies 金錢政治 see-while-you-talk phone 可視電話
4.2.2.2 Use of Active Voice
Generally speaking, reporters are supposed to be as direct and as brief as possible without losing any information in news writing. Sentences written in active voice are generally shorter and more emphatic than sentences written in passive voice. Similarly, reports written primarily in active voice seem much stronger, more definite, and more convincing than reports written predominantly in passive voice. As a result, reporters have preference to active voice. For example:#p#分頁標題#e#
The following four sentences contain the same information, but each presents it in a different way. Which presents its information most efficiently, most emphatically?
1. We were reesented at this year's business management conference by Karen.
2. Our representative at this year's business management conference was Karen.
3. At this year's business management conference we were represented by Karen.
4. Karen represented us at this year's business management conference.
Sentence 4 is preferred, because it is direct and emphatic. The active voice will help make reports seem much more definite, much more confident.
When the reporter does not know who the doer is, or prefer not to name the doer, or want to deemphasize the doer, then the passive voice has to be used. For example:
The budget was cut by 15%. (You don't know who cut it.)
When the active voice is used, reports are much shorter and easier to read. One of the major consequences of having too many passive sentences is that the reader is not fully comprehending or retaining the information, while active voice makes reports clear, concise and direct.
4.2.2.3 Use of Short and Simple Sentences
Usually people use a long sentence to express a complex or an important idea. But in making points, giving conclusions, stating facts or expressing emotion and excitation, a short sentence is preferred. Short sentences are easier to digest than long ones, so they can help readers think in a clear way and can also enable reporters to tell the news story clearly in a rush of time. It is usually better to use two short sentences rather than one long one, even though it may take up more words, for long sentences can distract readers from their primary goal of finding information.
In general, simple sentences make articles clear to readers and it is easier for correspondents to write events clearly as quickly as possible. Particularly, application of simple sentences in succession rebounds to be aware of the development of events without ambiguity among sentences. In short, news style calls for short sentences, and simple sentences with only one subject-predicate structure are most preferred.
Ⅴ. Conclusion
Along with the globalization and the arrival of information tide, more and more people coming from different nations use English to exchange thoughts mutually. So English news has become the main communicating tool.
From the above discussion, the conclusion is news English is a special kind of English and it has several natures, one of which is simplicity. It is necessary to simplify news English on consideration of its features and functions. This paper explores the simplicity of news English and the ways to simplify it from the angle of word and grammar in an attempt to provide accurate ways to read English news and to identify some of the basic requirements in writing news.#p#分頁標題#e#
However, language is changing with the development of society, and so is the language of news English. News English covers various types, such as academic articles, stories for entertainment, advertisements, weather forecasts, editorials and so on, all of them can not be discussed thoroughly in the paper. News English still is a unique emerging discipline, which waits for people to make the further exploration and the research. Therefore, much work should be carried out to study the features of each concrete classification. What's more, news is a mirror of modern society, and news English catch up with the lately change of modern English, so the study of news English is an effective way to acquire modern English. Finally, it is hoped that this paper will be particularly useful to those who have strong interest in reading or writing English news.
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