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NEWSPAPER HEADLINES AND COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH:
ANYTHING IN COMMON?
Markéta Malá
What is typical o f written language might be expected not to be typical of
spoken language, and vice versa. However, as far as newspaper headlines and
colloquial speech are concerned, there appears to be at least one feature which
the two seem to have in common. Characterising “minor sentences”, i.e.
sentences constructed in an irregular way, Crystal points out that “There are
only a few minor sentence types, but instances o f each type are frequently used
in everyday conversation and when conversations are represented in fiction.
They are also common in certain types o f written language, such as notices,
headlines, labels, advertisements, subheadings, and other settings where a
message is presented as a ‘block’.” 1 Kotlandova goes even further when she
describes contemporary newspaper headlines as “public colloquial style”.2 The
present study sets out to compare irregular sentences in the two registers to
find out whether minor sentences are indeed something they share or whether
sentence irregularity as an important stylistic feature, though present to some
extent in both, shows some specific differences distinguishing between the
registers.
Crystal and Davy (1992) stress the differences between the language of
conversation and the language o f newspaper reporting which includes as a
distinct subtype the language of headlines. The two registers differ in discourse
dimensions o f medium (written vs. spoken, although unlike typical written
texts, headlines are not written to be reread or read carefully) and participation
(monologue vs. dialogue). However, the differences in the dimensions
referring to more “relatively localised or temporary variations in language”3
are not that straightforward. There seem to be more common features than
usually expected. Both informal conversation and headlines cover a broad
range o f topics, although the former is, “situationally speaking, the most
neutral kind o f English one can find”.4 As far as the participants’ status is
concerned, there is “a tendency to bring the language o f newspaper headlines
closer to the reader’s verbal expression”,5 a tendency towards “the introduction
into this sphere o f constructions o f everyday speech”6. This aspect of
1 Crystal (1997: 216).
2 Kotlandova (1993: 130).
3 Crystal and Davy (1992: 71).
4 Crystal and Davy (1992: 95).
5 Kotlandova (1993: 130).
6 Kotlandova (1993: 130).
informality and closeness is connected with another feature the two registers
share, viz. the high level o f context-dependence. Both tend to rely strongly on
(or act as if there was) common knowledge shared by the writer / speaker and
the addressee, i.e. not only the knowledge o f our world in general but also the
participants’ being familiar with the persons referred to by their names only
and the events discussed. In both registers, the participants rely extremely on
linguistic context, which makes it possible to use various kinds o f abbreviated
structures, ambiguous out o f the given context. The recoverability o f parts o f
the text from context makes it possible for the writer / speaker to focus on the
new, important or emotionally charged items o f information.
Before we can proceed to the description of the diverse sentence structures
encountered in the two registers, it should be explained what will be
considered a sentence here, and what the criteria of sentence regularity are. In
A Comprehensive Grammar o f the English Language (Quirk et al. 1985,
henceforth CGEL), both the irregular sentences typical o f colloquial speech
and those occurring in headlines are dealt with in two sections o f chapter 11,
Irregular Sentences and Nonsentences. These sentences satisfy the CGEL
criteria o f irregularity in that they are marked as subordinate (although used
independently) or lack constituents that are normally obligatory. I f it is “less
convincing” or impossible to postulate ellipsis in the case o f omitted
constituents, the structures are described as nonsentences “since we cannot
analyse them with confidence in terms o f clause elements” {CGEL, p. 838).
Newspaper headlines are further characterised as containing block language,
i.e. “most often nonsentences, consisting o f a noun or noun phrase or nominal
clause in isolation” {CGEL, p. 845). However, Dušková shows that the
difficulty to analyse the structure o f “nonsentences” can be resolved by “the
conception o f the element(s) constituting such utterances as a nonverbal
predicate (+ its com plem ents).... Moreover, the predicative conception is fully
consistent with the information structure o f these sentences: they invariably
represent the rhematic section, the theme being supplied by the situational
and/or linguistic context.”7 The criterion o f identifiability o f the predicative
function in the sentence can thus be used to differentiate it from lower units,
“predication being the constituent feature o f the sentence as against
denomination or naming, which merely provides a name for an object.”8 It was
on the basis o f this criterion that the names o f regular columns and sections o f
the newspapers were excluded from the description. The criterion o f complete
intonation contour (reflected in punctuation in written texts) has been adopted
for distinguishing the sentence with respect to higher units, which was
important for the delimitation o f sentence boundaries especially in spoken
English (on the basis o f this criterion, sentence fragments, aposiopeses, as well
as parcels were not considered equivalent to sentences).
