Conceptual Blending in Political News Headlines

The purpose of this study is to scrutiny the political news headlines of Ebtekar newspaper based on the theory of conceptual blending. The Analysis of the theory is based on the emerging meaning and structure. This theory consists of four inputs, each of which plays a role in formation of the emergent meaning. Also in this theory, the types of blending networks (simple, mirror, single-scope, and double-scope) are introduced according to the format of inputs. This article examines the political headlines in Ebtekar newspaper to determine the adequacy of the theory in explaining and describing the headlines. For this purpose, 1000 news headlines have been analyzed. The results showed that about 20% of the headlines have used blending. In terms of the frequency of blending, the single-scope type is the most frequent one because this type of blending has four elements: simplicity, transparency, communication, and attractiveness. Therefore, by using this type of blending, in addition to conveying information, the author attempts to make the headlines more attractive, convince the audience and persuade them to follow the news. Also, mirror-type blending is not used in research data, because the structure of this type of blending is such that two events are formed in a common semantics frame but at two different times. Given this structure, it may not be easy for the reader to recall and match two events.