English elliptical expressions in english brief discourses( phép tỉnh lược trong các mẫu tin văn tiếng anh)

List of figures and tables Figure 1.1 Types of context Figure 2.1 Structure of an English noun phrase Table 2.1 Ellipsis in headlines of EBNDs Table 2.2 Ellipsis in leads of EBNDs

vinh university

department of foreign Languages

===    ===

nguyÔn thÞ liÖu

English elliptical expressions

in English brief news discourses

(PhÐp t nh l-îc trong c¸c mÉu t n v¾n t Õng Anh)

graduation thesis

Field: discourse analysis

Vinh - 5/2008

=  = Acknowledgements

The thesis could be completed without the great support from my lectures, family, and friends.

First of all, I would like to express my deepest and special gratitude to my

supervisor, Le Thach Anh, M.A, for his readiness at all time to discuss the problems and

to give me useful advice and critical feedback for the thesis, without which the thesis would have still reminded uncompleted

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all of my teachers at the foreign language Department of Vinh University for their lectures on the area which enable me to gain a lot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge

Finally, my profound thanks go to my loved family and my good friends whose love, care, and help gave me essential energy and determination without which this thesis would have been impossibly completed

Vinh, May 2006

NguyÔn ThÞ LiÖu

Table of contents

Page

Acknowledgements i

Table of contents ii

List of figures and tables v

Abbreviations vi

Introduction 1

1 Rational of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Method of the study 3

5 Design of the study 4

Development 5

Chapter 1: Theoretical background 5

1.1 Introduction 5

1.2 What is discourse? 5

1.2.1 Discourse and text 5

1.2.2 Discourse and context 6

1.2.2.1 Concept of context 6

1.2.2.2 Context of situation 7

1.2.2.3 Discourse Vs text 8

1.3 Cohesion and coherence 9

1.3.1 What is cohesion? 9

1.3.2 Cohesion and coherence 10

1.4 Ellipsis as cohesion device 11

1.4.1 Definition of ellipsis 11

1.4.2 Types of ellipsis 12

1.4.2.1 Nominal ellipsis 12

1.4.2.2 Verbal ellipsis 15

1.4.2.2.1 Lexical ellipsis 16

1.4.2.2.2 Operator ellipsis 17

1.4.2.3 Clausal ellipsis 18

1.5 Summary 20

Chapter 2 English elliptical expressions in English brief news discourses 21

2.1 Introduction 21

2.2 An introduction to English press 21

2.2.1 What is press style? 21

2.2.2 Structure new stories in English 22

2.3 Ellipsis in separate parts of brief news discourses 24

2.3.1 Headline 24

2.3.2 Lead 25

2.3.3 Body 27

2.4 Types of ellipsis in English brief news discourses 30

2.4.1 Nominal ellipsis 30

2.4.1.1 Deictic 31

2.4.1.2 Numerative 33

2.4.1.3 Epithet 36

2.4.2 Verbal ellipsis 37

2.4.2.1 Lexical ellipsis 38

2.4.2.2 Operator ellipsis 39

2.5 Summary 41

Chapter 3: Data and findings 42

3.1 Introduction 42

3.2 Data discussion and Findings 42

3.3 The role of elliptical expressions in manifesting the generic structure and linguistic features of EBNDs 44

3.3.1 The generic structures 45

3.3.2 The linguistic features 47

3.4 Summary 49

Conclusion 50

1 Summary 50

2 Suggestion for further studies 51

References

List of figures and tables

Figure 1.1 Types of context

Figure 2.1 Structure of an English noun phrase

Table 2.1 Ellipsis in headlines of EBNDs

Table 2.2 Ellipsis in leads of EBNDs

Table 2.3 Ellipsis in parts of EBNDs

Table 2.4 Deictic in nominal ellipsis of EBNDs

Table 2.5 Numerative in nominal ellipsis of EBNDs

Table 2.6 Nominal ellipses in EBNDs

Table 2.7 Occurrences of ellipsis in verbal ellipsis

Table 2.8 Types of ellipsis in EBNDs

Abbreviations

EBND: English brief news discourse

IHT: International Herald Tribute

E.g: For example

Etc: et cetra

Vs: versus

Introduction

1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, English has become very popular and widely used all over the world It is regarded as a mean of international communication Most of

magazines, newspaper, and Internet sites are published, exchanged in English

In Vietnam, there are many newspapers as Vietnam news, Vietnam Economic Times Which are written in English Vietnamese people have many chances to approach foreign news materials and more domestics news materials have been written in English It is a reason why the demand of learning English has been developing noticeably Everyone not only learnt it to communicate face- to- face but also to comprehend a great written source of information

