Lexical choice in international sports news headlines: A study of the near-synonyms Sack and Fire
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62819/jel.2026.2490Keywords:
lexical choice, near-synonym, news headlines, register, toneAbstract
This study investigated lexical choice in international sports news headlines through the near-synonyms sack and fire in reports of the same managerial dismissal event. The study aimed to examine the usage of these near-synonyms in the headlines across three outlet groups (UK-based, US-based, and international/global outlets), as well as investigate how they reflect register, tone, headline-lead alignment, and agency construction. Thirty English-language sports news headlines reporting Ruben Amorim’s dismissal at Manchester United were purposively selected and divided equally among the three outlet groups. The news headlines were qualitatively analyzed using media discourse analysis with descriptive quantitative support. The findings revealed that sack was the dominant lexical choice, occurring more frequently than fire and other dismissal-related expressions. UK-based outlets strongly preferred sack, while US-based outlets used both sack and fire. This suggests regional preference in headline language. Meanwhile, international/global outlets also favored sack but showed some lexical diversity through alternatives such as out and axed. In terms of register and tone, sack appeared in a wider range of contexts, from neutral to evaluative and sensational headlines, whereas fire was mainly neutral or evaluative. Most lead sentences supported the lexical framing of the headlines by matching rather than softening or intensifying it. The analysis of agency also showed that passive voice was slightly more common. Overall, the study demonstrated that sack and fire are not fully interchangeable in sports news discourse, as their use was framed by regional preference, register, evaluative tone, and grammatical framing.
References
Almahameed, Y. S., Bataineh, K. B. A., & Ammari, R. M. (2022). The use of passive voice in news reports for political purposes. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 13(6), 1196–1202. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1306.07
Bednarek, M. (2006). Evaluation in media discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus. Continuum.
Bednarek, M., & Caple, H. (2017). The discourse of news values: How news organisations create newsworthiness. Oxford University Press.
Bell, A. (1991). The language of news media. Blackwell.
Betari, A. W., Virginio, G. A., Mukminatun, S., & Sudartini, S. (2025). The power of headlines: A critical discourse analysis of Tempo.Co English News. Inspiring: English Education Journal, 8(2), 329–346. https://doi.org/10.35905/inspiring.v8i2.14734
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.
Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2019). Register, genre, and style (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Borchmann, S. (2024). Headlines as illocutionary subacts: The genre-specificity of headlines. Journal of Pragmatics, 220, 73–99.
Bowles, D.A. & Borden, D.L. (1997). Creative writing and editing for print media. Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Fire. In Cambridge Dictionary.
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Sack. In Cambridge Dictionary.
Chana, C., & Tangkiengsirisin, S. (2012). Comparative rhetoric of the discourse structure of news stories between news articles published in Thailand and in the U.S.A. LEARN Journal, 5(1), 97-109.
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 37–46.
Conboy, M. (2010). The language of newspapers: Socio-historical perspectives. Continuum International Publishing.
Cruse, D. A. (1986). Lexical semantics. Cambridge University Press.
Edmonds, P., & Hirst, G. (2002). Near-synonymy and lexical choice. Computational Linguistics, 28(2), 105-144.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Longman.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). Routledge.
Hunston, S. (2000). Evaluation and the planes of discourse: Status and value in persuasive texts. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(12), 176–207.
Jackson, H., & Amvela, Z. E. (2000). Words, meaning and vocabulary: An introduction to modern English lexicology. Cassell.
Kazymir, I. et al. (2026). Conceptual integration of contextual synonyms in contemporary English media discourse. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 26(1), 93–102.
Kongcharoen, P.- ampai, & Chinsethagij, S. (2025). Distinguishing synonymous adjectives – Calm, Peaceful, Silent, and Quiet. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 46(2), 460201.
Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33(1), 159–17.
Lertcharoenwanich, P. (2023). Analysis of Collocations and Semantic Preference of the Near- synonyms: Blank, Empty, and Vacant. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 16(1), 365–383.
Liu, D. (2010). Is it a chief, main, major, primary, or principal concern?. A corpus-based behavioral profile study of the near-synonyms. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 15(1), 56–87.
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan.
Memmedli, A. (2025). Passive voice in English discourse: Significance for academic writing and communication. Porta Universorum, 1(10), 13-22.
Murphy, M. L. (2010). Lexical meaning. Cambridge University Press.
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Dismiss. In Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Retrieved May 18, 2026, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/dismiss?q=dismiss
Peterlicean, A., & Berariu, E. C. (2020). On the discourse of online sports news headlines. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 12(3), 155–171.
Poudel, A., & Milkowski, M., & Weninger, T. (2025). The power of framing: How news headlines guide search behavior. Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing.
Reah, D. (1998). The language of newspaper. Routledge.
Reah, D. (2002). The language of newspapers (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Richardson, J. E. (2007). Analysing newspapers: An approach from critical discourse analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Smith, E. J. (1999) Leadlines may be better than traditional headlines. Newspaper Research Journal 20(1), 55-64.
Van Dijk, T. A. (1985). Handbook of discourse analysis: Dimensions of discourse. Academic Press
Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as discourse. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Thongsombat, K., & Chatdecha, C. (2025). A comparative study of headline writing in business news. Journal of Nisitwang, 27(1), 106–115.
Xiao, R., & McEnery, T. (2006). Collocation, semantic prosody and near synonymy. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 103–129
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
