concise, compact and active news language © m. grazia busà 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Concise, Compact and Active News Language
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
The kiss and tell principle
The essence of good journalism is expressed in the formula: Keep It Short and Simple and tell the story:● Simple and concise language
● Native English vocabulary
● Tendency to avoid complex sentences with subordinate clauses
For print papers, conciseness helps to reduce production costs
Online, concise news is more appealing
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Style of news
Conciseness is at the basis of a news style that:● packs as much information as possible into as short a text
as possible
● favours nominal structures over verbal structures
● prevents major distortions if text is cut from the bottom up
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
A highly lexical language
Lexical density: nominal groups prevail over verbs
Characterized by:
● Complex noun groups
● Nominalizations
Heavy cognitive load © M. Grazia Busà 2013
Nominalizations
Transform verbs (and adjectives) into nouns
Actions/events are described as entities (i.e., things or concepts) ● Actions/events become decontextualized and abstract
e.g., Italy is withdrawing The Italian withdrawal
Can occur in all sentence positions (i.e., verb, subject, a direct or indirect object, etc.) ● Information can be moved around in the sentence for
style, emphasis, etc.
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Examples
• We donated to charity. This made us happy
• The problem is complex and needs to be solved
• He writes wonderfully. I like it
• Our charity donation made us happy
• The complexity of the problem needs a solution
• I like his wonderful writing
fewer wordsfewer clauses
more abstractmore complex© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Complex noun groups
Strings of two, three, and sometimes more, words
Consist of a head noun, optionally preceded by a determiner, adverbs, adjectives and other nouns
May result from nominalizations
Typical of written English
Exploited particularly in portable electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
How do you work out their meaning?
The head is the very last word in the group
The meaning can be worked out by moving backwards from the head
Example:China coal mine blast death toll jumps to 87
(AP, November 23, 2009)
The toll of death in the blast at the coal mine (mine of coal) in China
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Other examples
Japanese catwalk model robot Flesh-and-blood fashion model A slightly manga-inspired human face Humanoid research leader Shuji Kajita Her sound recognition sensors
(www.telegraph.co.uk, March 16, 2009)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Plain language ...
Avoids words that carry little meaning
Favours synthetic over wordy expressions
Prefers familiar to less familiar words, such as:● Slang
● e.g., bad instead of ‘good’; awesome for ‘great’; dope for ‘drug’
● Jargon: the specialized language of a professional group, often meaningless to outsiders
● e.g., in basketball, pole for ‘bat’; hard cheese for ‘fastball’; cork for ‘hit’
● Words of French or Latin origin● e.g., accommodate for ‘put up’
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Avoiding words that carry little meaning
betterworse
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Using synthetic expressions
worse better
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Preferring native to Latinate words
worse better
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
The passive voice
Form:• A does B B is done [by A]
(active) (passive)
The subject is the one who performs the action
The subject is the person or thing affected by the action
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
One of the attendees raised a question
A question was raised by one of the attendees
A suspected suicide bomber killed three men
Three men were killed by a suspected suicide bomber
Examples
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Active vs passive voice
The active voiceReflects the way people think and process information
● More direct and easier to understand
The passive voiceTypical of written stylesSentences are more difficult to process logically than active sentences
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Uses of the passive voice
The performer of the action is:
Unknown or irrelevant:● A car was broken into last night on Laurel Road
● Office mail is now delivered
Purposely left out:● A mistake was made [instead of]
● The government made a mistake
Moved to sentence-initial position for emphasis or stylistic reasons:
● The student was arrested [instead of]
● FBI agents apprehended a 21-year-old art student© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Subject thematization
Involves focusing attention onto or away from:● the performer (agent) of the action ● the person/entity (affected) undergoing the action or
process expressed by the verb ● the participant who experiences an emotion or is the
carrier of a property (actor)
Formalized as the grammatical subject in a sentence
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Action verbs
Express actions are divided into:
● Transitive verbs: involve an Agent and an Affectede.g.: Robber kills NYC jewellery store worker
(www.msnbc.msn.com, January 27, 2010)
● Intransitive verbs: only one participant is directly involved in the process. No Affected is involved
e.g.: Al Ahly’s dream run continues at Club World Cup(http://edition.cnn.com, December 9, 2012)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
About transitive action verbs
Subject is linked directly and unambiguously to action● attribute direct responsibility for actions to subjects
May be used to imply blame: e.g. Police in California arrest man in friend’s gun death
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com, October 29, 2012)
Police in California arrest man in friend’s gun death (Daily Mail Online, August 14, 2012)
Using an inanimate subject depersonalizes the process and creates an indirect link between action and performer:
● Bomb rocks Damascus as peace envoy meets with Assad(www.latimes.com, October 21, 2012)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
About intransitive verbs
Represent events as if they had no external cause bringing them about
Can be used to avoid direct references to the agency of the action: e.g.:
● Terror leaders die as prison revolt is crushed by police(The Times, March 16, 2005)
● Man dies as violence breaks out at Greek anti-austerity demonstration (http://independent.co.uk, October 23, 2012)
● Arctic sea ice vanishes – and the oil rigs move in(http://science.time.com, September 11, 2012)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Relational verbs
Express states of ‘being’ or ‘having’
Set up relationships between one thing and another
Used to present qualities or attributes of people and objects● Verbs like be, show, represent, mean, reveal make
sentences difficult to contest:● Qatar ruler’s visit is major boost for Hamas
(http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk, October 23, 2012)
● China manufacturing shows signs of recovery (The West Australian, October 24, 2012)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
How can syntax be used to convey a different angle in news reporting?
Compare the following headlines + leads from two stories dated March 25, 2008
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Two killed at pro Tibet rally in China
(the Guardian online, March 25, 2008)
Compare ...
Focus on the victims
PASSIVE VOICE
The author of the action is not mentioned (implication: not
known or not relevant)
Victims are unspecified
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
Paramilitaries open fire on hundreds of monks and nuns at Tibet rally
The Times online, March 25, 2008
Compare …
Focus on the author of the action
ACTIVE VOICE Verb choice is
highly connotated
Victims are specified (as implicitly powerless)
© M. Grazia Busà 2013
A police officer and a Tibetan monk were killed in Sichuan province, southern China, it was reported today, after another Tibetan independence demonstration turned violent.
(the Guardian)
How is this reflected in the texts?
Victims are on both sides; demonstration is blamed for violence
Paramilitary police opened fire on hundreds of monks, nuns and Tibetans who tried to march on a local government office in western China yesterday to demand the return of the Dalai Lama.
(The Times online)
Victims on one side only; police are blamed for violence
© M. Grazia Busà 2013