Ekspresyviosios antraštės naujienų portale „delfi.lt“

BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AGNĖ ALEKSAITĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas EXPRESSIVE HEADINGS DELFI NEWS PORTAL. LT KEY WORDS: article title, emotional-expressive vocabulary, stylistics. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the language of online media, its manipulative nature (Miliūnaitė 2011), when the quality of the information presented, the objectivity of the knowledge fades in front of the efforts of journalists or editors to attract the attention of readers at any cost, and the influence of the media in shaping public opinion, even national self-consciousness, no one dares to doubt (Radvilavičiūtė 2013). The fact that this is not a one-day phenomenon is proved by the new term dolphinism, recorded in the Lithuanian Language New Words Database (hereinafter – ND) in spring 2014, which refers to the “fashion of internet news portals to create ambiguous, unclear, non-consistent with content article headings”. The subject of this article is the expressive headlines of articles published on the news portal delfi.lt1, selected by the authors of the article from October 2012 to June 2014. When analyzing headings, based on the definition given by Regina Koženiauskienė, the title of the article is perceived as “usually a short one-sentence text describing the essence of the publication, the main content” (Koženiauskienė 2013: 46). As Rūta Marcinkevičienė points out, headings, which “do not have the form of a combination of words, but of a sentence, become independent texts – like some kind of theses or generalizations, a superficial layer of hypertext through which not everyone penetrates deep into the jungle of text” (Marcinkevičienė 2010). Many readers of the news portal, not interested in the headline of the article, are satisfied only with the information presented in it, which not only functions as an independent text, but also determines the popularity of the article, because the expression of the headline, its presentation depends on whether the text will be read in general, or will be read to the end, so headlines often deliberately use vocabulary with an emotional charge, because headlines “are aimed at commercial purposes – to give the text a kind of brand image, to attract the reader, so they do not necessarily reflect and summarize the content of the entire text. Much more often they name one aspect of it or a piquant detail” (Marcinkevičienė 2010). As Diana Liepinytė-Kytrienė points out, “headings [...] become short informational messages for time-saving people. The abundance of information available on the Internet is also related to this. About 60 new articles are published every day on delfi.lt alone”2 (Liepinytė-Kytrienė 2013: 3), therefore, 1 Regina Koženiauskienė, taking into account the rhetorical function of the title of the article, distinguishes between neutral (nominative function) and expressive (expressive function) headings (Koženiauskienė 2013: 46). 2 Admittedly, the calculation was carried out by D. Liepinytė-Kytrienė, who analyzed the delfi.lt headlines from skaitytojus viliojant ekspresyviosiomis antraštėmis, tikimasi, kad tokie straipsniai nepaskęs the point of view of personal mentions. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 2 in the huge flow of information and will be noticed by Internet users. Of course, it should be noted that online media is only read by people who use a computer and the Internet. According to the Statistical Department of Lithuania, in 2014, the majority of Internet users were 16-24 years old (97.3%), 25-34 years old (94.5%) and 35-44 years old (86.3%). Although we tend to emphasize that delfi.lt is the most popular news portal in Lithuania3, which takes into account the needs of people of all ages, however, taking into account the data of the Statistics Department of Lithuania, it can be said that the main reader of delfi.lt is a young or middle-aged person, so headlines are created in such a way as to be attractive to the modern generation. The aim of this article is to analyze the expressive headlines of the articles published on the news portal delfi.lt and to find out what means of linguistic expression are used to attract readers’ attention4. The article examines the objectives of the use of metaphorical nouns, figurative verbs, new words, slang, vulgarisms, antonyms, personal names, phraseologisms, quotations and foreign language insertions in headings. The Metaphorical Nouns Metaphorical nouns used in the headings of articles (mostly nouns and adjectives) can be divided into two groups: 1. visual words of figurative meaning (definitions of some words of figurative meaning are included in the “Dictionary of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language” (hereinafter – DŽ6) and the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” (hereinafter – LKŽe), while the figurative meanings of others, although not fixed in dictionaries, are widely used in usage and reader easily understand); 2. occasional words of figurative meaning (their definitions are not found neither in DŽ6 nor in LKŽe)5. The use of figurative words of the first group is intended to avoid the usual, neutral expression of the journalistic style, and it is expected that the use of metaphorical nouns will attract readers, e.g. : Is it time for Lithuania to put a curb on rental prices? [article title] (delfi.lt 2013 09 05, Ugnė Queen)6 3 According to audience.lt data, delfi.lt was visited by 1,151,537 users in October 2014 – the most of all Lithuanian news portals. 