A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF NEWS ITEMS ON BIRD FLU IN ENGLISH ELECTRONIC NEWSPAPERS

A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF NEWS ITEMS ON BIRD FLU IN ENGLISH ELECTRONIC NEWSPAPERS

This thesis studied linguistic features of news items on bird flu inEnglish electronic newspapers An analysis was made to find out linguisticfeatures used in NIBF Its corpus consisted of 100 news items withdrawnfrom the twenty-wellknown electronic newspapers in the world Togetherwith the analysis, a discussion and comments on the lexical and syntacticfeatures and cohesive devices have been made The process of the study takesreaders from the theory of lexicon, syntax and cohesive devices to theconclusion and implication at the end of the thesis Firstly, data weredescribed in detail in terms of lexical, syntactic features and cohesive devices.Then, the analytic method was used to clarify and categorize data Besides,the occurrence frequency was applied to withdraw the conclusion on thefindings of the research By these ways, lexical features were studied onwords relating to bird flu (BL), the exensive use of abbreviation, medicalterms and the use of evaluative adjectives The syntactic features wereilluminated through sentence patterns, the use of passive voice and reportedspeech And at last, the cohesive devices relying on the references , ellipsis,conjunctions and lexical cohesion were taken into consideration From thestudy of these features, the thesis provided some suggestions effectively thatteachers of English can teach English in the field of journalism

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor

Dr Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa for her valuable guidance, tremendous assistanceand valuable critical feedback through out the process of my writing to beable to complete the thesis

Secondly, I would like to thank all my family members for their helpand their timely encouragement especially for taking care of my son so that Ican concentrate on this thesis

Thirdly, my thanks also go to all my teachers in English Department ofForeign Languages College, Danang Universiy for their useful andfundamental knowledge of the English language as well as research methods.Last but not least, I am truly grateful to the authors of the books and thewebsites that I have read for reference and from which I have collected datafor this research

HO THI KIM HUE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1.RATIONALE 1

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 3

1.2.1 Aims 3

1.2.2 Objectives 4

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 4

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 4

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 9

2.2.1 Text 9

2.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence 12

2.2.3 Newspapers and Electronic Newspapers……… 17

2.2.4 News in Electronic Newspapers 19

2.2.5 Defintions of News Item on Bird Flu 27

2.2.6 Bird Flu Overview 28

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 31

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 31

3.3 RESEARCH PROCEDURES 32

3.4 DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLES 32

3.5 DATA COLLECTION 33

3.6 DATA ANALYSIS 34

3.7 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY 34

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 35

4.1 STRUCTURE OF A NEWS ITEM ON BIRD FLU 35

4.2 LEXICAL CHOICES IN NIBF 37

4.2.1 Words (Phrases) Relating to Bird Flu 38

4.2.2 Extensive Use of Abbreviations 43

4.2.3 Medical Terms 49

4.2.4 Evaluative Adjectives 49

4.3 SYNTACTIC FEATURES IN NIBF 51

4.3.1 Sentence Patterns in NIBF 51

4.4.2 Passive Voice 61

4.5.2 Direct Speech and Indirect Speech 66

4.5.3 Summary of Syntactic Features in NIBF 72

4.6 COHESIVE DEVICES IN NIBF 72

4.6.1 References in NIBF 73

4.6.2 Ellipsis 78

4.6.3 Conjunctions in NIBF 78

4.6.4 Lexical Cohesion in NIBF 80

4.6.5 Summary of Cohesive Devices in NIBF 82

4.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY 83

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 84

5.1 CONCLUSIONS 84

5.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 87

5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 87

QUYẾT ĐỊNH VỀ VIỆC GIAO ĐỀ TÀI VÀ TRÁCH NHIỆM HƯỚNG DẪN LUẬN VĂN

LIST OF TABLES

Number of

Table 4.1

Error: Referenc

e source not found

Table 4.2

Error: Referenc

e source not found

Page

Table 4.1 Words Denoting BF Affect on Birds and Humans 41

Table 4.2 Processes of Compound Words in NIBF 46

Table 4.3 Initialisms and Acronyms in NIBF 47

Table 4.4 Abbreviations in NIBF 48

Table 4.5 Medical Terms in NIBF 49

Table 4.6 Evaluative Adjectives in NIBF 51

Table 4.7 Headline Types In NIBF 53

Table 4.8 Patterns of Simple Sentence Headlines 54

Table 4.9 Sentence Patterns of the Leads in NIBF 59

Table 4.10 Sentence Patterns of the Body in NIBF 60

Table 4.11 Sentence patterns in NIBF 61

Table 4.12 Passive Voice in NIBF 66

Table 4.13 Positions of Reporting Clauses in NIBF 69

Table 4.14 Direct and Indirect Speech in NIBF 71

Table 4.15 Syntactic Features in NIBF 72

Table 4.16 Summary of References in NIBF 77

Table 4.17 Conjunctions in NIBF 80

Table 4.18 Reiteration in NIBF 82

Table 4.19 Summary of Cohesive Devices in NIBF 83

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS

Number of

Figure 4.1 Frequency of Morphological Features of the names

of coffee shop in English Versus Vietnamese

38

Page

Figure 4.1 Structure of a news item on BF 35 Figure 4.2 Structure of an English Noun Phrase 56 Chart 2.1 Inverted Pyramid Structure 21

