On Stylistic Features of English Sports News体育新闻英语的文体特征研究

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1、毕业论文论 文 题 目 ：体育新闻英语的文体特征 作者所在系部： 外 语 系 作者所在专业： 英 语 作者所在班级： 作 者 姓 名 ： 作 者 学 号 ： 指导教师姓名： 完 成 时 间 ： 2013年6月 北华航天工业学院教务处制On Stylistic Features of English Sports Newsby Thesis Advisor: Submitted to the B.A. Committee in partial fulfillment of The requirements of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Fore

2、ign Languages Department of North China Institute of Aerospace and Engineering. 摘 要作为一种社会文明的标志，体育已经成为我们社会和文化生活中不可缺少的一部分。同时，体育新闻也越来越引起广泛的关注。然而对体育新闻语言的研究却很有限。以往的研究多是将新闻英语作为一个整体来进行分析，而体育新闻只是其中的一部分，因此在研究结果中出现了一些差异。本文认为新闻英语不是单一的，而是一个由不同新闻材料特点合成的语类，包括不同次语类，所以对其语言特点的归纳需给予充分描写。本文将基于现代文体学的理论，从不同的语言问题特征出发，对英语

3、体育新闻做一个全面的分析。运用普通的文体学分析方法对新闻中的词汇、句子结构和语义层面进行分析。使用定性和定量的方法对混淆次做科学分析。通过以上研究分析报告可以得出结论：体育新闻报道在词汇、句子结构和语义层面都有其独特的文体特征。使体育新闻语言更直观、客观、丰富、易于理解的吸引潜在的读者。关键词：体育新闻 新闻英语 文体特征Abstract Sport is a sign of social civilization and becomes an indispensable part of our social and cultural life now. Therefore, sports n

4、ews are getting more and more attention. However, only little research has been carried out to analyze its stylistic features. In previous studies, scholars mainly regard the journalistic English as a whole entity; hence some differences appear in their results. In this thesis, it is argued that jou

5、rnalistic English is not onefold, but a composite of various kinds of news, which includes different sub-varieties. Based on the theories of modern stylistics, this thesis attempts to limit the scope to the analysis of English sports news report and to do an overall analysis of sports news reports f

6、rom different level in linguistics stylistic features. I would use qualitative and quantitative methods to do a scientific analysis on confusing words. Based on the above research, we can safely draw the conclusion that sports news reported in words, sentence structure and semantic level with its un

7、ique prominent stylistic features. All these features make sports news language more objective, more impersonal, more informative, and more comprehensible to attract the potential readers. Key words: Sports news, News English, Stylistic featureiiContents Abstract in Chinese错误！未定义书签。AbstractiiIntrodu

8、ction1Chapter1: Theories of Sports News2 1.1 Definition of Sports News21.2 Functions of Sports News21.3 Types of Sports News31.4 Structure of Sports News4Chapter2: Variety5 2.1 Definition of Variety5 2.2 News English as a Variety6 2.3 English Sports News as a Sub-variety7Chapter 3: Stylistic Feature

9、s of English Sports News8 3.1 Graphitic Features8 3.2 Lexical Features8 3.3 Grammatical Features9 3.4 Semantic Features10 3.5 Sentence Features11Conclusion13Acknowledgements14Bibliography15On Stylistic Features of English Sports NewsIntroduction Sports play an important role in social and cultural l

10、ife of human society. With the development of society and technology, sports journalism and newspapers have changed in very remarkable ways and what was once fun and games at court is now much more than that. The days of reporters and editors who served as cheerleaders for the home team are gone. We

11、 know that sports journalism has been maturing since the final decade of the 20th century. It is adjusting and changing relations and standards involving sports and society (Bruce Garrison,1993). Today, sports fills more available time on television and has become a major selling point for many comp

12、rehensive newspaper or daily papers and the Internet. People are exposed to sports news more often than before.However, linguistic study on English sports news has not been paid enough attention and few works on systematic and comprehensive analysis of its linguistic features could be found in the l

