Pakistani English Newspapers Research Articles

Representation of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistani English Newspapers A Content Analysis of Dawn, Frontier Post, and The Nation

The study is to analyze the representation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistani leading English newspapers. The study attempts to view the stance of the newspaper regarding the project and compares its coverage in its news items and editorials. Content analysis of Dawn, Frontier Post, and Nation was conducted. Moreover, researchers also observe the most highlighted issues associated with this project. The theory of Agenda Setting and Framing was considered. Hence, the study reveals that Frontier Post is one of the newspapers that gave maximum coverage to the issue in its news items and editorials. However, Dawn newspaper represents the issue with maximum frequency under the positive category and Frontier Post under the negative category. It is concluded that most highlighted issues mentioned in the news items and editorials are the issue of transparency concerning the objection from the side of the opposition party and fear of Baloch nationalist.

REFRAMING THE DEBATE: AGENDAS, FRAMING GOVERNANCE ISSUES AND THE POLITICS IN PMLN's GOVERNMENT FROM 2013 TO 2018

The study aims to investigate the governance issues during regime of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) from 2013 to 2018 in the lenses of the English Pakistani newspapers. The sole purpose is to examine that how the newspapers framed the general issues, as it is showing the performance of the government. The research design was a quantitative content analysis method and analyzing frames "Good" and "Bad" in perspective of Agenda setting level 2 "Framing Theory". All news stories related to general issues were published in the selected Pakistani English newspapers from the (2013 to 2018) that has been analyzed. The census method applied to investigate the problem. The finding of the study revealed that the socio-economic development was not priority of an elected government and opposition parties hindered democracy by engaging it in an adversarial politics with the traditional political style. Moreover, elected democratic government was unable to uphold its pre-election promises.

The Discourse of Fear around Health and Economy in Pakistani English Newspaper Articles on Covid-19

The present study aims to unravel the language of fear aroused in the English Newspapers about health and economy during Covid-19. The qualitative data was drawn from the daily Dawn, and 'The News'. Eight articles, four from each newspaper, were analyzed through qualitative lens. Findings reveal that the language of fear related to the country's healthcare system and economy is deployed mostly. The study demonstrates that certain phrases were used repeatedly to report about the worst economic recession and overwhelming situation in hospitals. A discourse of fear was created by sensationalizing certain situations and exploiting the language of Covid-19. The recommends reporting more about solutions to the problem than to create a hype that may damage the mental health of readers.

Gwadar Opening and its Manipulative Intertextual Portrayal in the English Newspaper Editorials of Pakistan

Unnoticeable maneuverings via the practice of intertextual capitals do snip their existence in the editorials, which ordinary readers may well discover difficult to locate. The picture turns out to be additionally complicated when associated with nationwide affairs of vast magnitude. To bound the expected manipulation of the informative plans given to the readers through the editorials, the current qualitative study mounted to scrutinize editorials of two leading Pakistani English newspapers wherein the researcher situated and inspected the occurrences of tricky usage of intertextual capitals applying appraisal analysis at the core of text analysis within Fairclough's three-dimensional model. The outcomes of intertextual study reveal significant and devious use of intertextual strategies and instruments by the newspapers to support and propagate their particular ideologies and plans

Constructing Reality: Framing of the Kashmir Conflict in Dictatorial and Democratic Regimes in the Pakistani English Press

This paper examines the framing of Kashmir conflict in the editorials of three Pakistani English newspapers, The Nation, The Nation, and Dawn during dictatorial (Musharraf regime, 2005-2007) and the democratic regime (Zardari regime (20082010). It argues that in case of conflict press conforms to the government policies, change in governments also has an effect on how the press changes its coverage on the conflict according to the policies of the government. The study utilizes a content analysis method to examine the use of framing techniques in the newspapers. Findings supported that the Pakistani press indexed the ruling elite’s stance in both regimes. It was found that during the dictatorial regime, as Kashmir conflict was high on agenda, Pakistani English press gave more coverage to Kashmir conflict as compared to the democratic regime. The results also showed that during the dictatorial regime, the dialogue frame to resolve the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan was high, which was also in line with the policy of Musharraf’s autocratic regime. Surprisingly, the press coverage in both regimes regarding the self-determination right for Kashmiris in the light of UNO resolutions, Pakistan’s longstanding stance, was minimal. The implications of the results are discussed.

