The Stylistic Drift Of American News Register

Due to a paucity of diachronic studies on American news register based on the multi-dimensional(MD) approach, the present study, adopting the MD approach,attempts to explore the stylistic drifts of American news register and its sub-registers based on the “Brown family” corpora spanning nearly fifty years. Moreover, this thesis initiatively calculates the overall dimension score to reveal the general trend of American news register, which has not been made before. Major findings are shown as follows:(1) The American news register has become more situation-dependent and on-line informationally elaborated since 1961, thus gradually shifting towards colloqualization.(2) The stylistic drifts of the three sub-registers of American news are different. Reportage has become more narrative, situation-dependent and on-line informationally elaborated since 1961, indicating the colloquial tendency, whereas after 1992, it becomes relatively less narrative, situation-dependent but increasingly on-line informationally elaborated. Editorials have been increasingly on-line informationally elaborated during the three periods, suggesting a consistent trend towards colloquialization. Reviews have shifted to be informational since 1961, i.e.formalization but gradually revert to interactive style after 1992, i.e. colloquialization.(3) After the six dimension scores are integrated, the American news register has become increasingly informal and colloquial overall across the three periods.However, its two sub-registers, which are statistically different during the three periods, show a reverse trend: From 1961 to 1992, reportage shifts to colloquialization while reviews dramatically become more formal and written-like; from 1992 to 2009,reportage becomes less colloquial than in 1961 and 1992 while reviews become more colloquial. Not only can this research fill the gap in the diachronic research using the multi-dimensional approach to the stylistic drift of American news register reaching to2009, but also it can be helpful for the teaching and learning of news English.