Presupposition Triggers in British and Saudi English Newspaper Opinions

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the presupposition triggers in British and Saudi English newspaper opinions. The data of the study comprises a sample of 30 newspaper opinions articles selected from the Saudi Gazette and the UK Gazette (15 articles each). The results demonstrate that the Saudi articles receive the highest number of presupposition triggers occurrences, that is 556 (56.60%) compared to the UK articles which receive 426 (43.40%). The results also reveal that ‘existential’ and ‘lexical’ presupposition triggers in both cases are the ones used the most while ‘non-factive’ ‘structural’ presupposition triggers are the least. Comparison between the two cases indicates that there are considerable similarities. The few differences are not very significant; hence, it is true to say that native and non-native writers of English used presupposition triggers similarly. Based on the study findings, the following implications have been drawn: presupposition triggers help speakers and writers pass a lot of information to their audiences; they are used by speakers and writers to set the background of their negotiation for better and effective communication; and they are used by speakers and writers in order to mold the ideologies of their audiences. The study concludes with some pedagogical recommendations for EFL instructors in the TEFL context and suggestions for further studies on presuppositions in discourse analysis.