Functional and textual aspects of modern British journalism

The article is devoted to the treatment of the main types of texts within modern British journalism from the point of view of stylistics and linguistics of text. The objective of the article is to ascertain structural and compositional features of the main genres of modern British social and political journalism. Researchers observe that the language of journalism is characterized by variability because it reflects changes in a country’s social life and covers vast language material of diverse thematic content. Linguists mark out three main functions of journalism: informative, effecting and entertaining. Editorials (leading articles) which are often at the centre of language researchers’ attention often perform either informative or effecting function. Basic information in effecting texts (which are devoted for example to urgent economic or political problems) is often analytically reconsidered and treated, the author abstracts from specific facts using methods of logical evidence. These effecting texts are in their turn subdivided into polithematic and monothematic types. The most common types of texts of modern British journalism are characterized by a definite function and thematic structure. Polythematic intensional textual structures dominate in this sphere of social journalism where argumentative explication of the thematic concept plays the main part.