英语翻译IntroductionThis paper is an attempt to suggest anexplic

英语翻译
Introduction
This paper is an attempt to suggest an
explicit and generalized answer to a very fundamental question in the study of
the mass media,i.e.,the question of the communicative function of newspaper
headlines.The importance of the role of headlines in the communicative act
performed by newspapers can hardly be exaggerated,yet the nature of this role
has virtually never been explicated in the literature.As we shall see below,
the regular strategy adopted in the literature has been to make finegrained
descriptive distinctions between different types of headlines—news headlines in
‘quality newspapers’; news headlines in ‘tabloid newspapers’; ‘summarizing headlines’;
‘localizing headlines’,‘quotation headlines’,etc.—and assign them different
types of communicative functions.In this paper,I will suggest an explanatory functional
definition of newspaper headlines which attempts to transcend the above distinctions
in type and explain the very fact that newspapers—all types of newspapers—have
headlines in them.The functional definition to be developed in this paper
relies very heavily on Sperber and Wilson’s
(1986) technical notion of relevance.Newspaper headlines will be functionally
defined as relevance optimizers:
Newspaper headlines are relevance optimizers:They are
designed to optimize the relevance of their stories for their readers.