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毕 业 论 文Nominalization in News Headlines from News York Times 纽约时报新闻标题中名物化现象分析学生姓名 高 杰 专 业 英 语 学 号 070810058 学 院 外国语学院 班 级 英语0702 指导老师 文 兰 芳 职 称 副 教 授 湖 南 商 学 院二一一年五月二十日ABSTRACTNominalization is frequently adopted in literary forms such as news reports, technological discourse and legal documents. Therefore, linguists attach great importance to it. Halliday is a distinguished representative. He believes that nominalization is one of the most important expressive forms of grammatical metaphor. Based on the theory of functional grammar, this thesis conducts a research about the nominalization phenomenon in the news headlines.By analyzing examples taken from New York Times, the thesis classifies the nominalization and discusses the functions and effects of nominalization in news headlines. Meanwhile, overuse of nominalization in news headlines should be avoided.Results of this thesis show that nominalization phenomenon is widely found in news headlines and it possesses ideational and interpersonal functions. Besides, proper use of nominalization can make news headlines to be more concise, objective and expressive. However, too much adoption of nominalization in news headlines may deviate the meaning of news headlines from journalists original intent and make news headlines very obscure to comprehend.This research expects to assist readers to understand the nominalization phenomenon better and have an insight into the real purpose of journalists. KEY WORDSFunctional Grammar; Grammatical Metaphor; Nominalization内容摘要名物化在新闻报道、科技语篇以及法律文件等文体中被大量使用，因此，深受各学派语言学家的重视。功能语法学派的韩礼德便是一位突出代表。他认为，名物化是语法隐喻的一种重要表现形式。本文在系统功能语言学的框架下对英语新闻标题中的名物化现象进行了研究，以纽约时报上的新闻标题为研究对象，通过举例分析，对名物化现象进行了分类，并分析了名物化现象在新闻标题中的功能以及其起到的积极作用。同时，文章还论及了过多名物化现象可能造成的后果。研究发现，在英语新闻标题中确实大量存在名物化结构。新闻标题中的名物化结构具有概念功能和人际功能。同时，名物化结构的使用，是的新闻标题的表达更加简洁、客观，更具表现力。但是，过多的使用名物化结构也会使标题原意偏离作者的主观意向，同时令新闻标题显得晦涩难懂。本文希望能够帮助读者更好地了解名物化现象，洞察记者在新闻标题中的真实意图。关键词系统功能语法；语法隐喻；名物化CONTENTS1 Introduction2 Theoretical Background22.1 Overview of Functional Grammar22.2 Definition of Nominalization33 Exploration of News Headline53.1 Classification of News Headline63.2 Features of News Headline73.3 Functions of News Headline84 Nominalization in News Headline84.1 Classification of Nominalization in News Headline94.2 Functions of Nominalization in News Headline124.3 Effects of Nominalization in News Headline165 Avoidance of Overuse of Nominalization in News Headline206 Conclusion21References24AppendixIII湖南商学院毕业论文Nominalization in News Headlines from New York Times 1 IntroductionIn the information age, more and more media are used to convey information. As a kind of traditional media, newspaper has been always playing an important role in informing people of things. As a saying goes, eyes are the windows of ones mind. This saying can also be applied to describe the relationship between news and news headlines. “News headlines are the windows of news reports.” Through a news headline, readers can easily know the main content of the report, which may be about an ongoing war or a forthcoming political conference. Moreover, readers can decide whether to continue their reading or not according to his or her interest just by a simple glimpse of the news headlines. Thats why journalists attach great importance to choosing appropriate news headlines.Nominalization, as one of grammatical metaphors most forceful form of expression, is often adopted by journalists. A good news headline should be informative, concise and easy enough to be understood by readers. By using nominal expression in a news headline, a journalist can include as much information as he needs and keep the news headlines length in an acceptable range. That is to say, the news headline is neither too short to present all the important information, nor too long to make the readers feel tedious. Nominalization appears not only frequently in the news discourses, but also in the news headlines. And many linguists from both the motherland and the foreign countries have done a large amount of researches on the nominalization in the news discourses. Though their researches have indeed deepened our understanding of the nominalization in news discourses, it is undeniable that their studies also have some weak points. One of the most obvious weak points is that they neglected the nominalization phenomenon in the news headlines. Even now, not too many researches on nominalization in news headlines have been done. This thesis intends to analyze the nominalization phenomenon in the news headlines. And it mainly concentrates on three aspects, the classification of nominalization, and functions of nominalization in news headlines, as well as the effects of nominalization on news headlines.With about 1000 lists of news headlines taken from New York Times whose date ranges from January, 2010 to January, 2011, the frequency, functions and effects of nominalization are all analyzed based on the examples picked out from the 1000 lists of headlines.By decoding nominalization phenomenon in those news headlines, this thesis expects to aid people to have an insight into the news contents through news headlines and gain the information they want. 2 Theoretical Background In the field of linguistics, functional grammar is a very crucial branch. By now, many researches have been done on different aspects of this theory. And grammatical metaphor as well as its most expressive form nominalization is often studied by linguists. 