Exploring the Linguistic Features of Philippine Headlines in On-line Newspapers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The richness of headline's genericity made a number of researchers to give their attention on headline both as literary and non-literary genre. Because headlines can be analyzed as an independent text type which can be divorced from its lead and story, this made headline an interesting topic of most studies. These same reason prompted the researcher, who is a student of Applied Linguistics and a School Paper Adviser, to study the linguistic features of headlines. Amidst the expansive studies already conducted on headlines, this research is aimed to look at Philippine English newspaper headlines from a different perspective -that is, from a World Englishes point of view and is intended to analyze the implications of the findings to language teaching particularly in English.

METHODS

Using the framework offered by Mardh (1980) and Mouillaud and Tetu (1989)on the typical features of news headlines, a sample of 82 headlines gathered from INQUIRER.net, philstar.com and mb.com from July 21 -29, 2016.

RESULTS

The findings of the study revealed that the typical linguistic features of English headlines in the country include the use of present tense for the past tense, the use of to + infinitive for future tense, the use of main verb + infinitive, extensive use of abbreviations, omission of words, the use of colon to introduce direct speech, the use of comma to replace the conjunction "and", and the use of loaded words enclosed in scare quotes. Analysis of the findings showed that the language of headlines deviates from the grammar and norms of Standard English.

DISCUSSIONS

With the features revealed in the study, headlines may be considered a good springboard for Filipino teachers who wish to enhance student's creativity on the qualities of effective language use such as conciseness, correctness, completeness and concreteness of the message. Moreover, headlines are considered authentic materials which can provide students additional leaning on how English language can be used creatively. Exercises aimed at honing students' versatility on the use of English language can be done by writing or assigning headlines to their stories.