1.1 Introduction
Headlines are often what the readers come across in newspapers. They are usually written on the top of newspaper articles with characteristic attributes like being punchy, concise, eye-catching and journalistic as they tend to recapitulate the essential aspects of the stories in the papers. In reporting the news, the editors have freedom to use words phrases and sentences in their own way to create headlines that express their idea of the news item. Since contexts that constrain language users when speaking or writing differ in situational, socio-cultural, political and geographical degrees, there is bound to be lexico-semantic variation. The English language as used in the Nigerian context differs in these degrees, from the ways it is used in native contexts (Jenkins,2003).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The Newspaper headlines in their ambiguous state could be misinterpreted by reader based on the construction of phrases or sentences. Taking a close look at the second headline “Republican GRILL IRS Chief over lost emails” from Daily Trust newspaper of August 22, 2013 could be understood as Republicans harshly question the chief about the emails or that Republicans cook the chief using email at the fuel. It is clearly understood that ambiguous statements in themselves are incomplete, though they make some sense but could be analyzed differently by people. It’s a perfect tool to demonstrate careful reading, showcase the need for editing and encourage, creativity and divergent thinking. Therefore this research wishes to create awareness that the media headlines of some newspapers are ambiguous. It is based on this that the research intends to do x-ray of media headlines of print media that are sentences in nature.
The newspaper headline is a unique type of text. It has a range of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content and structure; and it operates within a range of restrictions that limits the freedom of the writer. All newspapers use the largest headline on their front page to present the biggest news of the day. A headline is sometimes followed by a smaller or secondary headline called "subhead" or "deckhed" which gives more information (Canyook, 1995).
According to Reah (2002), the headline carries key information and attracts the attention of the readers. It delivers some details on what happened, who was involved, where it happened, and other facts. This can be simplified into these Wh-words: what, who, where, and how.
A headline like, “Fashola meets ex-girlfriend in Paris” from Vanguard newspaper of June 4, 2013 could be ambiguous and as such could be misinterpreted. The word ‘meets’ has several meanings and denotes a lot of things. It means among others to come face to face with someone coincidentally or unexpectedly, converge or come in contact and finally touch or have sexual intercourse with someone, come together in conflict and gather for a formal discussion.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to analyze the Lexico Semantic Study of Selected Nigerian Newspaper Headlines.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed one of the major challenges why newspaper readers cannot effectively interpret the actual messages of writers by glancing at the headlines is because the headlines are almost often ambiguous. This makes newspaper readers to struggle in trying to give possible interpretations to the headlines which undeniably have more than one conceivable meaning.
The researcher is aware that diction and audience should be put into consideration when constructing newspaper headlines. It is therefore important to investigate the use of diction in the print media because language especially the choice of words depends and differs according to context.
Meanwhile, the study attempts to focus on two major areas. The misapplication of language use and confusion arising from different meaning, the same word can have, which are relevant in most Nigerian dailies.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to analyze the Lexico Semantic Study of Selected Nigerian Newspaper Headlines. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To identify the lexical semantic features that makes Nigerian Newspapers headlines ambiguous;
- To analyze the lexical semantic ambiguity in the headline structure of the print media;
- To investigate the data collected from five dailies Nigerian newspapers and qualitatively analyzed them;
- To identify whether or not such phenomenal changes in Nigerian English lexis are deviations or variations.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- What is the lexical semantic features that makes Nigerian Newspapers headlines ambiguous?
- What is the lexical semantic ambiguity in the headline structure of the print media;
- What are the phenomenal changes in Nigerian English lexis are deviations or variations?
- What are the data collected from five dailies Nigerian newspapers and qualitatively analyzed them?
1.6 Significance of Study
This research work is significant in the sense that it investigates the use of lexical items, and the nature of lexical words in Nigerian English. The study is also significant in the sense that it contributes to the knowledge of users of the language.
The study will access most lexical items adopted in Newspapers with the view of substantiating the mutual intelligibility and acceptability by other language speakers using the language.
Finally it will study the use of lexico-semantic as a bridge that will strengthens the social relationship of its users in the context of usage.
1.7 Scope of Study
The scope of study focuses on the Lexico Semantic Study of Selected Nigerian Newspaper Headlines. This research work shall be delimited to DAILYTRUST and VANGUARD. The aforementioned newspapers are taken as samples because of their popularity in the area in which this research is carved out.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection.
1.9 Methodology
The concern of this paper is to present a syntactic analysis of ambiguous headlines of political news reports in Nigerian newspapers in order to present linguistic features of the ambiguous structures. The data were drawn from some selected newspapers; The Punch, The Tribune, and The Nation newspapers- from January 2005 to 2010, the total number of ten ambiguous structures (Phrases and Sentences) were drawn from the newspapers and analyzed, described and explained using linguistic terms within the framework of x-bar syntax.