The second reason for conducting the present research originates from the fact that many sources of information are written in English Especially, in the modern life, because different reasons: works, jobs or demand people want seek in formations on the newspapers, Internet sites, etc Moreover newspaper has become one of the most popular and powerful means of communication and plays a displaceable part in man’s life but people h`ave a very little time for reading newspapers That is why brief news is one of the articles being read regularly In brief news, all aspects of social life briefly has mentioned quickly and informatively Thus, it is not need much time for readers to get information and it is clearly that, brief news in English attracts more readers than other types of news articles

Although brief news is always brief as mentioned above but in reality, how it can work with such a few word, we need to use ellipsis in English brief news, to understand a piece of brief news requires a study of the role of elliptical expression in manifesting the generic structure and linguistic features:

Beijing Journalist’s trial to start

A Hong Kong journalist who has been detained in mainland China for nearly 16 months on spying charges will face trial this week, according

to a Hong Kong - based human rights group and press reports

The information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said Monday that the trial of Ching Cheong, accused of spying for Taiwan, was scheduled to take place Tuesday in Beijing…

A.P

(IHT, August 15, 2006)

Look at this brief news, we can see that the headline ’journalist’s

trial to start’ seem to be the topic statement that helps reader to get the main

information of this brief news easily However, the Vietnamese readers do not always understand the information because of the language used in it The event is reported ‚journalist’s trial to start‛ It is no difficulty understanding

but the infinitive form of verb ’start’ should be interpreted in terms of the exact time Why the author can puts ’Beijing’ at the beginning of the article,

why the author can say ‚Human Right and Democracy said  Monday‛

(without using the preposition on) and why the author can say, ‚Spying for

Taiwan, was scheduled‛ (without using the Noun)

To know these using, we will have a deeply investigation into the English elliptical expression of English brief news discourse

2 Aims of the study

This study aims at investigating the discourse properties of English ellipsis in brief news, helping us improve a better understanding of English elliptical expressions and the role of these properties in English brief news,

With these aims, this study focuses on investigating

1 Types of ellipsis are used in English brief news

2 The role of elliptical expressions in manifesting the generic structure and linguistic features of EBNDs

3 Scope of the study

Within the scope of thesis, a full catalogue of elliptical expressions is of too great a subject to deal with We therefore focus on the written style rather than the spoken one of English press For the time and resource constraints as well as the limited size, analysis of some follows prominent points

First, the research deals with some types of elliptical expressions indicated by Halliday and Hasan (1976): Nominal, verbal, and clausal ellipsis and other types shown by different writers are out of the scope of the study

Second, the scope of this study is an analysis of English Ellipsis and the role of elliptical expressions in manifesting the generic structure and linguistic features of EBNDs The source of material is newspaper articles taken from International Herald Tribute-a world’s daily newspaper- published by the New York Time; and Vietnam News-the very popular and typical Vietnam newspaper written in English

4 Methods of the study

To achieve the above-mentioned aims, this research will be an integrated descriptive analytical one The following steps have been applied:

- Collecting from the written pieces of brief news discourse in English with the typical features of Ellipsis

- Finding the examples containing different types of Ellipsis

- Analyzing some typical examples of each type

- Reaching some conclusions and roles on the subject - matter investigation and accordingly giving necessary comments

Because of the limitation of a minor thesis, the study just investigates a random collection of many brief news discourses in various fields such as socio- politics, culture, sport, tourism, and society Etc

5 Design of the study

The research paper includes three main parts:

Introduction - deals with the rationale, aims, scope, method and design

of the thesis

Development - demonstrates on the content of the thesis, which

consists of three chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical background, an in- depth review of the relevant literature related to the issue under investigation Specifically, a review of theory related to ellipsis in EBNDs

Chapter 2: Deals with the general description of English press discourse, and provides an overview on ellipsis in English brief news