13、inguistic field. Sports news reporting is no longer a simple list of scores and results. The contemporary news reports focus not only on the result or the scores of the match but also on many things other than the competition itself. By means of language use, it reflects, ideas, beliefs, values and

14、assumptions of the society as well as those of the news reporters. From what I have mentioned, I think there are three problems in journalistic English for sports. The first one is that the research scope of the news is mainly confined to news report in newspaper, not mentioned in editorial and feat

15、ure. So the research breadth is not wide enough. The second one is the research deepness is not profound enough. Though many scholars pointed out news words could attract the readers, they did not study enough about the reason of it. The third one is that it does not understand enough in dealing wit

16、h the relation between journalism English for sports and other subject. This thesis will be divided into three chapters based on the theory of modern stylistics. We will discuss the stylistic feature of sports news at the lexical, grammatical and semantic levels. From what is discussed can get the c

17、onclusion.Chapter 1: Theories of Sports News 1.1 Definition of Sports News According to Cambridge Dictionary of American English, “News is something told as having just happened or information about something that is just happening or will soon happen.”(Liu Shisheng, 2006) And the best news has the

18、greatest interest of the greatest number. As John Bogart, the director of interviewing department in The New York Sun, wrote in 1880, “When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news.”(Mencher, 1987)Sports report is one of the sub-varieties of journalistic English. T

19、he sports language is not as formal as economic and political language. The main function of sports news is to report sports news, but on account of different moods and intentions in contrast to other news reports. Sports report mainly serves to meet the sports enthusiasts interests in certain news

20、items, so it may not be as serious as political news. Sports report covers a wide range, including football, basketball, swimming, tennis, boxing, track and field, cricket, etc. It involves report of sports events, sports environments, exclusive interviews with the athletes and even the anecdotes an

21、d gossips about the sports participants.All the large-scale newspaper agencies, broadcasting stations and TV stations have their own independent sports departments or columns. With so much competition, of course it is tougher to get the attention of a reader with so much other material available for

22、 them to read. Thats why sports reporters are working so much on their products for the contemporary sports fans. Sportswriters have to report and edit diverse competing activities and broaden the appealing of their product to attract more readers at different levels.At the same time, sportswriters

23、are also becoming less and less event oriented and more and more non-event, or process oriented in their reporting. Their stories become more insightful and interpretative, and the emphasis is given less on the results and more on why these results occurred. Therefore, the range of sports stories br

24、oadens considerably world-wide. Although sports events still appeal to readers, interest is growing in sports topics off the field and court. Reporters tend to look into restrooms, courtrooms, and training rooms. Meanwhile, more and more sports reporting involve athletes, athletes programs, sports a

25、gents, gambling, the abuse of illegal drugs and athletic organization rules cheating and so on. 1.2 Functions of Sports News English sports news has the following five functions: informative function, expressive function, aesthetic function, vocative function and entertaining function.According to N

26、ewmark, the informative function of language is featured with the external situation as its core. By saying external situation, Peter Newmark means the facts of a topic, reality outside language, including reported ideas or theories (Newmark, 2001:40). The informative function of English sports news

27、 is shown on its role to help readers to know the facts and relevant information of sports. Thus the audience and readers can share happiness of sports anytime and anywhere.The expressive function is the mind of the reader and the writer, their originator of the utterance. The language with expressi

28、ve function is normally self-expressive, creative, figurative and subjective (Ibid.:39). The expressive function is to set the tone of the news thus to create either a touching, exciting or horrifying effect on the readers.The language pleases the readers and audience firstly through its actual or i

29、magined sound and secondly through its metaphors. The rhythm, balance and contrasts of sentences, clauses and words also play their roles in this sense. Their sound-effects consist of onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, meter, intonation, and stress (Ibid.:42).English sports news gives aes

30、thetic function in the way to provide the readers and audience aesthetic enjoyment through colorful words containing many connotations and provide beauty through the application of rhetorical devices. “The core of the vocative function of language is the readership, the addressee (Ibid.:41). Newmark

