THE STUDY OF THE USE OF STYLISTIC METHODS IN JOURNALISM, FOCUSING ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE BBC NEWS PORTAL

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the features of the use of stylistic techniques in journalism using the example of the BBC news website. Various methods are studied, such as inversion, metaphor, idiom, hyperbole, impersonation, comparison, oxymoron, metonymy and epithet. The paper provides specific examples of the application of these techniques in sentences and phrases of news materials. The author comes to the conclusion that modern news texts often have features of artistic style, such as imagery and expressiveness.

Keywords: stylistic devices, journalism, news, articles, BBC.

Sociocultural changes in modern society have a significant impact on the English language, which is one of the main means of international communication. This language is constantly evolving in its vocabulary, style and morphology under the influence of various factors. These changes are reflected in the variety of language techniques used in the media. English is a flexible material for linguistic transformations, including stylistic features that are becoming increasingly important as a means of expression. The analysis of stylistic features of English-language news articles on specific examples is of particular relevance in the context of deepening the processes of globalization and the widespread spread of the English language in various spheres of life [3].

The study of media texts with diverse genre and stylistic characteristics is carried out from various scientific positions and disciplines, which allows for a more detailed analysis of their features. One of the key features of modern texts in the mass media is their dynamism, which leads to constant changes in content. The stylistic features of media texts are determined by their main functional aspects: impact and awareness[6] .News acts as the main genre in the mass media due to their pronounced linguistic and substantive characteristics. The news text best reflects the informational role of the media, providing the audience with up-to-date information about current events in the world. However, it would be wrong to describe modern news materials as «lifeless» or «featureless» [2].

BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is an international media corporation providing a wide range of services in the field of television and radio broadcasting, as well as on the Internet. Website BBC.com It is a commercial news portal where news is classified into various thematic categories. The corporation was founded in 1922, and currently its content is available to a global audience, covering a significant part of the world's population. The news provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation, both in the past and now, plays an important role in shaping the national identity of the British and is one of the most recognizable brands in the UK.

At first glance, it seems that media texts belong to the newspaper-journalistic style. However, now the agreement on the unity of this style is causing debate. It seems that he is gradually losing characteristics that were previously considered mandatory for all media texts, such as expressiveness [4].

To determine the stylistic specificity of news articles, the material of four articles from the BBC News website was analyzed to illustrate with examples:

1. «Who is Liverpool's best Premier League forward? Suarez? Fowler? Salah? Owen?» (18.10.2021);
2. «The desert chefs who cook with the sun» (14.09.2021);
3. «What does being a 'cultural fit' actually mean? » (20.10.2021);
4. «The 'rainbow island' most travellers don't know» (22.10.2021).

One of the typical features of the new BBC technologies is the use of stereo titles that attract the attention of the audience. High–profile titles of articles, the key goal of which is maximum interest from readers, in many ways allows for the stable operation of these media. One of the Liverpool players since the appearance of such an intrigue has been a question note: «Who is Liverpool's best Premier League forward? Suarez? Fowler? Salah? Owen?»

Another way to attract readers' attention is to use such a stylistic device in headlines as inversion – a violation of the usual word order in a sentence to create increased expressiveness or rhythmization [1]. For example, in the headline «The 'rainbow island' most travelers don't know», the supplement comes out on top in the sentence. This is done specifically in order to highlight the main subject of the narrative of the article, and to attract people interested in various unusual and unique natural phenomena to it. Inversion can also occur in the text of the article itself. For example, the author of the BBC article puts the definition in the first place in the sentence «With ochre-stained streams, crimson-hued beaches and enchanting salt caves, Iran's Hormuz Island is a geologist's Disneyland» in order to emphasize the picturesqueness of the Iranian island.

Among the effective stylistic techniques that are used in writing BBC articles, one should definitely include metaphor, idioms, personification, simile, oxymoron, metonymy.

