Linguistic features of english and vietnamese newspaper headlines in voa news

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN VOA N

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER

HEADLINES IN VOA NEWS

(Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ của tiêu đề báo tiếng Anh và

tiếng Việt trên VOA News)

LE THI MAI THU

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Dr Dang Ngoc Huong

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN VOA NEWS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all my teachers in M.A course

at the Faculty of Graduate studies, Hanoi Open University, for their useful lectures, advice and suggestions

Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my family for their love, encouragement and support Without this, the completion of this study would be impossible

1.4 Methods of the study

1.5 Scope of the study

1.6 Significance of the study

1.7 Structure of the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of Previous Studies

vi vii viii

2.2.2.3 Non-sentential headlines

2.2.2.4 Functional headline types

2.2.3 Overview of newspaper headlines

2.2.1.1 Online newspapers

2.2.1.2 Online newspaper headlines

2.2.1.3 Definition of newspaper headlines

2.2.1.4 Functions of newspaper headlines

2.2.1.5 Types of headlines in terms of functions

2.2.1.6 Roles of newspaper headlines

2.2.1.7 Language of newspaper headlines

2.2.1.8 Language structures of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines

2.2.1.9 General introduction to VOA News

3.1.2.1 Deletion of word “be”

3.1.2.2 Deletion of word “say”

3.1.3 Headline length

3.1.4 Differences between English-Vietnamese newspaper headlines

3.1.5 Similarities between English-Vietnamese newspaper headlines

3.2 Syntactic features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines

3.2.1 Structural headline types

3.2.1.1 Sentential headlines

3.2.1.2 Simple sentence headlines

3.2.1.3 Multiple sentence headlines

3.2.1.4 Non-sentential headlines

3.2.1.5 Non-finite clauses

3.2.1.6 Verbless clauses

3.2.1.7 Phrases

3.2.2 Functional headline types

3.2.3 Differences between English-Vietnamese newspaper headlines

3.2.4 Similarities between English-Vietnamese newspaper headlines

3.3 Implications

3.3.1 Implications for journalistic teaching

3.3.2 Implications for translation teaching

3.4 Summary

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION

4.1 Recapitulation

4.2 Concluding remarks

4.3 Limitation of the study

4.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further research

ABSTRACT

The thesis aims at unravelling salient linguistic features of a non-native variety

of English as used in a different text type - that is headline From this point, the thesis addresses the headlines of English and Vietnamese news lexically and syntactically from a contrastive perspective To meet the above aims, this study attempts to compare and contrast news headlines in English and Vietnamese language published in an American news site to figure out the types, the roles of lexical and syntactic features of newspaper headlines The second, some differences and similarities between newspaper headlines of the two languages will be discovered The last portion of the study is intended to analyze the implications of the findings to language teaching and translating The thesis is also hoped to present further insights on how headlines are constructed and provide basis for more studies on the genre In order to accomplish the aims of the research, the qualitative approach will be first used The following is quantitative approach The last one is a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches The study employs three main methods namely data collecting and material analysis research method, descriptive research method, and contrastive method The findings from the study hopefully will benefit not only translators of the two languages but also teachers and researchers who are interested in the issue Criticism and comments are welcome for more profession

of the thesis

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1 Types of simple sentences with examples from the corpora 17 Table 3.1 Frequency of different parts of speech in English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.2 Frequency of nouns in English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.3 Frequency of tense and aspect in English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.4 Frequency of active and passive voice in English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.5 Frequency of dynamic and static verbs in English and

Table 3.9 The length of English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.10 Frequency of structural headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.11 Frequency of sentential headlines in the English and Vietnamese corpora

Table 3.12 Frequency of simple headline types in the English and

Table 3.13 Frequency of multiple headline types in the English and

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

News headlines have recently received increasing research attention from a variety of disciplines including pragmatics, sociolinguistics, journalism or experimental psychology According to Loic Hervouet (cited in Vu Quang Hao, 2001), headline is a decisive factor to the fate of an article An interesting article with a bad, unattractive headline will cost half number of possible readers Headlines owe the attention drawn to them based on their unique roles such as introducing news stories or attracting readers to actually access the news, and on the space constraints inherent to them These operating factors force the writers

of headlines to construct the optimal headlines to fulfill these goals

Many students of English, however, find newspaper headlines are especially difficult to understand Obviously, it is not just a matter of vocabulary; even the style of writing is different from any other text they have met in their studies The language of headlines is special and has its own characteristics on the lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical levels for its brevity, attractiveness, and clarity (Danuta R., 1998) These language features pose a great challenge to foreign learners of English when they begin to read English newspapers

