A Study Of The Attractive Function Of English News Headlines

News is one of the basic elements of mass media in which we share information and know the outside world. It can also broaden our vision and enrich our knowledge. The news headline is the eye of news and the highly artistic condensation, the most important function of which is to attract readers' attention, make readers clear at a glance and arouse their curiosity to read on. The language of the English news headlines is concise, readable, aesthetic and novel, which differs a lot from other styles of writing. This paper is an attempt to discuss the relationship between news and news headline, study the attractive function and analyze the stylistic features of English news headlines from deviation and overregularity aspects.The news headline is designed to fulfill many functions, among which the attractive function is the most important one. The theory of informativity is introduced in this paper. The theory of thematization is also employed to analyze the relationship between news and news headline: A news headline can be the theme of a piece of news and they influence each other.The foregrounding theory has been discussed and summarized in this paper. Fromdeviation and overregularity ------ two main manifestations of foregrounding, thestylistic features of English news headline has been discussed systematically and comprehensively. To achieve the attractive function, new headline writers deviate language at graphological, lexical, syntactical and semantic levels. Graphological deviation catches readers' eyes by various styles, punctuation and misspelling. Lexicon in news headlines is special in acronyms, abbreviations and coinages. Ellipsis is a prominent feature at syntactical level. The functional words in news headlines are omitted for brevity. A large variety of rhetorical devices are used in English news headlines, such as metaphor, metonymy, personification, pun, allusion, antithesis, parody, hyperbole and syllepsis, which have special magic to attract readers. Overregularity at phonological, lexical and syntactical levels also makes headlines more eye-catching and ear-pleasing. Alliteration, rhyme, short words, vivid verbs, positive sentences and quoted sentences are favored which help headlines realize the attractive function effectively.