Pakistani English Newspapers Research Articles

Narratives of Covid-19 in Pakistani English Newspapers: An Ecolinguistic Appraisal

This research aims to explore the role of print media in spreading information about pandemics and environmental changes during pandemics of Covid-19. As environmental issues, climate change and such pandemics are common problems of the planet and connected to the health of ecosystem. Therefore, media, especially print media, is central in disseminating information regarding such disasters. Therefore, this research seeks to explore the strategies utilized in the development of four narratives: erasure, salience, conviction, and evaluation, as presented in articles from English newspapers. It emphasizes the role of various linguistic features in rendering the text both natural and persuasive. The researcher has selected thirty articles from three English newspapers, namely Dawn, The Express Tribune, and The News. Authors frequently utilize these techniques to eliminate or highlight significant elements. Stibbe (2015) serves as the theoretical framework for examining the strategies involved in the creation of erasure, salience, evaluation, and conviction in articles related to Covid-19 in newspapers. The findings of the research suggest that a range of strategies is employed in the development of these four narratives within environmental discourses. These strategies encompass appraisal patterns, modality, facticity patterns, euphemism, foregrounding, activation, personification, metaphors, co-hyponymy, passive constructions, nominalization, abstraction, and hyponymy, among others. Additionally, the study concludes that emphasis has been placed on the enhanced environment during the pandemic, yet selfish humans are held responsible for generating the conditions for COVID-19 through environmental destruction. By examining these narratives, the researcher explores the link between the environment and covid-19. The research highlights the need to promote positive narratives and counteract negative ones by raising public awareness about the detrimental effects of harmful stories.

Interplay of Linguistic and Semiotic Choices in Shaping Meaning: A Critical Analysis of Political Cartoon in Pakistani English Newspaper

In today's world, where nations are interconnected through media, the analysis of media discourse from different perspectives on societal issues has gained much currency. The present study analyzes the satirical representation of a newspaper cartoon to find out how these media persons utilize cartoons and the accompanying linguistic choices to affect readers' opinions and understandings. Guided by qualitative research methodology, the data for this study is collected in the form of one cartoon selected through purposive sampling from a Pakistani English newspaper i.e., Dawn. Taking insights from Barthes's (1957) theory of semiotics and Fairclough’s (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model, the study utilizes an integrated framework for a fine-grain analysis of cartoon discourse. The intermingling of these two models of analysis has helped the researchers to highlight how newspaper cartoon discourse can be utilized to construct and highlight certain ideologies. The selected cartoon under the caption "OIC seeks global intervention to halt Gaza genocide," highlights the themes of victimization and powerlessness. By utilizing the signs of a man and a wooden log for the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and Gaza, respectively, the cartoonist has evoked feelings of sympathy for the innocent killing of Palestinians. Hence, the study has found a logical connection between linguistic and semiotic systems to highlight the OIC's inefficacy and the world's indifference and hypocritical response towards the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Placement of Adverbials in Pakistani English: A Pedagogical Perspective

This study aims to analyze the variation in the placement of adverbials in the non-native variety of English i.e. Pakistani English. From the current pedagogical point of view, the placement of adverbials in Pakistani English is influenced both by the Pakistani languages itself and by local teaching practices. Identifying the diverse placement and position of adverbials in the different registers under consideration is the key issue that has been addressed in the present research. A corpus of Pakistani English newspapers, short stories and novels was compiled to analyze the variations in the use of adverbials in non-native contexts. AntConc software has been used to extract the adverbials. The extracted examples reflect the state of development and the degree of variation in Pakistan English. The results and findings of this study show that there are some changes in the placement of adverbial in Pakistani English as compared to British English. These differences point out the specificities and novelties that are the characteristics of Pakistani English. These positional differences show variation in style in Pakistani English in comparison to the norms of Standard English. This study contributes to the flow of knowledge about variation in English and maps out the distinct use of English in Pakistan.