The key to ease the difficulty of this special genre lies on the comparison between foreign and native languages (Connor, 1996) As mentioned above, the special language features of newspaper headlines is the biggest obstacle in understanding their meaning to foreign readers, especially Vietnamese readers Thereby, this study is carried out to investigate the linguistic features in the newspaper headlines of English and Vietnamese languages in VOA News The reason for VOA News to be chosen is that it is one of the largest American

online news site The study aims to address the newspaper headlines in VOA News in both English and Vietnamese version to investigate how the construction of headlines is affected by or interrelated with their linguistic features, and hopefully make some contribution to create background for translation between two languages, consequently, enhance the teaching and studying of newspaper headlines

The study is aimed at unravelling salient linguistic features of a non-native variety of English as used in a different text type - that is headline The last portion of this paper is intended to analyze the implications of the findings to language teaching It is also hoped that this research will present further insights

on how headlines are constructed and provide basis for more studies on the genre

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims

Acknowledging the contributions that the previous research on news headlines have made in understanding news headlines, the current study aims to address the headlines of English and Vietnamese news lexically and syntactically from a rather innovative contrastive perspective

1.2.2 Objectives

In order to achieve the above aims, the thesis describes to:

- To figure out the lexical and syntactic features of newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese language published in an American news site by comparing and contrasting news headlines

- To discover some differences and similarities of lexical and syntactic features used in newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese language

- To suggest the implications of the findings to language teaching and translating

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to accomplish the aims of the research, the qualitative approach will be first used It includes description and interpretation of some notions based on the works of gurus and outstanding authors related to lexical and syntactic features

of headlines used in English and Vietnamese online newspapers

The following is quantitative approach: Each type of lexical and syntactic

features in both English and Vietnamese headlines is discovered, then counted separately, and finally calculated into the form of percentage for comparison The last one is a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches: the percentage of each type of linguistic features in English and Vietnamese headlines are categorized in groups for comparing and contrasting It is through this process that the significant level of each type of linguistic features is explored thoroughly

The study is aimed at addressing the headlines of English and Vietnamese news lexically and syntactically from a contrastive perspective; therefore, three main methods namely data collecting and material analysis research method, descriptive research method, and contrastive method are employed

 Collecting newspaper headlines in online VOA News in both English and Vietnamese language; analyze collected materials about newspaper headlines

 Describing the linguistic features in the English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines collected from online VOA news

 Comparing those features with concrete contrasting techniques, namely, analysis and statistics

Besides, some more supporting methods namely analysis method, synthetic method are employed

1.5 Scope of the study

Within the framework of an M.A thesis, it is impossible for a study to deal with all the features of language theory and practice in depth, especially all the linguistic features such as semantic, morphologic, grammatical feature, etc This study, therefore, only focuses on some linguistic features lexically and syntactically found in the newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese in VOA News 120 newspaper headlines in both English and Vietnamese are collected from VOA News to present a broad view of their linguistic features The headlines taken for analysis include various topics such as economics, culture, politics, science, technology, health, travel, sports, etc which are daily updated in the two newspapers The headlines issued during a five-day period

from June 13th to June 17th, 2019 The number of English and Vietnamese headlines arrived at a total of 120 from the two sources

1.6 Significance of the study

The results of the study will be of great benefit to the following:

Theoretically, this study is useful for those interested in the use and the meaning

of English and Vietnamese headlines on online newspapers The study aims to make a contrastive analysis on the use of English and Vietnamese words and structure in terms of the lexical and syntactic features to provide linguistic researchers a reference to the variety of language use

Practically, the teachers can use the results as the additional information and in order to be aware and also understand the lexical and syntactic similarities as well as the differences between the two languages in newspaper headlines In ESL/EFL classes, the teachers can use the findings as a material in the class, give students the overview of the features of the similarities and differences Learners and translators of the two languages will be more aware and recognize the features of the newspaper headlines of both languages English and Vietnamese in terms of lexical and syntactic aspects