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

In our world today, the word “health” evokes a major concern for people.Nowadays, people are more and more aware of the impacts of having ahealthy lifestyle by updating news on health via different ways such asmagazines, newspapers, television, the radio, etc, but newspapers which havethe longest history are still the most reliable sources of information andpopular means of communication since the time they came into being This isbecause people can read newspapers to update information at anyime andanywhere

For students, newspapers become a good source of knowledge to helpimprove their English skills as well as update social issues However, togetherwith the great development of science and technology, the trend of gettingnews through electronic newspapers is gaining ground

The news on bird flu is one of the terrible occurrences that have beenattracting widespread public and global attention According to the The WorldHealth Organisation (WHO), bird flu, aslo known as avian influenza or avianflu or bird influenza, is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains

of the influenza virus It spreads between both wild and domestic birds, andalso passes from birds to humans who are in close contact with poultry or

other birds In the report “H5N1 avian influenza: Timeline of major events”

updated on 25 January 2012 in The WHO, the Asian H5N1 virus was firstdetected in Guangdong Province, China, in 1996 and its widespread to manycountries in the world has been reported on and off in the media since then

Let’s consider the following sample of English news items on bird flu athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-22061537 on 10 April 2013:

China H7N9 strain bird flu toll 'reaches nine'

Two more patients infected with the H7N9 strain of bird flu died on Tuesday, bringing the total to nine, Chinese state media has reported.

The two patients were from China's eastern Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, state media said

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that there is no evidence that the H7N9 virus is being transmitted between people - most cases come from poultry.

A total of 28 people in China have been infected by the new bird flu virus China has banned live poultry trading in Shanghai and Nanjing.

On Monday, the WHO said it was in discussions with China about sending a team of international experts to help investigate the new bird flu strain.

The H7N9 bird flu virus is distinct from the H5N1 virus that has caused more than 360 deaths worldwide since it was found in humans in

2003

Meanwhile, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said that 10 people from five different provinces had been detained over the spread of false information about H7N9

Some of them had written micro blog posts saying that the virus had been discovered in their province, and some messages had been reposted several times, Xinhua said.

Over the weekend, there were concerns about human-to-human transmissions after the sons of an elderly man who died from bird flu also contracted a respiratory illness One of the sons died

However, Chinese officials and the WHO confirmed on Monday that the son's death was not caused by the bird flu virus.

"Although we do not know the source of infection, at this time there is

no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission," Michael O'Leary, the WHO's representative in China, told reporters on Monday.

"We are very satisfied and pleased with the level of information shared [by the Chinese authorities]," Mr O'Leary added.

In 2003, officials were accused of covering up the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), a disease which infected 8,096 worldwide, and killed 744.

From the sample above, news is in a written text which hassystematically linked ideas within paragraph thanks to the use of cohesivedevices Also the passive voice is employed by the writer to denote theconsequences of bird flu outbreak As a teacher of English, I realize theimportance of helping students have a better understanding of the features oflinguistics in order to improve their skills of English, especially in newspaper

styles and broaden their knowledge of social issues Therefore, “A Study of Linguistic Features of News Items on Bird Flu in English Electronic Newspapers” is the title of the master thesis I do wish to carry out With my

attempt to examine the lexical features, syntactic features and cohesivedevices in newspaper language, I do hope that the results of the research willmake some contribution to the process of teaching and learning English This

is the reason that makes me take a serious concern in doing this research

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Aims

The aim of the research is to identify some linguistic features of News

Items on Bird Flu (NIBF) in English electronic newspapers in terms of lexical

features, syntactic features and cohesive devices Besides, the findings of thestudy are expected to increase the knowledge and effective use of theselinguistic features in teaching and learning English, especially for journalism.

1.2.2 Objectives

The objectives of the research are:

- To find out the lexical features, syntactic features and cohesivedevices of NIBF in English electronic newspapers

- To suggest some implications for teaching and learning English aswell as using English in journalism

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study concentrates on the investigation of some linguistic features

of news items on bird flu in English electronic newspapers in terms of lexicalfeatures, syntactic features and cohesive devices

In spite of various means of publishing this kind of news items, ourscope of investigation is limited to news items in well-known Englishelectronic newspapers in America and Britain such as the World HealthOrganization, the BBC News, the US News, The BBC, the Reuters, etc

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Nowadays, people around the world are facing more new seriousdiseases In order to update the latest news on these concerns, electronicnewspapers are now an indispensable tool in our life It can be compared with

a golden key to the door of knowledge, especially knowledge of social issues.Furthermore, in the present era of globalization, English plays an importantrole in social life English newspapers become indispensable materials forreaders in general and students of English in particular Those who do notmaster English can not catch up with any information worldwide However,reading and understanding English newspapers are really difficult processes

