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Newspaper headline language
A Features of headline language
Here are some typical examples of headlines from tabloid newspapers with comments on their use of language, [popular papers with smaller pages than more serious papers]
EXPERT REVEALS NEW MOBILE DANGERS

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  Articles, prepositions and auxiliary verbs are often omitted from headlines.
  
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  This use of the present simple instead ol the past tense makes the story sound more immediate.
  
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  The use of language is often ambiguous. It is not entirely clear, for example, what mobile refers to here. It is actually about the dangers of mobile phone use but it could have referred to dangers that can move in some way. Readers have to look at the story in order to find out.
  
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  Words with dramatic associations such as danger are often used.
  

TV STAR TRAGIC TARGET FOR MYSTERY GUNMAN
This story is about how a well-known television actor was shot by an unknown killer.

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  Tabloid newspapers like to use references to royalty or popular figures like film or pop stars or sports personalities in order to attract readers’ attention.
  
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  Alliteration such as TV Star Tragic Target is often used to attract the eye in headlines and to make them sound more memorable.
  
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  Newspapers tend to use strong, simple words such as ‘gunman’ in order to express an idea or image as briefly and as vividly as possible.
  

B Violent words
Violent and militaristic words are often used in newspaper headlines, especially in tabloid newspapers, in order to make stories seem more dramatic.
EU acts to crush terror of the thugs Palace besieged by journalists
Crackdown on soccer louts Typhoon rips through town

C Playing with words

Many newspaper headlines in English attract readers’ attention by playing on words in an entertaining way. For example, a story about the theft of traffic signs erected to help tourists coming to see a solar eclipse in the area was headlined Dark deeds. In this collocation dark usually carries the meaning of wicked, but the headline is cleverly playing with the word dark because at the time of an eclipse the sky goes dark.
Another example is the use of the headline Ruffled feathers to describe an incident where a wife was angry with her husband, a wildlife expert, for allowing a Russian steppe eagle to sleep in their bedroom. We use the idiom to smooth someone’s ruffled feathers, meaning to pacify someone after an argument. It is apt to use it here as the story is about a bird (although, of course, it was the woman’s feathers which were ruffled).


TIP: The English newspaper The Guardian is particularly fond of playing with words in its headlines. See if you can find some examples at its website: www.guardian.co.uk


Exercises
1.1 Read these headlines. What do you the stories might be about?
1. MOSCOW BLAST TERROR
2. PM TO REVEAL SOCCER LOUT PLANS
3. TOP MP IN LONE BATTLE
4. CRACKDOWN ON PORN LOUT PLANS
5. THUGS BESIEGE TEEN STAR
6. COPS TARGET LOUTS


1.2 These headlines were written in a pretend tabloid newspaper about Ancient Greece. Match them with the subjects of their stories (a) to (e) below and comment on the features of headline language they contain.

1.