TRANSLATION OF NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper article. It is the most concise form of newspaper information.

English newspaper headlines are short and catching, they compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skillfully turned put headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader's curiosity. In most of the English newspapers sensational headlines are quite common. The headlines of newspaper items, apart from giving information about the subject-matter, also carry a considerable amount of appraisal, i.e. they show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported.

To lure the reader into going through the whole of the item takes a lot of skill and ingenuity on the part of the headline writer. Accuracy of content, intelligibility, practicality, attractiveness of appearance and vigour are the necessary requirements and where every headline goes unerringly to the point with precision and wit the whole newspaper comes alive. But the first basic requirement for newspaper headlines is brevity. The headline must fit into space. The headline "World faces explosion of lifestyle illnesses" (The Guardian) meets the necessary requirements: it fits, it makes immediate sense, it attracts the reader's attention, it tells the story.

Very often the information is split into decks. The purpose of a deck is to cope with a more complicated or important story where several news points have to be made; but only the first deck needs to be completely self-contained. The first deck carries the most important news point; the second deck elaborates this with a significant detail or adds a further news point.

The functions and the peculiar nature of English headlines predetermine the choice of language means used. The vocabulary groups considered in the analysis of newspaper materials are commonly found in headlines.

Headlines often contain emotionally coloured words and phrases as the italicized words in the following examples: ^r\Unwilling flunkeys' (Daily Herald), 'Crazy Waste of Youth' (Reynolds News), "No Wonder Housewives are Pleading: 'HELP' (Daily Mirror), 'Roman Catholic Priest sacked" (The Daily Telegraph).

Furthermore, to attract the reader's attention, headline writers often resort to a deliberate breaking-up of set expressions and deformation of special terms, a stylistic device capable of producing a strong emotional effect, e.g.: 'Cakes and Bitter Ale' (The Sunday Times), 'Multilateral Fog' (Daily Worker), 'Conspirator-in-chief Still at Large' (The Guardian). Compare respectively the allusive set expressions cakes and ale, and the terms multilateral force and commander-in-chief.

Other stylistic devices are not infrequent in headlines, as for example, the pun (play on words), e.g., 'And what about Watt' (The Observer), 'WIPO wipes out domain name rights' (WIPO = World Intellectual Property Organization) (The Daily Telegraph), alliteration 'Miller in Maniac Mood' (The Observer), allusions 'All Quiet on Monty Front' (cf. All Quiet on the Western Front) etc.

The basic language peculiarities of headlines, however, lie in their structure. Syntactically headlines are very short sentences or phrases of a variety of patterns:

a) Full declarative sentences, e. g. 'They Threw Bombs on Gipsy Sites' (The Times), 'Allies Now Look to London' (The Times).

b) Interrogative sentences, e.g., 'Do you love war?' (Daily World), 'Who has never had it so good?' (Daily Worker)

c) Nominative sentences, e.g., 'Gloomy Sunday' (The Guardian), 'Atlantic Sea Traffic' (The Times).

d) Elliptical sentences: with an auxiliary verb omitted, e.g., 'Initial report not expected until June' (The Guardian), 'Yachtsman spotted' (The Guardian), 'South Vietnamese Company Wiped Out by Guerrillas' (The New York Herald Tribune); with the subject omitted, e.g., 'Stole luxury cars by photo' (Daily Worker), 'Fell 4 floors and walked in at a door' (Daily Worker); with the subject and part of the predicate omitted, e.g., 'Off to the sun' (The Guardian), 'Still in danger' (The Guardian).

e) Sentences with articles omitted, e.g., 'Frogman finds girl in river' (Daily Worker), 'Staff join teach-in by Bristol students' (The Times).’ Nurse attacked with own surgical scissors' (The Daily Telegraph).

f) Phrases with verbals: infinitive, e.g., 'To get US aid' (The Times); participial, e.g., 'Keeping Prices Down' (The Times); gerundial, e.g., 'Club stabbing' (Daily Worker).

g) Questions in the form of statements, e.g., The worse the better? (Daily World), 'Growl now, smile later?' (The Observer).

h) Complex sentences, e.g., 'Senate Panel Hears Board of Military Experts Who Favoured Losing Bidder' (The New York Times).

i) Headlines including direct speech: introduced by a full sentence, e.g. 'Prince Richard says: "I was not in trouble" (The Guardian), 'What Oils the Whee's of Industry? Asks James Lowery-Olearch of the Shell-Мех and B. P. Group' (The Times); introduced elliptically, e.g., The Queen: "My deep distress" (The Guardian).

