Diachronic perspectives of language economy in headlinese
Peter Bojo – Daniel Lancaric
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2021.14.02.22
Abstract
The language of newspaper headlines is traditionally marked by a number of lexical and grammatical devices which are used to reach the overall economy of language. The present article is a review of the occurrence and overall behaviour of these lexical and grammatical devices in the course of time. The research is conducted as a diachronic quantitative analysis. The aim of the analysis is to discover whether the distribution of lexical and grammatical devices of language economy is equal or if one prevails over the other in the course of time. Further, the analysis is designed to determine whether the occurrence of the lexical and grammatical devices is random, or if there is a direct correlation between the time and the number of devices applied. In attempt to map the overall behaviour of lexical and grammatical economy devices, two hypotheses are tested: 1: There is a significant difference in the distribution of lexical and grammatical devices in the course of time. 2: There is a positive correlation (a growing tendency) between the time axis and the distribution of lexical and grammatical devices. This article is written as a part of a VEGA project named VEGA project no. 1/0769/20. “The Language of Electronic Media in the English Linguocultural Context”.
Key words: headline, language economy, lexis, syntax, ellipsis, condenser
Pages: 302-319
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