4 D. Liepinytė-Kytrienė has investigated the influence of headline-fact statements on the delfi.lt internet portal. The article, prepared on the basis of the above-mentioned author’s master’s thesis “Means of influence in the headlines of the internet portal delfi.lt: the aspect of personal mention”, was published in the journal Applied Linguistics. To 5 Pagrindinis šių perkeltine reikšme vartojamų vardažodžių skirtumas yra tas, kad antrosios grupės žodžiai kelia stimulate curiosity, headings are deliberately created in such a way that the essence of the article from the title of the text is unclear, incomprehensible, so the visitor of the online media portal is forced to read the entire text to the end, and the words of the first group (visual metaphorical nouns), although they give the text of the journalistic style new colors, are clear to readers. A person who is not interested in the issue raised in the headline, the commented event or situation, will not read such an article. 6 The language of the usage examples has not been corrected. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 3 Owner of a cafe: I lose serious customers for one such kid [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 06 07)7 Aferos čiuptuvai — nuo Lietuvos iki Azijos šalių [straipsnio antraštė] (delfi.lt (iš: ELTA) 2012 10 24) Kaunas: “special” container is a killer wound [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 08 30, Paulius Garkauskas) E. Zubas kept his goals dry, and his team won the fourth victory [article headline] (delfi.lt (from: BNS) 2013 05 05) Shale appropriation marks the sunset of Gazprom [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 05 16, Ramūnas Bogdanas) Fighting unemployment – abrakadabra [article title] (delfi.lt (from: diena.lt) 2013 04 08, Justinas Argustas) The International Dictionary of Words (hereinafter – IDW) presents two meanings of the word abrakadabra: “1. a meaningless word, which in the Middle Ages was attributed magical power and which was written on amulets; 2. meaninglessness, incomprehensible words." The reader, feeling the magical power attributed to this word, already understands from the title of the article that the text is talking about meaningless, confusing, perhaps even unfeasible measures to reduce unemployment in the country, cf. : How to fight unemployment? Job creation needs to be encouraged, especially where unemployment is high. Such banal and abstract proposals are listed by ministerial officials working in the working group set up by the Prime Minister. It is easy to warn and the essence of this article: The reader who knows that a train is “a combination of railway wagons and a locomotive” (see DŽ6), will understand from the title that the principle of a train is “a sequence of events based on the relationships of cause and effect”8. See the first sentence of that article: The accident took place in the “train” principle – the braking van “VW Caravelle” was struck by the “Hyundai Lantra”, the “Opel Vectra” driving behind this car, the “Vectra” - “Opel Corsa”. The examples show that metaphorically used nouns and adjectives enliven the text, but, in the author’s opinion, they do not intrigue the reader enough. The visitor of the news portal understands the essence of the text from the headline, so such articles would be read only by those who are interested in sports, business or other news. It is hardly possible to understand what the article is about, e.g., from the title alone, which contains figurative words of the second group (ocasional metaphorical nouns). : The future of big cities – “floating” Swedish skyscrapers? [article title] (delfi.lt (from: technologijos.lt) 2013 05 23) 7 In this work, the name and surname of the author of the article are given only if the author was mentioned in the article published on the news portal delfi.lt. 8 Definitions of words without reference to the source created by the author. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 4 It is likely that a curious reader interested in such a headline will want to read the entire article. The answer to the question why Swedish skyscrapers are named somewhat unusually and, as it may seem at first glance, even illogical, is given at the very beginning of the text: At first glance – exactly the same skyscraper as all the others, only with some strange wig. But the future of buildings. ekspertai aiškina, kad toks, rodytųs, trenktas ir „plaukuotas“ švediškas dizainas gali būti aukštuminių Strange “hair” – thin fibers, which when blown by the wind, the energy of the air flow is converted into, for example, electricity. It is obvious that the article gives an accurate one-word description of Swedish skyscrapers according to their external characteristics. DŽ6 is only one of the meanings of the adjective hairy, meaning “hair-covered, having hair”, and in this text the adjective is used in a new, figurative meaning, referring to “a skyscraper of a certain construction, covered with thin fibers, into which wind energy is converted into electricity or other energy”. Having read such a headline, the visitors of the news portal delfi.lt have in front of their eyes the image of a hairy skyscraper, interpreted by everyone in their own way, after all, “a word, used in its literal meaning, often only means something pale, undefined, stylistically neutral, used figuratively, becomes a means of emotional information, becomes an image” (Pikčilingis 1975: 319). There are plenty of delfi.lt headlines based on this principle. True, there are also such headings, from which it is possible to guess what the article really does not talk about, but to name the topics discussed – almost impossible, e.g. : (delfi.lt 2013 08 08) The metaphorical noun piranhas, used in the title of the article, is written in quotation marks, so it should be clear even to readers with no language education that Venezuela is not raging with “predatory South American carp fish” (see DŽ6), but another clever predator: in the coastal city of Maracaibo, Venezuela, they are called piranhas. However, these are not carnivorous fish found in some rivers of South America. They are fast and brutal thieves, increasingly attacking women, writes cnn.com. [...] “It can happen in the center, on the beach or in a store where there are many young girls. The thieves pull them by the hair, draw out scissors and cut their hair. Then the strands are sold to beauty salons or hairdressers,” she said. After reading the article, it becomes clear that piranhas are called “women’s hair thieves, who attack their victims unexpectedly in public places and sell their hair cut to beauty salons, hairdressers”9. It can be assumed that if a neutral headline was chosen, such as “Woman in Venezuela attacks (hair) thieves”, significantly fewer people would be interested in the article for several reasons. First of all, a frequent reader would think that thieves are raging in many countries, so it’s a news here that Venezuela does not repel robbers. Secondly, such a state as the author of 9 Straipsnis, in carrying out this research, noted that most of the texts published on the online media portal delfi.lt are presented on the principle of the so-called inverted pyramid. The reader interested in the title of the article does not even need to read the entire text to the end, because the most important information explaining the news published in the headline is provided at the beginning of the text. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in delfi.lt news portal | 5 For Lithuanians, Venezuela is an exotic country, which is more interesting for its impressive landscape, plant and animal diversity, than for the crimes that take place in that country. As can be seen from the given examples, in order to intrigue, to arouse the attention of the news portal readers, preference is given to occasional figurative words. Figurative verbs Another stylistic means of language used in headings are figurative verbs, whose abundance is second only to traditional phraseologisms. All figurative verbs presented in the news portal delfi.lt are divided into 10 in this article: 1. systemic figurative verbs; 2. contextual figurative verbs. In the titles of articles, verbs with constant (systematic) figurativeness predominate, e.g. : V. Adamkus’ illness made 11 Lithuanian holidays worse [article headline] (delfi.lt 2014 03 12) Storming 12 shops – returning junk received over Christmas [article headline] (delfi.lt 2012 12 27) Rytų europiečiai iš Norvegijos parduotuvių šluoja13 pigias sauskelnes [straipsnio antraštė] (delfi.lt 2013 02 01) Courts caress14 insolent offenders who urinate in public / Court decisions do not satisfy the police [article title] (delfi.lt 2014 03 30, Paulius Garkauskas)15 Systemic figurative verbs, such as apgirsti, šturmuoti, suvokti, stropyti, used in a figurative sense, undoubtedly affect the reader's imagination, but their emotional-expressive effect is not as strong as that of these contextual figurative verbs: S. Jovaiša driokstelėjo16: between the proposals - and fines for offenders up to 15 thousand. Lt [article title] (delfi.lt (from: BNS) 2013 04 20) General’s heart beats17 in furnace [article headline] (delfi.lt (from: BNS) 2013 03 18) New device can “bite”18 cancer [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 08 05) 10 Based on Juozas Pikčilingis’s classification of word visuality and the types of visual lexicon distinguished by this author (Pikčilingis 1971: 224). 11 DŽ6: "prk. make unpleasant, unloving”. 