Rules for Translation. The headline in British and American newspapers is an important vehicle of both information and appraisal, and translators should give it special attention.

To translate the headline, first read through the article carefully. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. That is why the source title may be slightly modified or completely changed in the translation to provide a deeper insight into the contents of the source article.

When you translate newspaper headlines, remember that verbal headlines containing a finite or non-finite form of the verb prevail in English newspapers whereas in Ukrainian and Russian papers nominal headlines in which the principal part is expressed by a noun are quite common, for example: Floods hit Scotland — Повінь у Шотландії, William Faulkner is dead — Смерть Уильяма Фолкнера, Johnson sends message — Послання Джонсона.

If the headline is lengthy, it is impossible to eliminate the verb in translation, e.g.: Bonn-Paris alliance causing some friction among ECM partners — Союз Бонн-Париж став причиною незгоди між партнерами по спільному Європейському ринку.

Verbal character of the headline will also be preserved in interrogative headlines: Will there be a major business slump in 2003? — Чи загрожує нам у 2003 році економічна криза?

Elliptical headlines with the subject omitted are especially difficult to translate. Literal translation of such headlines sounds artificial in Ukrainian. You have either to find the subject, reading the article closely or to render the headline by means of a nominal sentence, e.g.: Shun gov't order to end RR strike — 3алізничники відмовляются виконувати наказ уряду про припинення страйку, Demand jail for KKK'ers bombing Dallas home — Негри Далласа вимагають ув'язнення ку-клукс-клановських mepopucmie, Want no hysteria in Toronto schools — Протести проти поширення icmepii y школах Торонто.

Present Simple is often used in newspaper headlines with reference to the past to express vividness in narration. Such headlines are usually rendered into by means of verbs in the past tense, e.g.: Bell puts bandits to flight — Сигнал тривоги змусив злодіїв бігти.

Infinitival headlines are used in English newspapers to denote future actions, e.g.: GM Canada to shut Quebeck plant for week (GM Canada = General Motors of Canada Ltd.). To render such headlines into Ukrainian, use the words збираються, майбутні, наступні to express an action which will take place in the future, e.g.: America to resume testing — США збираютъся відновumu ядерні випробування.

Attributive noun groups, set expressions, abbreviations typical for newspaper headlines may also prove difficult to decode, e.g. Lung cancer deaths up again — Зріст смepmнocmi від раку легенів, Boy blue slung his hook — Пропав хлопчик: одягнений у синє (to sling one's hook — драпанути, втекти). Hip and square films — Ултрамодерністські та mpадиційні фільми, Get off Neddy (Neddy = NED = National Economic Development Council, рада з розвитку економіки), The purpose of Nick (Nick - NIC -National Incomes Commission), etc.

THE SCHEME OF RENDERING THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

1. The article under the title "..."/ entitled "... "/under the headline is taken from the newspaper "..." in its issue of the 23^rd of November 2010

2. The article is written by...

3. The article deals with / dwells upon /touches upon/tackles a very urgent problem of /covers/comments on/gives full coverage to (of) smth./gives full attention to/follows the developments/stresses/emphasizes/informs(of)/points out/reports on/carries information/reviews the latest events.

4. Divide the article into several logical parts:

- in the first part the author dwells upon / writes / explains/ covers / raises a very important question;

- in the second part...

- in the third part...

5.Summing up(the key-note and the message of the article):

- to sum it all up, the author comes to/ arrives at the conclusion that...

6. Own viewpoint on the article: I find this article very interesting / boring... I consider the author’s way of interpretation is not to the point.

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