A Critical Discourse Analysis of Discursive Reproduction of Ideologies in Pakistani and Indian Press Media in the Aftermath of Pulwama Attack

Abstract

The present study, based on Van Dijk (2005) ideological square model, aims to show how the two countries, i.e., Pakistan and India, represent each other through their newspaper's discourse. Using Van Dijk's (2005) framework (positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation) for discourse analysis, this study examines linguistic features in fifty editorials of three Pakistani and three Indian English newspapers. The aforementioned model adopted from Politics, Ideology and Discourse is used to detect discursive structures within editorials and to discover the hidden ideologies. Besides, the researchers have used different discursive strategies such as actor description, euphemism, evidentiality etc., for microanalysis. Moreover, the macro analysis has been done by using the macro strategies, i.e., positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. The study revealed that Pakistani editorials used micro strategies more than that Indians. The study also revealed that Pakistani editorials relied mostly on positive self-presentation, while Indian editorials focused on negative other-presentation.