Journalistic Text Features and Structures
**Morphosyntactic Features of Journalistic Texts**
§ Propensity to longer sentences through different mechanisms: circumlocution, appositions, subsections, explanatory sentences (adverbial, prepositional, and conjunctive).
§ Abundance of the passive voice.
§ Tendency to place the subject at the end.
§ Mix of direct and indirect style.
§ Use of barbarisms, especially Anglicisms and Gallicisms: A + infinitive in the adjacent function of a noun: duties to fulfill.
§ Periphrasis be + being + participle: proposals are being analyzed.
§ Elimination of prepositions: Bush Administration.
§ Conditional value of possibility: The unions have expressed their willingness
**Rhetorical Features of Journalistic Texts**
In journalistic texts, we often find all sorts of rhetorical figures. The most common are:
- Metaphors: The War of public office, employment summit.
- Metonymy: California bans smoking in bars.
- Personifications: The good price performance.
- Hyperbole: All Spain turned to the selection.
Journalistic Genres
Taking into account the functions of journalism, texts can be divided into three groups:
Informational Texts
They are characterized by:
- Objective information on current events.
- Prevalence of narrative and description.
- Anticlimax or inverted pyramid structure
1. News
This is the factual information of an event marked by its novelty and interest. It should be brief, concise, clear, objective, and impersonal.
A fact becomes newsworthy when it interests a large number of people, is current and unusual, in addition to meeting other aspects such as emotion, conflict, utility, leading personality, etc. In the story, the most noteworthy aspect of the fact is often presented first.
Story structure: In the news, interest decreases as the story progresses. The most important information is at the top. This is often described as an inverted pyramid shape. The text of a news story is composed of the following elements:
- Headlines (optional: top title, sub-headline): Presentation of essential information. Distinguished by a special font (larger print and bold, for example).
- Lead, summary, or entry: A paragraph of essential information; it should respond to the questions what, who, when, how, where, why?
- Body: Variable number of paragraphs of declining interest. Paragraphs are significantly independent.
In writing a news story, relevant linguistic aspects appear:
- Objectivity is demonstrated with the use of the 3rd person, specific adjectives, verifiable data, the denotative value of words, and a low occurrence of adverbs.
- Standard language register, denotative language (no subjective meanings associated), and an explanation of technical terms when they appear.
- Simple syntax, simple and compound sentences with coordination.
2. Feature
Follows the news story structure. It develops more fully and objectively.
- Quotes often appear in inverted commas, interviews with specialists in the field, graphic information, etc.
- Always signed, the operational objective is information, but humanized. In reporting, the issuer becomes an eyewitness.
3. Interview
The mode of discourse, which serves as a structure for this type of text, is a dialogue in direct style, question-answer. Sometimes, comments from the interviewer are interspersed (expressive function). In any case, a profile of the respondent is presented before introducing biographical data, subjective comments, etc.
Opinion Texts
Newspaper opinion texts present a free structural arrangement. However, they are externally organized into paragraphs of variable numbers, which are organized into three parts: introduction (exhibition part: current events that are newsworthy), development (data, arguments, judgments, opinions), and conclusion that closes the op-ed.
- These texts use exposition and argumentation as modes of discourse or forms of utterance.
- They try to persuade the recipient, often appearing with the conative function explicitly or implicitly.