1.7 Structure of the study

This thesis is designed with four chapters

Chapter I (Introduction) gives an introductory to the thesis including the details about aims and objectives of the study, scope and significances of the study, and some research questions raised for exploration This chapter shows the research setting and research approach, and the research methods used to ensure the reliability and validity of the research It also describes how data will be collected and some techniques to analyze those data

Chapter II (Literature Review) reviews some previous studies related to the research and presents some theories which are directly related to the research Chapter III (Linguistic features of English-Vietnamese newspaper headlines in VOA News) provides what have found from the research and comments as products on the findings The chapter states some pedagogical implications of the findings for Vietnamese teachers of English

Chapter IV (Conclusion) briefly summarizes the main points presented in the thesis, gives conclusions on each of the thesis objectives, points out some limitations of the current research and provides some suggestions for future research

The study ends with the ‘REFERENCES’ which list all the materials and

sources of information used in the study, and ‘APPENDIX’ which list 120 headlines used in the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies

Newspaper headlines have been studied for a while from a variety of

perspectives ranging from research on structural patterns (Bell, 1991; Quirk et

al, 1985; Dor, 2003; Saxena, 2006) to experimental studies (Quirk et al, 1985;

Ifantidou, 2009)

In terms of functions of headlines, newspaper headlines have traditionally been known to summarize the news articles they introduce and to attract the readers’ attention

Newspapers headlines are also investigated from diachronic perspectives (Kim, 2003; Neiger, 2007) or from contrastive perspectives Neiger (2007), for instance, put forth the argument that the construction of newspaper headlines is strongly influenced by political or cultural factors On the other hand, newspaper headlines are examined by diverse contrastive approaches: between two languages (Shie, 2011), between offline headlines and their online counterparts (Noh, 2010)

There are a few types of research in newspaper headlines that observed the complexity of the headlines writing such as ellipses, noun/verb phrase, lexical and syntactical items, textual analysis or writing style and ideology and social impact influence

A study of the subject ellipses of Chinese news headlines found that ellipses are used more frequently in Chinese headlines especially in Hong Kong and Macau newspapers This is different compared to English news headlines which do not use ellipses frequently In addition, it is assumed that in Hong Kong newspapers,

readers have more knowledge of pragmatic compared to the Macau newspaper readers (Chin and Tsou, 2000)

De Lange (2008) in his headlines study of article omission in headlines and child language observed the omission of the article in Dutch, Italian and German The results of the study found that there are both cross-linguistic differences as well as clear and interesting similarities between the patterns of article omission in the various groups of speakers It is argued that the observed differences and similarities offer evidence for the claim that both children and adults omit articles because of the processing cost necessary to retrieve articles from the article set The more difficult the selection process, the more processing resources are required for the selection of an article judgments on whether or not articles can be omitted in a variety of linguistic contexts in headlines in their language

The study of newspaper headlines about lexical feature was investigated by Chin which is observing the lexical items of Chinese news headlines compared to Hong Kong and Taiwan He found that Chinese news headlines constitute an entirely different genre The findings of his study of the Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwan headlines are in content words The geographical names are dominant in The distribution is a contrast to most contemporary Chinese writing The comparison of the headlines from Hong Kong and Taiwan shows that they have critical differences in the distribution of the cultural compatibility According to Chin, the differences among Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are due to their socio-cultural differences In addition, he concluded that Hong Kong headlines are more outward looking compared to Taiwan because Taiwan news headlines are more domestically oriented

Moreover, Khodabandeh (2007) in her study of headlines complexity between English and Persian found the similarities and differences She analyzed the variability of syntactical and lexical features and concluded that the headlines of English and Persian are similar in using dynamic verbs, active voice, short words, declarative sentences, finite clauses and simple sentences The differences between English and Persian headlines are in the use of tense forms, headlines types, modification and words omission

The complexity of headlines has also been investigated by Brisau (as cited in Khodabandeh: 2007) He investigated and measured the complexity of headlines In terms of clauses, Brisau found 264 examples out of 3000 headlines which contained two or more clauses He concluded that in headlines, more complex structure than two very simple clauses linked together rarely appeared Also, it is clear that headlines use simple and limited words and make the meaning unclear as what Danuta (1998:15) states that “ headlines are of limited use in giving a clear overview on the news of the day, or the relative importance

of the items‛ Maestre (1998) also investigated the complexity of headlines in terms of the noun phrase in Times newspaper She explored the complexity of the headlines as well as distinguished between noun phrase in nominal and verbal headlines types She found that the differences between nominal and verbal headlines showed that how much complexity is responsive to a stylistic and situational aspect of the context of the situation