7 Dušková (1991: 78).
8 Dušková (1991: 78).
The syntactic structure of both headlines and informal conversation
comprises two basic groups o f sentences: first, syntactically regular sentences
and “regularly incomplete” sentences, i.e. elliptical structures derived from the
regular sentences. The second group consists o f various types o f irregular
sentences. The criteria o f sentence regularity vary, but the most generally
accepted feature o f a regular sentence is the presence o f both a subject and a
predicate in a complete sentence structure. Unlike elliptical sentences,
nonelliptical irregular sentences, although superficially incomplete, are in fact
complete in themselves in that they neither require, nor permit any unique
extension. However, the boundary between ellipsis and nonelliptical irregular
sentences is not always clear-cut. The transitional instances include e.g.
predications implying the v6rb be or the sentences where the narrow semantic
range o f the elided verb, though not the verb itself, is understood from the
context.
The irregularity o f nonelliptical sentences may consist in the absence o f an
overt subject in the sentence. The subjectless sentences deviate from the
central sentence types also in that their predicate is nominal, i.e. expressed by
means other than the finite verb. Nominal realisation o f the predicate can also
be the source o f irregularity in sentences containing both the subject and the
predicate. If the predicate o f a subject-predicate sentence is expressed by the
finite verb, the sentence shows a deviation from the regular pattern on a level
higher than that o f the simple sentence itself. This is the case o f subordinate
clauses operating as independent sentences.
The irregular sentences constitute about 25 to 35% o f the informal
dialogue.9 The percentage o f irregular sentences in newspaper headlines in our
material was about 33%.10 In both registers the subjectless sentences
outnumber the structures containing both the subject and the predicate. The
percentual representation o f irregular sentence types in the sample analysed in
the present study is given in Table 1.
Table 1
Percentual representation of irregular simple sentence types:
subjectless
sentence
subject-predicate
sentence
specific sentence structure
nominal predicate only
nominal predicate
finite-verb predicate
colloquial English
88.1%
51%
49%
74.8%
11.9%
25.2%
newspaper headlines
2.6%
62.3%
97.4%
79.7%
37.7%
20.3%
9 Bowman (1966)
10 Colloquial English will be represented here by the texts of contemporary British theatre
and radio plays. The newspaper headlines were obtained from The Times, The Independent
and The Guardian, published between June and September 2000.
In the following description o f the irregular sentences obtained from our
material, we shall always focus first on colloquial English constructions falling
into a sentence subtype and then comment on the structurally corresponding
constructions typical of the language o f headlines.
The subjectless sentences either display a specific sentence structure or
consist of the nominal predicate only. The subjectless nominal predicate
sentence patterns typical o f colloquial English are often characterised by a
fixed opening, as exemplified by (1).
(1) a. A: A nd you can come and live with us. B: What i f I d o n ’t want to?
b. In the end, what I fe e l fo r Janusz is pity. A nd to think he brought it all
on himself.
c. The way that shit o f a driver took the corners, my bum skidding, my
stomach churning, my head pounding.
d. Why stop it i f you enjoy it?
However, the fixed structure is not always unequivocally linked to a particular
communicative function. The degree o f fixedness seems to form a gradient. At
one end of the scale there are formulae and even whole formulaic
conversations (2) used in stereotyped social situations.
(2)
A: Goodbye. Good luck. B: Andyou.
The fixed question So what? (3) has changed its communicative function to an
expression o f disagreement with the presupposed opinion o f the preceding
speaker, and moved towards the formulaic end of the scale.
(3) So she gives him a lift home, so what?
The sentences with a fixed opening What or How about followed by a noun
(pronoun) have two distinct communicative functions: that o f a real question,
often introducing the topic o f the following conversation (4a.) and that o f an
invitation or suggestion (4b.). The same construction with gerund instead of
the noun is limited to the latter function only (4c.).
