Analyzing Features of Newspaper Headlines And It’s Implications for Elt in Ethiopia
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Date
2001-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Analyzing features of newspaper headlines and finding out its implications for
English Language Teaching (ELT) is part and parcel of descriptive studies done
to produce course materials out of non-academic sources such as newspapers
and magazines. The idea that non-academic texts should be used in the EFL
classroom is so widespread that English for Academic Purpose (EAP) courses
designed to prepare students for a particular discipline such as medicine or
law, generally use materials relating to those disciplines. Thus, the current
study has tried to show the contribution of analyzing features of newspaper
headlines for producing supplementary teaching material ls to EFL students in
general and to students dealing with courses in media in particular.
To substantiate the objectives already set, the study reviews the available
literature at three interrelated stages. The first stage presents types of media
and the rationale for using them in language classrooms. The second stage
discusses newspapers, which are types of non-technical media. This stage is so
comprehensive that it tells us about kinds of newspaper, the rationale for using
newspapers and the methodological basis of newspaper materials. The last
stage, which is about newspaper headlines, attempts to highlight the language
of headlines and the advantage of learning it.
The data for the research in question has been newspaper headlines in The
Reporter, a weekly local English newspaper. The headlines have been gathered
from -fifty-four issues of The Reporter chosen as a sample. A table comprising
different columns for listing down the headlines 1<1nder their respective
components has been used.
The headlines obtained have' been analyses at three but closely related stages.
In the first place, the headlines· have been analyzed in terms of components
they are taken from. Some components occur more frequently than others, and
the nature of topics treated in each of the components varies. Some
components consist of headlines accompanied by pictures while others are
components that present news about the target speakers. The analysis made at
the second stage identifies syntactic features that characterize the headlines.
These include omission of function words, embedding of certain phrase and
clause structures, over use of the present tense among headlines termed 'Type
1, omission of the verb be in headlines called 'Type 2', omission and post modifications
among headlines known as 'Type 3', etc. Finally, the headlines
have been also studied in terms of the non-linguistic features they exhibit.
These are punctuation marks, abbreviations and capitalization.Based on the pedagogical implications drawn out a t each stage of the analyses ,
sample teaching materials have been designed with the Ethiopian Mass Media
Training Institute students in mind. Thus , the implications of the analysis made
at the first stage have been used to produce supplementary reading activities.
The activities demand students to match headlines with paragraphs or
components from which they are taken (Ac tivity 1 and Activity 2 respectively),
match headlines with pictures a nd /or captions (Activity 3 and Activity 4), and
decipher headlines without access to the accompanying articles (Activity 5). The
implications at the second stage, on the other hand, have been sources of
activities on grammar and oral practice. These are: labeling constituents and
rearranging disorganized headlines (Activity 6), identifying direct from indirect
speech (Activity 7 and Activity 8, No.2 and No.3), practicing syntax and learning
abbreviations (Activity 8, No.1), interpreting verb less questions (Activity 10),
identifying omissions and the use of tenses (Activity 11), and deducing major
syn tactic features of headlines (Activity 12). The implications based on the
analysis a t the third stage have been used for designing activities on oral
practice and mechanics (Activity 13 and Activity 14), and on oral practice and
capita ligation abbreviations (Activity 15 and Activity 16).
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Keywords
Newspaper Headlines