The article tries to describe the peculiarities of abbreviations in modern English in modern British journalism.
Keywords: abbreviations, British press, English.
The trend towards abbreviation of various kinds of words can be traced in any modern language. Abbreviations are widespread not only in oral colloquial speech, but also in writing. This tendency towards conciseness can be explained by the acceleration of the pace of life and the desire to transmit the maximum amount of information per unit of time. This trend is also expressed in the texts of modern English journalism, which we’ll observe in this article.
First, shall us discuss how abbreviations came to be. While many people might blame younger generations for excessive use of abbreviations, they aren’t a modern invention in the slightest. Even in the language of Shakespeare's dramas (late 16th — n. 17th century), the presence of abbreviated variants of names is noted, for example, Jule — Juliet, Hall — Harry / Henry, Ned — Edward. The emergence of truncation rep — reputation, pos or pozz — positive and some others are attributed to the medieval period [2].
English has welcomed and saved a lot of Latin abbreviations to this day. Some of the most common ones are the following: 1) e.g., which comes from the Latin phrase «exempli gratia», which translates literally as «for example»; 2) etc. which comes from «et cetera» has been used in English since the early Middle Ages and translates as «and others of the same kind» or «and so forth».; 3) i.e. comes from the Latin phrase «id est», which means «that is», and it is used in English to clarify a preceding statement more fully [3].
Let’s note the reasons for the appearance of abbreviations in the English language. Many researchers named such phenomena as the development of science and technology, wars, revolutions and such as the reasons for the formation of abbreviations in various languages. For instance, World War II gave mankind not only scientific and technological advances, but also made a contribution to the vocabulary. The number of military abbreviations began to increase rapidly, starting from the first days of the war, for example: СР — command post; O.D.– officer of the day [1].
Undeniably computer technologies are the main contributor to abbreviations and various terms nowadays, starting from the basic ones (like PC — personal computer or Proc — processor) to abbreviations known to any Internet user nowadays like IDK, meaning I Don't Know or SMH i. e., Shaking My Head. Abbreviations can be found in abundance in chats, forums, conferences, blogs and e-mail, where it is necessary to quickly record the necessary information, while not wasting the time of other people. Social network Twitter contributed to the popularity of them, since it has a limit in the number of words that can be used per one tweet.
Now let us refer to British Newspapers and consider how often abbreviations are used in modern British journalism. There are two main types of national newspapers in the UK — quality (Quality, Broadsheets, Heavies) and popular (Popular, Tabloids, Gutter Press). This separation of newspapers occurred at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. After the introduction of the law on universal primary education, prerequisites arose for the emergence of a wider range of readers, for whom mass newspapers were mainly intended, which were cheap and had large circulations, for example, the Daily Mail, Daily Express. Wealthy and well-educated readers favoured The Times, The Daily Telegraph, which reflected the interests of financial and industrial circles [6].
The quality (elitist) press and the popular (mass) press are considered respectively the opinion press and the news press. These characteristics are reflected in their style and design, as well as the audience that they attract. Quality newspapers appeal to the logical thinking of their readers, which is mostly possible if people have a sufficiently high level of education. The author of articles in such newspapers argues and converses with their readers. The texts of quality newspapers are characterised by such syntactic features as the use by the author of the article of isolated constructions, complex sentences, long chains of definitions. [6].
Popular newspapers are characterised by the widespread use of colloquial language and slang. Journalists communicate with readers at ease, they even try to play with people’s emotions, make them care about characters in the articles due to an informal type of relationship between a journalist and a reader. The syntactic sentence structure is simpler, shorter than the one from articles in quality newspapers [6].
Through even brief research, we can observe that abbreviations are used in both types of British newspapers. This phenomenon is so massive that almost no print publication can do without the use of them. Let’s look at some articles from The Guardian (one of the leading quality newspapers in the UK) and the Mirror (tabloid newspaper).
Graphic abbreviations (i.e. those abbreviations that are certain characters used in writing) are widely used in newspaper articles. The following examples of their use have been identified: km, capt., dr., mins, Bucks, pcm, Sr. This is one of the articles from The Guardian, for instance: “The Queen has led tributes to Capt Sir Tom Moore, the second world war veteran who raised almost £39m for NHS charities during the first coronavirus lockdown in spring 2020, who has died aged 100 after testing positive for coronavirus.” (The Guardian, 02.02.2021).
As for lexical abbreviations (the ones that may be used both in written and in oral speech), these examples were found during the analysis: EU, UK, US, FTSE, CEM, AFP, OAG, FTA: “The government has hinted that it will grant full diplomatic status to the EU ambassador to the UK , with the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, saying he is looking to turn the page on the Brexit saga and wants to treat the EU with the respect it deserves” (The Guardian, 05/02/2021).
As for the tabloids, they are rich in lexical abbreviations of various kinds: UEFA, NASA, ISIS, PEB, UFO, CIA: “It's probably no surprise organizations like ISIS, which actually recruit and motivate people on social media, inevitably leave these big digital footprints” (The Mirror, 03/07/2016). The popularity of English abbreviations of this type can be explained by active social and political relations, developed scientific research and sports activities, which are covered day after day in the pages of British newspapers.
Like quality newspapers, tabloids cover a wide range of topics. A distinctive feature of this type of newspaper is that they contain examples of abbreviations not only of terms, but also phrases often used in colloquial speech, for example: BFF — Best Friend Forever. Some tabloid articles use web slang, which makes the description more expressive. «Kylie Jenner has posted a withering riposte to Kim Kardashian and BFF Stassie Karanikolaou posing together while on holiday». (The Mirror, 02/05/2021).
As can be seen from the examples, both types of abbreviations are common, which proves how our language strives to be concise, despite the type of the newspaper. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that more and more abbreviations will appear and more people will incorporate them in their daily life.
References:
- Douglas Sutherland. Portrait of a Decade: London Life 1945–1955. — London: Harrap, 1988–239 p.
- Gorshunov Yu.V. New abbreviated and abbreviated vocabulary of the English language — Birsk: BSPI, 1998. — 99 p.
- Merriam Webster Dictionary URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/origin-of-latin-abbreviations-ie-eg-etc
- The Guardian [Электронный ресурс] –URL: https://www.theguardian.com/international
- The Mirror [Электронный ресурс] — URL: https://www.mirror.co.uk/
- Sinitsyna Y. G. Pragmatic parameters of the expressiveness of the English newspaper text: Abstract of the thesis of a candidate of philological sciences. — M., 1993. — 24 p.