Therefore, my MA thesis entitled “A Study of Linguistic Features of News

Items on Bird Flu in English Electronic Newspapers” might be helpful for

teaching and learning English, especially for journalism

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The thesis consists of five main chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the rationale, the aims and the objectives, thescope, research questions, the significance of the research as well as theorganization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Backround

This chapter reviews previous studies related to the research Itprovides the theoretical background for the research questions raised in thestudy

Chapter 3: Methodology and Procedures

This chapter concerns itself with the research methods, datadescription, data analysis and research procedures

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions

This chapter presents the results of finding the lexical features, thesyntactic features and cohesive devices in NIBF in English electronicnewspapers

Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications

This chapter summarizes the issues studied in the thesis and presentsthe conclusion drawn from the study This is followed by the implication forteaching and learning English and some suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

In attempting to understand language, many researchers have made asignificant contribution to the linguistic features of language in terms oflexical features, syntactic features and cohesive devices

Halliday and Hasan (1976) indicated five distinct categories ofgrammatical cohesive devices that helped to tie various parts of a spoken orwritten text: reference cohesion, substitution, ellipsis, conjunctive cohesionand lexical cohesion

Quirk (1985) classified the conjunctions according to their semanticroles in discourse

In Viet Nam, many liguistists have made considerable contribution tothis field:

Diep Quang Ban (2003) presented cohesive devices and divided linkingwords into four kinds according to their semantic relations like Halliday’s:Additive, Adversative, Causal and Temporal

Tran Ngoc Them (2006) aslo made a great reseach on cohesive devices

in Vietnamese texts He pointed out how to create a text from a sequences ofsentences He divided cohesive devices into ten categories such as repetition,antithesis, synonymic, substitution, association, linearity, pronounsubstitution, weak ellipsis, strong ellipsis, loose conjunction, and tightconjunction

Cao Xuan Hao (1991) states a problem in the domain of syntax whichshowed how to represent the basic syntactic feature of the sentence and howthis is related to its content plane

Aslo, Nguyen Minh Thuyet and Nguyen Van Hiep [56] mentionedsyntactic constraints on sentence element movement as well as described therule of the movement of subject and object in syntax

Additionally, doctoral dissertations and master thesises raised someissues related to this field:

Phan Van Hoa (1998)’s doctorial dissertation investigated theconjuntion as a means of cohesion

Pham Thi Thu Huong (2011) gave us a more complete look at thesyntactic features, pragmatic features of negotiation conversations in Englishand vietnamese and point out the similarities as well as the differencesbewteen them

Phan Thi Hoai Thanh (2012) focused on the syntactic features,semantic features of Ironical Implicature on Press Headlines

With respect to newspapers, Pham Do Quyen (2001), Le Thi Phuong(2011), Le Thi Hoai Tam (2011), Tran Cao Thao Nguyen (2011) and Le ThiThao Anh (2012 ) gave a complete look at linguistic features of differentdiscourse The formers reached into the lexicon in English and Vietnamesenewspaper language The last three rearched into discourse analysis andmainly concentrated on 3 aspects namely lexical features, syntactic featuresand cohesive devices

From the studies presented above, it can be seen that the authorsstudied the lexical features, syntactic features and cohesive devices in manykinds of discourse but there is no evidence that any research on NIBF has

been taken into consideration Therefore, “A Study of Linguistic Features of

News Items on Bird Flu in English Electronic Newspapers” will be conducted

with the aim of contributing a minor part to this field

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

It is necessary to get to know some theoretical concepts that are closelyrelated to the thesis so that we can get better understanding of the rest of thestudy An investigation of the linguistic features of news items in newspapers-similar to any other investigation- needs a definition of what is to be studied

According to Beaugrande and Dressler [3, p.63], the notion text is

defined as “a naturally occurring manifestation of language, i.e as acommunicative language event in a context The surface text is the set ofexpressions actually used; these expressions make some knowledge explicit,while other knowledge remains implicit, though still applied duringprocessing”

Brown and Yule [5] define text as “the verbal record of communication

act”

Cook [9] mentions text as “a stretch of language which can be

interpreted in its form, outside the context perceived to be meaningful, unifiedand purposive”

Nunan [29] considers text as “a written record of a communicative

event which conveys a complete message and the size of the texts can varyfrom single words to books spreading to hundred of pages”

Halliday [18, p.10] argues that although text is “made of words and

sentences, when being written down, it is really made of meanings” becausemeanings have to be expressed or coded in words and structures in order to be

communicated, but as a thing in itself, a text is “essentially a semantic unit”.

