A disaster is a natural event that negatively affects life property livelihood or industry often resulting in permanent changes to human societies ecosystems and environment

0 quake hits Haiti; ‘Serious loss of life’ expected Article 1 Dead toll rises to 91 in Indonesia flooding Article2 Other cases can be found in the headlines:3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15 a.

1.Introduction 3

1.1.Reason to choose the topic 3

1.2.Common structure of an article on CNN 4

1.2.1.Headlines 4

1.2.2.Story highlights 4

1.2.3.Leads 5

1.2.4.Bodies 5

1.2.5.Endings 6

2.Linguistic features of articles about natural disaster on CNN 6

2.1.Syntactical features of articles about disaster on CNN 6

2.1.1.Headlines in articles about natural disaster on CNN 6

2.1.1.1.Structure of headlines 6

2.1.1.2.Omission 7

2.1.1.3.Headline interpreting 8

2.1.2.Story hightlights 10

2.1.3.Leads in articles about natural disaster on CNN 11

2.1.4.Endings in articles about natural disaster on CNN 12

2.2.Lexical features of articles about natural disaster on CNN 15

2.2.1.Common vocabulary 16

2.2.2.Compound words 17

2.2.2.1.Compound nouns 17

2.2.2.2.Compound adjectives 21

2.2.2.3.Compound verbs 25

2.3.Relations of parts of articles about natural disaster on CNN 27

3.Expression about natural disaster 29

4.Conclusion 32

5.References 33

1 INTRODUCTION

.1 Reason to choose the topic

“A disaster is a natural event that negatively affects life, property,livelihood or industry often resulting in permanent changes to humansocieties, ecosystems and environment ”

As the definition suggests, disasters are highly disruptive events thatcause suffering, deprivation, hardship, injury and even death, as a result ofdirect injury, disease, the interruption of commerce and business, and thepartial or total destruction of critical infrastructure such as homes, hospitals,and other buildings, roads, bridges, power lines, etc Disasters can be caused

by naturally occurring events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, ortornadoes Certain types of natural disasters are more likely to occur inparticular parts of the world No place is absolutely safe from naturaldisaster In this year, 2010, many natural disaster occurred in the world andcaused many serious consequences VietNam is also one of countries whereaffected the most serious by natural disaster, speacially flood in Ha Tinh,Nghe An provinces It swept away houses, furnitures, and all things whichare necessary for life of human being Specially, many people died, madefamilies lose close relatives Life becomes much more miserable, people arepoorer, and government also must invest more money to rebuild materialfacilities In general, flood as same as natural disaster is very terrible withlife and it is also hard to prevent This is one of the most important problemswhich all people still greatly notice because it threads directly life of humanbeing Thus, most people pay more or less attention to the news of this issue.That is why this topic was chosen for study

.2 Common structure of an article on CNN

An article on CNN has five following parts:headline, story highlight,lead, body and ending

1.2.1 Headline of an article on CNN

Headlines are a vital part of a newspaper because headlines are one ofthe first thing reader see when they pick up a newspaper Headlines alsodecide whether readers to read articles or not Therefore, writing a new,different and worth headline is a difficult work for headline writers

Headlines are usually written in bold and in much larger than size thanthe article text Front page headlines are often in upper case so that they can

be easily read by the passing potential customer

There are two purposes of headline:

 To attract the reader’s attention

 To tell the reader what the story about

In general, headlines on CNN sum up the news in the stories they serve.They distil the news and are specific

1.2.2 Story Hightlights of an article on CNN

Story hightlights like an auxiliary part in CNN’articles They create aspecial feature that different away from structures of another news sites.Story hightlights are usually in the normal size and right belowheadlines position They also in upper case compared articles text so thatthey can be easily read by the passing potential customers

1.2.3 Leads of an articles on CNN

If headlines are considered to create the first impression to reader, thelead set the tone for feature story If modifies for the headline, gives readersbasic comprehension about the topic the articles.