Furthermore, research on two different newspaper headlines in Indonesia Tiono (2006), which was investigating the tense of newspaper headlines, found that in Jakarta Post and Indonesian Daily news, the news writers use a simple present form which is to emphasize the event and its effect on the society Those to

newspapers also used the simple future form by deleting the verb and using to Infinitive that aims to create a question of what will happen to the readers The verb deletion is used to create a free interpretation to the readers before they read the story

Similar condition inevitably occurs in the mass media This becomes the main concern of this research which will look at English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines and examine the differences in lexical and syntactical choice in headlines writing style There is not sufficient research on the syntactical and lexical features of newspaper headlines described above Thus, as explained in this literature review, several contrastive types of research on newspaper headlines have raised the question of whether or not similar features and style can be found in different cultures and languages Therefore, given the inconclusive findings so far, this study will explore and investigate the application and the form of the lexical and syntactical features in newspaper headlines both in English and Vietnamese, aiming to uncover to what extent these two languages are comparable in these domains

In Vietnam, there have been several studies on online and printed newspapers Bui Nguyet Anh (2003), in her graduation paper, finds out some discourse features of headlines and articles in English containing syntactic features, cohesive devices, collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms The syntactic features

in her research include the selection of verbs, passive structures, and the use of non-finites, implicit expression of opinions, modality and word order She concludes that headline writers often omit definite and indefinite articles, the verb “to be”, auxiliary verbs and titles before proper names; they widely use punctuation, visual images and simple tenses instead of progressive and perfect

forms to state the topic of the article and to attract a large number of readers Bích (2009) study on English – Vietnamese translation of electronic news headlines also gives some distinctive grammatical characteristics of English news headlines with dominance of phrases, statements, expansion of present simple tense, and frequent omission of words such as the verb “be” and articles

Another study of Nguyen Thi Thanh Hao (2004) entitled “Linguistic features of

film titles in English and Vietnamese, a contrastive analysis” also aims at

analyzing the use of language in depicting film content with attractive impression to viewers The study conducted a language use research in terms of grammatical and lexical features to identify the similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese in film titles The result of this study help linguistics more in doing research on linguistic features and film producers could find good way to attract viewers It is also worth mentioning another research by Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet (2011) analyses lexical and structural ambiguity of humorous headlines in English electronic newspapers The author does the research to make it clear about the ambiguity of humorous headlines under language devices including grammatical devices and to provide non-native readers especially English learners with a profound and appropriate insight into ambiguity which will make a help for them to eliminate gradually the difficulties

in understanding English electronic newspapers headlines The study also aims

at making some contribution to journalists, to translators, to teachers and to learners of English in Vietnam by giving some suggestions basing on the results

of the investigation

For Vietnamese linguistic researches, linguistic features have also been taken

into consideration in the study entitled: “Đặc điểm của tiêu đề văn bản trong thể

loại tin tức” by Tran Thi Thanh Thao (2009) which analyses features of

headings specifically in terms of structures, quotation, language use, word

choice, ect Another research by Tran Thi Thu Hien (2012) named “Đặc điểm

tiêu đề văn bản báo chí” identifies different kinds of text including journal

headings and the situation related to each headings respectively

However, there have been no studies on linguistic features of newspaper headlines in both English and Vietnamese online newspaper in terms of lexical and syntactic features This is the biggest encouragement for the study to be conducted

2.2.1 Lexical features

Lexicology, in its most general sense, is synonymous with vocabulary; and, in its technical sense, it deals with the analysis of words (Quirk, 1985) Under lexicology, the individual words such as nouns, verbs, articles, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, conjunctions, pronouns and prepositions will be analyzed in both English and Vietnamese headlines in order to determine the frequency of their occurrence Below is a short description of nouns and verbs which are considered the most important parts of speech

