Abstract:

For the accelerating pace of life, people always take a glance at the newspapers and magazines at the table, on the subway or at stations instead of sitting down and reading them page by page. Because of the limited time, browse usually focuses on the news' headlines which are important parts of the news. Rhetoric, an artistic form embodying the conciseness, preciseness and vividness of headlines, has been increasingly applied to the creation of news' headlines. To readers, knowing the stylistic features of the headlines, estimating the implied meaning of them, realizing the function of the rhetoric features are also achievements while reading the headlines. From the perspectives of communicative rhetoric and aesthetic rhetoric, this essay aims at studying and appreciating the rhetorical features of English news headlines so as to help people read the English news effectively.

Keywords: English news; headlines; rhetorical features; appreciation

摘    要：

现代生活节奏越来越快。看报一般不是在安静书屋里仔细阅读，而常常是餐桌旁、地铁里、车站上，所以只能大致浏览。“浏览”有时也因时间的关系，仅仅停留在各条新闻的标题上。新闻的标题是新闻报道的组成部分。为了更好地表现标题的简洁、准确和生动，修辞已越来越多地运用到新闻标题写作中。对读者而言，了解英语新闻标题的文体特点，判断出标题的寓意，领悟标题修辞的妙处是阅读英语新闻报刊时的另一收获。本文从交际修辞和美学修辞的角度来赏析英文报刊标题的修辞特色，以帮助读者更有效地阅读英语新闻。

关键词：英文报刊；新闻标题；修辞手法；赏析

1 Introduction
 According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Hornby, A.S., 2005), rhetoric is “the skill of using language in speech or writing in a special way that influences or entertains people”. As an artistic form of language expression, rhetoric plays an important role in enhancing the infection and influence of language. The functions of news’ headlines are summarizing the news, evaluating the news facts, attracting the readers and beautifying the newspapers. “A good headline is half the story” implies the importance of a good headline, and people always believe that the attractive information really values a lot. The success of news’ headline’s quality is sometimes closely associated with the spreading of the news and the realizing of the news’ value. By applying rhetoric, English news headlines not only generalize the news, but also raise the readability and vividness of the newspapers, thus, attract the readers a lot. By now, a great many studies have focused on the stylistic features of English news headlines, such as Rhetoric Features of English News Headlines (Wei Yu, 2012), which briefly classifies and analyses the rhetorical features applied in news headlines, and Comparison and Appreciation of Rhetoric of English and Chinese Headlines (Xiao Xiaoyue, 2012), which compares the rhetoric of English and Chinese headlines and appreciates the functions of them.