A STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL FEATUES OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY.DOC

DECLARATION

Title: A STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL FEATUES OF ENGLISH

NEWS STORY

(Graduation Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment for B.A Degree in English)

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced

by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the

report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Date submitted: May, 13th 2008

Student Supervisor

Trinh Thi Ha Nguyen Thi Van Dong

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 1

Acknowledgements



There was the times I was so happy that moving to tears as I realized

that people who are next to me, and who are remote to me also, though they

are still in my mind, always bring the happiness to me for what they have

done to me says they love me. I am in debt to this life where I receive the hug

loves.

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my parents who

have been hardly supporting me. They are always beside and motivate me in

my study and my life.

I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs. Nguyen Thi

Van Dong, Ph.D for her valuable and detailed comments, valuable

suggestions, enthusiasm, guidance, introductions and also materials

throughout this study. And my heart is also to the teachers at the faculty of

English and Modern Languages for their kindness and willingness during the

time I carried out this task.

Beside, my dear friends provide me with encouragement, support and

inspirations especially when I got in trouble. It is my debt of gratitude.

Moreover, the shortcomings in this study are unavoidable. Therefore, I

hope to receive the sympathy from teachers and friends.

Last but not least, I would be grateful to any remarks from the readers!

Thank you!

Ha Noi, May 2008

Trinh Thi Ha

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS



Acknowledgements

Table of contents

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Aims of the study........................................................................................1

2. Scope of the study.......................................................................................2

3. Methods of the study..................................................................................3

4. Design of the study......................................................................................3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHARPTER I: THEORIES OF THE STUDY....................................5

1.1 News story and its functions....................................................................5

1.2 Types of news story...................................................................................8

1.2.1 Political news story.................................................................................9

1.2.2 Economic news story............................................................................10

1.2.3 Socio- cultural news story.....................................................................11

CHAPTER II: ANALASIS OF THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES

OF ENGLISH NEWS STORY............................................................13

2.1 Structure of paragraph..........................................................................13

2.1.1 Headline in English news story............................................................14

2.1.2 Topic sentence in English news story..................................................18

2.1.2.1 Form features of the topic sentence................................................19

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 3

2.1.2.2 Content features of the topic sentence............................................22

2.1.3 Structure of news story’s body.............................................................25

2.1.4 Sub-title in English news story.............................................................29

CHARPTER III: SOME DIFFICULTIES AND REQUIRED

SUGGESTIONS IN TRANSLATING NEWS STOR........................33

3.1 Some difficulties in translating news story...........................................33

3.1.1 Cultural difficulty...................................................................................33

3.1.2 Linguistic difficulty...............................................................................35

3.2. Some required suggestions for translation..........................................37

3.2.1 Language skills......................................................................................38

3.2.2. Cultural competence.............................................................................38

3.2.3 Journalism..............................................................................................38

PART C: CONCLUSION

APPENDIX.......................................................................................................41

REFERENCES...................................................................................................57

SOURCE OF MATERIALS..............................................................................58

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 4

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Aims of the study

News is sine qua non for active life. None can ignore the milieu in which

he lives. Only news keeps us in tough with the milieu in which we live. It

gives us the insight to the dynamics that form the environment around us, it

be in local or regional or national or international level.

The main conveyor of news is newspaper. Neither the advent of

television nor that of internet could affect the importance of the newspaper.

The reason for it is the width, breadth and the depth of news provided by the

newspaper, its low cost and the ease of providing the news at our leisure and

comfort as many time as we desire. People of all profession need newspapers.

Reading newspapers is a must for students and adults for growth and

enlightenment irrespective of the class or field of their life. And it is a very

important part with a remarkable position of newspaper news story.

English is spoken over 70 countries and in 20; more English occupies an

important position. Many newspapers are published in English. It is estimated

that the two thirds of all scientific newspaper are first published in English. It

is also the most common international working languages.

Therefore, to a developing country like Vietnam, English is a popular

foreign language for all people. They are trying their best to learn English

well due to the fact that English will help them to keep up with advanced

technology, modern culture, and up-to-date information in the world. Written￾in-English journals are available in all news stands, so it is easy for us to get

one.

However, to study English with newspaper and magazines is not easy.

We would not understand the information deeply in the newspaper if we are

lack of any ability on analyzing the news, especially on structural analyzing.

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 5

Information of the newspaper is transported to the readers under the text form

which is very complicated and diverse. Thus, it still has the main characters

that here, in this paper, I study on and choose the topic “A study on the

structural features of English news story” with the hope of giving the

readers the useful knowledge on newspaper, since better their insights to the

changing-world.

News story plays an important role in newspaper that is occupied a great

number of English language one which is considered the international

language. Therefore, to understand about the all news deeply, the readers need

to know about English and more, about the structural analysis the text which

is a common difficulty for the reader as well as the English leaner.

Being a student of English, I would like to present structural features of

the English news story so that the readers and learner can understand

comprehensively about the topic. As these learning, we can have some basic

knowledge in getting information from news stories in newspaper written in

the international language, English, then develop the ability in translation and

many other related fields.

2. Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of space and time, within the framework of this

study, this paper can not cover the whole features and details of news story.

Since, I decided to analyze the structural features including headline, topic

sentence, body-part structure, the sub-title, and the discourse of the news

story.

From which, I would like to draw some difficulties of Vietnamese

readers when they translate the news story.

To sum up, the scope of the study may be shown as follow:

a) Analyzing some structural features of the news story

Trinh Thi Ha – K11C 6