31、 uses the term vocative in the sense of” calling upon the readership to act, think or feel, in fact to react in the way intended by the text” (Ibid.:41).Then we can conclude that a piece of good English sports news can also call upon the reader and audience to focus on the event.English sports news

32、usually uses creative language, flexible sentence patterns and various rhetorical devices to make vivid reports. Sometimes, reporters also use many of the techniques used by literary writers such as novelists. The sentence of English sports news is sometimes composed of rhetorical devices like hyper

33、bole or metaphor. English sports news presents a vivid picture to readers or audiences and as well enriches sports culture and satisfies the needs of audience.1.3 Types of sports news Generally speaking, there are three types of sports news-sports features, depth reporting, and column. Sports featur

34、e could be anything about sports. The main difference between them is that the former informs the readers while the latter usually entertains them. The reporting in depth tends to put a sports event into perspective by reading it to other events or reports. Sports column serves to make judgments or

35、recommendations, and talk about the sportswriter himself or herself. Like any other news, sports news also consists one or more of these six basic facts: who, what, where, when, how and why, which could be organized through two major options (Garrison, 1990): the chronological approach and the inver

36、ted pyramid approach. The chronological approach: This organizational form reports the game just as it occurred. A carefully recording is neccessary to write a solid and complete game story. Reporters always record play by play, score by score, and moment by moment what is occurring on the court or

37、field. For basketball as an example, there must be space for the “running” summary of the game when the score occurred. It is difficult, but possible, to keep play-by-play charts for some sports such as swimming, track and field.The inverted pyramid approach: This form, mostly used by news reports,

38、is also the most practical approach for the reader. We know that whenever there is a big sports event, readers of sports news must have been well informed of the time, site, competing teams and other materials such as the background of athletes and the history of the competition. Therefore, the bigg

39、est concern of readers is the match result which is sure the core of game or match. The sports news thus should get straight to the point ensuring readers can learn what has happened in the game at the first time.1.4 Structure of Sports News Generally speaking, sports news follows the structure of t

40、ypical news story, which mainly consists of three parts: headline, lead, and body. Headline is the title of a news that introduces its contents in the most condensed way and acts to get attention. Lead usually refers to the opening paragraph of a piece of news. “The first paragraph of a news story i

41、s called the lead.” (Frederickson,1984) Leads in sports news can be divided into two groups: summary lead and delayed lead. “A summary lead tells readers the most important part of the story in a direct and straightforward way, and is often used in news reporting. A delayed lead tells readers by hin

42、ting the content of the story. It is usually found in features and other soft stories that put more emphasis on human interest rather than timeliness of an event.” (Ma Jianguo,2002) Usually, lead is a single information-packed sentence, and it is typically the key to the newspaper story. A lead cont

43、ains the facts of the most fresh and the most attractive, and it always gives readers the storys main topic and most important facts. Whats more, a question is often put forward, or a description of the background of a certain news story is usually found in the delayed lead.The body of news introduc

44、e the details to explain and clarify the main points, or introduce new but less important information.Chapter 2: Variety2.1 Definition of Variety Language is a social phenomenon, or institution, with which people communicate and interact with each other. A language of a particular society is part of

45、 the societys culture. Language activities operate within social activities. The style appropriate to public speaking is usually inappropriate to legal documents; the style used in advertisements is not suited to a scholarly article. Richard Hudson(1980:24) defined a variety as “a set linguistic ite

46、ms with similar distribution”. The distribution can be determined by geography and occupation, in which case its specialist vocabulary is often referred to a “jargon”. However, the boundaries of any variety are vague and ill-determined. That is, in language the enormous range of varieties all have t

47、heir syntax, lexis, phonology and graphology, which are shared features of “Englishness”-what Quirk (1972) calls the “common core”.2.2 News English as A VarietyNews English can be called as Jounalistic english. According to Richards (2008:287), variety can be used for various types of one language,

48、e.g. American English, Australian English, Indian English; and sometimes may be used instead of DIALECT, SOCIOLECT, CREOLE,etc. In Hudsons work (2000:22) variety is defined as “a set of linguistic items with similar social distributions”. To be more reasonable and comprehensive, the “distribution” c

49、an be geographically determined in which case we are talking of “dialect”, or it can be socially determined as “PR” speaking way in England(Jin Meilin, 2005:4). According to the sense of “socially determined”, variety can be occupationally determined as well, in which case its specialist vocabulary

50、is often referred to as “jargon”.And according to various uses, there are spoken English and written English by different medium, formal English and informal English by different styles, and business English, legal English, journalistic English, advertising English, etc. by different fields of disco

51、urse.(Brook, 1979: Introduction)In above classification, journalistic English is one of the English varieties by its special field of discourse. Journalistic English, in a broad sense, refers to the language used in news reporting, newscast, featuring articles and opinion writing. In a narrow sense,

52、 it refers to the language of English news reporting, which embodies typical characteristics of journalistic English. To be specifically functional, this variety covers a wide range of politics, economics, technology, art ,culture, sports, violence, crime, weather and climate to entertainment. (Xu L

53、isheng. 1999: 61)The journalist has to present these news materials in the most readable and interesting way, which is effective in influencing the readers. Therefore, there are some linguistic features of the words and items used in news reporting, some of which are introduced in the following (Qin

54、 Xiubai, 1995: 327):(1) There are a great quantity of journalistic words, which are scarcely employed in general English;(2) Acronyms and shortened words are great used;(3) Neologisms are employed frequently;(4) Vague words appear often. 2.3 English Sports News as a Sub-variety Furthermore, most var

55、ieties contain sub-varieties, such as Contract English in Legal English. Similarly, English sports news is one of the sub-varieties of journalistic English. It should be mentioned that the concept of sub-variety, as a sub-set of variety, can also be called Register according to some linguistic works

56、 (Hudson, 2000). In terms of Register, the implication of the classified group under variety puts emphasis on the context the words use(Brook, 1979) or the activity the users are engaged in, and meanwhile it is distinguished from the group of Dialect (Qin Xiubai, 1995). Sports make up a large part o

57、f the editorial content of metropolitan daily newspapers and online news media. A lot of news reporters are engaged in sports reporting. Sports news should not only offer information but also afford recreation and relaxation. As one of the sub-varieties of journalistic English and a specific style o

58、f news writing, sports report boasts some distinctive language features besides the general characteristics in common with other types of news, such as using a large number of terminologies, simple sentences or creating novelty and sensationalism, etc (Zhang Lu,2003), which are some general features

59、 of the whole language used in ESNR. Chapter 3: Stylistic Features of English Sports News 3.1 Graphitic Features Graphitic is the study of the writing system of a language. Graphological feature is the expression or realization of language in written form. Various aspects of design in graphology are

60、 resources which can be used for communicative purposes. As soon as we pick up a newspaper and read its front page,we will be attracted by its variation in the size and shapes of body types, sometimes attracted by pictures. This is especially true for sports news section. When reading the reporting

61、matches, only written news is not enough to satisfy the interest and need of the sports enthusiasts. The colorful photographs, various pictures and diagrams greatly help attract their attention. Headlines are given great prominence for eye-catching effect. Its form will never fail to catch the atten

62、tion of potential readers with a sharp contrast with the smaller fonts of the news lead. The headlines have various sizes and shapes or even colors. All these are used to catch the readers eye. Another important feature on graphitic level is paragraphing. Paragraphing refers to the way in which a te

63、xt is divided into paragraphs. It is a method of revealing the relational structure and the organization of the content. Sports news writers are fond of dividing a narrative into short paragraphs. Short paragraphs can satisfy readers requirement of obtaining the most amount of information within the

64、 limited time and make it easy for the editor to fit the report into the allocated space of the paper.3.2 Lexical features It is easy for us to find that there are many professional sports words. Different sports have their different jargons. Some of them are common used. Most of them are only used in one type of sport. The word in sports English comes from lots of resources. Firstly, they are initialism and acronym. Many sports words we talk about today are initialism. For example, NBA is for National Basketball Association. IOC is for the International Oly