Running head: PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES
PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES
NGUYEN THI PHUONG LAN
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF PEDAGOGY
INSTRUCTOR: PHD. NGUYEN NGOC VU
HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER, 2011
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
1
CONTENT
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 2
PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPER HEADLINES ........................ 3
Nominal Headlines .......................................................................................................... 3
Verbal Headlines ............................................................................................................. 7
Adjective Headlines ........................................................................................................ 9
PHRASAL
STRUCTURE
IN
VIETNAMESE
NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES ................................................................................................................... 9
Nominal Headlines ........................................................................................................ 10
Verbal Headlines ........................................................................................................... 12
Adjective Headlines ....................................................................................................... 14
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ............................. 15
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................. 16
Adding Title.................................................................................................................... 16
Adding Related Information: .......................................................................................... 16
Recovering Omitted Articles .......................................................................................... 17
Reading Backward When Translating A Noun String .................................................... 18
Translating Omitted Auxiliary English Newspaper Headlines ........................................ 18
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 20
2
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
ABSTRACT
In the age of information and technology, many people
consider mass media in general and newspapers in particular
as indispensable things in their lives. Newspapers help us
getting updated with the latest events over the world.
Nowadays, thanks to the internet, we can get access to a
variety of newspapers in different languages, especially in
English. However, the problem is that many people find
English newspaper headlines too difficult to understand. Also,
many students often face a big challenge of translating
newspaper
headlines
from
English
into
Vietnamese.
Therefore, in this paper, I do a contrastive analysis of
“PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES” with the aim of giving people
some ideas of how to understand English newspaper
headlines
comparing
to
Vietnamese
ones
and
the
pedagogical application of how to translate newspaper
headlines from English into Vietnamese.
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
3
PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES
Newspaper writers often use a special language in his papers
and this is the most obvious with the headlines. A newspaper
page has restricted space, so headline writers are limited by
the layout of the page. They often have to break grammatical
rules and use nonstandard structure to produce a successful
headline which can save space. As a result of that, English
newspaper headlines are realized to be more phrases than
sentences. In the form of phrases, English newspaper
headlines are divided into three basic groups: verbal, nominal
and adverbial headlines.
Nominal Headlines
Noun phrase is the most common form of newspaper
headlines. The headlines consisting of a noun phrase are
classified
into
headlines,
five
categories:
post-modified
nominal
pre-modified
nominal
headlines,
nominal
headlines with both pre- and post-modification, coordinated
and appositional nominal headlines and headlines with an
omitted copula or linking verb (Mardh, 1980, p58).
Pre-modified nominal headlines:
 Head: Noun/Pronoun.
 Words used as Pre-modification include :

Pre-determiner

Identifiers.
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines

Numeral/quantifier

Adjectives

Noun modifier
4
- Both definite and indefinite articles are also dropped in
newspaper headlines
President
Declares
Celebration
declared
=The
president
a
has
celebration.
Passer-by Sees Woman Jump = A passer-by has seen a
woman jump (into the river).
Here are some newspaper headlines in the form of noun
phrases:
Deactivated firearms ban
Stab girl remand
A bitter blow
Shell shocker
Karz crash
No grammars
Artist's sand stunt
The comeback kid
Post-modified nominal headlines:
 Head: noun/phrase
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
5
 Post-modification mainly include