Chapter 3: Discussing the role of elliptical expressions in manifesting the generic structure and linguistic feature of EBNDs

Conclusion

Summaries of the finding and some suggestions for further research

1.2 What is discourse?

1.2.1 Discourse and text

There are many viewpoints on the two terms text and discourse The

borderline between them is very complex, which has been causing different ways of understanding theses terms

To some linguists, the two terms discourse and text can be

interchangeably used; they have been defined in different ways A discourse, according to Crystal (1992: 25) is ‚a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language large than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative

While Crystal (1992: 72) suggests: ‚a text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to all day discussion

in a committee‛

On the other hand, some linguists suppose that it is worth seeing the terms in different ways Widdowson (1984: 100) for instance, suggest that

Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intention made clear, its linguistic product is text

(Quoted in Le Thach Anh, 2006: 4)

In this thesis, the term text is used to refer to any written record

communicative event and regarded as the product of discourse, as done by Halliday and Hasan:

A text is unit of language in use It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or

a sentence; and it is not defined by its size, a text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of from but of meaning Thus, it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by realization, the coding of one symbolic system in another A text does not consist of sentences; it is realized by, or encoded in, sentence

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 2)

The notion by Numan (1993) seeing ‚discourse as stretch of language consisting of several sentences as being related in some ways, in terms of the ideas they share and in term of the jobs they perform within discourse‛ seems

to be the most acceptable

1.2.2 Discourse & context

1.2.2.1 Concept of context

It is obvious that, context is an important concept in discourse analysis David Numan (1995: 7) suggests a context and a classification of context a follows; ‚Context refers to the situation giving size to the discourse and within the discourse is embedded There are two different types of context‛

Types of context

Linguistic context

(The language that surrounds or

accompanies the piece of discourse

under analysis)

Non- linguistic (Or experiential context types of communicative event, topic, purpose, setting, participants and relationship between them, background knowledge and assumption underlying the event)

Figure 1.1 Types of context

The first type of context is linguistic context The linguistic context is the language that surrounds or accompanies piece of discourse under analysis The second of these is non- linguistic context or experiential context within which the discourse takes play place include the types of communicative event (For example, joke, story, lecture, greeting, conversation); the topic, the purpose of the events; the setting, including location, time of day, season of year and physical aspects of the situation (for example, size of room, arrangement of furniture); the participants and the relationships between them; and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event

1.2.2.2 Context of situation

When responding to a passage or speech of writing, the reader or listener uses notionally linguistic clues, but also situation ones Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that:

Linguistically, he responds to specific features, which bind the passage together The pattern of connection, independent of structure that we are referring to as cohesion Situationally,, he takes into account all he knows of the environment: what is going on, what part the language is playing, and who are involved

Situation, which refers to all those extra- linguistic factors, for the same reason, plays a very important role in the interpretation of sentences A sentence may have more than one meaning if it is produced in different situations And the importance of context toward discourse interpretation is apparently undeniable, as Cook (1989: 10) asserts: ‚there are good arguments for limiting the field of study to make it manageable, but it is also true to say that the answer to question of what gives discourse its unity may be

impossible to give without considering the world at large; the context‛

For all the facts above, linguistic and non- linguistic contexts are taken into account in this study It is because Ellipsis as a cohesion device and as an actual use of lexis is obviously concerned with linguistic factors but the interpretation of that use needs non- linguistic features of the discourse

1.2.2.3 Discourse Vs text

It is clear that, there is still disagreement about the meaning of these

two terms text and discourse So far, the terms text and discourse have been

used as though they are synonyms Consider the following statement, which have been extracted from a number of different sources; Crystal (1992: 25, 72) suggests that; ‚A discourse, a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language large than a sentences often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative‛ In addition ‚A text; is a piece of natural accruing spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purpose of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a porter‛

On the other hand, acclamation of some linguists are also similar to Widdowson’s viewpoint, i.e., discourse is language in action (or interaction) while a text is the written record of that interaction It is obvious that this view sees discourse as bringing together language, the individually producing the language and the context within which the language is used

In this thesis, we support the distinction indicated by Salkie (1993) ‚the

term text is used to refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in

context The event itself can be oral language (a sermon, a casual conversation, a shopping transaction) or written language (a poem, a newspaper advertisement, a wall porter, etc.)

