The Linguistic Art Of News Headline

It is less than a hundred years since news became a modern media tool. Chinese media has fast developed in the past 30 years. Nowadays, with the development of information technology, news report is getting closer and closer to people's life. As the news media's quantity and kind expansion, it has entered in"reading news headline's time". Headline is playing a more and more important role in the news information's broadcast.The news headline has grown from the absolutely nothing to the"reading news headline's time"over the past few years. As for the news media even to the public, the news headline is always playing a very important role. The most fundamental function of the headline is providing the briefest contents to the readers. The news headline can also give proposal to the news contents by its own ways and help the readers understand the news to a further degree. In fact, the most attractive thing is the social value, the news value and the aesthetics value which are revealed by the news headline.Comparing to the ordinary periodicals and books, the news headline boasts of different characteristics and demands. According to the special demands of news headline, the news headline must be clear enough to give information to the readers and reveal the news value. Accuracy, distinction, animation, briefness and novelty have been the basic principles for news headline. Giving prominence to the news value, revealing the propaganda value and polishing the words that used in the headline should be the three most important guidecines for the news headline.With the fierce media competition, it has been an important way to use aesthetic perspective to research and examine the newspaper's title in order to attract readers. At present, more and more media professors and scholars begin to devote themselves into the research of making news headline. The research of news headline gradually becomes systematized and regularized. What's more, it is developing to be the research target of journalism, psychology, linguistics, sociology, aesthetics, instead of being only in the field of newspaper editing.A successful headline should contain not only thought but also artistry, besides it should try to unify the thoughtful content and the form. The moving strength from the title of news is first from the news fact itself. However, if we make a headline full of a sense of beauty, using emotional languages and expressions, we could not only attract the readers to read the news, but also stimulate the readers'emotions, please their body and mind and inspire them to think. As a result, we will gain a more continuous broadcasting effect. Therefore, studying the titles of news on newspapers in the way of art has the nature of aiming at facts, and the value of both theory and practice, and becomes an important subject of studying.However,the research and development of news headline have a great difference between eachother at present. More systematic and comprehensive works have not come out yet. Through analyzing professional works and studying the linguistic art of news headline, we can see that, all the achievements of this field we have already gotten have stressed more on the summary and comments of rhetorical way about deadline for a long time. Headline is a linguistic art and it contains characters of journalism and linguistics. Its linguistic standard is higher than other writing forms. The research only from rhetorical viewapparently is not enough which can not fit for the transition of era and development of disciplines.Former researches into the linguistic art of news headline is more scattered, not deep and comprehensive. They are often from rhetorical view. Some may use existing rhetoric to classify the news headlines. Some just talk about the beauty of linguistic art of news headline. In addition, trueness is not only the life of news but also the principle and first element to produce news headline. Hence, the author holds, the most essential principle of linguistic art about news headline must build on the base of trueness, that is, news headline should have the beauty of trueness at first. However, this point has scarcely been mentioned clearly. Clearing up formers'research fruits, begining with the form and technique of news headline, the analyzes and concludes the linguistic art of news headline from five aspects including beauty of trueness, form, rhythm, imagination and flavor.The main contents of the paper can be concluded as:Trueness is the basic principles of the news headline. During the process of the news headline making, the author should touch the reader and persuade the reader via the trueness. The news headline should reflect the matter accurately and express the feeling naturally.The form of the news headline should obey the discipline of the aesthetics. It should be vivid enough to attract the readers to read the whole news. The external expressing form of the news headline includes: symmetrical, vividness, colorfulness.The artistic conception should be created for the readers via the news headline. The authors can use many ways to make the news headline significant.Emotional elements can be poured into the news headlines. Some novelties can be transferred into the news headlines to attribute more color to the news.Some-one has given the vivid description to the importance of the news headline: You can lead the horse to the river bank, but you can not force it to drink. When you deliver the newspaper to the readers, you meet the same problems and you can not force the readers to read all passages. But there is still one way to make the readers to read the news, it is"the good master of a news headline. Making a good headline is always the final direction of the authors and editors.