There are many ways to begin a lead of the articles They are thedescriptive lead, the narrative lead, the summary lead, the contrast andcomparision lead, the shocking statement lead, the suspense or teaser lead,the literacy or historical allusion lead, the direct address lead, the quote lead,and direct and delay leads It seems that article on CNN have some specialkinds of them

Eg:

The death toll has climbed to at least 91 dead and 68 missing inIndonesia, after flash floods that struck following torrential rains, officialssaid Thursday (Article 2)

1.2.4 Bodies of an articles on CNN

The body of an articles on CNN has close relation to its other parts.Journalist use facts and supporting information in a logical sequence, addingquotations to build stories

1.2.5 Endings of an article on CNN

Just as a feature story can be opened in many ways, there are alsoseveral ways to conclude it There are many kinds of ending used in anarticle on CNN They are summary ending, proximity ending, and quoteending

2.Linguistic features of articles about natural disaster on CNN, 2010

2.1 Syntactic features of articles about Natural disaster on CNN 2.1.1 Headlines in articles about natural disaster on CNN

2.1.1.1.Structure of Headlines

2.1.1.1.1.Headlines in the form of Simple sentence (S-V_O)

a) Headlines with active verbs

a.1 Sentences in present form

Eg: 7 0 quake hits Haiti; ‘Serious loss of life’ expected (Article 1)

Dead toll rises to 91 in Indonesia flooding (Article2)

Other cases can be found in the headlines:3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15

a.2 Sentence in present progressive form

Eg: Powerful typhoon bearing down on Philippines (Article12)

a.3 Sentence in future in past form

Eg: Pakistan flood recovery could take years (Article11)

b) Headlines with passive verb

Eg:More deaths feared in Pakistan as flood waters recede (Article 7)

Other cases can be found in the headlines :8, 9

Eg: The hundreds of thousands flee as typhoon hits China

The “Large” hurricane Igor moves in on Bermuda

The dead toll rises to 91 in Indonesia flooding

Officials :the Pakistan flood deaths top 1, 100

More deaths feared in Pakistan as the flood waters recede

More than 2 million affected by earthquake the Chile’s president says

The survivors of Pakistan floods face growing health problems

The volcano death toll rises to 259 in Indonesia

2.1.1.2.2 Auxiliary omission

Eg: More deaths were feared in Pakistan as flood waters recede

More than 2 million were affected by earthquake Chile’s president says Pakistan flood damage was estimated at $9 7 billion

Powerful typhoon was bearing down on Philippines

.1.1.3 Headline interpreting

.1.1.3.1 Headlines in the form of simple sentence

.1.1.3.1.1 Headlines with active verb:

a) Sentence in Present form:

 7 0 quake hits Haiti; ‘Serious

loss of life’expected

 7 0 quake has hit Haiti; ‘Serious

loss life’expected

 Flooding displaces more than

2 million people in Nigeria

 Flooding has displaced more than

2 million people in Nigeria

 Hundreds of thousands flee as

typhoon hits China

 The hundreds of thousands flee as

typhoon have hit China

 Indonesia volcano erupts again  Indonesia volcano has erupted

 Officials :the Pakistan flood

deaths have topped 1, 100

 Survivors of Pakistan floods

face growing health problems

 The survivors of Pakistan floods

have faced growing health problems

 Tropical storm rakes

b) Sentence in present progressive form

 Powerful typhoon bearing

down on Philippines

 Powerful typhoon was bearing

down on Phillippines

c) Sentence in future tense

flood recovery could take years

 Pakistan flood recovery could take in

many years

2.1.1.3.1.2 Headlines with passive verb:

 More deaths feared

in Pakistan as flood waters recede

 More deaths were feared in

Pakistan as the flood waters recede

 More than 2 million  More than 2 million were affected

affected by earthquake Chile’s

.1.2 Linguistics features of Story highlights about natural disaster

Main information’s event

Indirect quote of some natural disaster information

 CNN’s presentation of full news articles can be found within avery friendly, clean, useful, and easy to read and use interfaces

 Clearly indicates when the articles was last updated

 Contain nifty, dynamic, tab-like elements for exploring of morerelated information about the current topic without having to navigateelsewhere

.1.3 Linguistics features of leads about natural disaster

Eg: A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking

down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to theUnited States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest

nation (Article 1)

Other cases of summary lead can be found in articles:9, 11, 13

.1.3.2 Direct lead (10-66, 7%)

Eg: The death toll has climbed to at least 91 dead and 68 missing in

Indonesia, after flash floods that struck following torrential rains, officials

said Thursday (Article 2)

Other cases of direct lead can be found in articles:3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12,

14, 15

.1.3.3 The contrast and comparision lead (1-6, 7%) Eg: The death toll from Pakistan's massive flooding has climbed to 1,

639, but the number could rise substantially as flood waters recede and more

bodies surface, government officials say (Article 7-Contrast lead)

.1.3.4 The descriptive lead (1-6, 7%)

