STYLISTIC COMPRESSION IN BREAKING NEWS HEADLINES ON SOCIAL MEDIA: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH DIGITAL NEWS DISCOURSE

This article explores the phenomenon of stylistic compression in English-language breaking news headlines shared on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Due to space constraints and the need for immediacy, digital journalism frequently employs concise syntactic structures, ellipsis, noun phrases, and verbless constructions that diverge from standard grammar but enhance urgency and impact. Drawing on a corpus of headlines from major news outlets (e.g., BBC, CNN, The Guardian), this study identifies key linguistic strategies of compression and examines their stylistic and communicative effects. The analysis, grounded in stylistic theory and discourse analysis, reveals that such compressed forms contribute to the rapid transmission of emotionally charged, ideologically positioned, and easily shareable news. The findings underscore the intersection of linguistic economy and media immediacy in shaping modern news discourse.