Frame Markers as Metadiscoursal Features in Pakistani English Newspapers’ Editorials: A Corpus-Based Study

Frame Markers as Metadiscoursal Features in Pakistani English Newspapers’ Editorials: A Corpus-Based Study

Impact of Critical National Identity Discourse on Youth in Pakistan: A Proximization Analysis of Pakistani English Newspapers

Impact of Critical National Identity Discourse on Youth in Pakistan: A Proximization Analysis of Pakistani English Newspapers

America in Pakistani Print Media: A Semiotic Discourse Analysis based Study of Pak-Us Relationship

Print media semiotic discourses are one of the best sites for ideological investment and their role is very significant in the production and dissemination of certain ideology. The aim of the present study is to critically decode the semiotic discourse(s) of Pakistani English newspaper DAWN (daily) with special reference to the representation of Pak- Us relationship through the analysis of the semiotics discourses. The data for the present research has been collected from the mentioned newspaper. The time span for data collection ranges from October 2018 to December 2018. Out of ten (10) caricatures which represent Pakistan attempting to survive at its own rather than depending on America one was purposively selected for linguistic and semiotic analyses. The study is descriptive and utilizes qualitative research design. For this purpose, the researchers have devised an amended research model by drawing upon Fairclough (1995), Kress (2010) and Kruger’s (2000) research models to analyse linguistic, semiotic and focus group discussions data. The semiotic analysis has also been validated by incorporating the remarks of focus group participants. Based on the analysis of data the study concludes that noting is absolute in politics as far as Pak- Us relations through semiotic discourses are concerned. Additionally, the research reveals that print media semiotic discourses work insidiously to represent socio- political changes by employing linguistic and meta-linguistic devices and techniques.

Identity Construction of Malala Yousafzai in the Media: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Editorials in Two Pakistani English Newspapers

This study compares the media constructions of Malala Yousafzai in two Pakistani English newspapers, The News International and Daily Times vis-à-vis the events that occurred during three stages of her life. The study identifies these as “Malala the Taliban’s target and Nobel laureate”, and “Malala the United Nations Messenger of Peace”. Employing Fairclough’s CDA, it probes the ideological representations of these events in these newspapers’ editorials. The findings suggest that both newspapers constructed Malala’s positive identity during all three stages. However, in so doing, the use of a particular clause structure and lexis employed in these editorials helped one newspaper avoid naming the Taliban in a determinate term. Hence, this served to mitigate the Taliban’s “agency” as perpetrators. The other newspaper, by availing the same method of representation, pushed its political agendas and appeared to toe a similar line as some Western newspapers do on certain burning issues of international significance.

Use of Modals as Stance Markers: A Corpus-Based Study on Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials

This study analyses the use of modals as stance markers in newspaper editorials. Corpora of the study comprised of 500 editorials published in Pakistani English newspapers, that is, The Daily Dawn and The Daily News (250 editorials from each newspaper) which were analysed with the help of AntConc 3.4.4.0. Results show Pakistani editorial writers use all types of modals (i.e., prediction, possibility, necessity, modal adverbs, reporting verbs, knowledge verbs and generic phrases). The editorial writers use these modals to mark personal stance while commenting, reporting or informing about the state of affairs. Among these modals the use of prediction markers is the most frequent which indicates that prediction is a characteristic feature as well as function in the said newspaper editorials. Results also reveal that there is a difference in the use of modal adverbs in the editorials of both newspapers. In addition, the results reveal that the editorial writers of The Daily Dawn make less use of prediction markers as compared to the editorial writers of The Daily News. The study creates awareness of the stance of editorial writers’ and how it might affect readers’ opinions.

Post 9/11 American Footprints in Pakistani Media: A Critique of Semiotic Discourses of Pakistani Newspapers

This paper highlights the power of image in shaping perception of the people regarding post 9/11 American representation in Pakistani print media discourses. The study deconstructs the semiotic discourse(s) of Pakistani English newspaper Dawn (daily) from September 2018 to February 2019 to argue that linguistic and semiotic devices and techniques work discursively to shape the readers’ perception regarding American foot-prints in Pakistani print media. It employs Multimodal Critical Discourse analysis approach by drawing upon Machin (2007), Van Leeuwen framework for recontextualization (2008) and Fairclough’s (2003) for visual and linguistic analyses to lay bare embedded ideologies propagated through word-picture conjunction. The levels of analysis include participants, settings, poses, objects, metaphor, inclusion, exclusion and discourse. Moreover, the researchers have validated the findings of their semiotic analysis by conducting two focus group discussions among the students of linguistics and other disciplines. The findings reveal that print media semiotic discourses provide an appropriate use of language in graphic form. The findings reveal that no use of language is ideology free and words and pictures work in conjunction to propagate desired ideology to the target readership. Additionally, the study notices the visible change that has taken place regarding American representation from superordinate to back foot and ready-to-hold dialogue through semiotic discourses of mentioned newspaper.

