| The concept of objectivity in news discourse is familiar to everyone in journalism.News editors and reporters are always striving for objectivity in news report;however,to be objective in news report is almost "a mission impossible".As the two features of news narration,objectivity and subjectivity often co-exist,which may be explicable in terms of identity or position adopted by news writers.In recent years,identity construction has become a hot issue in pragmatics.The identities of the communicators in news communication are worthy of attention.Therefore,the recent identity theories can also be applied in the study of news discourse,providing a new theoretical perspective for it.The present study,accordingly,attempts to use identity theory to investigate the subjectivity in newspaper headlines,aiming at analyzing the discourse strategies and the pragmatic motive of identity construction of the subjectivity in news headlines,and revealing the interrelationship between discourse,identity and contexts in news headlines.Hypothetically,in order to realize certain communication aims,news headline makers will make many linguistic choices and adapt to different contexts in the process of news communication.Such choices reflect the subjectivity of the headline makers.The subjectivity in news headlines is closely connected to communicators and contexts in communication;thus,it has distinctive pragmatic properties.Based on this understanding,the present study tries to investigate the subjectivity in news headlines from three aspects.First,it discusses the pragmatic motive and function of identity construction of the subjective discourse in news headlines.Second,it describes various discourse strategies and linguistic realizations that can help headline makers construct different identities and thus reflect the subjectivity in news headlines.Third,it takes into consideration the influence of contexts,namely the property of newspapers and the change of times.As for the methodology of the present study,both qualitative text analysis and quantitative content analysis are adopted.Altogether 8496 news headlines from eight newspapers are collected.The eight newspapers are People's Daily,Guangming Daily,Jiefang Daily,Hunan Daily,Modern Express,Chongqing Morning Edition,Morning News Edition,and Sanxiang Metropolis Daily.The first four newspapers are published by the organs of the Chinese Communist Party,whereas the latter four are metropolis newspapers.The research findings are as follows.Firstly,news writers often construct various identities in their writing,which may explain the emergence of(explicit)subjectivity in newspaper headlines.The diverse subjective discourse strategies may help news headline makers to construct different kinds of identities,including instructional identities and personal identities.The former include three kinds of identities,namely news story teller,news information deliverer,and public opinion guider.The latter refer to four different self-aspects of the headline makers,namely being rigorous,critical,curious and reader-friendly.The subjective discourse in news headlines is,to some extent,caused by the headline makers' pragmatic motive of constructing different identities.In order to satisfy various communication needs and achieve different communication effects,news headline makers may construct a variety of identities and choose different kinds of linguistic realizations.This leads to the use of various subjective strategies in news headlines.Secondly,the subjectivity pertaining to identity construction in newspaper headlines is reflected by various subjective discourse strategies,which may help headline makers construct different kinds of identities.Among the 4505 news headlines,1243 are marked with the subjectivity of headline makers,accounting for 27.59%of the total.There are mainly four discourse strategies of subjectivity used in these news headlines,namely focalization,pragmatic presupposition,reporting,and metaphor.These discourse strategies have different kinds of linguistic realizations,and can embody the perspectivising subjectivity,experiential subjectivity and epistemic subjectivity of the news headline makers.Finally,both the property of newspapers and the change of times may influence the subjectivity of identity construction in news headlines.There are less subjective headlines and subjective discourse strategies in the party newspapers than in the metropolis newspapers.This is due to the restriction of the political property of the party newspapers.Besides,as time passes by,the subjective headlines in both kinds of newspapers are increasing,and the subjective discourse strategies are also becoming more and more diverse and varied.In a word,influenced by different contexts,the identities constructed by headline makers are varied,which leads to the changes and differences in the use of subjective strategies in news headlines.The current study has both theoretical and practical implications.Theoretically,it provides a feasible operational framework for the study of the subjectivity in news narration,thus broadening the previous research on linguistic subjectivity and news subjectivity,and expanding the application of identity theories.Practically,the present study will help headline makers to design more effective news headlines,contribute to the realization of the double functions of news,and also help news readers to better understand news headlines.Nevertheless,the current study also has some limitations.It is not always very objective in the determination of subjective strategies and headline makers' identities;it only focuses on two kinds of contexts,without considering the other possible contextual factors.Further studies should be improved in these aspects. |
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