Rhetorical devices

News headlines like other pieces of writings use rhetorical devices. They are regarded as the initial informative and persuasive part of news stories. The goal of the present study was to analyze COVID-19-related native and non-native news headlines chosen from two main online news websites in Iran and England in terms of number and degree of utilization of sub-types of rhetorical devices. To this end, the 6-week corpus including 489 headlines relevant to corona-virus news (282 headlines selected from the BBC and 207 from the Tehran Times) were analyzed. Shams (2013) and Picello (2018) taxonomies were used to analyze all news headlines. The findings showed that ten rhetorical devices were found in these headlines. Alliteration was used most frequently, following closely behind were metonymy, rhyme, rhetorical question, depersonalization, hyperbole, metaphor, pun, cliché, and euphemism. Both alliteration and metonymy were frequently used in the headlines of the news stories. However, just simile and allusion were found in the Tehran Times headlines, but not with high frequency. The findings can provide insights into the understanding of rhetoric-specific conventions in news headlines for ELT teachers and students. Also, English teachers can use news headlines as authentic teaching materials in their language classrooms.

Metaphor has usually been presented as a literary device which has some rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. However, in economic discourse, metaphor has a communicative function exhibited in English business texts. This study is directed towards a comprehensive analysis of metaphor translation in English business texts into Arabic. By selecting a sample of metaphors from business articles on BBC, CNN and Project Syndicate online websites, the study analyzes the data in terms of function, significance and role each metaphor plays in its context. The study also applies the cognitive approach to metaphor in the analysis of data and shows the important role this approach has on translation studies. The cognitive theory of metaphor provides significant insights into translation studies and now metaphor translatability is no longer a question of the individual metaphorical expression, as identified in the ST, but it has become linked to the level of conceptual systems in source and target cultures. Four main strategies of translating game/sport business metaphors are detected and used in the illustrative examples throughout the article. The study reveals that translators may opt for either preserving the metaphorical image of the source language metaphor or explicating its informative value; literal translation of some business metaphorical concepts presents itself as a workable solution in many cases because of the shared mood of cognition between English and Arabic language readers.