Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines an Analysis of 5 Dailies

Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines

Project / Seminar Material
Reference ID: PS-24515-TM

DEDICATION

This research material titled “Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines” is dedicated to God for his enabling grace, and to all computer enthusiasts who contributed to make life a pleasant experience during my research documentation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I extend my sincere gratitude to all those who contributed to the completion of this project. Special thanks to my Supervisor (Name of your Supervisor), the Head of Department (Name of your HOD), the Lecturers in the department of English Language, Book Authors and Profound Scholars of existing or related project material on “Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines” for their invaluable guidance, support, and expertise throughout the journey.

I am also grateful to your study area (mention any funding organizations, if applicable) for their financial assistance. This research would not have been possible without the encouragement and assistance of some stakeholders (mention any mentors, teachers, or colleagues). Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the understanding and patience of my family and friends during this endeavor. Your unwavering support has been a constant source of motivation. Thank you all for being part of this meaningful endeavor.

ABSTRACT

Ambiguity is an attention-grabbing linguistic trend which has received a lot of attention and will continue to receive such as long as human communication remains viable. In language, ambiguity simply means double or multiple interpretations. Headlines are often what the readers come across in newspapers. The Newspaper headlines in their ambiguous state could be misinterpreted by reader based on the construction of phrases or sentences. The research work analyzes the Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out to identify the linguistic features that makes Nigerian Newspapers headlines ambiguous, analyze the semantic ambiguity in the headline structure of the print media and investigate the data collected from five dailies Nigerian newspapers and qualitatively analyzed them. Using data from Vanguard and Daily Trust newspapers, the study discovered that ambiguities are prevalent in the newspaper headlines as a result of various manipulations on sentences and lexical choice. This leads to the possibility of multiple meanings and interpretation of the headlines. The research is of great significance considering the level at which people misconstrue the facts and meanings of the concept of newspaper arising from the use of ambiguous words or language by the news editors and writers. It is recommended that Readers should be given top priority while linguistic decisions are being made. General language users should be made aware of the danger of modeling their styles after those commonly found on newspaper headlines.

Ambiguities in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines : an Analysis of 5 Dailies

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 Introduction

Ambiguity is an attention-grabbing linguistic trend which has received a lot of attention and will continue to receive such as long as human communication remains viable. In language, ambiguity simply means double or multiple interpretations. 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. In language, ambiguity suggests the receptiveness of a construction to double or multiple interpretations, which can occur as a result of the presence of a word (lexical ambiguity), or by a phrase in the sentence (structural ambiguity).

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.

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CHAPTER TWO

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on the review of related literature. A literature review includes the current knowledge as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic. It documents the state of the art with respect to the topic you are writing. It surveys the literature in the topic selected. In this research work the literature review includes the …

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