Exploring the Representation of the Taliban in Pakistani and American English Newspapers through Corpus Approaches

The present study investigated the representation of the Taliban in Pakistani and American English newspapers by exploring the collocations, collocation networks, and concordance. The study used mixed-methods approach. The data were collected from two Pakistani English Newspapers, the DAWN and the News International, and two American English Newspapers, USA Today and the New York Times. A corpus comprising 136,721 tokens was compiled from the news articles section of the selected newspapers. The data were analysed by using LancsBox 6.0 and AntConc-4. LancsBox was used for analysing the collocation and collocation networks of the Taliban, and AntConc for exploiting the concordance of the Taliban. Fairclough’s (1992) three-dimensional model was used to interpret the results provided by the software. The study found that Pakistani English Newspapers use positive words, such as brave, expert, and powerful, as collocates with the Taliban. On the contrary, American English Newspapers use negative words, such as brutal, bloody, and terrorists, as collocate with the Taliban. The study concluded that Pakistani English newspapers positively represent the Taliban and American English newspapers negatively represent the Taliban.

The Politics of Identity Markers: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Pakistani English Newspapers

This study looked at how politicians come about with their political identities using identity markers to communicate their ideology(s) and ideas in political discourse. This study attempted to examine such identifying markers employed by Imran Khan (PTI), Fazal-ur-Rehman (JUI-F), Nawaz Sharif (PML-N), and Bilawal Bhutto (PPP) in Dawn and The Express Tribune news between 2018 and 2023. Data was obtained from the sites of a number of newspapers using a qualitative research method, using Fairclough's 3D model. Important markers of identification were phrases such as youth, corruption, accountability, and Naya Pakistan (new Pakistan), as well as cultural symbols, like flags and turbans. The ongoing use of pronouns, metaphors, and authoritative language by politicians helped to make societal topics such as power dynamics, corruption, and development lively. It is found that Fairclough's approach to the analysis of political identity markers can be put to good use.

The Variant Use of Verb in Pakistani English Newspapers: A Corpus-Based Study

The present study deals with the variable use of verb in Pakistani English. It describes the verbs in Pakistani English that are similar to Standard British English semantically but vary at lexical level. It is a qualitative descriptive study which intends to identify the lexical choices of PE speakers/ writers. Two corpora: BNC and PENC have been used in present study to identify and describe those verbs qualitatively and for studying nativization and variation in these verbs. While using the corpus of newspaper, the present study anticipates to recognize the lexical choices of Pakistani people which contribute in making Pakistani English a distinct variety. It also aims to ascertain the pragmatic aspects of Pakistani English that contribute to bring lexical changes in it.

Coverage of Political Unrest in Pakistani English Newspapers: A Corpus-Based Content Analysis

The newspaper is a traditional channel of information interchange between the public and the government, as well as a free platform for the general public to commend and criticize the actions and policies of the government. This article aims to study the frequency of lexical choices and positive and negative words in the news coverage of political unrest by Pakistani English newspapers using corpus-based content analysis. The data for analysis was collected from the official websites of three Pakistani English newspapers: Daily Times, The Nation, and Dawn. The collected data has been analyzed quantitatively using the corpus software AntConc. Twenty news items were selected for news corpus with purposive sampling from 5th April 2023 to 30th September 2023. The findings reveal that Pakistani English newspapers use more negative words in the coverage of political matters, which do not represent the subjectivity of the newspapers' publishers but provide trustworthy news about political uncertainty to the audience. Moreover, this study explores the agenda of Pakistani English newspaper media through the Agenda Setting theory by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972). Additionally, this study demonstrates how much realistically Pakistani English publications depict political events that are causing uncertainty.

Media portrayal of sexual violence in Pakistan: A critical discourse analysis of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway incident

Sexual violence against women is one of the serious social concerns that still persist across the world in its various forms and manifestations. This study talks about the portrayal of the gang-rape of a woman in Pakistani English Print media who was travelling on the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway when her car ran out of petrol where two armed men came along and raped her. Grounded in the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Transitivity analysis from Halliday's systemic functional linguistics is utilized to explore the language used by leading Pakistani English newspapers to report the incident. Moreover, the study examines how print media affects the opinion of the people towards the incidents of sexual violence against women in Pakistan. These discursive features of a language enable us to see deep into the thought-processes of the people of a society. The paper concludes that reporting on violence against women shapes and is shaped by the approach of the people towards women and the forms of violence against them.