1.3 Cohesion and coherence

1.3.1 What is cohesion?

The concept of cohesion is tightly connected with discourse Cohesion

is easy to recognize but the way of seeing it is not similar among researchers:

English offers a limited a set opinion for creating links between the

clauses and sentences of a text, otherwise known as cohesion Here is a text

displaying cohesive features

If you would like to give someone the phone for Christmas, there are plenty

to choose from whichever you go for, if it is to be used on the BT (British Telecom) network, make sure it is approved- look for the label with a green circle to confirm this Phones labeled with a red triangle are prohibited

The underlined items are all interpretable in relation to items in previous sentences These are features of grammatical cohesion, but there are

lexical clues too go for is a synonym of choose and there is lexical repetition

of phone, and of label: Halliday and Hasan (1976: 4) in their long study of cohesion in English define cohesion as ‚a semantic one it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and that define it as a text‛

In other words, two elements the presupposing and the presupposed are potentially integrated into a text Halliday point out: ‚cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another (1976: 4)

Consequently, Halliday suggests two different types of cohesion: grammatical and lexical Which can be illustrated by the graph as follows?

Lexical cohesion Collocation

(Halliday & Hasan, 1976)

1.3.2 Cohesion and coherence

It is necessary to first confirm that cohesion as of great significance to coherence, but not coherence itself Nunam (1993: 116) clearly indicates the difference between cohesion and coherence

Cohesion is the extent to which discourse is perceived to hang together rather than a set of unrelated sentence or utterances and cohesion is formal links showing the relationship among clause and among sentences in discourse

Coherence therefore can be considered as the feeling that the text hangs together and that it makes sense Cohesion is something invisible and attributed to the creation of the addressee’s mind, very often with the assistance serves as signals, guides or clues to coherence Cohesion itself does not guarantee coherence sometimes can be realized without any recourse to cohesion The following dialogue may provide an illustration

A: Shall we go out for a cup of coffee?

B: My friend is waiting for me

The response seems unrelated to the former sentence but it becomes coherent if A knows the implication that because B is busy, i.e His friend is going to shopping

The sentences ‚Clare loves potatoes She was born in Ireland‛ are cohesive (Clare- She), but are only coherent if one already knows the stereotype ethnic association between being Irish and loving potatoes, or is prepared to assumed a cause- effect relationship between the two sentences Cohesion is therefore only part of coherence in reading and writing, and indeed in spoken language too, for the same processes operate there

In short, cohesion is only a guide to coherence Coherence is something created by the act of reading the text Coherence is the feeling that a text hangs together, that it makes sense, and is not just a jumble of sentences, coherence is embodied by a system of cohesion devices and cohesion is mainly used to embody coherence but does not guarantee coherence

We can summarize the distinction between cohesion and coherence through the following table

Is in the text

Grammatical/ lexical links

Clues/ signals/ guide to coherence

Is in the reader/ listener’s mind The feeling that the text makes sense The reader/ has to create coherence

Table 1.1 Cohesion and Coherence

1.4 Ellipsis as cohesion device

1.4.1 Definition of ellipsis

Ellipsis is described as a form of substitution in which the original item

is replaced by zero In other words, ellipsis means the omission of a word or words from a complete structure Ellipsis is commonly used in spoken language to avoid needless repetition and redundancy We also use ellipsis in

written language For better understanding of ellipsis, we shall look at its definition by notable linguists

According to Morley (1985: 11; 78)

Linguistic context Ellipsis is the term applied to denote the lack of repletion

of one or more elements, which have been mentioned in a previous part of the discourse Ellipted elements are thus deemed to be recoverable by the hearer from the preceding

Mc Marthy (1991: 43) defined ellipsis as the omission of elements normally required by the grammar which the speaker or writer assumes are obvious from the context and therefore need not to be raised

Quirk et al (1972: 536-537) defined:

Ellipsis is purely a surface phenomenon…in a strict sense of ellipsis, words are ellipted only if they are uniquely recoverable, there is no doubt as to what words are to be supplied and it is possible to add the recovered words

to the sentence…ellipsis is most commonly an abbreviating devices that reduces redundancy

