Informative Journalistic Genres: Structure and Characteristics

Posted on Oct 1, 2024 in Language

Informative Journalistic Genres

A) Functional Aspects

The primary functions of journalistic articles are to inform and provide opinions. They may also aim to entertain the reader (e.g., hobbies, specific supplements).

  • Information Function: Achieved through the dissemination of objective information about events of interest.
  • Opinion Function: Involves issuing evaluative judgments or opinions on the facts. It’s common for articles to both report and assess information (e.g., news analysis, commentary).

B) General Characteristics

  1. Target large groups.
  2. Employ unidirectional language codes.
  3. Utilize iconic codes (typography, spacing, icons, photos).
  4. Generally assume prior reader knowledge.
  5. Reference diverse topics, requiring extensive lexical knowledge.

Informative Genres

1. Breaking News

The quintessential informative genre. Its objective is to disseminate current events of general interest, geographically relevant, atypical, and with personal relevance. The level of interest is often tied to the target audience.

Writers often follow the ‘rule of six Ws’: who, what, where, when, how, and why.

Structure of a News Article
  • Headline: Captures the essence of the story and attracts attention.
  • Subheadline: Qualifies or expands upon the headline.
  • Lead or Intro: The opening paragraph, expanding on the headline and addressing the main Ws. May be in bold or a different font. Can sometimes be the first paragraph of the body.
  • Body: Provides complete information, expanding on details. Follows an inverted pyramid structure, starting with the most relevant information and gradually introducing less crucial elements.
Characteristics of Headlines
  1. Brief but informative.
  2. Verbs are not abundant and, if present, usually in the present tense.
  3. Verbs like ‘be’ are often omitted.
  4. Direct quotes may be used, omitting the ‘dicendi’ word.
  5. Enunciative sentences are common.
  6. Circumstantial complements of place often precede other elements.
  7. Nominal complements are predominant.
  8. Punctuation is usually limited to commas and colons.

2. Feature Article

An extended form of news, exploring background, context, history, and consequences. Less objective than news and usually signed. Combines narrative and descriptive styles, emphasizing one or the other depending on the subject (e.g., direct action or recreational event).

Headlines may use phrases from movies, songs, or wordplay to attract attention. Essentially, a feature provides in-depth information on an event, situation, or person of interest.

3. Interview

Reproduction of a dialogue between a journalist and a prominent figure. Aims to provide information from a specific source: the interviewee.

Two main types:

  • Biographical-psychological: Focuses on the interviewee’s personal life and experiences.
  • General or informational: The interviewee discusses various topics.

Closely related to the opinion genre, as the interviewee often expresses subjective views.

Recurring Characteristics of Informative Texts

A) Lexico-semantic

  1. Clear, concise, and correct lexicon.
  2. Standard language register.
  3. Descriptive adjectives, not evaluative.
  4. Objective lexicon, with denotation prevailing.
  5. Specialized lexicon may be used depending on the topic.
  6. Occasional use of barbarisms, initialisms, acronyms, and common expressions.
  7. Use of synonyms to avoid repetition.
  8. Use of euphemisms.
  9. Appearance of foreign words.

B) Morphosyntactic

  1. Abundance of adjectives, both attributive and predicative, with a clarifying function.
  2. Predominance of articles and demonstratives among determiners.
  3. Predominance of verbs in the indicative mood, preferably compound tenses.
  4. Frequent use of the simple past or transitive predication with numerous expansions (e.g., complements of place, time, manner, cause).
  5. Frequent use of adjective clauses for clarity.
  6. Many subordinate noun clauses, both direct and indirect objects.
  7. Common use of adverbials of place, time, and manner.
  8. Occasional grammatical errors and unusual structures due to the speed of news writing and translation from foreign agencies.
  9. Situational complements of place are usually placed at the beginning of the sentence.
  10. Tendency to use prepositional phrases instead of simple prepositions, paraphrasing simple words.
  11. Use of the third person for objectivity.
  12. Combination of long and short verb phrases for readability.
  13. Use of the conditional mood to report unconfirmed information.