use of present tense also means the omission of termination ―ed‖, so it is a good way to save room. e.g., New Zealand unemployment increase is equal to New Zealand unemployment increased; Top Italian banks consider combining is equal to top Italian banks considered combining.
In English, there are two ways to express things ―will take place‖: ―will+verb‖, or the structure― be+verb-infinitive. But the latter one is a better choice because the link verb ―be‖ can be omitted to save space. In another word, in news headlines, the verb infinitive alone is used to express a future event directly. This feature is also true of financial news headlines, e.g., Japan to help elderly jobless is equal to Japan is to help elderly jobless; Largest Chinese trade delegation to visit US in Nov. is equal to The largest Chinese trade delegation is to visit US in Nov..
For the thing that is taking place, financial news headlines tend to use the structure ―be+ p.p.‖ (the present participle), in practice, the auxiliary verb ―be‖ is omitted. Here are some examples, China’s tax collector inching for inheritance tax is equal to China’s tax collector are inching for inheritance tax; Deposits and loans rising in HK is equal to The deposits and loans are rising in HK.
3.1.4 Using Rhetorical Devices
Financial news sometimes is a challenge of the common readers‘ comprehending ability because they are too dull and difficult to read. The task of the financial news headlines is not just to transfer information, but also to interest the public, and to persuade them into reading the bodies below. In order to make the financial news headlines more readable and understandable, the reporters tend to use some rhetorical devices.
Rhetoric devices means the financial news headlines apply various methods (such as alliteration, metaphor, allusion, personification) to make the headlines appear more vivid and lively.
1. Alliteration. It is a figure of speech in which consonants especially at the beginning of words or stressed syllables are repeated, e.g., Desperate need, desperate
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deed which describes the event that the food to aid the refugees‘ infamies-hit Somalia was robbed. A desperate deed should be adopted to satisfy the desperate need of the refugees. This headline makes use of alliteration to describe the awful situation in Somalia and arouse the attention of the readers. The news under the headline Sterling strong describes the exchange rate of ponds still stable despite the decreasing of U.S. dollars. The use of alliteration here gives the readers a sense of safety and emphasizes the stability of pounds.
2. Metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which something is described by stating another thing with which it can be compared without using the words ―as‖or ―like‖,e.g., Middle East: a cradle of terror, which describes the situation in Middle East where terrorism prevails and also endangers world peace.
3. Allusion. An allusion, as a reference to something in history or previous literature, is like a richly annotative word of a symbol, a means of suggesting far more than it says, making the readers feel being on the spot.
(1)Allusion from the literary works, such as: a tale of two India describes economic reforms in India have produced thousands of billionaires and millions of the world‘s poorest people. The headline makes use of the title of the famous novel《A Tale of Two Cities》, thus producing the humorous and literary senses.
(2)Allusion from the best-sellers, such as: who moved the market. The news describes the decreasing of the world‘s economy. The headline borrows from a best seller《who moved my cheese》. So it can attract the readers and persuade them into further reading.
(3)Allusion from the historical events, for example, the outbreak of web war II, this article describes the competition between the two web companies: Microsoft and Netscape, who fight to bring audio and video to the net. The headline comes from the historical event WWII, thus making the readers feel the fierce competition between the two companies.
(4)Allusion from the proverbs, for example, no wires, no rules, the story describes new wireless technologies will soon replace the web using radio spectrum
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without costing a penny. The headline imitates a famous proverb no pains, no gains, thus giving the readers a familiar sense.
4. Personification. World stocks plummet as auto sector reel, the news describes the stock price in the world equity markets is decreasing as a result of the price of cars in U.S. dropped deeply. The use of Personification makes the headline very vivid and reflects the lean outlook in the world market.
3.2 Features of Bodies
In the context above we analyzed the features of financial news headlines, and now we shall have an investigation on the features of the bodies of financial news. We will make our analysis from the following three aspects: the vocabulary characters, the sentence characters and the language features.
3.2.1 Features of Vocabulary 3.2.1.1 Emerging of Neologism
With the development of globalization and the conduction of financial activities every day, the vocabulary in our world is changing frequently. As a result, almost every year numerous new words come to our daily life.
Financial news covers wide areas from world economy, financial information, business, and trade action to even some technology information. In these areas new things, new problems come out almost every day, so in financial news it is not difficult for us to meet new words and new expressions. The reason we argued above is an objective element for the emergence of neologism. There also exists a subjective element. In order to hold readers, financial news tries to add some novel things to the serious news. These things can be the novelty of theme, the novelty of contents, and even the novelty of vocabulary. Such novelty also contributes to the increasing of neologism in financial news. Here are some examples:
down payment 首付
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mortgage 按揭 hacker 黑客 toxic debt 毒债 brain trust 智囊团 brain drain 人才外流 BRICs 金砖四国 outsourcing 工作外流 G20 二十国峰会 subprime crisis 次贷危机
brainstorm 群策群力,或 ―头脑风暴‖ slumpflation 通货膨胀下的经济衰退
There is another situation: the words in the financial news are familiar to the readers, but the familiar words are given new meanings which are strange to the common readers. By this way the meaning of the original words are extended. It not only enriches the words‘ meanings, but also makes the contents of the news more vivid, e.g.
soft-landing(软着陆) shorts 空头 futures 期货贸易 longs 多头 title 产权
The words mentioned above are all very common words, but in financial news they are given a new meaning which is related to economy, and this meaning is rarely used in our daily life.
3.2.1.2 Using Proper Noun
In financial news, there are a lot of names which are usually stable and exclusive, and they are not strange to most readers. These expressions are usually very long, so they are written in abbreviation to save space, e.g.,
1. The name of some organizations
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NYSE(New York stock exchange) 纽约证券交易所 ECE(economic commission for Europe)欧洲经济委员会 IFC(international finance corporation)国际金融公司
OPEC(organization of petroleum exporting countries)石油输出国组织
2. Frequently used terms
GDP(gross domestic products)国内生产总值 MP(market price)市价 F. A (fixed assets) 固定资产
EMV(expected monetary value)预期币值 J.V(joint venture)合资企业
3. Names to express identity and jobs CEO(chief executive officer)首席执行官 CPA(certified public accountant)注册会计师 N.P (notary public)公证人
3.2.1.3 Terminologies and Jargons
Financial news which belongs to hard news is very difficult to understand. This has something to do with one of its language features: the frequently use of terminologies and jargons. In fact, such lexical terms might be found in every two or three sentences in economic news, especially in columns and roundups. Readers may familiar with some of them for they run into their eyes frequently, but others may be strange to the readers. Such as:
currency revaluation 货币升值 trading restriction 贸易壁垒 foreign exchange market 外汇市场 the current account deficit 经常项目逆差 restrained quotas 限制配额
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