Peculiarities of Newspaper Discourse in Canadian Periodicals

Abstract

In the last years of the 20th century textual linguistics, with which the notion of “discourse” is closely connected, has started developing rapidly. As a result, discourse has become one of the most significant fields of scientific research. Despite the increase of its significance, some kinds of discourse remained relatively unattended. Among them newspaper discourse, the careful investigation of which made the major focus of our research. In addition, few attempts have been made to investigate the peculiarities of Canadian periodicals. We have made an attempt to study the articles that appear in such newspapers as Vegreville Observer and News Advertiser that focus on local news of the town of Vegreville (Alberta, Canada). This was done with the purpose to characterize lexical and structural features of newspaper articles as well as to trace the usage of stylistic devices by journalists.