Speech-like syntax in written texts
Changing syntactic conventions in news discourse
This article explores the extent to which present-day written news discourse has
become more speech-like regarding the structure of sentences. Three features
will be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively: the use of conjunctions as
extra-clausal linking devices, the occurrence of disintegrated clausal units, and
the loose attachment of syntactic fragments, i.e. of non-clausal material, to a
completed syntagma. The data are taken from news reports in a quality paper
and a popular paper from two time samples, dating from 1900 and 2013. The
results give evidence for an increasing informalization of British written news
discourse and thus align themselves with proposals to the general drift of written
registers toward more oral styles.