2.1 Overview of Functional GrammarFunctional grammar is developed by M.A.K. Halliday and is a part of his systematic-functional grammar theory. His functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a mean of social interaction, based on the position that language system and the forms that make it up are inescapably determined by the uses or functions which they serve (Hu Zhuanglin, 2006:381). Hallidays Systematic Grammar contains a functional component, that is, functional grammar, “the interpretation of the grammatical patterns in terms of configurations of functions”. Halliday defines a functional grammar as “essentially a natural grammar, in the sense that everything in it can be explained, ultimately, by reference to how language is used” (Halliday, 1994). According to Halliday, the original functional range is gradually reduced to a set of highly coded and abstract functions, which are meta-functions: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual functions. These meta-functions appear at a new level in the linguistic system, taking the forms of “grammar”. Thus, the functional grammatical system has a functional input and a structural output (Hu Zhuanglin, 2006:343).In functional grammar, the linguists take a lot of effort to study the transference on the semantic level and on the lexical level. The transference on those levels is often called “grammatical metaphor”. Halliday (1994:342-343) employs the criterion “incongruent” to describe grammatical metaphor: “If something is said to be metaphorical, it must be metaphorical by reference to something else; for any given semantic configuration there will be some realization in the lexicogrammar some wordingthat can be considered as congruent; there may also be various others that are in some respect transferred, or metaphorical.” “So as well as recognizing what is congruent, we also recognize that there are other possibilities, where the typical pattern has not been used and speaker and writer have chosen to say things differently.” To put it in another way, a given meaning can be expressed both in a congruent form and in an incongruent form. Halliday categorizes grammatical metaphor into two categories: the ideational metaphor and the interpersonal metaphor, corresponding to the two meta-functions of language: the ideational and the interpersonal meta-function (qtd. in He Jun, 2007).2.2 Definition of NominalizationOn the semantic level, grammatical metaphor is mainly manifested by the transference between different processes, while on the lexical level, grammatical metaphor is mainly realized through nominalization. Therefore, nominalization is one of the most crucial ways that can be identified in grammatical metaphor, i.e. applying a nominal form to express a process meaning, according to Thompsons (2000:167) view. Halliday also states: “nominalization is the single most forceful resource for creating grammatical metaphor” (qtd. in Hu Zhuanglin, Zhang Yongsheng, Zhang Delu&Li Zhanzi, 2008).In the first place, in a narrow sense, nominalization refers to the nouns derived from verbs or adjectives including gerund, or the finite clause turning into a nominal form. For instance: Their rejection of my complaint. While the congruent form of this sentence can be rewrote as They rejected my complaint. In the above example, the nominal form of the verb reject is rejection. In the second place, in a broad sense, nominalization refers to every element that can serve as noun or noun group. It covers nominal clauses, infinitives, gerunds, etc. In the following examples, groups or clauses which are in block are nominalised. (1) 49.On Eve of Bond Sale, Portugal Says It Needs No Help From Europe. (New York Times, 2011-1-14)(2) Iran Warns Protesters Era of Mercy Is Over. (New York Times, 2011-1-14)(3) On the Road: A Good Time to Offer First-Aid Training for All. (New York Times, 2011-1-14)In the above examples, the elements in italics in example (1),(2) and (3) all act as a nominal elements in the clauses which they are included in.Nominalization has some basic effects in construing the discourse. And these effects are listed as the followings.(A) The writer can alter the functions of the participants in the clauses for his special purpose by nominalising processes or attributes. Usually the reference to people is left out, and information can be displayed as though it has some external objective reality quite apart from the people who are engaged in looking into it or researching it.(B) The writer can have a wide range of choices of elements for theme position in the clause by nominalising processes or attributes. Usually the nominalization functions as a participant in another clause and serves as the starting-point for the clause. It is a very crucial way to realize textual coherence and cohesion.(C) The writer can pack a large number of lexical items into one clause and present a large amount of information by nominalising processes and attributes. (D) The nominalization of processes enables the writer to display relationships concisely. (qtd. in Zheng Xiaoyan, 2005)Although nominalization possesses the above effects, this thesis will focus on just part of these effects that are related with the ideational metaphor and interpersonal metaphor.3 Exploration of News HeadlineNewspaper, as one of the earliest forms of mass medium, has changed residents life dramatically. When choosing words, journalists regard short, briefness and vividness as their chief target; when making a clause, simplification, ellipses and flexibility are their basic requirements. A piece of news usually comprises the headline, the lead and the principal part. Headline is generally considered as the condensation of the main content and the “eye” of the news. To all newspapers, news headline means: any line or several lines that appear at the very beginning of a news report to introduce or summarize the main content of the article. If journalism is treated as art, the headline can be regarded as the heart of the art (qtd. in Lian Peidong, 2007). This principle can be applied to all news headlines. For headline is the most communicative part of a piece of news, a perfect headline should be informative and at the same time, it should not kill the readers will to read further. And the readers should be motivated to read the news text rather than just understanding the news headline itself. Van Dijk also defines newspaper headline like this. “Undoubtedly, the most prominent feature of news discourse is the headlines. They subjectively express the most important information of the text, that is, the main idea of the semantic macrostructure. They define the situation and thus program readers with a preferred reading and interpreting plan” (qtd. in Li Sufeng, 2007).Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary also defines news headline in this way, “the title of a newspaper article printed in large letters, especially at the top of the front page” and “a short summary of the most important items of news” (Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary, 2004:812).A conclusion thus can be drawn that the headline should be able to compress as much information in several short lines as it can and make the readers comprehend the main idea of the news through it, and to catch the readers attention. Besides, as a part of news, news headlines should also be objective.3.1 Classification of News HeadlineNews headlines are mainly divided into 8 categories according to content of the news，i.e. the international news headlines, the national news headlines, the news headlines of the obituaries, news headlines of the editorials, business news headlines, sports news headlines, arts news headlines and economical news headlines. Among these categories, nominalization is presented the most in the political news headlines.As to the forms of the headline, headline can be divided into nominal group, verbal group and prepositional group and headline in clause form. Among these forms, nominal form and the nominal clauses are two forms which nominalization often adopts.According to the tense of the headline, it can be classified into headlines consisting of past participle, headlines consisting of present participle. And these two participles can sometimes act as nominal elements in the headlines. 3.2 Features of News Headline News reports have three basic characteristics. Firstly, what the news reports reveal should be facts which are reported according to the objective situation. Secondly, the things reported in the news should come about lately. Thirdly, the recently-happened issues must be reported. Therefore, headlines of news reports must have the following four distinctive natures accordingly (qtd. in Xue Jing, 2007): (A) What is reflected in the news headline must be true. This makes news report different from other literary works. What is included in the news headline must be or be based on facts; otherwise, news headline will lose its original use without the facts functioning as its foundation. (B) What is reflected in the news headline must be informative. News report is assigned to inform people of things just have happened, or things that are taking place in the world. This task can only be achieved by being informative. (C) What is reflected in the news headline must be timely. It is of little use, if a news headline does not issue facts timely. Therefore, any retard or delay should not appear when reporting the facts. (D) What is reflected in the news headline must be fresh. This is what distinguishes news report from historical records. Message in the news headline should be about every new thing that happened recently.3.3 Functions of Newspaper HeadlineAs the “eyes” of news, the function of news headlines can never be underestimated. Concise and creative headlines will usually leave readers with much deeper impression than news details. And when news details have faded away into readers memory, news headlines still remain fresh in their mind. The main purpose of news headline is to inform newspaper readers and provide them with fun. Since headline occupies a privileged position in news reports, newspaper headline provides more than information and fun. From the communicative perspective, in Bruce H. Westleys opinion, newspaper headline performs the following functions (qtd. in Tang Lina, 2003):(A) To show the main content of the news by news headlines. (B) To transmit the news relative importance. (C) To convey the news relative seriousness.(D) To index news reports.(E) To form features and stable style. The constant adoption of readers familiar headline structures leaves the newspaper with a rather conversant and welcome character.(F) To create assembling effects.(G) To fascinate more readers. To sum up, the functions of newspaper headline listed above can be summarized in three aspects: to show the focus, to present attitudes, and to attract readers attention.4 Nominalization in News HeadlineIn modern English, nominalization, with its unique characteristics, is becoming more and more popular. In many cases, people tend to use nominalizations instead of verbs and adjectives in order to make their language briefer, more vivid and more concise. When a journalist writes a piece of news, he or she tries to fulfill the objectivity, briefness, conciseness and vividness of language. Consequently, nominalization becomes their first choice for its distinctive functions. Thus, nominalization phenomenon is apt to be found in the news discourse, especially news headlines.4.1 Classification of Nominalization in News HeadlineThere are four types of nominal forms from verbs (qtd. in Hao Baosheng, 2009). Take the word “discovery” for example: (A) action noun: discovery; (B) verbal noun: the discovering; (C) gerund: discovering; (D) infinitiv