It is not something that can be defined as being just another kind of sentence,only bigger Halliday believes that “because text is basically a semantic unit,the phonological, lexical, and syntactic structures should be analyticallystudied as being functionally contributing to the explication of the text’ssemantic significance”

There is another approach developed by Halliday and Hasan [17], who

use discourse in reference to text These two researchers claim that a text (discourse) is a unit of meaning It is the language that is functional and has

meaning in context of situation It is realized by a word, a phrase, a sentence,

a cluster of sentences, or even a book, etc

This thesis will follow the view of Halliday and Hasan, considering

discourse and text the interchangable terms.

With the definitions of text above, News Items on Bird Flu chosen for

the study are texts in written The concepts of text in this thesis is viewed as:

- a language in use, for communication

- a language unit which has meaning, unity and purpose

- a semantic unit which is written of words, phrases, sentences,etc so itslinguistic feature analysis should be approached from the semanticperspective expressed and coded in words, phrases and structures

b Features of Text

Halliday [18, p.139-140] states that “ the essential feature of text is that

it is interaction The exchange of meanings is an interactive process, and text

is the means of exchange: in order for the meanings which constitute the

social system to be exchanged between members they must first berepresented in some exchangeable symbolic form, and the most accessible ofthe available forms is language So the meanings are encoded in (and through)the sematic system, and give the form of text”

In the approach to text linguistics by de Beaugrande & Dressler [3,p.3], “text, oral or printed, is established as a communicative occurrence,which has to meet seven standards of textuality If any of these standards arenot satisfied, the text is considered not to have fulfilled its function and not to

be communicative”

The first standards are cohesion and coherence which are text-centred

notions, designating operations directed at the text materials Cohesionconcerns the ways in which the components of the surface text (the actualwords we hear or see) are mutually connected within a sequence [3, p.3].Coherence on the other hand concerns the ways in which the components ofthe textual world, i.e the concepts and relations which underlie the surfacetext are mutually accessible and relevant [3, p.3-7]

The remaining standards of textuality are user-centred, concerning theactivity of textual communication by the producers and receivers of texts:

Intentionality concerns the text producer’s attitude that the set of

occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text instrumental infulfilling the producer’s intentions

Acceptability concerns the receiver’s attitude that the set of

occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text having some use

or relevance for the receiver

Informativity concerns the extent to which the occurrences of the text

are expected vs unexpected or known vs unknown/uncertain

Situationality concerns the factors which make a text relevant to a

situation of occurrence This is related with the context and the situation thereader is in Here we can come up with that different people in differentsituations can conclude different meanings from the same text But what isimportant here is that the text must present the knowledge to make sense with

a minimum use of words (maximum economy) Otherwise, it may even not bereceived at all

Intertextuality concerns the factors which make the utilisation of one

text dependent upon knowledge of one or more previously encountered texts.During the reading process our stored knowledge, experience, previousreadings all affect the present reading perception That is why the productionand the reception of a given text depends on the participants’ knowledge ofother texts If a text is produced without making use of any particularknowledge which the reader is supposed to know, it may not be anappropriate text Especially when it refers to well-known texts or things orpeople, it is much better Intertextuality helps to build meaningful relationsbetween various components of communication

Among these features, cohesion has also been a most popular target forresearch, probably because it is easy to identify in written texts, which are thetraditional research material of linguists This is the surface of the text whilecoherence is seen as the deep structure of the text which is viewed as the mostimportant factor to decide textuality That’s the reason why Hatch [19] said “without coherence, a text is not properly a text”

2.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence

The term “coherence “ and “cohesion” have become popular indiscourse analysis and text linguistics, as interest in linguistics has extendedgenerally from what happens within utterances or sentences to what happens

between and beyond them These two terms are not easily distinguished:coherence is defined as “semantic cohesion” and cohesion as “textualcoherence” They are related etymologically and derived from the verb

Coherence is still an elusive concept Coherence has been seen as one

of the prime conditions or characteristics of a text: “Without coherence, a text

is not properly a text” said Hatch [19]

According to Yule [44], “coherence is the implicit link in the text, itexists in how people interpret text rather than in the texts themselves”

From all these ideas of coherence, we can conclude that coherence hasbeen applied to the concepts and relations underlying its meaning andinterrelatedness in the text In other words, coherence has been defined ascontinuity in meaning and context in a discourse

In Halliday and Hassan’s view [17] “the concept of cohesion is asemantic one; it refers to the relations of meaning that exist within the textand that define it as a text” They aslo state that “cohesion is how words and

expressions are connected using cohesive devices which can be categorizedinto five groups: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexicalcohesion”.