The use of metaphor (the relation of the subject-logical meaning and the contextual meaning, based on the similarity of the features of the two concepts [1]) to make headlines extraordinary is also a common technique in writing BBC articles. For example, a news article describing the process of growing coffee at home was given the name «The coffee with zero air miles». «with zero air miles» is a definition that reveals the similarity of two inanimate objects – «climate» and «coffee». Here, the climate, unlike coffee, may actually have such a characteristic. Coffee is usually grown on hills or mountain peaks, where the climate prevails with drier and colder air, which favorably affects the taste of the product. This metaphor gives brevity and imagery to the title, and forces readers to pay attention to the essence of the article.

Idioms that are quite often used in journalism, including in BBC media texts, are of considerable interest. The use of these phrases makes it possible to give expressiveness to the statements given in the text, partly bringing them closer to the literary and artistic style of speech. For example, the great speed and danger of a sports player for an opponent is successfully described by the turnover «Lightning fast and a lethal». Also, as an example, we can consider the idiom «to put finger on it», which displays a great difficulty in understanding a candidate who was refused a job because of his inconsistency with the cultural values of the company.

Personification, which gives inanimate objects and phenomena human qualities and actions, is often used in BBC texts. For example, in the sentence «Coffee production might creep uphill, they suggest, moving into previously unarmed land», the phrase «creep uphill» embodies the action of coffee production. Coffee production cannot physically crawl uphill; in this context, it is a figurative expression indicating the relocation of coffee plantations to higher areas. The impersonation is also present in the sentence «Little wondered if it flowered because the plant had been moved into a slightly warmer spot in the office, or maybe it had just decided that it was time.» Here, the flower is presented as being able to make decisions when it should bloom. This technique gives surprise to the occurrence of the phenomenon.

Simile is a stylistic technique of emotional comparison of two concepts, usually belonging to different classes of phenomena. These concepts are compared with each other by any one of the features, and this comparison receives a formal expression in the form of words such as: as, such as, as if, like, seem, etc. A prerequisite for the stylistic method of comparison is the similarity of one feature with a complete divergence of other features [1]. For example, there is a comparison in the sentence «The boxes are solar ovens and they work by heating meat the same way a parked car heats a human on a hot summer day». Cooking boxes that are powered by the sun are compared to machines in which people overheat on hot days. This adds a humorous touch to the offer, and creates an accurate image of the food heating mechanism.

An oxymoron is a combination of an attributive character in which the meaning of a definition contradicts or logically excludes the meaning of the one being defined [1]. The author of the BBC article in the phrase «The island made of edible soil» uses this stylistic device in order to surprise, puzzle the reader, stump him, or make him laugh.

Metonymy is a relationship between two types of lexical meanings – subject–logical and contextual, based on the identification of specific connections between subjects [1]. Synecdoche is one of the varieties of metonymy. Also, as an example, we can consider the case of using metonymy in this sentence «Luis Suarez faces his old club on Tuesday when Atletico Madrid host Liverpool in the Champions League». All football fans know that «Atletico Madrid» and «Liverpool» are the names of football clubs that are used in the article for brevity and brightness of the statement.

In conclusion, it can be concluded that the materials of the BBC news portal are not devoid of vivacity and expressiveness, and retain important features of the journalistic style, such as expressiveness. In addition, the style of this portal strives to use elements of artistic style, such as vivid imagery of language, individual author's handwriting, hidden appreciation, emotionality. The authors of BBC articles use a variety of stylistic techniques such as inversion, metaphor, idiom, hyperbole, personification, comparison, oxymoron, metonymy and epithet to give their materials the qualities of dynamism, brevity, imagery, accuracy and emotionality. An analysis of seven BBC news articles suggests that the most commonly used stylistic techniques in their materials are inversion, metaphor, idiom, comparison, metonymy and epithet. These techniques make the content of articles more dynamic, attractive and interesting for a wide audience.

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