A Study On Entertainment News

The modern world is a world of information. As a main resource of information, news has already become an indispensable part of human lives, which makes the research on news from the perspective of modern linguistics practical and essential. When human beings have accomplished their main missions of sustaining and reproducing lives, they have an urge to entertain themselves,and entertainment news provides an effective outlet for the urge. Against this background, to analyze entertainment news from linguistics perspectives and probe the regulations behind language and speech will enable us to understand better of the ways by which entertainment news'functions are fulfilled and materialized, to interpret and regulate entertainment news, to improve our mastery of speech skills and refine our taste.Under the theoretical framework of modern rhetoric and with the application of various linguistic theories, this study aims to conduct a research on entertainment news from a relatively more comprehensive point of view, both in a static and dynamic way and from a micro and macro perspective. The research is conducted in a static way by means of analyzing the structure of entertainment news, describing the features of the text based on the studies performed by other scholars and classifying the type of the text; in a dynamic way by means of analyzing the process of comprehension and construction of the text and how the features are materialized in a detailed way. We also probe and interpret the micro-field of grammar, semantics, lexicography and phonology on one hand, with the study of the relations between the ways by which entertainment news'functions are fulfilled and related social, psychological and cognitive factors and on the other hand, the macro-field of rhetoric, functional stylistics and narratology.The study starts with the definition of entertainment news, and then analyzes the classification, features and functions of the news. Followed by a general introduction is the analysis of the structure, topics and themes, language forms and comprehension of the news. First and foremost, entertainment news is a fuzzy concept and can be defined based on its function, topics and themes and the fixed layout of the media. This study adopts the fixed layout of the media as the main criterion of classification and believes that the entertainment news is the text of news focusing on the latest report on stars in entertainment industry (mostly in performing arts sector) and related business. The news function is mainly to entertain and takes form mostly in news story. With this definition, the text we collected is highly integrated in form, topics and themes and function as well.Before we describe and analyze the distinctive features of the news text, we are required to clarify the function of the news text, on which text classification can be generalized. The study firstly gives a detailed description of the classification of entertainment news text and categorizes it from its function and style, which is the most desirable way of classification. The entertainment news'functional stylistic features are characterized by absorbing language units with literary and spoken language features to serve for the functions of entertainment news. The absorption creates some distinctive features between entertainment news and political news, from the tone, the adoption of descriptive language to the innovation in the speech. There is no significant distinction between entertainment news and news as a whole as far as the structure is concerned, however, there are indeed some differences in the choice of some subcategories in the structure. As for web entertainment news, the hyperlinks provide abundant background information and thus it is presented less in quantity in the news text. Furthermore, in the narration of the news story, time sequences are not arranged in a linear way but in an"in and out"way. In general, due to the fact that news structure is a fixed one, we are expected to find fewer features in this field.The purpose of the news is affected by the audience and can be realized through the content. The topics and themes of entertainment news, based on the psychological characters of the audience, can be categorized into two groups: the performing business of stars and their private lives. Using the statistical method, we find an equal amount both in these two groups. In the group of private lives, we find half of the topics and themes of the report are about stars'marriages, scandals and rumors. Finally, the content and the characters of the audiences act together and help to form some of the features of entertainment news text.As for the representation method of the features of the entertainment news text, the study analyzes the application of it in the headline, lead and main body respectively from three fields of phonetics, semantics and grammar. We find that the absorption of the language units with literary language features is realized through using methods of vowels harmony, rhythms harmony, antinomy and the usage of adjectives, adverbs and mental verbs. Meanwhile, the absorption of the language units with spoken language features are realized through using methods of vowels harmony, synonymy, word-formation and the type of sentences.Compared with other types of news, entertainment news presents certain features when we analyze its factuality. Although the primary aim of all types of news is to convince and be factual, it is not always the case when we interpret the factuality of entertainment news because it is considered as one kind of"soft news". The study finds out that the usage of direct quotation, the illustration of news resources and the existence of certain subjective comments act together and affect the audience's judgment on the report's factuality.The innovation is influenced by the purpose of the text and its audience and media. The innovation in the text is supposed to serve for the communication purpose and enhance its news value and aesthetic value. However, there are some irregular usages in the text or even temporary coinage which act as obstacles against text comprehension. They are what we should avoid in the construction of entertainment news.