Nunan [29] states that a coherent text can not miss cohesive deviceswhich are words and phrases which enable the writter or speaker to establishthe relationship across the sentence in the text

When dealing with the term “Cohesion”, both Cook [10, p14] andWright & Hope [36, p164] mention formal links – the links represented on thesurface of formal linguistics Cook [10, p14] states, “Formal links betweensentences and between clauses are known as cohesive devices” and theselinks are listed as verb forms, parallelism, referring expressions, repetitionand lexical chains, substitutions, ellipsis, conjunction Linking can happenwithin paragraphs and across paragraphs

Actually, linking ideas across paragraphs is mainly achieved throughthe use of conjunction whereas linking ideas within paragraphs is done byusing conjunction and more ways Tran Ngoc Them [56] divides cohesioninto two kinds – formal cohesion and content cohesion As for Tran NgocThem, formal cohesion includes phonological and grammatical repetition.Then, content cohesion consists of topical and logical cohesion Additionally,

he goes on dividing topical cohesion into maintaining and developing topicalcohesion Maintaining topical cohesion is composed of lexical repetition,synonymic substitution, pronoun substitution, weak ellipsis and strongellipsis; developing topical cohesion contains antithesis and association.Linear order, loose and firm cohesion all make the so-called logical cohesion

Besides, according to the theory of cohesion popularized by Hallidayand Hasan [17], five different types of cohesive devices are identified namelygrammatical cohesion which consists of reference, ellipsis, substitution,

conjunction and lexical cohesion which consists of collocation, reiteration Inthis study I follow Halliday and Hassan’s view in their work “Cohesion inEnglish” [17] because it deals with cohesion in a detailed and systematic way.

In this book, concepts of cohesion are clearly explained; illustrative examplesare specifically presented

(i) Substitution

Substitution is a replacement of one item by another [17, p88] It is arelation between linguistic items within the text such as words and phrases onthe lexicogrammatical level There are three kinds of substitution: nominalsubstitution, verbal substitution and clausal substitution

(2.1) Which ice-cream would you like? – I would like the pink one [17] (2.2) I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and what’s more, I

don’t believe you do either [17]

(2.3) Is there going to be a snow fall? – They says so [17]

(ii) Ellipsis

Ellipsis occurs when some essential structural element is omitted from

a sentence or clause and can be recovered by referring to an element in thepreceding text [28, p25] Like substitution, ellipsis is a relation within thetext, and ellipsis is normally an anaphoric relation Ellipsis is similar tosubstitution, in that in English, it operates at nominal, verbal and clausallevels

(2.4) Which last longer, the curved robs or the straight robs? – The straight

Ø are less likely to break

[17]

(2.5) A : Have you been working?

B: Yes, I have Ø [17]

(2.6) He said he would take early retirement as soon as he could and he has

(iii) Reference

Reference is a semantic relation that ensures the continuity of meaning

in a text A reference item itself is not either exophoric or endophoric; it isjust “phoric” having the property of reference Acording to Halliday andHasan [16, p169], “The question whether a particular instance is a cohesiveform or not can often be settled only by reference to its textual environment” Besides, Halliday and Hasan [17] categorize reference into three groups:personal reference, demonstrative reference and comparative reference

(2.7) A well-dressed man was speaking; he had a foreign accent [17]

(2.8) If you need one, there’s a towel in the top drawer. [17]

(iv) Conjunction

According to Halliday and Hasan [17, p242-243], conjunction is ratherdifferent in nature from the other cohesive relations, both form reference, onthe other hand, and substitution and ellipsis on the other A conjunction doesnot set off a search backward or forward for its reference, but it doespresuppose a textual sequence, and signals a relationship between segments ofthe discourse Conjunction is the type of cohesion that expresses the logicalconnections between propositions in discourse and occurs when “a clause orclause complex, or some longer stretch of text is related to what follows it byone or other of a specific set of semantic relations” [17, p289]

Basically, the cohesive relation indicated by conjunction in a text can

be categorized into four groups to express additive, adversative, causal, andtemporal relations between sentences [17, p 242-243]

(2.9) Perhaps she missed her train Or else she has changed her mind and is

not coming (Additive conjunction) [17, p.247]

(2.10) All the figures were correct; they had been checked Yet the total came

out wrong (Adversative conjunction) [17, p.250]

(2.11) She felt that there was no time to be lost So she got to work at once

(Causal conjunction) [17, p.256]

(2.12) Alice took the little golden key and unlocked the door that led into the

garden Then she nibbled the mushroom (Temporal conjunction) [17, p.261]

(v) Lexical cohesion

According to Halliday and Hasan [17], reiteration and collocation aretwo major catergories of lexical cohesion Meanwhile, Martin [27, p.1] pointsout that “while there are problems in defining collocation, its contribution tocoherence in text is so significant that it cannot be ignored” The problemsarise because collocation is expressed through open class items Differentfrom “closed” lexical items – grammatical words, pronouns, conjunctions andprepositions, there is no limit to the items that can be used to expresscollocation This means that it is difficult to establich sets of regularlyoccuring words and phrase and our ability to identify collocation relationship

in a text will depend on our background knowledge, our familiarity with thecontent of the text

Similarly, Halliday and Hasan [17, p286] regard collocation ascohesive effects is pairs of words such as “bee…honey”, “ill…doctor”,

“boat…row”, etc which “depend so much on any systematic relationship as

on their tendency to share the same lexical environment, to occur incollocation with one another” That is the reason why in this thesis collocation

is not included and only reiteration is taken into account because in medicineadvertisements

Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition

of a lexical item Reiteration includes repetition, synonymy or

near-synonymy, super-ordinates and general words Reiteration fulfils a similarsematic function to cohesive reference.

