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“The headline is a unique type of text. It has a range of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content and structure, and separate within a range of restrictions that limit the freedom of the writer.” Writes Danuta Reah in her book as a descriptive definition.

If headline-writers want to give a good start to an article, they have to compose a concise, informative, attractive title for it.

In this research paper I will analyze this problem with some examples of headlines referring to a certain topic - the Olympic Games of Montreal which took place in 1976.

I chose this event because it happened in the same year when I was born. I would like to know more about this period of time and I hope that this research paper provides a relevant picture about the area of life which was not inflluenced by politics so much.

Method
I had a great deal of material to choose from. I scanned a lot of issues of Nepszabadsag - namely from the issue of June 11th to the issue of August 1st to find suitable headlines.

I also used Danuta Reah’s “Headlines” chapter, which served as a source of help for me to understand the role of headlines and classify them. I applied the major principles of categorization of the chapter as a guideline for my research paper. Though I could not use the same groups all the time.

Reah lists only four categories:
Group 1: based on the ambiguity of a word and its meaning (e.g. "Butter Battle Spreads").
Group 2: emphasizing the intertextuality of well-known phrases, sayings, texts of pop-songs, literary references (e.g. "Join the Kew for the Bloom with a Phew" and E.M. Foster's "A Room with a View")
Group 3: applying phonological devices or rhymes ("Kew" and "Phew").
Group 4: using words having a strong connotation (e.g. "Genius Rev Butchered a Church")

I used different categories of my own. I grouped the examples I found in the 34th volume of Nepszabadsag. I focused on not only the attractiveness and effectiveness of these headlines, but I examined their relevance to the articles, which belong to them.

Results and Discussion
The first group I formed includes the most informative titles. They provide information about the sports events of the Olympic Games and their political relations. These headlines use neutral tone to report the facts and summarize the articles.

The first group I called the "factual type" because it simply reports a fact. The title “Nem engedelyezi a kanadai kormany Tajvan reszvetelet” belongs to this category. It seems
informative at first, but - despite its considerable length - it does not cover the core-information of the article, because its content is about the response given for this governmental statement.
These types of headlines usually apply formal language and the articles they refer to do not tell the reader the personal opinion of the writer. Therefore these articles are not completed: they need the reader to finish the ideas and offers enough possibility for individual thoughts as well.

Some headlines apply expressions, that appear even in colloquial language. They represent the "poverb-type". A typical example, “A szorgalom gyumolcse”, provides the story of a Hungarian judoist, and how he won the bronze medal. At this type the headline emphasizes the result of his persistent work, and because of its simplicity and familiarity it may give motivation to the reader to know more about the secret of such a great success. The article itself amplifies this effect by using cities of personal interview, which makes the whole interview similar to a portray and also indirectly encourages every reader to follow this example.

In spite of promising characteristics, some headlines are not correspondent to their articles ("the ambiguous type"). These titles are quite attractive or, rather, could be like this if they appeared in another column of the newspaper. For example, the headline "Aranyermes teatermeszt›” does not introduce the success story of the owner of a first class tea-plantation Ð, but it describes a Russian triple jumper’s career and results who deals with tea-raising as a hobby.

This headline-type lets the reader down to a small degree. The journalist enlarges an insignificant fact, which has no relevance to the main essence of the content. Though the intimating tone compensates this contradiction in some way and after reading the whole article readers may look back on the headline as a playful "appetizer".

I found counter-examples as well. These titles fulfil their jobs in a metaphorical way. They apply a literary quotation or a pun to catch the attention of the reader at once. A headline such as "Hova lettel regi kardunk?" presumes a precious knowledge from the readers because only in this way they can understand the connection between the results of the Hungarian fencing team and a part of a famous Hungarian poem.

Another headline of this "intertextual type" "Nem erezzuk magunkat paholyban" found its effect on the supposition that everyone who reads it knows the symbolic meaning of this phrase. The title is embedded in the text as a personal reflection of an expert, that is why it sounds credible enough to get emphasis and become a headline.

Scanning the daily I came upon a similar group of headlines. "Ket hajo remeyfutamban" and titles like this require familiarity with the sports jargon. That is why I gave the name "jargon-type" to them. Articles with such headlines report not only with concrete results. Therefore the are meaningful only for those who can relate the freshly given information to former ones.

Among these titles I found an embarrassing one as well: "Harc a rekorduszodaban". Perhaps at first sight the reader does not know whether the expression "rekorduszoda" refers to the fact that the swimming-pool was built up at a record pace - relating to other facilities - or whether it was simply the place of a lot of outstanding results - for example - world-records. Later on the article solved this ambiguity: the headline meant the latter one.

Only two major groups remained which I left deliberately to the end of my research paper because they could arouse my curiosity the most.

One of these groups contains those headlines - the "personal type" - which express emotions. They are written in an individual tone, though they cannot preserve it throughout the whole text of the article. The main aim of the press is to give information; therefore, the headlines and the articles loaded with criticism are not always welcomed. That is why these articles suffer from ambivalence: the titles transmit personal emotions but the articles themselves introduce the rest of the message as objective facts.

The title Csak mar megkezdodne, Ne csak nezd aptly describe this situation, though the former one has an "inside view-effect"; it lists the difficulties of the Olympic Games of 1976.
Finally, as the whole volume of newspaper was written in the socialist era I cannot neglect that group of headline, which had hidden political intentions (the "political-type").

Though that time the competition between the East and the West was not as strong as twenty years earlier, the main ideology lived on. This is shown in the message of the headlines, which seem completely innocent at first sight from this point of view.

"Az eter mergezoi" provides an apt example of how to disguise the ideological segregation in a headline and then reveal it in the article. This effect is also reinforced by strange expressions like "radioverzansok" or "kamradi—", which refer to Szabad Europa Radio and another, not named radio station.

If the reader examines only the headline it does not tell whether the article is written about a poisoning happened in a hospital or this title is a comment on a concrete event of environmental polution. Though it also does not suggest any political topic and that is why I called it innocent.

These groups of headlines are specialized and could be completed or grouped in other ways as well but I found this categorization the most useful.

Conclusion
In this research paper I have intended to outline the main features and classification of headlines applying concrete examples Ð articles on the Olympics of Montreal. I have also aimed to show the variability of the newspaper titles on the field of sports.

To reach these purposes I used the guidance of the chapter of Danuta Reah's book and articles of the 34th volume of Nepszabadsag written in 1976. I applied other more detailed category names which were more suitable for the headlines of articles on sports.

Other sources can be used as well for doing similar research on this topic, which would certainly enrich the knowledge about this field.