12: "Sturm" op. besiege on demand’. In this case, the word "sixth" has a different meaning. vigorously, tensely, hastily hike, climb, etc.” 13 DZ6: sweep "snak. have fun, do something hard (eat, walk, beat, etc.)”. 14 DŽ6: stroking "prk. comply; apply’. Plg. LKŽe "prk. to please, to appease, to praise”. 15 In order to attract the attention of readers, articles are also published with additional headings – subtitles. They are written in a much smaller font next to the main headline on the news portal delfi.lt. In this work, the subtitles are given after the slash. 16 "Spring Break". to cause surprise”. 17 Klampinti "prk. compromised’. Plg. LKŽe: klimpti "prk. in trouble to attack, to perish." 18 Smell "prk. detect, find’. Plg. DŽ6 "prk. feel’. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AGNĖ ALEKSAITĖ. Ekspresyviosios antraštės naujienų portale delfi.lt | 6 N. Venckienė vizgina19 Seimą ir Lietuvos teisinę sistemą / prokurorai gali skelbti paiešką [straipsnio (delfi.lt 2013 05 08, Eglė Samoškaitė) It is true that the transitive meanings of some contextual verbs, although not fixed in dictionaries, are widely used in usage and are therefore more or less established. In this case, contextual verbs go beyond the boundaries of one context, they are used in transitive meanings so often that it can be said that they have become templates, blindly transferred from one heading to another: While Lithuania nationalized Snoras, 20 million were pumped out of Krajbanka [article headline] (delfi.lt 2012 10 18) Environmentalists stabbed G. Nausėda, who built 21 glass houses under the Pūčkoriai discovery [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 06 17, Mindaugas Jackevičius) In the headlines of articles, which are deliberately intended to interest and affect the reader, there are preponderant verbs with a figurative meaning. Speaking about headings, R. Marcinkevičienė distinguishes the following structural types of headings: noun-word combination and sentence-form (Marcinkevičienė 2008: 176). According to the author, the second type – sentence form – “requires a verb, which is considered a very important part of the name. It is the verb that gives the heading clarity, specificity, and often visuality, it is dynamic, naming the final thought” (Marcinkevičienė 2008: 176). It is true that the emotional-expressive effect of contextual figurative verbs, which are not widely used in usage, is slightly greater than that of systemic figurative verbs. INNOVATIONS There are two types of newjars (Pikčilingis 1975: 156): 1. visual innovations (new words constantly appearing in the language, which identify new concepts); 2. occasional novelties (new words used instead of the usual names of phenomena or objects and providing additional information or performing another emotional-expressive function). In order to give the heading a "brand image", stylistic modifications of the second group are most often used. Admittedly, visual new words that have successfully established themselves in usage and lost their “aureole of novelty” are not excluded (Popova 2005: 9–13, cited from Jakaitienė 2010: 205), cf. : Thief pushed into Lithuania despite shots and “hedgehog”, caught only after blocking the road with trucks [straipsnio antraštė] 19 Vizginti "prk. to make another act as you want (allusion to the movie „Tail Whistles the Dog“)“. 20 Pumped out "prk. pavogti’. There is only one single phrase in the LKŽ: "prk. hard to unload’. 21 Bite "prk. make fun of, laugh at; hurt’. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 7 Officers of Kalvarija police station, who responded quickly, prepared to stop the car that did not stop in Poland at the former Kalvarija checkpoint. Here, on the road Suvalkai – Marijampolė part of the driveway was laid a forced braking strip, so-called “hedgehog”. (delfi.lt 2013 03 07) 55 children celebrated their ninth birthday with grandmothers, moms and dads, sisters and brothers, cousins and half-sisters. All of them were born exactly on the day of Lithuania’s accession to the EU – May 1, 2004 (delfi.lt 2013 05 01). As J. Pikčilingis writes, “the novelist is drawn to it in order to be able to speak to the listener or reader with a word that has as many expressive attachments as possible on the margins of its meaning” (Pikčilingis 1975: 164). The following is a list of the most commonly used and used phrases in the language: "Kakaparkas "juok. a park with red flags for uncollected dog excrement (a social campaign to draw attention to irresponsible dog breeders), a boomerang child “an adult child who tried to live independently but had to return to his parents’ home because of financial difficulties”, sarcasm23 “a policy pursued by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007–2012)” (see ND), a Frankenstein car “a car repaired from parts of several different vehicles and re-used after a serious road accident”. “Kakaparkas” opened in Vilnius – a “minefield” marked with red flags [article title] Early on Friday morning, in the square at the intersection of Žirmūnai and Šnipiškiai districts, Goethe’s Partisans declared