2.2.3 Newspapers and Electronic Newspapers

a Newspapers and Their Functions

Newspaper is one of the initial communication tools of the society.They have been the most usual and a generally received medium to be used inconveying the local, regional, international and national news to readers Eversince the beginning of the society, the newspapers were published to conveythe latest happening in different parts worldwide Owing to their public natureand availability for large numbers of people, newspapers are one of the mostwidely types of written texts

Today the major dailies employ correspondents to collect news from allover the place and also from agencies They write about any and every eventhappening at all corners of the world They act as the guardian of the society.They help in developing public opinion It acts as a mirror of the society andinforms everything in minute detail, thus helps in forming a collectiveopinion It enables the people to know about the happening and importantevents in the country, states and the world at large As DeFleur and Dennis[16, p.237] state “newspapers serve as the eyes and ears of society”

Newspapers serve important functions in society as surveillance Theyinform the readers about events and issues taking place around the world.Newspapers also perform correlation by interpreting aspects of society, andthe individual to society, including how various media shape public opinionthrough comments and citicism and propaganda What’s more, newspapersprovide information that helps readers solve their business, home, recreation,and daily living problems Ads assist in informing readers about products andservices Hard news stories, feature stories, classified ads, and display ads are

items that provide a service Lastly, some items in the newspapers aredesigned to amuse or provide enjoyment to readers, such as feature stories,comics, puzzles, and humour columns, etc are in entertainment section

b Electronic Newspapers

An electronic newspaper is known as : “an e-newspaper, an e-news, or

an online newspaper or a web newspaper existing on the World Wide Web orInternet, either seperately or as an online version of printed periodical”, theelectronic newspaper has the amount of storage capicity over the printed one.Readers can even read and re-read old news items whenever they want.Furthermore, readers can not only read the written news but watch the imagesand hear the sound at the same time Last but not least, news in electronicnewspapers can travel almost instantly around the world It is the linkbetween people and the outside world For students, it is the fastest way forthem to get the information to support their study effectively

2.2.4 News in Electronic Newspapers

a What is news

Because news has great impact on our lives, people mostly rely onjournalist to provide them with the up-to-date information about the world.The demand makes it the journalists’ responsibility to determine what news

is However, most journalists have to admit that giving a definition to news issuch a difficult task

The notion of news is ambiguous In everyday usage, we usually havethe general notion of news, meaning 'new information', as we find in suchsentences as "I have good news for you" Apparently, the notion of news weare dealing with is different from the notion of news, which involves the

media When asking: "Have you read the news?" or "Did you watch the news? ",

we refer to news as an item on newspapers or a television program

Here are some definitions of news from dictionaries:

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010)

News is a report of current events which are issued everyday by

multi-media of communication such as newspapers, radios, televisions, or sites on the world wide web, etc.

In American Heritage Dictionary

News is:

• Recent events and happenings

• A report about recent events

• New information

In Globe Modern Dictionary

News is:

• A report of events as given each day by newspaper, radio, etc

• Information which was not known before

With this aspect of news, there is a famous cliché among journalists:when dog bites man, it’s not news; when man bites dog, that’s news In otherwords, no readers want to read about ordinary events

b Structure of news

The structure of a news item is very important A well-structured oneshould be helpful for the reader to follow and understand the story, and mostimportantly, it should engage the reader, encouraging them to read on

With regard to the structure of a news item, Van Dijk [40] gives hisviewpoint that the constituent parts of a news can be divided into different

categories The Summary category consists of Headline and Lead which summarise the news item Main Events is concerned with the main news events, whose consequences are dealt with in the Consequence category.

Context, History and Previous Events convey different sorts of background

information relating to the main news event A news story may also contain

Verbal Reactions of different people and Comments of the reporter himself.

He also states that some categories are mandatory, other optional Some arerecursive, they may occur a number of times

The structure of a news item has traditionally been compared to aninverted pyramid

which is illustrated below

Chart 2.1 Inverted Pyramid Structure

As the chart 2.1 shows, the most important and relevant information issupposed to be put first The news story progresses from more importantthrough less and lass important information Conventionally, a news itemshould contain the answers to the so-called “five W’s and an H”: who, what,when, where, why, how That the important information must come firstresults in what Van Dijk call the “installment structure” [41, p.178], and thenthe remaining information follows in order of importance, with the leastimportant at the bottom

Journalists are concerned with the 5Ws and the H Any good newsarticle will provide answers to all of these questions Journalists are taught towrite news stories in this inverted pyramid style They front-load their story,putting the essential and most attention-grabbing elements first, followed bysupporting or explanatory information in order of diminishing importance.The least important information is at the bottom This style allows newspaper

readers to skim their newspapers for a quick news update; they can choose toread only partway through an article knowing that the information they fail toread at the end is not going to be as important as the information at thebeginning.