Persuasion/Dissuasion on National Interest Agenda: A Semiotic Analysis of Pakistani Newspaper Cartoons

The focus of this research was depiction of and persuasion on national interest agenda through semiotics of Pakistani newspapers. It targeted a broad comparison among the semiotics as depicted in two Pakistani English newspapers i.e., Dawn and The Nation. To achieve the objectives, the study was divided into two parts: In part 1 the semiotics were analyzed and in part 2 the written part of political cartoons was analyzed. The study devised an integrated framework of analysis by blending Barthes (1957) theory of semiotics and Fairclough’s (1995) ‘three dimensional’ CDA model for interpretation and explanation of semiotics’ discourse. The study revealed the frequent use of multiple persuasion modes in political cartoons of both the newspapers’ semiotics and discourse. While comparing the two newspapers’ semiotics and discourse, the study also found that daily ‘Dawn’ semiotics played very negligible role in persuasion on national interest agenda of establishing military courts. However, ‘The Nation’ semiotics contributed positively towards national interest agenda-setting. The study recommended careful comparison between various newspapers by readership in order to know the ideological bent of newspapers while representing the facts and opinions.

Corpus-based Study of Identifying Verb Patterns Used in Pakistani Newspaper Headlines

Newspaper headlines are an important subgenre of media genre and enjoy much significance in news discourse. Headlines are ascribed different functions as they are the opening section to their respective text. This corpus-driven study strives to identify those verb patterns which have been used in Pakistani newspaper headlines. To identify different verb patterns used in newspaper headlines, the researcher compiled a corpus of 3135 newspaper headlines consisting of 28646 words drawn from three on-line Pakistani English newspapers which include The Dawn, The Nation and The News. The researcher tagged this corpus by using the software TagAnt and analyzed this corpus with the help of corpus tool AntConc to identify the verb patterns used in these Pakistani English newspaper headlines. To this end, the researcher analyzed the compiled corpus in accordance with the POS Tags given by Tree Tagger Tag Set. This study has found different verb patterns which have been used in newspaper headlines.

Modal Auxiliaries in Pakistani English Newspapers: Social and Pedagogical Perspectives

Modal Auxiliaries in Pakistani English Newspapers: Social and Pedagogical Perspectives

Politics, Ideology and Print Media: A CDA of Newspapers’ Headlines

The present study critically decodes the headlines of Pakistani-English newspapers to locate linguistic spin employing different political ideologies in the desired manner by the controlling groups. The headlines which appeared in the daily ‘Dawn’ and ‘Nation’ newspapers during the year 2014 have been categorised into various themes such as theme of politics, nationalism, internationalism, terrorism, and economics but in the present study, the researchers have only focused on the headlines carrying the topic of politics. In this regard, two headlines from each newspaper about the theme of politics have been randomly selected and analysed by employing Dijk’s (2006) analytical framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Additionally, the existing model of Dijk has been amended in accordance with the nature of the existing data. Therefore, four headlines from each newspaper randomly selected carrying political themes have been analysed to explore how different discursive techniques employed in the coinage of newspaper headlines (mis)represent the same political event differently. The researchers have investigated the print media coverage of the same event in both the newspapers’ headlines to lay bare how different discursive techniques are employed to represent the same news item by different ideological groups to propagate desired political ideologies. The findings of the study highlight that different discursive moves are used by print media to represent the same event differently to propagate desired ideology. That is how print media discourses represent certain people belonging to in/out-groups.

Transitivity Analysis of Newspapers’ News-Headlines Depicting Crime Committed Against Women in Pakistan

The article in hand studies word choices used in the headlines of Pakistani English newspapers’ news depicting crime against women. To spotlight the masked ideology implied in them the researcher has selected three newspapers—The Nation, Dawn & The News. He applies Halliday’s transitivity as research tool. The analysis focuses on investigating how men and women are represented in the headlines, and what different roles are assigned to them by the newspapers. It also highlights the ideology underpinned in the discursive lexical choices and rhetorical devices used in them. It shows how covertly the newspapers arouse the emotions of their readers to attract their attention and influence their opinion making process.

Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Use of Hedges in European and Pakistani English Newspaper: A Corpus-Based Study

Language, discourse and communication reveal social and cultural inclinations of human civilization (Van Dijk, 1997). Language behavior is exhibited through communication which is extracted from three main categories of language; “ideational, interpersonal and textual” (Halliday, 1978, 1985). Hedges are interpersonal metadiscourse markers (Hs), lexical devices that authors employ to arrange their discourse and communicate their standpoint about the substance for the reader. Cultural and linguistic background of the author may affect the employment of hedges in the discourse. The present study investigated the interpersonal metadiscourse marker-hedges- in the Culture section of European English Newspaper (CEEN) and Pakistani English Newspaper articles (CPEN) based on Hyland’s classification (2004). The quantitative corpora-based study contained 32 articles from culture section of Pakistani English newspaper: Dawn News (DN) and 32 articles from culture section of European English Newspaper: BBC. The articles from each newspaper were extracted from online resources. Two corpora have equal representation of words, 40000 each. Data analysis was done using SPSS 22 to see the frequency of hedges used in the data. Moreover, an independent sample t-test was applied. It was found that there is a meaningful difference between the European and Pakistani English newspapers’ usage of hedges. This research would help not only ELT practitioners to teach how hedges change the genre of discourse, but would also shed light on cultural discourse. It would depict how the same hedges are used in two different cultural discourses revealing distinct culture and identity.

A Study of Pakistani English Newspaper Texts: An Application of Halliday and Hasan’s Model of Cohesion: A Discourse Analysis

This article aims to examine the patterns of each type of cohesive device in light of the cohesion model proposed by Halliday and Hasan in 1976. Halliday and Hasan identified five different types of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion in the text. This study uses the selected weekly articles authored by Cyril Almeida from well-known daily published English Newspaper “The Daily Dawn”. Analysis of text comprises Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion model, and analyzes linguistic techniques used in newspaper texts. The study finds repeated occurrences of cohesive devices such as referencing, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Moreover, reiteration is found to be the most frequently occurring cohesive device. Reference from grammatical cohesion also outnumbers all other subcategories of cohesion. In addition, many of the literary terms employed in articles make it diverse in uncovering some of the political contexts to the audience. Hence, it concludes that in the overall occurrences of lexical cohesion, reiteration and collocation are dominant; suggesting that the texts of selected news articles of Cyril Almeida are cohesive mainly because of lexical cohesion, i.e. semantic linkage through vocabulary rather than grammar.

British or American English: Emerging Trends in Pakistani English Newspapers

This paper analyses the features of American English found in Pakistani English newspapers and accounts for those features quantitatively with reference to British English. Pakistani journalistic English has the tendency to become more Americanized in the recent era. There is a shift from British English to American English in Pakistani newspapers and this brief study aims to show the growing influence of American English on Pakistani English. American English is considered the most influential and powerful variety of English (Kirkpatrick, 2007). The influence of American English in newspaper writing suggests that there is a tendency among the Pakistan English speakers to opt for American English instead of British English particularly at the lexical and grammatical levels. The results indicate that the use of American English is growing rapidly in Pakistan English newspapers. The quantitative findings of the study suggest that although British English is preferred in Pakistani newspapers yet the traces of American English are quite obvious and apparent. The previous studies related to Pakistani English explored the difference between Pakistan and British English at various levels. However, Americanization is Pakistani English is rarely discussed phenomenon. This is less researched area in Pakistani English context and this study aims to fill this gap.

Use of Modal Verbs as Stance Markers in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials

This study investigates the use of modal verbs as stance markers in Pakistani English newspaper editorials. For this purpose, corpora of 1000 editorials have been developed from the editorials published in The News, The Dawn, The Frontier and The Express Tribune (250 editorials from each newspaper) and analyzed using AntConc 3.4.4.0. Results reveal that prediction, possibility and necessity are the characteristic features of Pakistani English newspaper editorials and the writers of these editorials use modality to report, comment or inform about the state of affairs. Results also show that the main focus of Pakistani English newspapers’ editorials is on depicting ‘what will happen’, ‘what may happen’ and ‘what is needed to happen’. On the basis of these results, the study concludes that modality, being an important linguistic property, is used by the editorialists to maintain interaction with readers, establish authorial persona and present personal as well as institutional stance. To cipher readers’ negative perception about stance, the editorialists make a skillful use of intermediate-value modals. Study suggests the editorial readers to be aware of the writer’s stance marking. For, it may influence mind and manipulate opinions.