(4) a. What about Michael? How was he? Was he all right?
b. Well, m ightn’t it help i f you published something? What about a
monograph?
c. What about our publishing your fellowship dissertation?
At the other end o f the scale there are adverbial directives (5) that have no
fixed opening and often border on ellipsis. What makes it possible to describe
the adverbial directives as fixed is the invariable connection o f this type of
nonevaluative adverbial predicate sentence with directive communicative
function.
(5)
Up mountain and glacier!
The infinitive clauses introduced by Oh expressing an exclamatory wish (6a.)
illustrate a movement o f a structure away form the fixed pattern. They are
usually used without the poetic or archaic fixed opening in informal speech
(6b.) even though it makes their communicative function context-bound rather
than sentence-structure-bound.
(6) a. Oh to be free!
b. A: Well, we used to lie in every weekend. B: Oh d o n ’t. A lie in. What I
w ouldn’t give fo r a lie in, and to read the Sunday papers in bed.
Infinitive clauses beginning with How (7) constitute the only fixed
subjectless nominal sentence type occurring in our headline excerpts. Unlike
the formally identical directive headings used in instructional writing, these
sentences do not introduce instructions to the reader but rather the author’s or
another person’s opinion on the way to reach the goal indicated by the clause.
(7) a. How to save the West End
b. How to be selected as a Tory MP
However, there seems to operate a different pattern o f fixed structures
among the subjectless nominal sentences in newspaper headlines. A large
number o f these verbless sentences take the form o f 'noun + preposition +
noun1(8). Some o f these constructions border on ellipsis, forming a subject and
predicate sentence. The prepositions {at, in, on) denote spatial (or
metaphorically spatial) relations, the verb be is implied:
(8)
a. Earth in asteroid near-miss
b. Chinese athletes in first Olympic drugs scandal
c. Student on target
d. Euro a t record low
Structurally similar subjectless clauses display a broader range of
prepositions (of, by, for, in, on, to, with). Among these there is a subgroup of
sentences comprising a deverbal noun, which makes it possible to interpret
them as nominalizations o f sentences whose predicate is formed by the
corresponding noun (9).
(9) a. Confessions o f an artist’s model
b. Record profits fo r Enterprise on back o f high oil prices
The majority o f sentences o f 'noun + preposition + noun' structure, however,
are more adequately described as a nominal head followed by a prepositional
postmodification, the relation between the two nouns depending on the
preposition.
A similar fixed nominal predicate sentence type formed by a noun + the
preposition fo r + a noun occurs in colloquial English. However, it invariably
has the force of a directive, the first noun denoting the desired object or state to
which the noun or pronoun referring to the person involved in the implied
action is connected by the preposition (10).
(10) Psychiatrics fo r her.
A second large group o f subjectless sentences in both registers comprises
structures with nominal predicate only. There being no fixed structure, the
communicative function of the individual sentences is totally dependent on the
context. In colloquial English these sentences can perform more functions
simultaneously within the given context. They serve as means o f textual
cohesion and progression, and convey an appeal or evaluation at the same
time. E.g. the sentence (11) can be used by the speaker to comment negatively
and often ironically on the preceding context, usually summarising it. The
speaker implies being familiar with the topic and having had negative
experience with it.
(11) A: Hagg was a brother to me. B: Ah, fraternal love! I have heard o f such
things, [self-mocking]
The interpretation o f these sentences used as headlines (12) is also totally
context-bound.
(12) a. Concorde clue
b. Prodigy school
A small subgroup o f these sentences (13) contains the possessive case o f a
noun.
(13) a. Speedway’s second coming
b. Ono's fig h t
c. Twins' check
As the examples show, the head noun is often deverbal, which makes it
possible to understand these structures again as nominalisations o f full regular
sentences containing the corresponding verb (cf. subjective / objective
genitive, CGEL, p. 321).
In colloquial English, some o f the nominal predicate sentences allow for
elliptical interpretation (14a.) but, as (14b.) shows, others are to be understood
as nonelliptical, the absence o f the article as compared with a complete
sentence suggesting the nonelliptical interpretation. There are no indicators o f
nonelliptical interpretation in adjectival predicate sentences. On the contrary,
the question tags appended to them (14d.) often support their treatment as
ellipsis o f subject + be.