Non-finite clauses

Prepositional phrases

Relative clauses
Here are some newspaper headlines in the form of Postmodified nominal headlines:
Tribute to tragic Stephanie
The soldier who saw hell
Scandal of patients left for hours outside A&E
Love at first bite
Nominal headlines with both pre- and post-modification
Here are some newspaper headlines in the form of both preand post-modification nominal headlines:
Canoe couple in court snub
New raps for Mr & Mrs Canoe
Teen dad in suicide tragedy
No charges over root death
New bid to find footballer killer
Natasha Hogan's fury at balcony leap dad let off
No safety in prison
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
6
Coordinated and appositional nominal headlines
Headlines in this form include two or more than two noun
phrases which are at the same level and characterized by the
conjunction “and/or”, comma.
Here are some newspaper headlines in this form:
Boris the smirker
Airport security and glaring complacency
No food, no freedom, no cash- and no end to their love of
Fidel Castro
Jayne Torvill's heaven and hell
Gordon Ramsay's heaven and hell
No shame, no gain
Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Grace and favor
Headlines With An Omitted Copula Or Linking Verb
Headlines which consist of a noun phrase functioning as a
subject and a subject complement
Girls happier with make-up
Teen dead after park attack
Cocaine girls free by April
3 dead after New Zealand air collision
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
7
Britain ready to recognize Kosovo
Germany first to recognize independent Kosovo
Headlines which consist of a noun phrase functioning as a
subject and an adverbial
Stab boy on the mend
Joshua Beasleyís body in Thames
Drivers in panic over fuel strike
Sarkozy Jr in bid to capture his father's old seat
One more thing concerning nominal newspaper headlines is
the characteristic features of the block language, which is so
frequently used by headline writers, is so called NOUN
STRING OR JUXTAPOSITION. In the context of headline
writing, juxtaposition is a connection of three or more nouns.
Here are some newspaper headlines in the form of a noun
string:
Widow Pension Pay Committee
Landscaping Company Disturbance Regulations Mustang
Referral Customer Complaint
Elderly care crisis warning
Verbal Headlines
A verbal headline contains a verb phrase or part of a verb
phrase that is not dominated by a noun phrase (Mardh 1980).
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
8
The main structural types of verbal headlines were classified
o finite verb phrases, non-finite verb phrases.
Finite verb phrases
The special language of newspaper headlines are especially
reflected in ones in the form of finite verb phrases. Here are
some typical features:
There are a number of verb changes made to headlines. The
most common are:
Simple tenses used instead of continuous or perfect forms.
Forgotten Brother Appears = A forgotten brother has
appeared.
The infinitive verbs refer to future
Mayor to Open A shopping mall= the mayor is going to open
a new shopping mall.
James Wood to Visit Ireland = James Wood is going to visit
Ireland soon.
Auxiliary verbs are ommitted in the passive form
Man Killed in Accident= A Man has been killed in an
accident.
Non-finite verb phrases
Non-finite verb phrases consist of a participle or infinitive,
which may be followed by an object or an adverbial (Spears
1976).
Getting a Small Audience for Bad News.
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
9
Adjective Headlines
The next type of newspaper headlines is ones in the form of
an adjective phrase.
(Pre-modification)+ Head+ (Complement).
Pre-modification: Adverbs
Head: Adjective
Complement:

Prepositional phrase

Infinitive phrase

That-clause
Example:
Ready to look like Oscar babe?
Proud to carry the flag of Kosovo
PHRASAL STRUCTURE IN VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES
Vu Quang Hao (2001) has made a survey on Vietnamese
newspaper headlines (particularly Nhan dan Chu nha 1992)
and found out their structures as follow:
 One-word-headline: E.g.: Mốt, Kẹt, Lòng tin, Sốt rét or
proper names: Thúy Đạt, Cửa Lò. According to Vu
Quang Hao (2001) this kind of headline is rarely used
(making about 1. 6% of nearly 2.000 headlines
surveyed).
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
10
 Phrasal headline: 54,94% of the total surveyed
headlines.
 A sentence headline: This kind of headline is to inform
accounting for 31,35%.
 Headline is an idiom, proverb or folk song.( 1.18%)
According to the survey above, we can see that Phrasal
headline is the most popular headline, composed of more
than 50% of the total surveyed headlines. Phrasal headlines
include verb phrase headlines, noun phrase headlines and
adjective phrase headlines.
Nominal Headlines
Among phrasal headlines, noun phrase is the most widely
used (41,02%).
NP in Vietnamese also has three main parts : PreModification
(Front
Element),
Head
(Nucleus),
Modification (End Element).
Front elements
 Quantifiers: tất cả, tất thảy, hết thảy, hết cả, cả,…
 Definite numerals : một, hai, ba, bốn,…
 Collective nouns : đàn, lũ, bó, bộ, nắm, …
Post-
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
11
Head:
 A noun(boy, teacher, cat, house…)
 A combination between a classifier (danh từ chỉ loại)
and the head noun such as “con người”, “quyển sách”,
“máy sấy”.
 The head noun may be a classifier followed by a
descriptive free word cluster
End element
 Noun
 Adjective
 Verb
 Numeral words
 Idiom
E.g.
Lời nguyền của dòng sông
Một bệnh lạ ở cá
Những kỷ niệm nhỏ về thầy Đặng Thai Mai
Giá vàng tiếp tục giảm mạnh
Mối lo cháy nổ xe máy
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
12
Verbal Headlines
Verb phrase is less widely used than noun . Verb phrase in
Vietnamese includes three elements:pre-additive element,
central element, post-additive element.
Central element
Verb alone
Verbs that usually come with other verbs:
 Modal verb + Verb
 Passive: bị, phải, được…
 Two parallel actions happening at the same time: ngồi
nghỉ, nằm ngủ, đi học, đứng nhìn…
 Verbs which always go with additive element
 Verbs with sense of result: biết được, nhận ra, tìm
thấy, nhìn thấy, tóm lấy, thu được…
 Verbs with sense of moving:
Some verbs: Đi (đi xuống, đi ra, đi vào), bay (bay lên, bay
xuống, bay đến, bay vào), chạy
(chạy ra, chạy vào, chạy
đến, chạy lên, chạy xuống), phóng (phóng tới,phóng đến,
phóng vào), nhảy (nhảy qua, nhảy lại, nhảy tới), bước (bước
tới, bước qua)…
 .Verb with two objects:
Cho, đưa, tặng, biếu, xin, vay, mượn…
 Verb with sense of mood
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
13
Some verbs in this group: lo âu, lo lắng, bồn chồn, thấp
thỏm …
 Combination of verbs
Some combinations: Chạy ngược chạy xuôi, chạy đôn chạy
đáo, tính tới tính lui, chạy ra chạy vào, nói tới nói lui…
Pre-additive element:
Cứ. vẫn, mãi, lại, tiếp tục, thường, hay, chưa bao giờ, đôi khi,
hiếm khi, thỉnh thoảng, đã, sẽ, sắp, từng, đang, vừa, không,
chưa,chẳng, rất, khá, hơi, vô cùng…
Post-additive element
In term of meaning, post-additive element may have many
types:
 Order: tiến lên, chạy đi, ăn đi, học nào…
 Direction: tới (đi tới, bước tới…) vào (bay vào, chạy
vào…), bước lùi, xuống (đi xuống,giảm xuống), lên
(bay lên, đi lên, tăng lên …)
 Process, state, end of action (nói mãi, chờ mãi…), rồi
(biết rồi, đọc rồi…), ngay (đi ngay, đến ngay…),
hoài(nhìn hoài, nghĩ hoài…), xong (ăn xong, làm
xong)…
Example:
Đừng biến nông nghiệp thành nghành gia công
Giám sát lời hứa
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
14
Sẽ xử lý “ trường nghề đào tạo thạc sỹ”
Ra mắt Trung Tâm Manar
Adjective Headlines
Headline writers rarely use Adjective phrases. Like noun
phrase & verb phrase, Adjective phrase has 3 elements: front
element, head & post-additive element
Front element:
Front elements in Adjective phrase are like ones in Verb
phrase, especially words indicating intensifiers and level
frequently occur in Adjective phrase (rất, hơi, khí, cực kì,
tuyệt, quá,…)
Head:
Adjective
Post-additive element:
Substantive( thực từ) or complement( bổ ngữ).
Example:
Dễ dãi liên thông
Thân thương hương vị chè bà cốt
Đặc sắc lễ hội Loy Krathong
Độc đáo trang phục thiếu nữ Dao
Lung linh “mùa thu ấm” nước Anh
15
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE
Because of a common feature that a newspaper’s space is
restricted and its nominative function, there are more
similarities than differences between English and Vietnamese
newspaper
headlines.
Both
English
and
Vietnamese
newspaper headlines are realized to be more phrases than
sentences. In the form of phrases, English and Vietnamese
newspaper headlines are divided into three basic groups:
verbal, nominal and adjective headlines. Among 3 basic
groups, the noun phrase are the most widely used in both
Vietnamese and English headlines. Due to the differences
between 2 languages, there are inevitable differences of
newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese. In term of a
noun phrase, nominal newspaper headlines in English and
Vietnamese generally have 3 parts: pre- modification, head
and post-modification. However, English nominal newspaper
headlines are mover diversified and include some special
features: Drop both indefinite and definite articles and
juxtaposition ( noun string) which do not occur in Vietnamese
newspaper headlines. In the form of a verb phrase, there are
a lot of verb changes in English newspaper headlines, such
as :Simple tenses used instead of continuous or perfect forms
(Vietnamese headline writers use pre-additive element
“đang”), The infinitive form referring to the future( pre-additive
element “sẽ/sắp/sắp sửa” in Vietnamese healines), Auxiliary
verbs dropped in the passive form( “bị/được” in Vietnamese
ones).
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
16
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Translating
Newspaper
Headlines
From
English
Into
Vietnamese
Translating news stories/articles from English to Vietnamese
is a challenge for translators. However, translating the
headlines
of
the
news
stories/article
is
much
more
challenging because the headlines, according to Vu Quang
Hao( 2011), affect the fate of the whole news stories/articles.
Below are some tips of translating a newspaper headline from
English into Vietnamese in term of a phrase:
Adding Title
English newspaper headlines do not include titles of
important people. Nevertheless, the translation would be poor
without titles. Thus, in Vietnamese translation, all titles have
to be added to ensure naturalness of the translation.
Example:
Rice to visit Asian countries later this month
(from voa.com, Oct 13th ,2006)
Ngoại trưởng Rice sẽ có một chuyến thăm tới các nước châu
Á trong tháng này.
Adding Related Information:
According to Newmark (1988a: 155), communicative method
is widely used in journal translation. This method allows
translators to add related information and introduce some
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
17
changes to make the translation comprehensible. English
headlines convey limited information, which challenges
readers. Also, a phrase plays the role of either subject or
predicate in Vietnamese sentence. So more information is
inserted into the phrases to make sentences with enough
information.
Example:
Comparing cities
(from economist.com, Apr 2nd , 2008)
Thành phố nào đắt đỏ nhất thế giới?
Recovering Omitted Articles
As mentioned before, both definite and indefinite articles are
dropped in the English newspaper headlines in the form of
noun phrases. The omission of articles seems to pose no
difficulty for readers in understand the headlines. However,
Vietnamese numeral especially cardinal is very important to
denote the number of nouns. If the cardinal is omitted, this
can cause readers misunderstanding . As a result, omitted
articles have to be recovered when translating a newspaper
headline from English to Vietnamese.
Example:
UN official shot near Najaf
You have to translate:
Một nhân viên LHQ bị bắn not nhân viên LHQ bị bắn.
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
18
Reading Backward When Translating A Noun String
English newspaper headlines in the form of noun strings can
be difficult because the words don't appear related by verbs
or adjectives. In the case of noun strings, it's helpfu to
connect the ideas by reading backward.
Example:
Mustang Referral Customer Complaint
By reading backwards, I can guess that: There is a
complaint made by a customer about a referral program for
Mustang cars.
Translating Omitted Auxiliary English Newspaper Headlines
When subjects of the English headlines are not specific or
unknown, the headlines with omitted auxiliary are translated
into finite verb phrases. For example, in the English headline
Ancient graves found in Greece, the subject who found the
ancient graves is not mentioned, so the headline is translated
into finite verb phrase Phát hiện 1.000 ngôi mộ cổ ở Hi Lạp.
Similarly in the headline Ralph Nader to run for president the
subject is not well-known to Vietnamese readers, so the
translated headline is finite verb phrase Thêm một gương mặt
mới ra tranh cử tổng thống Mỹ.
The rule can be seen as follows:
All trapped miners rescued in South Africa and Giải cứu
thành công 3.200 công nhân mắc kẹt dưới mỏ vàng
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
19
Remains of monster duck-billed dinosaur found in Utah and
Phát hiện loài khủng long mỏ vịt “quái vật”
Phrasal Structure In Vietnamese And English Newspaper Headlines
20
REFERENCES
(n.d.).
Retrieved
from
http://www.slideshare.net/Elenag77/the-language-ofheadlines
(n.d.).
Retrieved
from
http://www.slideshare.net/Elenag77/the-language-ofheadlines.htm
(n.d.).
Retrieved
from
http://dspace.upce.cz/BITSTREAM/10195/34683.htm
(n.d.).
Retrieved
from
http://www.headlinespot.com/international/asiapacific/vietnam
.htm
Hạo, V. Q. (2010). Ngôn Ngữ Báo Chí. Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản
Giáo Dục.
Toán, B. M. (2003). Tiếng Việt Thực Hành. Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất
Bản Giáo Dục.