Halliday and Hasan (1976:142) defined as ‚something left unsaid‛ There is no implication here what is unsaid is not understood; on the contrary,

‚unsaid‛ implies ‚but understood nevertheless‛

In short, linguistic may use different words to define ellipsis, and though not exactly the same in details, have much in common but the points they all agree with is that ellipsis is the omission of a word or words a structure, text or situation Ellipsis is an effective device to avoid repetition and redundancy In brief, ellipsis is a type of formal cohesive device and is considered a major characteristic that makes discourse coherent

1.4.2 Types of ellipsis

1.4.2.1 Nominal ellipsis

There are the same ideas in terms of nominal group by different authors studying syntax: according to Quirk et al (1972) is the nominal group as

consisting of three different components The head, the pre-modification and the post modification in the following order

Pre-modifier The head Post modifier

Besides Leech and Svartvik (1975) view the structure of noun phrase is

that of a Head Noun with determiner and pre-modifier preceding it and modifier following it This structure is shown as:

post-Determiner pre-modifier Head noun post-modifier

Halliday and Hasan (1976: 145) view the structure of the nominal group

is nearly the same The structure of a nominal group consists of a head with optional modification The modifying elements include some that precede the head (pre-modifier) and some that follow (post-modifier) Take the example below to clearly understand the structure of nominal group

Pre-modifier The head post-modifier

Those two little pretty girls with nice shoes

Pre-modifier head post-modifier

The modifier, in general can consist of the elements Deictic, Numerative, Epithet Classifier and Qualifier In the above example, these elements are represented ‚those ‚little‛ ‚pretty‛ and ‚with nice shoes‛ respectively The Deictic is normally a determiner, the Numerative a numeral

or other Quantifier, the Epithet an Adjective, the Classifier a noun, and the Qualifier a relative clause or prepositional referred to as the Thing Most elements may occur more than once, and the tendency for this to happen increases as one moves towards the latter elements of the structure The function of the head is normally served by the common noun, proper noun or

pronoun expressing the thing Personal pronouns are reference items Proper nouns designate individuals; they may be accompanied by descriptive modifiers Common nouns designate classes They are often further specified, and this is the function of the element Deictic, Numerative, Epithet and Classifier In certain circumstances the common noun may be omitted and the function of head taken on by one of these other elements This is what is called nominal group

Take the example below to clearly understand the structure of nominal group

Those two little pretty girls with nice shoes

D N R C H Q

Nominal ellipsis, thus, involves the upgrading a word function as deictic, numerative, epithet or classifier from the status of modifier to the status of head

E.g., she wore the black shirt, but the black didn't suit her

The black is an epithet, functioning as a head although it is modifier to

the head Shirt in the first clause

Other example:

A: Do you want a new car?

B: No, I'll have old Old in the second occurrence is an epithet and normally acts as modifier It upgraded to function as head

It is clear that an elliptical nominal group requires that there should be available from some source of the information necessary for filling it out This source of the information is often a preceding nominal group We can conclude that a nominal group is elliptical presupposes cohesion, and it is used in English brief news discourses

1.4.2.2 Verbal ellipsis

The same the nominal group, the verbal group also plays an important part in English sentences, especial in English brief news According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:167) "by verbal ellipsis we mean ellipsis within the verbal group"

For example:

A Have you been swimming? Yes, I have

B What have you been going? Swimming

The two verbal groups in the answer have (in yes I have) in (a) and

swimming in (b), are both instance of verbal ellipsis Both can be said to

"stand for" have been swimming, and there is no possibility of "filling out" with any other items So, for example, swimming in (b) could not be interpreted as I will be swimming or they are swimming; and it could, furthermore, be replaced by I have been swimming, since as in all types of

ellipsis, the full from and elliptical one are both possible

In Halliday and Hasan's point in the verbal group, there is only one lexical element, and the whole of the rest of the verbal group expresses systemic selections, choices of an either or type Which are obligatory for all verbal groups? The principal systems are:

(1) Finiteness: finite or non- finite

If finite: indicative or imperative

If indicative: modal or non- modal (2) Polarity: Positive or negative, and marked or unmarked (3) Voice: active or passive

(4) Tense: past, present, or future (recursively)

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 107)

