Introducing English Linguistics

Press reportage.
Newspapers, as Figure 4.2 demonstrates, are composed
of texts taken from a number of different sub-registers. These sub-registers
differ primarily because language has a different function in each.
Editorials, for instance, express opinions and therefore are persuasive in
nature. Articles on the arts, on the other hand, could be descriptive (e.g. a
discussion of a new exhibit at an art museum) or evaluative (e.g. a movie
review). But at the core of any newspaper is reportage: texts that inform
the readership of a newspaper about current local, national, or interna-
tional events. And as van Dijk (1988: 52–9) demonstrates, news reportage
has a very specific hierarchical structure to which news writers must
adhere and which readers anticipate when they read a news article.
Reportage, van Dijk (1988: 55) claims, consists of two major sections: a
brief “Summary” followed by a lengthier “Story.” Each of these two sec-
tions contains many subsections, such as a lead, background information,
and verbal comments from people with knowledge about the story.
Because newspaper articles are presented in narrow columns, typography
and layout are prime considerations too. Headlines are larger than the
rest of the text, and paragraphs are typically shorter than in other kinds
of writing, sometimes no longer than a single sentence. The discussion
below highlights some of the major components of the summary and
story sections of news report.
Summary: A news article opens with two obligatory elements – a head-
line and a lead – and several optional elements: a date, a byline, and the
name of the city in which the news event took place: