C. Newspaper style

N e w s paper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing standing apart from other forms.English newspaper writing dates from the 17th century.

It is newspaperprinted matter that performs the function of informing the reader and providing him with an evaluation of the information published that can be regarded as belonging to newspaper style.

Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

a) Special political and economic terms, e. g. Socialism, constitution, president, apartheid, by-election, General Assembly, gross output, per capita production.

b) Non-term political vocabulary, e. g. public, people, progressive, nation-wide, unity, peace, A characteristic feature of political vocabulary is that the border line between terms and non-terms is less distinct than in the vocabulary of other special fields. The semantic structure of some words comprises both terms and non-terms, e. g. nation, crisis, agreement, member, representative, leader.

c) Newspaper cliches, i. e. stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases familiar to the readert e. g. vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger of war, to escalate a war, war hysteria, overwhelming majority, amid stormy applause. Cliches more than anything else reflect the traditional manner of expression in newspaper writing.

d) Abbreviations. News items, press^ reports and headlines abound in abbreviations of various kinds. Among them abbreviated terms— names of organizations, public and state bodies, political associations, industrial and other companies, various offices, etc.—known by their initials are very common, e.g. UNO (t/nited Nations Organization), TUG (Trades Union Congress), NATO, WHO, etc.

e) Neologisms. (e.g. lunik, a splash-down (the act of bringing a spacecraft to a water surface), a teach-in (a form of campaigning through heated political discussion), backlash or white backlash (a violent reaction of American racists to the Negroes' struggle for civil rights), frontlash (a vigorous antiracist movement), stop-go policies (contradictory, inde­cisive and inefficient policies).

To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to analyse the following basic newspaper features:

1) brief news items,

2) advertisements and announcements,

3) the headline,

4) the editorial.