2.2.1.1 Nouns

The noun is a word that can occur as a subject or object of a verb or can be the object of a preposition An adjective can also modify a noun and used with determiners In traditional grammar, nouns are defined as a person, place or thing

 Proper nouns: are specific names of people, places, days, months, and other specific things (Williams, 2005)

Eng: US Calls Iran Plan to Surpass Uranium Stockpile Limit 'Nuclear

Blackmail' (17/6/2019)

Viet: Huawei thừa nhận lệnh cấm của Mỹ gây tổn hại nhiều hơn dự kiến

(17/6/2019)

(Huawei admits US’s ban do more harm than their expectation)

 Common nouns: signify a general class of words used in naming (Williams, 2005)

Eng: Thousands Wear Black, Rally to Demand Hong Kong Leader Goes

(16/6/2019)

Viet: Người biểu tình Hồng Kông yêu cầu lãnh đạo từ chức (16/6/2019)

(Hong Kong demonstrators demand leader’s resignation)

 Acronyms and abbreviations: Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of a fixed phrase or title They are also popular and often equally short-lived (Malmkjar, 1995) The abbreviation is a reduced version of words, phrase or sentence (Crystal, 1992)

Eng: Boeing CEO Admits Mistake in Handling Warning-System Problem

(16/6/2019)

Viet: ILO kêu gọi chấm dứt nạn lao động trẻ em (14/6/2019)

(ILO calls for an end to child labor)

(246 more Vietnamese people get caught in Taiwan for illegal work)

 Tense and aspects: In English, a verb carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect and refers to an action The verb is changed based on the time and person, the favorite tense is the present simple tense which indicate almost event of the past, present or future In Vietnamese, however, there is no verb change in tense It is marked by an adverb in order to convey an action which happens today, yesterday or tomorrow

Eng: Pentagon: New Photos Offer More Proof Iran Attacked Oil Tankers Last

Week (17/6/2019)

Viet: Lãnh đạo Hồng Kông phạm sai lầm gì khi đưa ra luật dẫn độ (17/6/2019)

(What mistake did Hong Kong leader make when proposing extradition law?)

2.2.1.3 Deletion in headlines

Deletion is one of the major features of newspaper headlines (Bell, 1991) Turner (1972:72) says: "Determiners and the verb 'to be' are almost universally omitted in headlines" For the sake of brevity and saving space, most closed words and some open words in headlines are often omitted or reduced to a minimum in headlines

For example:

Actress Jessica Biel Not Against Vaccinations, Just Against California Bill

(13/6/2019)

Debate Lineup Set at 20 Candidates; De Blasio and Bennet In (14/6/2019)

It can be seen from the above examples that the verb ‘be’ is omitted in English headline

In English headlines, the word “say” is usually replaced by a colon Normally, a colon is used to introduce lists or texts, give emphasis to a word, clarify composition titles and present dialogue The function of colon in terms of

‘decreasing cloneness’ can be described as the interdependence between two punctuation units is perceived lesser if separated by a colon Colon in headlines are also used to replace the attributive verb as it saves space The examples show how colon is used as substitute for assertive verb and to introduce a direct speech without quotation marks

Eng: Experts: LinkedIn Spy Used AI-Generated Face to Connect with Targets

According to Ban (2009: 32), syntax is a division of grammar which studies the ways to combine the elements of language conventionally from “words” upwards, and two internal levels of syntax are at phrases and sentences

In order to get an overall picture of the structure of English and Vietnamese headlines, a description of syntactic features of headlines including structural and functional headline types of the two languages will be introduced

2.2.2.1 Structural headline types

2.2.2.2 Sentential headlines

Sentential headlines are all headlines that have a regular sentence structure, i.e all headlines with a subject and a finite verb phrase which is characterized as a phrase "in which the first or only word is a finite verb, the rest of the verb phrase (if any) consisting of non-finite verbs" (Quirk, 1985:149) As far as sentence structure is concerned, there are two main types of sentence: simple and multiple sentences (Crystal, 2006:216)

 Simple sentences

As Leech (2006:104) explains, a simple sentence consists of just one independent clause Consistent with this rule, when a simple sentence is further analyzed, there is just one subject and one finite verb phrase These are the main elements but several others (e.g adverbials), which are obligatory, can be present in addition to the subject and verb Quirk (1985:204) distinguishes seven clause types The following table illustrates these types with the examples from the corpora:

