Headlines in Newspaper Editorials

Abstract

Newspaper editorials constitute a part of media discourse, which is an extremely important field of research in intercultural rhetoric analysis and EFL (English as a foreign language)/ESL (English as a second language) studies. Specifically, certain features of editorial headlines and also their important role in monitoring and directing readers’ attention have made the interface between the linguistic analysis of newspaper editorial headlines and teaching of EFL as a relevant issue in language teaching. Through conducting a contrastive textual analysis of selected headlines, culled from the editorials of the English newspaper, The New York Times, and those of Persian newspaper, Tehran Times, the present study aimed at exploring the kind of textual and rhetorical strategies the two newspapers used for propagating their preferred ideologies. The results of the study indicated that headlines in the two papers presented a subjective attitude of the writers (newspapers) toward the topic. However, based on the analysis of the data, it became clear that there were certain differences between the two sets of headlines in terms of Presupposition, and certain Rhetorical devices.