Eg: As the sun set in Chile on Saturday, a picture of the immense

structural damage wrought by an early morning earthquake had come clearlyinto focus, with the nation's president estimating that 2 million people had

been affected in some way (Article 8)

General speaking:

In general, direct leads, summary leads are common kinds are used inarticles about natural disaster on CNN, 2010 Descriptive lead and thecontrast lead is the least common kind used in these articles The lead aboutnatural disaster is fairly easy for readers to understand main ideas of thearticles In most of cases, readers can know what the article is about byreading the lead; however, in some cases, in oder to get more detailedinformation, people need to go further into the articles

.1.4 Linguistics features of ending about natural disaster on CNN, 2010

Just as a feature story can be opened in many ways, there are alsoseveral ways to conclude it

2.1.4.1 The proximity ending:is a common conclusion and uses

information from the proceding paragraph to provide angle for the closing.Often a quote is used as in the case of firefighter

Eg:

Frank Williams, the Haitian director of the relief agency World VisionInternational, said the quake left people "pretty much screaming" all aroundPort-au-Prince He said the agency's building shook for about 35 seconds,

"and portions of things on the building fell off " (Articles 1)

Other cases of Proximity ending can be found in articles 6, 8, 11

.1.4.2 The restatement ending :reminds the reader of the feature

story’s purpose by restating it

Eg:

Lead: The death toll has climbed to at least 91 dead and 68 missing in

Indonesia, after flash floods that struck following torrential rains, officialssaid Thursday

Ending: It's monsoon season in Indonesia, and flooding is not unusual.

However, the Bureau of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics is

forecasting unusually heavy rains this year (Articles 2)

Other cases of Restatement ending can be found in articles 7, 10, 12,

14, 15

commonly used and refers back to the feature angle presented in the lead

Eg:

Lead: Typhoon Megi hit China on Saturday, sending hundreds of

thousands fleeing as it made landfall in the southeastern province of Fujian,state media reported

Ending: The typhoon affected an estimated 258, 844 Filipinos, leaving

thousands homeless, when it hit the island earlier this week (Article 4)

Onother cases of Summary ending can be found in articles :13

.1.4.4 The quote ending:another common way to close a feature story

is with a quote ending As with the quote lead; however, the quote endingmust be striking and memorable

Eg:

Lead:More than 2 million people have been displaced in northern

Nigeria after flood gates on two dams were opened to release rising watersalong the Niger River, a state officials said Friday

Ending:He stressed; however, that the “situation is under control (and)

the state government is doing everything humanly possible, ”to help

residents (Articles 8)

Onother cases of Quote ending can be found in articles :5

Eg:

Lead: The floods that ravaged Pakistan this summer caused an

estimated $9 7 billion in damage to homes, roads, farms and other parts ofthe southwestern Asian country, the World Bank and Asian DevelopmentBank announced Thursday

Ending: Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie told CNN around that

time that disaster fatigue may have been one reason the world's attention

wasn't wholly focused on Pakistan (Article 9)

General speaking:

In general, restatement ending is the most common kind used in endings

of articles about natural disaster on CNN, 2010

lexical features of articles about natural disaster on CNN

.2.1 Common vocabulary

.2.1.1 In headlines:

Newspaper headlines have very little space so short words are used verycommon.

Some of short word in headlines are usually in ordinary language

Eg: “bearing down on” in article 13 means “move directly towards

someone or something in a purposeful or intimidating manner”

“showing up” in article 13 means “expose someone or something as

being bad or faulty”

Eg: “The typhoon affected an estimated 258, 844 Filipinos, leaving

thousands homeless, when it hit the island earlier this week” (Article 4)

Compound words in English are words consisting of at least two stemswhich occur in the language as free forms These words function in asentence as a separate lexical unit

Compound words are used more and more in newspaper make thearticle shorter, more interesting These are some kinds of compound words

as compound nouns, compound adjectives and compound verbs

.2.2.1.1 Two-word compound noun

 Earthquake [Art 1]  A sudden violent shaking of the

ground, typically causing great destruction, as

a result of movements within the earth's crust

or volcanic action

 Eyewitness [Art 1]  A person who has seen something

happen and can give a first-hand description ofit

 Farmland [Art 3]  Land used for farming

 Landfall [Art 4]  An arrival at land on a sea or air

journey A collapse of a mass of land; alandslide lives

 Mountaintop [Art 5]  The area at the top of a mountain

 Livestock [Art 5]  Farm animals regarded as an

asset

 Eyewall [Art 6]  The area immediately outside the

eye of a hurricane or cyclone, associated withtall clouds, heavy rainfall, and high winds