(14) a. A: A nd all this fo r little Debbie. A: A very lucky vouns ladv.
b. S h e ’s not the least bit interested in politics. B: Lucky lady.
c. A: I think h e ’s got a talent quite definitely. B: Marvellous.
d. Neat, isn ‘t it?
The presence versus the absence o f articles in newspaper headlines cannot
be relied on as a criterion of elliptical interpretation as the articles themselves
are often subject to ellipsis in all block language. However, the function of
nominal headlines is usually to summarise the contents o f the article below
(and attract the reader’s attention to it) rather than represent a part o f it that
would be repeated in the text, which supports the nonelliptical interpretation:
e.g. (15) is a headline of a text beginning with the following sentence: Appeal
Court judges trying to determine whether Siamese twins should be separated
are having sleepless nights over the dilemma.
(15) Nightmare choice
In both registers, the subjectless sentences can be subclassified on the basis
of the word class representing the nominal predicate (a noun phrase, adjective,
adverbial; infinitive in spoken English). The main difference in the use o f this
type of sentences in the two registers does not consist in the form the sentences
have but in the range o f functions they perform.
As we have mentioned before, the principal irregularity o f the sentences
with a subject and predicate structure may consist in that the predicate is
expressed by other means than the finite verb. In colloquial English, the
nominal realisation of the predicate is not the only irregularity encountered
in these sentences. The most frequent type, exemplified here by (16), deviates
also from the unmarked theme - rheme ordering: the rhematic nominal
predicate is in initial position, followed by the thematic subject. The
imperative type (17) can either follow the unmarked subject - predicate
sequence (17a.) or have the reversed order (17b.). Here the irregularity consists
not only in the subjective rheme - theme order in the latter type o f sentences
and in the nonverbal predicate, but also in the presence o f subject in an
imperative sentence. However, some o f these sentences can be interpreted as
ellipsis o f a finite verb o f motion, the closeness to ellipsis depending on the
uniqueness o f the verb implied. The following exclamatory or interrogative
type (18) makes use o f repetition as a device o f conveying surprise or doubt.
(16) Greedy creatures, gulls.
(17) a. A ll passengers in the subway please.
b. Pens down everybody.
(18) A: They (= he + Dorcas) cycle everywhere, d idn’t you know? H e ’s the
fittest man I ’ve ever met. B: Yes, but Dorcas cvcline. I d o n ’t believe it.
Subject - nominal predicate sentences that do not allow for elliptical
interpretation are rare in headlines. Apart from the prepositional type
mentioned above (8), a sequence o f two juxtaposed nouns occurs (19). The
theme - rheme sequence is preserved and the verb be is implied, which makes
even these sentences borderline cases o f ellipsis.
(19) a. Malmaison a stage on MWB ’s journey o f transformation
b. Parking threat to Toad’s Meadow
Another type of subject - predicate nominal sentences takes the form o f two
noun phrases linked by a colon, the first part being thematic, the second
functioning as a rheme o f the construction (20a.). Examples (21a.) and (21b.),
containing as their second parts an elliptical compound sentence and a
complex sentence respectively, show that the status o f these sentences is
sometimes indeterminate between a simple sentence and a compound sentence.
(20) Women and the pill: the stormy love affair
(21) a. PROMS: Showman at the helm o f Scotland’s finest; and youth
triumphant in a marathon performance
b. Edinburgh Comedy: Hettie Judah finds obsessions with aliens,
nouns and statistics can be compulsively funny
The only regular type is constituted by (active or passive) infinitival predicate
sentences (22). This seems to be the only sentence type headlines regularly
employ for the expression o f future.
(22) a. Honda to double UK car output
b. Titanic to be raised as a Las Vegas casino
The irregular finite-verb predicate sentences comprise subordinate clauses
used as independent sentences. The /^clauses (23) used to express an
exclamatory wish and that-clauses with putative should (24) expressing
disapproval or regret in colloquial English have both been thoroughly
described in the literature."
(23) Everything I do is a mistake. I f I could start again, but how fa r back.
(24) That I should have hit Humpty. O f all people.