a fight against irresponsible dog owners and organized the “Kakaparkas” action. With this creative action, the participants of the project aim to draw the attention of dog breeders to the “minefield” of feces. (delfi.lt 2013 05 03) The consequence of the economic crisis - boomerang children [article title] The American Merriam-Webster dictionary has recently been supplemented with a new word "boomerang child". This is the so-called grown-up child who tried to live independently and returned to the parents' home due to financial difficulties. (delfi.lt 2013 01 18, Rūta Juozapaitytė) The situation of Roma in France after the 2012 elections: “Sarkozyism” without Sarkozy? The deportation policy of the French ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) and its leader, President Nicolas Sarkozy, against the Roma ethnic group living in France from 2007 to 2012 has sparked debate around the world. (delfi.lt (from: DELFI pilietis) 2013 01 03, Skaistė Mašalaitytė) Frankenstein car starts a frightening journey around Lithuania / project “Iron Traps” [straipsnio antraštė] Lithuanian residents will be the first in Europe to have the opportunity to see with their own eyes the possible painful consequences of using cars that have been glued together from several parts after accidents and therefore do not meet safety requirements. (delfi.lt 2013 09 06) New words are used not only for a newer, more original linguistic expression, but also in order to show a clear position in relation to a particular person, e.g.: 22 The semantic new word hedgehog „prigged car braking strip“ is included in the ND and 23 The word sarkazmas in the ND. The following information is provided in the section Notes for users: „although in one euriukas, -ė „vaikas, gimęs Lietuvos įstojimo į ES dieną (2004 m. gegužės 1 d.)“. example of usage the new word is with the suffix -ismas as in the original language, systematically in Lithuanian language it should have the ending -izmas“, therefore sarkozizmas is included in the ND as a title word. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 8 Cyclist hit by "road thief" fled from the car and threw a friend who rebuked [article title] (delfi.lt 2014 03 01) A. Jasaitytė-Čeburiak immortalized herself with her daughter and “pregnant” belly in advertisement [article title] (delfi.lt 2013 08 06) The ND has recorded two new words: kelių gaidelis and kelių eželis, which are used to describe “a driver – a road hooligan, who robberily and maliciously disregard the traffic rules”. Although the derogatory connotation is present in both kelių gaidelis and kelių eglynas, the meanings of the words gaidys and eglynas24 suggest that the use of this newly created compound in the title is not accidental. In the second example, on the contrary, instead of the neutral word pregnant, the visual novelty pregnant is chosen with a pleasant tone, showing extremely warm feelings for the expectant mother. Slangs are used in the headings of articles for a wide variety of reasons: some are used to accurately describe the living environment of a certain social group, others are used because there is no comfortable equivalent of a single word in the common language, and still others are borrowed from the narrow field of professional slang in order to interest the reader, since most professionalisms have not been heard by the general public and their meaning is not understood without additional explanation. Despite the different purposes of the use of jargons, it can be boldly stated that almost all the jargons used in the headline are “characterized by a strong emotional charge” (Jakaitienė 2010: 198). As Evalda Jakaitienė states, “due to their expressiveness, they [slang – A. A.] spread quickly, cross professional or social boundaries and become widely known. Such jargons, which have entered the universal colloquial vocabulary, are called a special term – slang” (Jakaitienė 2010: 200). In the opinion of the author of this article, the emotional load and expressiveness of slang, which is more or less used by the majority of the society, is considerably “faded”, but it accurately describes the social environment of specific individuals, e.g. : Ban on “bambalis” sweeps spirit wine from store shelves [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 01 23, Ugnė Karaliūnaitė) Terrible socialization of homeless children - "bomžyne" [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 09 03, Ieva UrbonaitėVainienė) Warning: students who terrorize teachers with “mobile phones” will face a month’s imprisonment [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 09 02, Ieva Urbonaitė-Vainienė) 24 Egidijus Zaikauskas’ Lithuanian jargon dictionary provides the following meanings of the cock: “menk. ‘a child who is sexually exploited or sexually abused’. The second meaning of the word, as vyras, dabita, puošeiva“, „menk. homoseksualistas, gėjus (pasyvus)“, „krim. silpnas, negalintis apsiginti kalinys, kuindicated in DZ6, is "prk. a weak, weak man”. It is obvious that the negative meanings of the rooster