The dynamics of the language of newspaper headlines in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper has looked at the dynamics of the structures of headlines. Related literature was reviewed on functions and influence of the print media, mass media and language development, and studies in headlines, to give the work the necessary theoretical foundation. The study employed survey approach to look at reportage of headlines of some newspapers in Nigeria. Three questions guided this study: What are the types of headlines cast for the stories? What is the syntactic structure of the headlines? What is the level of social responsibility displayed by the editors, in casting the headlines? A total of 24 headlines were purposively collected as data, and analyzed. The analysis has revealed that ‘plain’, ‘headlines with pointers’, and ‘speech as headlines’ characterized our data. Also, most of the headlines are cast in simple sentence structures. This result is significant for mass media teachers as they apply principles and theories of language, in their business of teaching mass media courses, daily.