There is one other system, that of "contrast: contrastive or non- contrastive" but sometimes it also give partial expression in the written

language by means of italics or other forms of typographical prominence On the other hand, the words go to make up any non-elliptical verbal group, such

as have been swimming in (b) above, and express all the features that have

been selected

Being able to give a theoretical definition but it seems not be easy to recognize whether a verbal group does not present its meaning indirect and obvious way With any verbal group consists of auxiliary as operator and therefore there are two types of verbal ellipsis: lexical ellipsis in which the lexical verb is missing from the verbal group and operator ellipsis, which involves the omission of operator

1.4.2.2.1 Lexical ellipsis

We can recognize that a particular verbal group is elliptical simply by inspecting its form Let us consider the following example in a conversation

It can or it can not

Look at this sentence; we know that the verbal items can and can not must be elliptical The words can is a verbal operator expressing finite,

indicative, modal and has no other functions, and can not be lexical verb so that is sufficient evidence to show that they are elliptical

Lexical ellipsis is divided in two main types: partial lexical ellipsis and total lexical ellipsis Partial lexical ellipsis is the ellipsis of only lexical verb among verbal group's element: For example:

Lan will come London and Minh might too

Here, the lexical verb "come" is omitted

The case that there may be lexical verbal operators: going to, about to,

used to, is to and ought to A verbal group in which "to" occurs finally, not

followed by a lexical item is bound to be elliptical For example:

A: Should I go with him now?

B: you ought to

This applies also to a verbal group consisting only of the word "to", as a marker of the infinitive: to see, to have been

* She finally decided to go with him

* She has wanted to (go with him) for a long time

Total lexical ellipsis means that all items in verbal group are omitted except the first operator, it always involves in the omission of the last word, which is the lexical verb and it may leave only the first word For example:

They could have been delayed by the snow Yes, they could have been

Could

(Advanced grammar in use: 160)

It is very clear example of total lexical ellipsis provided by question tags All of them have maximum lexical ellipsis and presuppose all the features of the relevant verbal group

In summary, lexical ellipsis is the omission of the lexical verb in the verbal group However, there are some cases that cause ambiguity such as "be, have, and do" because they are both lexical verbs and operators Besides, "do"

is also the verbal substitute However, we can recognize whether they are elliptical or not by considering the presupposed clause

1.4.2.2.2 Operator ellipsis

There is other type of verbal ellipsis that is ellipsis ‚from the left‛ We shall refer to this as ‚operator ellipsis‛ Operator ellipsis means only the omission of operators, the rest of the verbal group remains In operator ellipsis, the subject also is always omitted from the clause; it must be presupposed For example:

He has been playing and (has been) doing his homework for 4hours

In this sentence, the modal verb ‚has been” and subject ‚he‛ has been

omitted Within the sentence, one type of operator ellipsis, which is very

frequent, will not concern us here, since it does not contribute to cohesion: this is operator ellipsis, in the context of coordination

Operator ellipsis, when it occurs across sentences, is found mainly in very closely bounded sequences such as question and answer in which predication either supplies the answer or repudiates the verb in the question, as

in: Has she been crying? - No, laughing

Moreover, in most instances of operator ellipsis, every item is presupposed but the lexical verb Occasionally when the choice of the voice (active or passive) is being repudiated, in which case if the elliptical group is passive, is part of the realization of the selection of passive

For example:

What have you been doing?

(I’ m) being chased by a dog

(Halliday and Hasan: 1976: 175)

In short, lexical ellipsis and operator ellipsis are two components of verbal ellipsis, when there is the omission of lexical verb in the verbal group,

it is called lexical ellipsis and when the operator of the verbal group is omitted, it is operator ellipsis

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 197), the clausal in English has a two - part structure consisting of modal element plus propositional element

Bob is going to interview some candidates this morning

(Modal element) (Propositional element)

The modal element, which embodies the speech function of the clause

It consists in turn of the subject plus the finite element in the verbal group The propositional element consists of the remainder of the verbal group plus any complements or adjuncts that may be present

As we have mentioned above, there are two types: lexical and operator ellipsis in verbal ellipsis However, both type of verbal ellipsis also involve ellipsis that is external to the verb itself, affecting other elements in the structure of the clause The clause structurally consists of two parts: modal and propositional corresponding to operator and the lexical verb in the verbal group Usually, modal ellipsis is closely associated with operator ellipsis and propositional ellipsis with lexical ellipsis

For example:

A Are they writing? No, reading (Modal ellipsis; operator ellipsis) The missing element which in this example are ‚they are‛ (the modal element which entails the operator ‚are‛)

B You look good, Rock- Do I really?

