The Characteristics of English News Headlines

秦亚梅

（鹤壁职业技术学院 助教 458030）

Headlines are windows for the news. They are quite essential for news. Form the headlines， the reader can know instantly which piece of news is worth reading. At the same， it is necessary for the readers to understand the headlines to describe which column should be read and which not.

1.Features of Headline Structure

Headline is quite different form other types of English writing. Because of the limited room， the headline has its own structural features. We can sum up three features as follows：

1.1Declarative sentence

Different sentence types in English have different function for expressing meanings. So there is a clear tendency for English news headline on the choice of sentence types. For example： Yahoo Awards Worlds Best Cyber Cafés（雅虎评选全球最佳网吧），Asia Pledge Action on Bird Flu （亚洲国家表示采取一致措施控制禽流感）.

1.2 Question

In order to attract the readers eyes and arouse the readers interest， sometimes the editor also use questions for news headline. If a sentence only has question mark， but does not have interrogative and auxiliary， it is a seeming-question. We can see some examples as follow： How to Make Our Communication More Efficient？（怎样交流更有效？），Stay Thin by Sleeping More？（想苗条，多睡觉），What is Dateline？（何为征婚热线？）.

2. Features of Using Words

2.1 Uses of nouns and midget words

Because the news language is quite concise， the editors prefer to use the short and vivid nouns and verbs. These words can make the headline more interesting and attractive. Most words in the headline are nouns， and it is very common to use the nouns together.

2.2 Uses of shortening widely

Shortened forms are widely used in headlines. The readers want to get as much information as possible in short time. So the headline must use shortening words for there shortness and conciseness. For example： EU Propose New Rules on Avoiding Volcanic Ash（歐盟制定措施应对火山灰），AIDS-The Risk to Heterosexuals（艾滋病危及异性恋爱者）.

3. Features of Grammar

Headlines catch readers eyes by concentrating information in concise language and refining the best language. And the headline plays a unique role in news report.

3.1 Tense

There are three tenses that are often used in headlines. They are simple present tense， future tense， and present continuous tense.

Here is an example. Comeback Gives China A Sensational Thomas Cup Win（中国队反败为胜荣获汤姆斯杯）.

From the news we can say that this event happened in the past， but the news uses past tense. However， the headline which uses present tense can seem vividly and plays a very good effect. This usage is quite common in English news headline.

3.2 Voice

Most English news headlines prefer to use passive voice. The auxiliary verb “be” is often omitted when the passive voice is used in the headline. And at the same time， the “by” is not very often used to show who performs this action.

Let see an example：1 Ton of Ancient Coins Unearthed in Shaanxi（陕西出土一吨的古币）.

3.3 Emphasis omitted and simplified

Grammatically， in order to save the space of the whole page， the headline always uses incomplete sentences or phrases. There are two examples： US Carmakers Ready to Cut Output（美国汽车厂家准备消减产量），China to Continue Fiscal Program to Aid Economy（中国将继续其支持经济发展的财政政策）.

参考文献：

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[2]廖志勤.2006，英语新闻标题及其翻译策略[J]，中国科技翻译，2006第（2）期。

[3]刘宓庆.2007，文体与翻译[M]。北京：中国对外翻译公司。