Types English Vietnamese

S – V Campaign 2020: Who's

Holding On, Surging,

Nghi phạm vụ thảm sát Christchurch, New Zealand,

Fuming? (14/6/2019) không nhận tội (14/6/2019)

S – V – A Why Iowa is at Center of

Tuần duyên Mỹ muốn hợp tác

“lâu dài” với Cảnh sát biển VN (17/6/2019)

S – V – O –

A

Israel Renames Jewish Settlement for Trump (16/6/2019)

Tổng thống Mỹ ‘khoe’ máy bay F-35 với Tổng thống Ba Lan (16/6/2019)

Table 2.1: Types of simple sentences with examples from the corpora

 Multiple sentences:

Multiple sentences are described by Crystal (2006:226) as sentences with two or more clauses that are linked either by coordination or by subordination According to the type of the linking words, these constructions are classified as compound sentences and complex sentences

- Compound sentences: As Biber (1999:227) points out, "there are three major coordinators in English- and, or, and but" These coordinators do not only link clauses, but also words or phrases Sometimes, no coordinator is present and clauses are linked by a comma

For example:

Eng: Debate Lineup Set at 20 Candidates; De Blasio and Bennet In (14/6/2019) Viet: Trump đổi lập trường, nói ‘tất nhiên’ sẽ báo cáo việc nước ngoài can thiệp

bầu cử (15/6/2019)

(Trump Says he'd 'of Course' Tell FBI if he Gets Foreign Dirt)

As it was already said, compound sentences contain two or more clauses, and the important thing is that all clauses in such a sentence are at the same level In other words, they can stand on their own independently, which is not true for complex sentences

- Complex sentences: Individual clauses of a complex sentence are linked by subordinators, such as since, although or when, etc., and can be further classified

as the main clause and one or more subordinate clauses

their functions within the main clause as nominal, adverbial, comparative or relative Sometimes the subordinate clauses do not contain a finite verb phrase

(non-finite clauses e.g Teen helps fight human trafficking) or they lack a verb completely (verbless clauses- e.g Russia, China On the Prowl)

2.2.2.3 Non-sentential headlines

 Non – finite clauses:

Biber (1999:259, 262) states that non-finite clauses are usually dependent clauses, i.e they appear in a sentence together with a main clause In some circumstances, however, dependent clauses can be used separately

According to Leech (2006:71), these clauses as clauses which have a non-finite verb phrase and subdivides them into three categories: infinitive clauses (e.g

Erdogan: Russian S-400s to Arrive in Turkey in July, NTV Says – June 16th

2019), India Hikes Tariffs on US Goods Amid Deepening Trade Friction – June

16th 2019) and -ed clauses (e.g South Carolina Man Who Killed His Five

Children Sentenced to Death – June 13th 2019) All three types have a varied range of syntactic roles, which means that they can stand on positions of different clause elements, such as subject, direct object, or complement Moreover, apart from the three above mentioned types, Biber (1999:261) describes the fourth type of non-finite clauses – so-called verbless clauses For

these clauses, he says, ellipsis of the verb ‘be’ and the subject is typical (Debate

Lineup Set at 20 Candidates; De Blasio and Bennet In – June 14th 2019)

 Phrases:

″A phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words″ (Biber, 1999:38)

In other words, phrases are built up from words and they usually consist of a head and modifiers which are not necessarily present Under the head we

understand a word in the phrase ″around which the other components cluster and which dictates concord and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the phrase″ (Quirk, 1985:1238)

The head is essential for categorizing phrases The phrase types are following: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases (Biber, 1999:41)

For example:

Eng: What You Don’t Know about Glory (14/6/2019)

Viet: Khoảnh khắc voi con tập đi ở sở thú Bỉ (17/6/2019)

(The moment a little elephant learns to walk at a Belgium zoo)

Individual phrases function as clause elements, i.e they built up a clause Usually, the most important element of a clause is verb phrase which was focused previously as finite and non-finite So now a greater interest will be put

on noun phrases, as they often stand on their own in headlines

Noun phrases have a noun as the head which can be preceded by determiners and accompanied by modifiers- either premodifiers or postmodiefiers (Biber, 1999:41-42) Sometimes an adjective can be the head of a noun phrase Mardh, who devoted her time to the analysis of headlines, denotes the headlines consisting of a noun phrase and not containing a verb as nominal In order to examine syntactic variation within the noun phrases across the two languages, the structural types of nominal headlines were analyzed according to unmodification, premodification, postmodification and pre -post modification + Unmodification: Structures in which the head of noun phrase is not modified

by any other item are referred to as unmodified structures (Quirk, 1985)