In newspaper headlines, subordinate clauses beginning with How, Why or
What are used independently either with an instruction-like function similar to
the corresponding infinitival subjectless sentences (25a.) or as a minimal
summary introducing the following article (25b.-d.).
(25) a .H ow movie wannabes can take a short cut to reel-time stardom
b. How Rembrandt's pupil fa iled the test
11 Cf. Duskova (1988,1991).
c. Why Rome w o n ’t forgive the sins o f Canterbury
d. What the students say
Certain types o f irregular sentences can become parts o f complex sentences.
In colloquial English, the inclusion can be accompanied by a change in
function o f the nominal sentence. Subjectless nominal clauses appear in a
conditional relationship to the following regular clause, to which they are often
connected by and (26a.). If the order o f the clauses is reversed (26b.), the
irregular clause o f the subject-nominal predicate type functions as an adverbial
referring to the circumstances o f what is expressed by the preceding clause,
conveying the speaker’s disapproval. I f the same nominal clause is used
independently (26c.), it has a rather different function, i.e. that o f conveying
the speaker’s surprise.
(26) a. A man th a t’s been in the sea a week has no eyes. You can tell how long
h e ’s been there, threshed around, by his face. Ten days and i t ’s the lips
and the nose.
b. You ’re leaving this minute and you ’re taking that young man with
you. Honestly, Helen. Turning up like this. What are my neighbours
going to say, and vou a married woman.
c. A: I married John yesterday. B: You a married woman.
In the register o f headlines, complex as well as compound sentences, regular
or irregular, are rare (about 2% in our material). Nominal clauses can be
followed by a temporal dependent clause introduced by as, after or before
(27a.-c.), or by a relative clause (27d.-e.). They can also be coordinated with a
regular sentence (27f.).
(27) a. Panic buying as blockade squeezes pumps dry
b. Scooter alert after boy loses fingertip
c. Tough talk before TV debates even start
d. Fanatical campaigners who show no mercy
e. Little Irish comedy that is wowing L A ‘s finest
f. Tears at bedtime (and th a t’s ju s t the au pair)
The comparison o f the individual types o f irregular sentences characteristic
o f the registers o f English newspaper headlines and colloquial speech suggests
that there exist quite a large number o f superficially similar structures, which
makes it possible (contrary to Straumann’s claim that “block-language cannot
in any case be comprehended by means o f the traditional categories of
grammar”,12 based on the language o f headlines before 1935) to apply the
same classification procedure for both the registers. As Kotlandova has shown,
the headlines have changed since the publication Straumann’s monograph
12 Straumann (1935: 21).
(Straumann, 1935), displaying a shift towards structures identical with those
typical o f everyday speech.13 However, as we have seen above, the shift has
been only partial. While in colloquial English specific communicative needs
lead to the use o f sentence types whose function is dependent on the context,
linguistic or situational (e.g. 11, 14), or give rise to new sentence patterns (1, 4,
23, 24), manifesting thus a balance between the implicative tendency (towards
the prevalence o f the significance o f function over that o f structure) and the
explicative tendency (towards the emergence o f new fixed sentence types with
a more or less clearly defined communicative function),14 the communicative
requirements the headlines have to answer are by far more limited. As the
central purpose o f a headline is “to attract the reader’s attention, and, basically,
to sell the information”,15 colloquial English constructions can provide
welcome means whereby to imply the relevant informal speech features, viz.
personal contact, closeness based on shared knowledge, emotional colouring,
taking a stand (cf. also the frequent use o f direct speech in headlines, often
without indicating the speaker, e.g. “You torturer, I hope you get cancer", Top
policeman “sexually abused his women sta ff”, or without quotation marks, e.g.
L e t’s p u t the show on right here). The functional boundedness o f headlines
may easily lead to structural limitedness which can be offset by the use o f
everyday language. On the other hand, the functional limitations also lead to
restrictions concerning the range o f colloquial English sentence types that can
be used as headlines. As the colloquial patterns cannot preserve their
communicative function when used as headlines, the overlaps between the two
registers can be expected mostly in the cases where the connection between a
syntactic structure and a communicative function is not unequivocal.
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13 Cf. also Bell (1991).
14 Cf. Skrebnev (1985).
15 Kotlandová (1993: 130).
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