 Storm-force [Art 6]  The power of storm

 Aircraft [Art 7]  An aeroplane, helicopter, or other

machine capable of flight

 Airport [Art 8]  A complex of runways and

buildings for the take-off, landing, andmaintenance of civil aircraft, with facilities forpassengers

 Countryside [Art 9]  The land and scenery of a rural

area

 Rooftop [Art 10]  The outer surface of a building's

roof

 Forecaster [Art 11]  A person who predicts or

estimates (a future event or trend)

 Rainfall [Art 12]  The fall of rain

 Mudslide [Art 12]  A mass of mud and other earthy

material that is falling or has fallen down ahillside or other slope

 Southward [Art 13]  The direction or region to the

south

 Warehouse [Art 14]  A large building where raw

materials or manufactured goods may bestored prior to their distribution for sale; alarge wholesale or retail store

 Danger-zone [Art 15]  The zone is dangerous

(2) Adjective (full form)-Common noun

 Mainland [Art

4]

of land that includes the greater part of acountry or territory, as opposed to offshore

islands and detached territories.

 Highway [Art  A main road, especially

8] one connecting major towns or cities

 Inland [Art 4]  The parts of a country remote

from the sea or frontiers; the interior

 Outbreak [Art 13]  A sudden occurrence of something

unwelcome, such as war or disease

 Frontline [Art 6]  The military line or part of an

army that is closest to the enemy; the mostimportant or influential position in a debate ormovement

(4) Abbreviation of common noun –common noun

 The number equivalent to the product

of ten and ten; ten more than ninety; 100

.2.2.1.2 More –than-two-word compound noun

(1) Common noun –Bare infinitive-suffix

 Gatekeeper [Art 5]  An attendant employed to

control who goes through a gate.

 Taxpayer [Art 9]  A person who pays taxes

.2.2.2 Compound adiective

.2.2.2.1 Two-word compound adiective

1) Common noun - past participate

 Water-borne [Art 7]  Conveyed by, traveling on, or

involving travel or transport on water

 Flood-ravaged

Pakistan [Art 11]

 Pakistan was ravaged by flood

 Life-threatening

[Art 6]

 (especially of an illness orinjury) potentially fatal

6) Comparative adjective-common noun

9) Prefix-Common Noun

 Super-typhoon

[Art 12]

 The typhoon is very powerful

.2.2.2.2 More-than-two-word compound adjective

1) Cardinal number-common noun-adjective

 Offload [Art 3]  Rid oneself of (something) by selling

or passing it on to someone else

 Downgrade

[Art 4]

 Reduce to a lower grade, rank, or level

of importance

 Outpace [Art 7]  Go, rise, or improve faster than

 Outrun [Art 7]  Run or travel faster or further than;

escape from; go beyond or exceed

 Withstand [Art 8]  Remain undamaged or unaffected by;

offer strong resistance or opposition to

2) Prefix- verb

 Unfold [Art 5]  Open or spread out from a folded

position: | (of events or information)gradually develop or be revealed

 Unleashed [Art 9]  Cause (a strong or violent force ) to be

released or become unrestrained

 Earmark [Art 11]  Designate (funds or resources) for a

particular purpose: Mark the ear of (adomesticated animal) as a sign of ownership oridentity

General speaking:

In articles about natural disaster on CNN, 2010, compound nouns andcompound adjectives is more popular kinds than compound verbs in thesearticles

.3 Relations of parts of articles

Eg Articles 15: Volcano death toll rises to 259 in Indonesia

The relationship between the headline and its parts

Headline: Volcano death toll rises to 259 in Indonesia

Some questions may be aroused after reading the headline

(1) What is volcano?

(2) Where does volcano occur?

(3) How is volcanic activity?

(4) What is volcano’s consequence?

(5) What was government’s measure?