This structure enables readers to quit reading at any point and stillcome away with the essence of a story It allows people to enter a topic to thedepth without being annoyed of what they consider irrelevant details As far

as editors are concerned, this structure also facilitates them when editing thework of reporters They can easily cut down the long news so as to fit thenewspaper space

Headline, Lead, and Body are considered crucial elements

structuring news in English electronic newspapers Besides, there aresupplementary or optional factors (the time, name of reporter, sub-headlines,hyperlinks or non-linguistic features) which can classify it as a new genre, or

a sub-genre of news

However, the Headline and the Lead play an essential role in

English electronic news Limited space of a computer screen does not allowfor full text of all pieces of news Hence, in the front page of any electronicnewspapers, headlines and leads of news are provided with hyperlinks so thatinterested readers can click up to read the rest story

“Each news item in the press has a Headline”, Van Dijk [40] The Headline is not a summarization of the news item, in stead, it serves the

purpose of getting the readers’ attention It is an integral part of a news itemand meant to arouse the readers’ interest and make them read the wholearticle It is the first thing that everyone notices in a newspaper The headline

of a news item is as important as the news story According to him, bannerheadlines define the overall coherence or semantic unity of discourse, and

also what information readers memorize best from a news item He furtherpointed out that headlines summarize the news text in a minimum number ofwords The major purpose of a news headline is to quickly summarize thearticle and to briefly draw the attention of readers to the story or article andserves as a guide for the readers that helps decide whether to continue onreading the whole report or to skip onto another one In a way, the headlinehas to “sell” the story to the readers Thus, the headline is the first point ofcontact with the readers Typically, headlines are dominantly captured inphrases and sometimes in sentences Hence, headlines of news in Englishelectronic newspapers are always in bold, large font size and have high-contrast in order to attract the readers’ eyes

Like the headline, the Lead is supposed to attract the readers’ interest

so that they go on reading the text Just as the most important facts are raisedinto the lead, within the lead itself the most important is put at the beginning,not at the end of the paragraph, according to Bell [2, p.176] He regards thelead as a directional summary, meaning that is is also part of the story Itsfunction is tell the news as well as summarizing it The lead often containsinformation that is not repeated in the rest of the news item [183]

As Brown & Yule [5, p.125] observe, the beginning point is the initialtextual context for all that follow in the text and will have an effect on thereader’s interpretation of what comes next

Headlines and Leads share some important similarities The task of theheadline and lead in a news is to give the most central, essential and relevantinformation of the news item Since the headline is practically always theshorter of the two, it can not convey as much information as the lead, so it canonly express the very core of the important information Thereby, headlinemight be described as the “super-summary” of the news item According to

Bell [2], the information in the headline is usually contained in the lead, too.The lead can also include other central pieces of infortaion besides theabsolute most important information They are supposed to give brief answers

to all the key questions WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW.Van Dijk [41, p.36, 40, 53] states that the headline, along with the leads,expresses the main topics of the text Together they signal a preferred generalmeaning of the text to the readers In short, the lead summarises the story andfocuses it in a specific direction, and the headline summarises and focuses thestory even more That’s why the lead must be very informative and longenough to load the most newsworthy aspect of the events

The Body of the news is where readers find detailed information The

primary and the most prevailing function of news body is to narrate the event.While doing so, it gradually gives answers to all possible questions related tothe event raised in the headline and the lead Basically,the body will givereaders three kinds of information:

• details of the events, by answering the six questions 5W+H in moredetail

• comments from people involved in the story

• background information to help you understand the story moredeeply

Let’s have a look at the following news posted in The BBC on October 15,

2013 as an example of a news structure reckoned by Van Dijk:

More details of

the main event

The plane disappeared after it took off from Loreto

in Baja California Sur state

Bad weather caused by Tropical Storm Octave,which was approaching the Mexican coast, hasreportedly hampered search efforts

Seven states, including Baja California Sur, havedeclared a state of alert ahead of the storm

"We've suspended things until the conditionschange."

There was no immediate information about thepassengers on the flight.

David Korenfeld, director general of Mexico'sNational Water Commission, warned TropicalStorm Octave was expected to bring "significantrainfall" on Monday night into Tuesday

The storm has maximum sustained winds of 50miles (85km) per hour, according to the USNational Hurricane Center

It said the storm was expected to weaken andbecome a tropical depression by the time it nearsthe Mexican Peninsula

Consequences

More than a hundred people died in Mexico as aresult of Tropical Storms Manuel and Ingrid lastmonth

Evidently, the structure of the news makes a remarkable contribution tofacilitating the understanding process of readers That is why there is oneprinciple in organizing news that the news structure should lead the readersfrom idea to idea simply and clearly

2.2.5 Defintions of News Item on Bird Flu

News

To sum up from the definitions of news above, the notion of newsimplies three aspects of news:

 new information about events, things or persons

 a program type (TV or radio or newspaper) in which news items arepresented

 a news item, i.e., a discourse on means of media, in which new information is given

We are concerned mostly with the third concept, in which news isconsidered a type of discourse in newspapers

Item

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010)

Item is a single piece of news in a newspaper, on television, etc.

In Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2013)

Item is

 a single thing in a set or on a list

 a piece of news on television or radio, or in a newspaper

News item can be defined as a discourse on means of media which

informs readers about events of the day The events are considerednewsworthy or important

Bird

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010)

Bird is a creature that is covered with feathers and has two wings and two legs Most birds can fly

Flu

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010)

Flu is an infectious disease like a very bad cold, that causes fever, pains and weakness.

In Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2013)

Flu is an illness like a very bad cold, that makes you feel hot and weak.

Bird Flu

According to The World Health Organization (WHO), Bird Flu (“Avian Influenza”) is an infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains

of the influenza virus The infection can cause a wide spectrum of symptoms

in birds, ranging from mild illness, which may pass unnoticed, to a rapidlyfatal disease that can cause severe epidemics

Bird flu is “a serious illness that affects birds, especially chickens, that can be

spread from birds to humans and that can cause death”, in Oxford AdvancedLearner’s Dictionary (2010)

2.2.6 Bird Flu Overview

All the information below is retrieved from the Avian Influenza FactSheet updated April 2011 in The World Health Organization (WHO):

Avian influenza (AI), commonly called bird flu, is an infectious viraldisease of birds, (especially wild water fowl such as ducks and geese), oftencausing no apparent signs of illness AI viruses can sometimes spread todomestic poultry and cause large-scale outbreaks of serious disease Some ofthese AI viruses have also been reported to cross the species barrier and causedisease or subclinical infections in humans and other mammals

AI viruses are divided into two groups based on their ability to causedisease in poultry: high pathogenicity or low pathogenicity Highlypathogenic viruses result in high death rates (up to 100% mortality within 48hours) in some poultry species Low pathogenicity viruses also cause

outbreaks in poultry but are not generally associated with severe clinicaldisease.

Most avian influenza viruses do not cause disease in humans However,some are zoonotic, meaning that they can infect humans and cause disease.The most well known example is the avian influenza subtype H5N1 virusescurrently circulating in poultry in parts of Asia and northeast Africa, whichhave caused human disease and deaths since 1997

a Types of Bird Flu

There are three types of influenza viruses: A, B, and C

Influenza Type A

Influenza type A viruses can infect people, birds, pigs, horses, seals,whales, and other animals, but wild birds are the natural hosts for theseviruses There are 15 different HA subtypes and 9 different NA subtypes.There are many different combinations of HA and NA proteins such as H1N1,H1N2, H3N2, H3N7, H5N1, H7N7, h7N9, etc

Influenza Type B

Influenza B viruses are normally found only in humans Unlikeinfluenza A viruses, these viruses are not classified according to subtype.Although influenza type B viruses can cause human epidemics, they have notcaused pandemics

Influenza Type C

Influenza type C viruses cause mild illness in humans and do not causeepidemics or pandemics These viruses are not classified according tosubtype

b Causes of Bird Flu

Most avian influenza viruses do not cause disease in humans However,some are zoonotic, meaning that they can infect humans and cause disease

The most well known example is the avian influenza subtype H5N1 virusescurrently circulating in poultry in parts of Asia and northeast Africa, whichhave caused human disease and deaths since 1997.

Other avian influenza subtypes, including H7N7 and H9N2, have alsoinfected people Some of these infections have been very severe and somehave resulted in deaths, but many infections have been mild or evensubclinical in humans

Because birds play an important role as a source of food andlivelihoods in many countries affected by avian influenza viruses, WHO andanimal health sector partners are working at the human-animal interface toidentify and reduce animal health and public health risks within nationalcontexts

c Symptoms of Bird Flu

The signs and symptoms may include fever, cough, sore throat,conjunctivitis (eye infections), and muscle aches Infection with avianinfluenza viruses can also lead to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress andother severe and life-threatening complications, lack of coordination, purplediscoloration of the wattles, combs, and legs, soft-shelled or misshapen eggs,lack of energy and appetite, diarrhea, swelling of the head, eyelids, comb,wattles and hocks, nasal discharge, decreased egg production, coughing,sneezing

CHAPTER 3RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Thanks to both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the researchercan describe, analyze and draw conclusions in order to reach the goals alreadyset

3.2 RESEARCH METHODS

In order to achieve the goal of investigating the linguistics features ofNIBF in terms of lexical and syntactic features and cohesive devices, it isimpossible to use only one method, but some are used simultaneously

Descriptive method: It is used to describe data in details in terms of

lexical and syntactic features and cohesive devices This method is the mostpopular tool in linguistic research

Analytic method: By using this method, the researcher can clarify and

justify a certain feature or characteristic

Inductive method: By means of induction, the researcher can

synthesize the findings and draw out the generations and conclusions

The researcher can clarify and categorize data according to linguisticfeatures In order to do this, through specific examples, the researcher argues

to support her viewpoint