(Propositional ellipsis; lexical ellipsis)

In this case, the missing elements are ‚look good‛ (the propositional elementwhich entails the lexical verb ‚look‛)

Modal ellipsis sometimes does not involve operator ellipsis Let us consider the following example

‚Who’s Cavilleri? Asked one of the footballers‛

‚Jenny Cavilleri Studies music Plays the piano with the music group‛

(Segal; 1993: 23)

Only the subject ‚she‛ is omitted before the verbs ‚studies‛ and ‚plays‛

In brief, modal ellipsis is associated with a context where is no choice

of wood in the clausal- mood, the choice of declarative, interrogative, imperative and their subcategories, is the realization of speech function and is pressed by the modal element In other words, modal ellipsis occurs in response to Wh-question asking On the other hand, prepositional ellipsis is associated with those instances where the mood and the polarity are the

principal components of the message: typically, responses to statements and yes/ no question, where a reference item presupposes the subject

Sometimes, the direct response is not only clausal ellipsis but also ellipsis within the group This takes place under the condition of expansion

1.5 Summary

This chapter has given an overview of some notions associated with discourse studies There are many different views of discourse and text Some linguists give a clear distinction between the two terms but others claim that they can be used interchangeably To make a clearly notion between text and discourse, cohesion and coherence is sometimes impossible Moreover, we have presented an introduction to ellipsis There are many types of ellipsis such as nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis, clausal ellipsis, etc

Chapter 2 English elliptical expressions in English

brief news discourses

2.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, we have mentioned the theoretical background, types of ellipsis This chapter will deal with some typical structures of the English press We will look at the English brief news to find ellipsis in separate parts as Headline, Lead and Body We will give a survey of the average occurrences of ellipsis in English brief news: Nominal ellipsis, Verbal ellipsis and Clausal ellipsis in the second part of this chapter

2.2 An introduction to English press

2.2.1 What is press style?

The press style is one of the functional styles, used everyday in newspapers, magazines It is used to carry out the informing and influencing function

In case of there is not enough condition for printing, it has handwriting newspapers and leaflets but in the modern life, we use term press which consists of printing press, oral press with the term writing channel, oral channel and image channel

As we know, the press style based mainly on the non- artistic writing model In addition to the press style may widely-include the artistic writing model So the personality of the writer is very important

Write about travel in Indonesia in Viet Nam News newspaper, writer Nguyen Nhu Quynh has the article named Indonesia ready for tourists’ return

Sumatra is one of the biggest islands in Indonesia Endowed with beautiful natural areas such as lakes, waterfalls and rain forests, it is home to many ethnic groups, which help build the distinct and diverse cultures from place

to place West Sumatra was our first stop All the places I went to and all the people I met gave me a feeling of prosperity and comfort The Hindu - style architecture - the horn - shaped roofs of the beautiful houses nestled in the coconut groves - was the most impressive aspect

(Indonesia ready for tourists’ return, Viet Nam News, February 19, 2006)

2.2.2 News stories structure in English press

According to Tiersky and Chernoff (1993:48): News stories, of which brief news is one sub- style is a concept widely used by most pressmen and press researchers to refer to a type of news in which the reporters usually inform the readers only about the facts without overtly expressing their own opinions

There are three parts in a news story: the headline, lead and body The

”headline” means in which the main idea The lead or opening paragraph

which repeats the main idea in more detail, and the body or the rest of the

story where full details and quotes from the people involved are added This organization is often applied in brief new discourses

The following example we will see clearly

Headline 23 on Asian Cargo ship rescued near Aleutians

Lead Twenty - three crew members trapped on an Asian Cargo

ship talking on water south of the Aleutian Islands have rescued Body The rescue operation, involving two National Guard

helicopters, was conducted in ‚very challenging weather‛ Said Master Sergeant Sal Provenzano of the Alaska rescue Coordination Center