(6) How many people died in the volcano in Indonesia?

 a mountain or hill, typically conical, having acrater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapour, and gas are orhave been erupted from the earth's crust

 Indonesia’s Mount Merapi

 Volcanic activity included 12 earthquakes, 14 avalanches andcontinual tremors Merapi continued to shoot ashy, white smoke as high as 1,

300 meters and hot ash rain was reported in a region close to volcano

 “Five hundred and eleven people suffered from severe burnsand are now being treated in the hospital” It displaced nearly 400, 000people Many people raise crops and livestock in its shadow

 The government reduced the danger zone to a 10 or 15kilometer radius of the volcano, scaling back from the previous 20kilometers Disaster officials have expanded and reduced the danger zone invarious areas, depending on volcanic activity over the past several weeks.That has caused some confusion

 259 people

 Relation between keywords:

 Dead toll- recent eruption- Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano-259people

 Volcano-earthquakes-avalanches-shoot ashy-white smoke –hot ashrain-eruption

 Residents –receive-compensation-livehoods and animals

violent shaking of the ground, typically causinggreat destruction, as a result of movementswithin the earth's crust or volcanic action

 Typhoon  A tropical storm in the region of the

Indian or western Pacific oceans

 Hurricane  A storm with a violent wind, in

particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean awind of force 12 on the Beaufort scale (equal

to or exceeding 64 knots or 118 kph)

 Volcano  A mountain or hill, typically conical,

having a crater or vent through which lava,rock fragments, hot vapour, and gas are or havebeen erupted from the earth's crust

 Flood  An overflow of a large amount of

water beyond its normal limits, especially overwhat is normally dry land

 Wind  The perceptible natural movement of

the air, especially in the form of a current of airblowing from a particular direction

 Storm  A violent disturbance of the

atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain,thunder, lightning, or snow

 Tsunami  A long, high sea wave caused by an

earthquake or other disturbance

 Monsoon  A seasonal prevailing wind in the

region of South and South East Asia, blowingfrom the south-west between May and

September and bringing rain (the wet

monsoon), or from the north-east between

October and April (the dry monsoon) the

rainy season accompanying the wet monsoon

 Tropical

storm

 A localized, very intense pressure wind system, forming over tropicaloceans and with winds of hurricane force

 Floodwater  Water left by flooding

 Epicenter  The point on the earth's surface

vertically above the focus of an earthquake

 Eye  A thing resembling an eye in

appearance, shape, or relative position, inparticular: the calm region at the centre of astorm or hurricane

arising from a natural disaster, conflict,accident, etc…

 Erupt  Become active and eject lava, ash,

and gases

 Explode  Burst or shatter violently and noisily

as a result of rapid combustion, excessiveinternal pressure, or other process

 Drown  Die through submersion in and

inhalation of water

 Survivor  A person who survives, especially a

person remaining alive after an event in whichothers have died

 Victim  A person harmed, injured, or killed

as a result of a crime, accident, or other event

or action

substance through the soil, rocks, water,atmosphere, and living organisms of the earth

 Ravage  Cause severe and extensive damage

 Harmattan  A very dry, dusty easterly or

north-easterly wind on the West African coast,occurring from December to February

The main structure of the headline about finance on news network issimple sentence The most common omission of the article is omission of thearticle “the” and auxiliary omission.

The direct leads and summary leads is used the in most of the articleabout the finance because finance is a serious topic and the reporters try toconcentrate on presenting the facts

Many compounds are used in order to save space, especially thecompound nouns and compound adjectives

Parts of the articles have the close ties and based on the invertedpyramid approach

Process of natural disaster is a problem which all people care because it

is one of the most important issue and directly affect each person’s life.Therefore, most of them always updated information Because of this reason,the information must be as fast as possible, and the exact information is alsoextremely important

The length of the articles is various because each writer’s objective isdifferent

English Newspaper has a specific and attractive style Although it alsoobeys some certain regulations, it still always expresses the richness and thecreativeness in the writing, and deserves to be the best and the most popularmode of communication to everyone

References

Books:

/ Hornby, A S, 7th Edition, Oxford Advanced Learners’sDictionary

/ Huong, Nguyen Thanh, (2005), English NewspaperStyle

Websites:

/ http://oxforddictionaries com

/ http://en wikipedia org

Articles from CNN com:

7 0 quake hits Haiti; 'Serious loss of life' expected, CNN com,January 12, 2010

Dead toll rises to 91 in Indonesia flooding, CNN com,

Indonesia volcano erupts again, CNN com, October 28, 2010

Large Hurricane Igor moves in on Bermuda, CNN com, September

Pakistan flood damage estimated at $9 7 billion, CNN com, October

14, 2010

Official: : Pakistan flood deaths top 1, 100, CNN com, August 01,2010

Pakistan flood recovery could take years, CNN com, August 23, 2010

Powerful typhoon bearing down on Philippines, CNN com, October

16, 2010

Survivors of Pakistan floods face growing health problems, CNN.com, August 23, 2010

Tropical storm rakes Philippines, CNN com, July 14, 2010

Volcano death toll rises to 259 in Indonesia, CNN com, November

15, 2010