+ Premodification: A premodifier is a modifier that precedes the word it modifies (Quirk, 1985)

+ Postmodification: A post modifier is a modifier or quantifier that follows the constituent it modifies (Quirk, 1985)

+ Pre-post Modifications: Structures which have both pre- and post-modifiers are referred to as pre-post modified headlines

2.2.2.4 Functional headline types

In terms of function, headlines types can be divided into four functional types: statements, questions, directives, and exclamations (Mardh, 1980; Quirk, 1985;

Mc Loughlin, 2000)

 Statements

In Quirk (1985:803) 's words, "statements are primarily used to convey information" It means that their primary purpose is to inform about something They should always include a subject which usually precedes a verb In other words, they have a declarative structure - "a structure which declares or makes something known" (Crystal, 2006:218) A statement headline describes a state

of affairs, actions, feelings or belief

Questions in speech may be indicated by placing the operator in front of the subject and by initial Wh-word

Example:

Eng: Campaign 2020: Who's Holding On, Surging, Fuming? (14/6/2019)

A common structure of a question, it means a verb-subject structure (E.g.: Is

Receiving Foreign ‘Oppo Research’ Legal? – 14/6/2019), is called interrogative

Also, a rising intonation may be a characteristic feature of questions In writing,

a question mark has such a function It may convert any structure into a question And on the other hand, as Leech (2006:106) points out, not all clauses with the interrogative structure must necessarily be questions, ex “Can you help

me?” is interrogative in structure but a command in function A question

headline is addressed to a reader or listener and asks for an expression of fact, opinion, belief, etc

 Directives

Directives are all sentences that have the imperative structure, i.e sentences with

no subject usually and with a verb in its base form Their function is to "instruct someone to do something" (Crystal, 2006:219) Usually directives are very simple sentences with the function to urge somebody to do or not to do something, and therefore it is not necessary to consider tense, modality or aspect

of the verb (Biber, 1999:254) Directive sentence, according to Hạo (1991), is the sentence that has illocutionary value, affects second person, and requires this person to make a unilateral or a co-operating action Directive sentence is also a mean to order, request, or require someone to do something When using directive sentence, the speaker expects that the hearer will obey

 Exclamations

As Crystal (2006:219) says, exclamations usually show impression and are often

just minor sentences, such as Gosh!, or Oh dear! However, their structure can

be that of a major sentence as well with the first element being how or what followed by a subject and a verb Sometimes their form is reduced and no verb

stand-With the more and more development of the Internet, online news has become popular thanks to mobile devices development Mobile app is the easiest way to read news for them: They are kept up to date with the latest articles using real-time notifications It makes them come back to the content which increases mobile retention Readers get a lot of variety and in-depth insights into the topics you really care about

According to Massey, B.L & Levy, M.R (1999), online newspapers have a large range of forms to present information, from an online edition of the printed newspaper, search engines to search for news topics of interest to news websites which enable the user to browse items organized in subject categories and sub-categories in given menus Most online newspapers do not have enumeration, though they do have chronology, and many maintain archives of back issues online

2.2.3.2 Online newspaper headlines

Because an online newspaper is also a self-contained, reusable, and refreshable version of a traditional newspaper that acquires and holds information electronically, online newspapers are often associated with an existing

newspaper in print The BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian or The Times

are examples of online newspapers in this case Online newspapers can be defined as “a newspaper existing online or separately or as a version of a printed periodical” Therefore, it can be hardly found any differences between traditional newspaper headlines and online newspaper headlines From this point, it can be said that all features of newspaper headlines are true to online newspaper

headlines

2.2.3.3 Definition of newspaper headlines

The headline is an essential element of a newspaper As Crystal (1987: 388) defines it, the headline is “one of the most distinctive features of a newspaper.”