are widespread in society, and the eagle is perceived as a majestic, strong bird. In an article published in the news portal balsas.lt in August 2014, psychologist Gediminas Navaitis suggests that “we should no longer call hooligans ‘road eagles’, because this is an epithet that encourages and testifies to coolness” (Navaitis: 2014). BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 Agnieszka Aleksa. Expressive headlines in the news portal delfi.lt | 9 The headlines of articles also contain vocabulary used by social groups. In this way, the aim is to draw the attention of people belonging to these groups, for example, the word mobile is widespread among children and adolescents, so it can be concluded that the message presented in the third heading is also sent to school-age children, after all, the content of the message is relevant not only to the employees of the educational institution, but also to young people attending it. Sometimes headings do not do without jargon because there is no convenient equivalent in common language, e.g. : The story of the Red Book: the first book could only be bought for a serious “flat” [article title] (delfi.lt 2013 05 26, Vitalius Zaikauskas) In the 1990 edition of the Dictionary of the English Language, the term is defined as: "a broken word. (until the 1990s) private communications used when it is necessary to obtain or do something that would be very difficult officially.” It is obvious that it would not make any sense to seek a substitute for this jargon that is acceptable to the public, because blatas not only identifies certain private relationships, but also reflects the reality of the living time of a particular historical period. According to J. Pikčilingis, “in their usual environment, some professional jargons are, it may be said, stylistically neutral. But when they enter the broader arena, supposedly, when they leave the boundaries of their respective profession or social group, they become stylistically extremely active” (Pikčilingis 1975: 143), e.g. : Will the abortion ban bring back abortionists with hangings? / Lithuanian women returning from Ireland to abort; take part in the survey! [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 04 07, Vytenė Stašaitytė) The general public is certainly not aware of this professionalism used by doctors, so the journalists expect that the visitors of the news portal, in order to clarify the meaning of the jargon in the headline, will have to read the entire article, which also provides the abortmacher’s explanation: She added that after abortion was banned, people in such a situation still look for opportunities to terminate pregnancy, and then it is often done in an unsafe way – in a non-medical facility, at the doctors’ jargon called abortion centers. ‘abortmacherius’. There is no doubt that such words used by representatives of a particular profession have a much greater emotional load than slang. During the research it was observed that almost always (if only the article contains jargon words) some field-specific jargons are added to the headline in order to attract as many readers as possible, e.g. : The driver of the “zero” that killed the rally spectator: no need to look for the culprits / who is responsible for the tragedy? [article headline] (delfi.lt 2013 05 28, Mindaugas Augustis) In this headline the author of the article highlighted sports jargon, the meaning of which can be understood only from the text, so the reader of the news portal delfi.lt, driven by curiosity, decides to read the entire article, from which it becomes clear that a zero-number is “an automobile whose starting numbers are usually made up of zero digits only, and in this vehicle there is a risk of informing the rally judges”. esančios įgulos tikslas – patikrinti trasą prieš lenktynių pradžią ir apie jos būklę, pastebėtus BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSSN 2351-7204 AGNĖ ALEKSAITĖ. 16 THE EXPRESSIVE HEADLINES ON THE NEWS PORTAL DELFI. 16 THE EXPRESSIVE HEADLINES ON THE NEWS PORTAL DELFI. LT Summary The objects of the current article are the expressive headlines of articles published on the news portal Delfi.lt collected by the author from October 2012 to June 2014. The expression and presentation of the headline determines whether the article will be read at all; therefore, emotionally charged lexis is used deliberately. The purpose of the current article is to analyse the expressive headlines of articles published on the news portal Delfi.lt and find out the linguistic means of expression used in order to attract the readers’ attention. Metaphoric name-words, figurative verbs, neologisms, jargon, vulgarisms, antonomasias, personal names, phraseologisms, quotations and foreign language inserts are analysed in the article; out of them, traditional phraseologisms and figurative verbs were the most frequent. KEYWORDS: headline, emotive-expressive lexis, stylistics. AGNĖ ALEKSAITĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas Petro Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]