| This thesis explores the features of broadcast English news lexicons in a quantitative approach and qualitative approach. The quantitative approach is referred to as using the formulae of lexical density; and the qualitative approach is to observe the features from different aspects. With these studies, the author gets to a different conclusion from the previous studies, on the marking number that distinguishes written mode language and spoken mode language. Besides, the author also makes a study on the difference between VOA and BBC vocabularies.Linguists have dedicated a lot into the study of news discourse features, from different aspects and levels. News discourse has the unique characteristics, with the nature of conveying messages promptly within a limited discourse. While broadcast news is more unique, which has the properties of both written language and spoken language. So the author takes great interest in the study of broadcast news discourse. Now relevant studies can be grouped into three schools, firstly, analysis of nominalization of the lexicons; secondly, analysis of the informativity of discourse by means of lexical density; thirdly, observation of the lexical features. However, these studies are not complete and thorough, in terms of the data collection, research methodology and representativity. So the author makes some improvements in the study, by means of Ures' and Halliday's methods, together with observation of lexical features, so as to get to a complete and in-depth conclusion of lexical features of broadcast news. With the same method, the author further explores the differences between VOA and BBC news vocabularies.
|
PDF Full Text Request