A Rhetorical Stylistic Analysis of English Political Headlines in Selected Newspapers

Authors

  • Sawsan Hazim Hassan College of Arts- University of Baghdad

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31973/hm0ct638

Keywords:

rhetoric , headlines, stylistics, rhetorical stylistics

Abstract

This study explores the language used in reporting political headlines conducting a rhetorical stylistic analysis. It is based on showing the effect of the rhetorical stylistic relations in news reporting. The aim is to investigate the structure adopted in reporting political news. It argues that the rhetorical stylistic devices are necessary and applicable to non-literary texts, i.e. political headlines to evaluate language use in the representation of non-literary texts. The analysis was carried out on data selected from the British broadsheet The Guardian and the American New York Times newspaper headlines. The data were examined and subjected to a contrastive analysis incorporating rhetorical and stylistic tools to discern how they are united to achieve the main purpose of language use, i.e. to persuade and grasp the reader's attention. It was found that the two newspapers tend to employ sentence structures differently in terms of nucleus and satellite relations demonstrating the significant part in a sentence. Examples of the deviation strategy of foregrounding were primarily established in the New York Times to maintain the reader's attention about the content underlying the different strategy of the two newspapers to report war circumstances. The analysis shows that rhetorical devices and stylistic features are found and closely related in newspaper articles.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., & McEnery, T. (2013). Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Baker, P., & Ellece, S. (2011). Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. London and New York: A&C Black.

Bradford, R. (1997). Stylistics: The New Critical Idiom. London and New York: Routledge.

Burke, M. (2014). The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics. New York: Routledge.

Fahnestock, J. (2005). Rhetorical stylistics. Language and Literature, 14(3), 215-230. doi.org/10.1177/0963947005054478

Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News: Language and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.

Giovanelli, M., & Mason, J. (2018). The Language of Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harris, R. A. (2018). Writing with clarity and style: A guide to rhetorical devices for contemporary writers. New York: Routledge.

Jeffries, L. (2006). Discovering language: the structure of modern English. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Leech, G. N., (1969). A linguistic guide to English poetry. London: Longman.

Leech, G. N., & Short, M. (2007). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose (No. 13). Pearson Education.

McIntyre, D. (2006). Point of view in plays: A cognitive stylistic approach to viewpoint in drama and other text-types (Vol. 3). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.

Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A resource book for students. Routledge: London

Taboada, M., & Mann, W. C. (2006). Rhetorical structure theory: Looking back and moving ahead. Discourse studies, 8(3), 423-459.

Van Dijk, T.A. (1980). Macrostructures: An interdisciplinary study of global structures in discourse, interaction, and cognition. London: Routledge.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1985). Discourse and Literature: New Approaches to the Analysis of Literary Genres. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Links

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2016, October 17). inversion. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/inversion-literature

Perelman, C. and Sloane, . Thomas O. (2023, November 10). rhetoric. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/rhetoric

Downloads

Published

2024-03-15

Issue

Section

English linguistics and literature

How to Cite

A Rhetorical Stylistic Analysis of English Political Headlines in Selected Newspapers. (2024). Al-Adab Journal, 2(148), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.31973/hm0ct638

Publication Dates

Received

2024-01-21

Revised

2024-02-04

Accepted

2024-02-05

Published Online First

2024-03-15

Similar Articles

1-10 of 70

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.