Analysis of Lexical Density and Readability of Pakistani English Newspaper Dawn

This research study aimed to analyze the lexical density and readability of Pakistani English Newspaper and so, to suggest their suitability for the level of students. Eight newspapers from four genres were selected as sample. The theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics based on the theory of lexical density by Ure (1971) was applied for finding lexical density and readability indices by using content analysis design through an online text analyzer software. Readability values were compared with the FleschmReading Ease Scale. The results of this study showed that lexical density values of all genres were greater than 40% according to the Flesch Reading Ease Scale. All the texts were lexically dense having a greater number of contents carrying lexical items as compared to grammatical items. The findings of study could also be applied to academic textbooks in order to check complexity and suitability according to the level of the students.

Ethical Guidelines and News Reporting in Pakistani English Newspapers: Critical Stylistics and Corpus Linguistics Analysis

Media is a potent source of disseminating news in the present era. So, news regarding violence against Women (VAW) is not an exception. The objective of the present study is to examine how news of VAW is portrayed in the English newspapers of Pakistan. The patterns to portrayal of news regarding VAW are based on gendered landscapes through the predictable images of gender identities, which ultimately leads to inequality and biasness against women. The present study investigated the news regarding VAW published in the newspapers. VAW is also generally known as domestic violence. The researchers conducted a discourse analysis of five English newspapers and collected 510 news reports regarding VAW published during 2017 and 2018. In order to make the findings objective and replicable, the researchers used Critical Stylistics (Lesley Jeffries, 2010a) and Sketch Engine, a computer-based corpus software. Findings suggested that the ethical guidelines proposed by various journalist organization were flagrantly violated. These violations involve revealing the victims’ identity i.e., age, location, and even slantingly holding the victims responsible for the violence. The researchers discovered that these unethical practices may result in inappropriate and stereotypical narratives about women. Therefore, it becomes necessary for the media to uphold the ethical considerations to assure the appropriate understanding of VAW and its severity.

A Corpus-Based Study of Adverbial Hedges in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials

This study aimed to explore adverbial hedges as stance markers in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials. For this purpose, the data was collected from four different newspapers. After this data was tagged with the help of TagAnt Tagger. AntConc (3.5.9 window) software was used for the manipulation of the data. The corpus was designed from different Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials which were selected randomly from online sources from 2016 to 2021. The purpose of this study was to inspect hedges in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials. List of adverbial hedges proposed after categorizing of hedging types. The results depicted frequencies of adverbial hedges from the newspapers of each of the years. The literature review of this research study explained the importance of adverbial hedges in previous research. Moreover, the results were presented in the form of tables and charts for an in-depth understanding of adverbial hedges in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials. This study found that hedges in the Pakistan English Newspaper Editorials made changes according to the style, frequency, and location of the content to make it more comprehensible and didactic. Adverbial hedges were frequently used in Pakistani English newspaper editorials. The events were typically viewed to connect with the text to generate cohesion and coherence in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials, based on their criteria of choice for adverbial hedges. Furthermore, the research questions were answered but this study also objects to future research. The objectives of this study were also claimed to be interpreted.

Civilized Global North versus rebellious Global South: a socio-semiotic analysis of media visual discourse

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the ideological, social, economic, and political aspects of life on planet Earth. This study examines the visuals associated with COVID-19 published in Pakistani English newspapers. Visual data were collected through purposive sampling, analyzed using social semiotic theory, and discussed through a post-colonial lens. The visual data were grouped as Global South and North owing to socioeconomic and political categorization among countries. The results show that the Pakistani media portrayed the Global South as rebellious, miserable, and noisy against the government. However, the Global North is depicted as civilized, stress-free, and abiding by all the instructions of the authority. Analysis shows that the two realms are visually represented as remarkably divergent from each other, and media portrayal has attached stereotypes identities to the nations. Pakistani media follows a basic restricted code of conduct, which should be extended to avoid labelling and politicizing groups and nations.