In the Merriam Webster online, a headline is defined as “the head of a newspaper story or article usually printed in a large type and giving the gist of a story or article that follows.” The purpose of providing a view of the news story, however, is considered by some linguist as too narrow thus, they provide more functions and classifications of headlines Isani (2001: 81) considers headline as one of the most creative areas of journalistic writing and, in some aspects, comparable to poetry in that it borrows extensively from linguistic features generally associated with versification” as they are normally written in a sensational way to arouse the readers’ interest and curiosity by suing as few words as possible On the other hand, Danuta (1998: 13) defines it as a “unique

type of text as it has a range of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content and structure.”

2.2.3.4 Functions of newspaper headlines

Headlines serve various functions in a newspaper Smith (1999) lists 23 functions of headlines as cited in various journalism books Six functions are aimed to sell the story to the readers Ten functions aim to communicate the meaning or content of the story while the other seven serve graphic or display functions on the page Headlines also perform four basic functions according to Mallette (1990: 80 as cited in Abdulla and Salih, 2012) These functions include summarizing the news, grading the importance of stories, acting as clear elements in the design of a page and persuading the looker into becoming a reader This lead copy editors and headline writers Brown and Simpson (as cited

in Isani, 2011) to believe that headline writers should be the best writers at the newspaper

Fries (1987: 48) regards headlines as “part of the text but also as texts in their own right.” Therefore, headlines can be analyzed as an independent text type which can be divorced from its lead and story This made headline an interesting topic of most studies

The richness of headline’s genericity made a number of researchers to give their attention on headline both as literary and non-literary genre One of the most prominent contributors on this area is Swales (1990) who studied headline as a genre that acts as mediator between individual and institution in the academic setting His study, though concentrated on academic communication gave birth

to the extension of genre theories through his analysis of genre, speech community and discourse community His study influenced other researches

such as those of Herino and Isani (1994) and Breure (2001) which extend these theories in non-academic and non-professional domains Van Dijk (1998) attributes certain functions to headlines as cataphoric and informative His study which focuses on the summarizing role of headline later influenced studies on headline functionality such as those of Dor (2003) and Gattani (2005) For Dor (as cited in Isani 2011: 4), headlines are “the negotiators between stories and readers” and have four functions: to summarize, to highlight, to attract and to select Gattani (2005) on the other hand, articulates the broad macro-functions of headline – informative headline, indicative headline, and eye-catcher headline Develotee & Rechniewski (2001) claim that headlines possess linguistic features that expose social, cultural and national representation by giving examples of representations of French in the Australian press and Australians in the French press Taiwo (2007) classifies headlines into thematic and surface structures and studies the vocabulary and rhetorical devices used in 300 Nigerian newspapers

to identify the ideologies behind their construction Using Critical Discourse Analysis, Mahmood (2012) study headlines in Pakistan and conclude that headlines are representations of the editor’s ideologies regarding their political inclinations

Isani (2011: 82) affirms the abundance of research on newspaper headlines However, he asserts that there is a “relative dearth of attempts to define the object of the research.” As Ingrid Mardh (as cited in Isani, 2011: 82) puts forward “No unambiguous definition of headline is known to exist.” Despite Isani’s (2011) claim, a number of studies on this specific area are considered by the researcher very insightful to her study

Some attempts to establish newspaper headlines as a genre by identifying the features that characterize them was conducted by Allan Bell (1991) who analyzes the ‘distinctive telegraphic syntax’ of English newspapers Mardh and Van Dijk (as cited in Isani, 2011) also amply analyze and describe the distinctive linguistic features used in the linguistic culling of headlines Ingrid Mardh’s (1980) offers framework of the linguistic features of English newspapers which include the omission of articles, the omission of verbs and of auxiliaries, nominalisations, the frequent use of complex noun phrases in subject position, the use of short words, and the use of pun Mouillaud and Tétu (as

cited in Develotte and Rechniewski, 2001) analyze the headlines of Le Monde, a

French newspaper and claim that headlines possess features as the suppression

of spatial and particularly temporal markers, the use of the present tense of verb

as opposed to - or in place of - any other tenses, the replacement of verbs by nominalizations and the suppression of declarative verbs.”

J Morley distinguishes five main functions of newspaper headlines (Morley, 1998:31):

attract the reader’s attention

summarize the content of the article

indicate the writer’s attitude to the story

indicate the register of the article

indicate the focus of the article