A Study Of The Pragmatic Presupposition As A Function Of Nominal Patterns In The Leads Of Business English News

With the development of economic globalization, business plays a more and more important role in the economy of one country. The business English news, with the first-hand materials of the international business events, accordingly becomes the most effective source of international business information for all the people in the world. With the speeding of the life tempo in the modern society, people have to turn to the alternative, the business English news lead, the soul of the news, to get the main information of the news only, due to their being short of tme. Therefore, it is an urgent need to get a better understanding of the writing characteristics of the business English news lead for the modern people. Nominalization is considered as one of the remarkable features of English news. However, there are limited studies on the nominalization in business English news leads, and even fewer on the pragmatic presupposition of nominalization in the business English news leads.This thesis attempts to carry on a study on the pragmatic presupposition of nominalization in business English news leads. It is constructed on Halliday's concept of grammatical metaphor and nominalization, the concept of pragmatic presupposition and transitivity and thematic system in functional grammar, with the 90 pieces of leads with nominal patterns of the total of 587 in business section of the New York Times in Feburary, 2008 as the data. Adopting qualitative method, it attempts to explore the ways in which the nominal patterns in the business news leads realize pragmatic presupposition, to make a classification of the pragmatic presupposition of nominal patterns and to find the functions of the pragmatic presupposition of nominal patterns in the business English news leads.Through exploration, the author finds that it is through changing the thematic structure and transforming a thing and process into another thing that the nominal patterns in business English leads realize pragmatic presupposition; the pragmatic presupposition of nominal patterns could be classified into two types: behavioral pragmatic presupposition and factive pragmatic presupposition; the pragmatic presupposition as a function of nominal patterns enables the business English leads to keep more succinct, to reduce the reading burden of the readers and to give prominence to the important information to intrigue the readers. Meanwhile, the realization, classification and functions of the pragmatic presupposition of nominal patterns in the business English news leads are actually closely related to the features of nominal patterns and the business English news leads.