Syntactic Layer of Coordination and Conjuncts Agreement: Evidence from Pakistani English Newspapers

The architectural spin of linguistic elements is schematized as a projection from the lexicon and is considered as the universal machinery to account for all the linguistic phenomena according to generativist dictums. Pakistani English newspapers are ever under investigation from various linguistic angles, such as discourse analysis, code mixing, syntactic features, etc., but coordination and its agreement have always been ignored among Pakistani scholars. In the current study, the internal syntactic layer of conjoined phrases, clauses, and sentences has been hierarchically envisaged using empirical evidence from Pakistani English newspapers. This study adopts qualitative designed research and takes Murphy and Puškar (2018) as a framework to analyse coordination and agreement patterns in newspaper discourse. According to this framework, there are some syntactic operations (merge, agree, move) and steps to conjoin the phrases, clauses, and sentences in a uniform way. This study proposes that coordination and agreement are the recursive processes within the generative paradigm. The study furthermore predicts that the patterns of agreement within conjoined phrases, clauses, and sentences are first conjunct agreement (FCA), and last conjunct agreement (LCA) on various positions: subjective and objective conjoined expressions have been investigated, and these agreement patterns are due to the gender (p) and number (#) agreement.

Exploring linguistic variation in Pakistani English newspaper editorials through multidimensional analysis

This research investigated linguistic variation in Pakistani English newspaper editorials employing multidimensional analysis to identify: distinguished language feature; and linguistic variation in the light of textual dimensions model. Corpus comprised 1,000 editorials from four newspapers. Results showed the distinguished use of nouns, public verbs and sentence relatives thereby the editorials were found focusing on narrative, explicit and informational discourse. These results led to conclude about the presence of linguistic variation in Pakistani English newspaper editorials.

Investigating Discursive Gender Representation in Pakistani English Newspaper ‘The Express Tribune’s Headlines: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Researchers have spent a lot of time analysing how western media discursively represent gender roles in their audiences. The purpose of this research is to provide some insight on the current state of affairs regarding the portrayal of women in Pakistani entertainment print media. It seeks to explore the discursive methods for the formation of gender discourse, to analyse the language devices used for maintaining gender inequality, and to determine the socio-cultural consequences of gender discourse in the headlines of Pakistani English newspapers. These goals will be accomplished by looking at the headlines of Pakistani English newspapers. The approach taken in this investigation was qualitative. The information was gathered from the headlines of "The Express Tribune," a newspaper published in English in Pakistan. Applying Van Dijk's CDA model of media text to the analysis of the data that was obtained was done. After analysis, it was found that gendered discourse was constructed by employing discursive strategies like semantic macro structure, local meaning and coherence, global superstructure, social cognition and relation between discourse and society. The findings of analysis also revealed that words were manipulated to create negative image of women in society. The discourse also attempted to propagate feelings of insecurity and gender inequality. The socio-cultural implications of gender inequality may be resulted in economic insecurity, domestic disturbance and imbalance in society. This study may be very helpful for the newspaper readers to understand implications of gender discourse in national English newspapers. It may also motivate future researchers to employ the framework of CDA to explore gender representation in news discourses of distinct socio-cultural significance.

Science Journalism in Pakistani Print Media: A Content Analysis of Daily Dawn and The News International

Science journalism is a special form of journalism that primarily covers topics such as science, engineering, technology etc. This study has been conducted to find out the coverage of Science Journalism in Pakistani English Print Media. The researcher applied both Qualitative and Quantitative content analysis methods for the collection of the data. Through this method the researcher collected data from the Pakistani English newspaper; Daily Dawn and The Daily News International. The researcher collected data from five pages including pages 1, 2, 3 4 and 12. The researcher collected data from three days including Monday, Wednesday and Friday through a systematic sampling procedure from 6 months of Newspapers (N=72+72=144). It is found that both newspapers covered science journalism whereas; a total of 211 news stories were published in 6 months from January 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022. Daily The News published 46.9% while 53.1% were published by Daily Dawn. The results revealed that The Daily Dawn has given more coverage as compared to The News International in the last six months of 2022 science journalism.

