A Functional-Stylistic Approach To English Disaster News Reports

The present study offers a functional-stylistic approach to English disaster news reports. Based on an integrative mode for foregrounding feature analysis, this study analyzes thirty English disaster news reports in Yahoo website and discusses some prominent linguistic forms and their foregrounding effects in EDNRs.Major findings of this study show that the communicative purpose of EDNRs, which is to report the important information of the disaster event to the audiences in a quick and not boring way, determines that the foregrounding features of EDNRs include "topic-restricted", "objectivity", "vividness", "deductivity", "clarity", and "meaning contraction".The foregrounding feature "deductivity" is realized at the semantic level by the inverted pyramid structure of EDNRs, which includes the attention-drawing headline, the straightforward, succinct but informative and intriguing lead and the body with a descending order of importance. The realization of other foregrounding features of EDNRs is also discussed and the analysis shows that the same foregrounding feature can be realized by different linguistic forms, at both lexico-grammatical and graphological levels. "Vividness" is realized by the employment of pictures, videos, and slideshows, word choice and the active voice; "objectivity" by the employment of vague numerals and hedges as well as quoted and reported speeches; "meaning contraction" by the employment of commas in the headline and brackets, long clause complexes, parenthesis, and participle phrases; "topic-restricted" by the employment of the past tense; "clarity" by the employment of short paragraphs. The study divides these linguistic forms into two different categories, one is qualitative prominence, i.e. incongruity, and the other is quantitative prominence, i.e. deflection. Both of them relate closely to the meaning of the text as a whole.This study is intended for a better understanding of the foregrounding features of EDNRs and some constructive suggestions on the audiences'appreciation of EDNRs and the teaching of English news reading and writing.