Abstract：Newspaper headlines are the windows and epitomes of news, which can cause misunderstanding without proper unscrambling. Owing to the enriched information the headlines contain and different habits, interests, cultural backgrounds and so on, people have their own understanding of the headlines. This paper aims to study the ambiguity in newspaper headlines from the perspective of the economy principle and explain causes of ambiguity, hoping that the readers can read and learn the headlines, contexts better.

Key words: ambiguity; newspaper headlines; economy principle

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION.1

Chapter Two LITERRATURE REVIEW .3

2.1 Previous Studies on Ambiguity .3

2.1.1 Definition of ambiguity 3

2.1.2 Classification of ambiguity3

2.2 Previous Studies on Economy Principle.5

Chapter Three EXPLORATION INTO ENGLISH NEWSPAPER HEADLINES .8

3.1 Newspaper Headlines in General.8

3.2 Special Features of English Newspaper Headline8

3.2.1 Grammatical features.8

3.2.2 Lexical features10

Chapter Four AN ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITY IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPER HEALINES12

4.1 Manifestation of Ambiguity..12

4.1.1 Lexical ambiguity.12

4.1.2 Grammatical ambiguity13

4.1.3 Intentional ambiguity.14

4.2 Causes of Ambiguity in English Newspaper Headlines .14

4.2.1 Improper omission of function words14

4.2.2 Use of polysemous words or homographs.15

4.2.3 Transferred meaning15

4.3 Ways of Resolving Ambiguity in Newspaper Headlines..16

4.3.1 Change the ambiguous word16

4.3.2 Omit the ambiguous word16

Chapter Five CONCLUSION18

REFERENCES 20