Academic Words in Discourse News: A Corpus Based Study Of Pakistani English Newspaper

This study addressed two research questions regarding academic words used in the Corpus of Pakistani English Newspaper Articles (COPENA).Firstly it asked about the frequently used words in the corpus of Pakistani English Newspaper, Secondly it was asked, to what extent authors or editor use Academic words in newspaper as compared with Coxhead 570 (AWL). Total corpus was 414435 running words taken from online Newspaper; E. dawn and The Nation. The computer software ANTCONC was used to find out the frequency and percentage of words frequently occurred in COPENA. Another tool WORDSMITH was used to find out the frequency of AWL (Academic word list) in COPENA. The result revealed that words in the AWL covered 2.58% of the total words in the corpus, and frequency and percentage of words in COPENA are clearly presented in the table. It was also revealed from the result that almost all the AWL is present in COPENA with high frequency. So the result indicated that newspaper articles might be highly beneficial for learning a language and academic achievement.

An Analysis of Lexico-Semantic Variations in Pakistani English Newspaper Corpus

The present study focuses on the corpus-based lexico-semantic analysis of Pakistani English to identify the variations in the language of newspapers. It also investigates how Pakistani English newspapers consider their readers' cultural and social ideals for intelligible contact while selecting language posts. As a result, they often deviate from the native norms of the language adopting many indigenous linguistic features and emerging new varieties of New English to define their tasks easier in order not only to facilitate but to attract people’s attention. Therefore, Moag’s model on New Englishes, Boas’s theory of cultural relativism, and Kachru’s Theory of Nativisation and Acculturation with the conception of the Outer Circle (1986) mainly connected to institutionalize Second Varieties of English have been used for the theoretical analysis within Pakistani context dependent socio-cultural scenario. The usage of these lexical items shows that Pakistani English is derived from the source, namely, Standard British English, for example, shadi hall, Jihadi outfits, etc. These lexical item categories followed in coinage, borrowing, idiomatic collocations, and semantic shift. This study also attempts to create lexicographical entries to represent the diverse Pakistani English and become available to society's educational and global communication. The study purposively compiled the 2 million corpora from the websites of two major Pakistani English Newspapers, The Nation and The News, and then analyzed it by using corpus software tools Antconc 3.5.8w to search for the key terms and to identify these elements of the stance. The study's finding highlights the New English variety of Pakistani English Newspapers and the adapted lexemes used in the local sociolinguistics context. One of the study's most significant findings shows that the New Englishes lexemes are infused with Islamic, historical, and social culture, highlighting the diverse local colours adapted to the Pakistani setting. The New Englishes in Pakistan comprises the amalgamation of Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, and English lexemes. The study also broadens the horizon of society's educational and communicational usage while maintaining the endonormative standard.

Exploring Stigmatizing Discourses of Mental Illness in Pakistani Newspapers through CDA Lens in Psychology

Mental health stigma remains a significant challenge in Pakistan, contributing to negative attitudes, behaviours and outcomes for people with mental illness. The present study aims to analyse stigmatizing discourses of mental illness in Pakistani English newspapers using the three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). A sample of newspaper headlines published between 2015 and 2023 was selected and analysed using the CDA framework. The results revealed that stigmatizing discourses were prevalent in these newspapers including labelling, anthologizing, stereotyping and marginalizing. These discourses reflected broader social and cultural factors such as cultural norms, beliefs and power relations. The findings also highlight the need for more effective policies and interventions aimed at reducing mental health stigma in Pakistan and promoting a more inclusive understanding of mental illness. The study also provides valuable insights into the role of the media in shaping public perceptions towards mental illness in Pakistan and can inform the development of more responsible media practices as well as more comprehensive mental health policies.

Representation of Power Struggle between Supreme Court and Government on Panama Leaks Case in the Headline Discourse of Pakistani English Newspapers

Investigation of the phenomenon of power struggle between state institutions has been a searing debate among the linguists of the world in recent decades. On the issue of Panama leaks scandal, power struggle between Supreme Court and the then government started, which resulted in disqualification of the Prime Minister and the entire issue was represented Pakistani print media.  Panama case verdict was announced on 28th July 2017 but the nexus between judiciary, establishment and media has been exposed recently. To investigate the phenomenon, 44 headlines from two widely distributed English newspapers, The Nation and, Express Tribune (May 2017-July 2017) were selected randomly. Fairclough’s (1989) three-dimensional modal of Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings of the study indicate the representation of issue as a power struggle between the dominant institutional powers using certain linguistic choices, like, metaphors, metonymic expressions, modality, passivization and nominalization in an ideological way.