Professional Documents
Culture Documents
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
the passage of time, English language has undergone variation and it has
been key area of study since beginning. It is an ascertained fact that the
language of popular culture and its advertising. Trudgil (1991) being the
pioneer in this field, studied the variation in the English language and worked
on the different dialects of England. He highlighted the fact that a certain part
of concern diverted from the phonological, lexical and historical level towards
do not coincide with countries. The further you travel, the more different
dialects will be found. And the reason is that English, like all other
languages are changing and the change starts from a specific area and
Trudgil propounded that Standard British English was the name of a dialect
and not a language. He explained that standard English was the name of a
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variety which was characterized by certain set of grammatical and lexical
forms. He claimed it purely a social dialect and it differed from the other
English all over the world. They were labelled as World Englishes.
The term World Englishes was exhaustively explained by Kachru and Smith
(1985) who worked keenly on World Englishes .They propounded the real
idea of plucentricity behind the term of world Englishes and the varieties
English-using countries: the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New
Zealand. The language now belongs to those who use it as their first
As the European traders arrived in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa,
English language also traveled with them and proved as a major source of
interaction resulted in the mixing of dialects which were also influenced by the
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divided the world Englishes into three circles: the Inner Circle which contained
the Englishes of the first Diaspora , the outer Circle that included the South
Asian Englishes and African Englishes and the expanding circle that
spoken in the inner Circle was norm-providing; the language spoken in the
Outer Circle was norm-developing and that in Expanding circle was norm
dependent. Through this model, Kachru named these new varieties of South
Asian Englishes and African Englishes as New Englishes. The New Englishes
in the world have exhibited variance at different levels from its ancestral
home i.e. from British variety. These are chiefly based upon pronunciation,
Lexical, grammar and Discourse levels. Future of the World Englishes will
have to be seen as whether these New Englishes could maintain their status
in the World or they get merged in the other non -native varieties. Paradigm
shift might continue and if this shift is bound to happen, the New Englishes
users should also adapt themselves to the rights as claimed by the mother-
tongue speakers.
In Pakistan, the English language has established its status and has
become Lingua Franca. It has proved a major link language and bridged the
country with the whole English speaking world. The English language is not
only being used for the official purposes but also being beneficially used in
Islamic law and Sharia. Platt (1984) put forward aptly the four basic criteria to
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declare any language as a new variety. First, he highlighted that the New
English should be taught as the mode of instructions above all other native
languages. Secondly, the New Englishes must have developed where the
other native languages are not frequently spoken or written by most of the
and intonation, form and expressions. English in Pakistan meets all the four
many characteristics of its own norm than that of standard British English and
which made them overloaded in its diction. It focused upon the more use of
interrogative structures without even shifting the place of subject and verb.
Englishes.
upon the lexical level in a detailed form. This approach also put forward that
Pakistani English borrowed frequent word from Urdu and the regional
4
languages. It was highlighted that that words like atta( flour), baradri(clan),
was proved that on lexical level, the prefixes and suffixes were found to be
Another approach from Rahman (1990) focused on the phonology, lexis and
grammar of the Pakistani English. Rahman (1990) made it clear that Standard
and syntactic features in the Pakistani English and pointed out the use of
progressive aspect with the habitual and completed action frequently found in
Pakistani English.
by Talaat (2002) studied the form and functions of the English language in
Pakistan and put forward the impact of Urdu language upon the English
5
language in Pakistan. She studied text to notify the ongoing process of
change in any non-native language like Pakistani English. She took the
studied the form and functions of the English language in Pakistan and put
forward the impact of Urdu language upon the English language in Pakistan.
focused upon the deviant features of Pakistani English through corpus based
nouns and noun phrases in Pakistani English. The different patterns of the
nouns and noun-phrases were studied in comparison with the British and
English.
adverbs, Lexical words, and compared it with the Standard British English and
variety. He studied 300 lexical words which were chosen on the gender and
culture-specific basis and their pattern of use was observed in the available
Pakistani English Corpus and compared it with the different patterns of use in
6
Very few people have worked on register variation of Pakistani English .All the
differences has not been highlighted which is the marked feature of register
P.316).
variation because "no human being talks the same way all the time.... At the
further argues that the "sociolinguistic perspective ... has the possibility of
taking the lead in transforming the study of language, through developing and
Other linguists have also stressed upon the importance of register variation
saying that each language community has its own system of registers ...
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corresponding to the range of activities in which its members normally
engage."
Registers differ from social dialects precisely because they serve different
In register studies, the linguistic differences are focused and elaborative . The
participants, setting, communicative functions, and so forth) will tend over time
Finnegan, 1994).
situational background and the linguistic features. Registers are marked with
specific lexical and grammatical features and all these grammatical features
are seen in the situational context in which all these registers are used and
described.
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That is, linguistic features tend to occur in a register because they are
differences are also important like the sociolinguistic based study of a non-
native variety:
that messages originated from journalism are not always clear and need deep
insight towards the real understanding of the news messages. The language
of print media has been studied from different perspectives. Most of the
studies have been conducted to investigate the language of press for their
social and political significance. From the content analysis perspective, the
studied how different topics in the daily newspapers focused on the reporting
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communist propaganda in the newspapers. Lass well focused upon the
scholars like Berelson (1952) and Holsti (1969) used the content analysis
study of the print media and revealed the different tenets of political life.
European and Israeli forces and the arrival of Soviet Tanks into Budapest.
Patterson (1993) Dickenson (1994), all studied the bias of verbal reports
Glasgow University Media Group (1980) studied the anti labour bias in British
TV news.
media language was studied with more consideration of texts in context. But
most of the semiotic studies of media language have been conducted for its
social and political significance. Fiske (1988) studied the entire television
news bulletin by focusing on the words choice, verbal and visual sequencing.
Hartley (1982) also worked on the semiotic aspect of news events and his
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news representation. The treatment of semiotic falls out of scope as the
features.
European researchers but it reached its apex in the hands of Dutch scholar
Van Dijk (1988). His approach focused on the ways in which journalistic texts
made it clear that such power could be found in language along lines of class,
ethnicity, gender, race and power. Fairclough (1997) also focused upon the
of journalistic relays such as interviews and news reports from other contexts
helped legitimate certain ways of seeing the world. Certain scholars like
Murdock (1999) also combined the approach of Fairclough and Van Dijk to
studying the language of media texts highlighted the use of power and
language form the variationists perspective and therefore, also falls out of the
and the scholars like Goffman(1974) and Bateson(1972) studied the media
language from framing perspective which highlighted the fact that news
stories are made easier by certain selection, emphasis and the way they are
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presented. Goffman (1974) made it clear that frames could be studied through
visual images like icons. In this way, Goffman (1974) highlighted that
contexts by which they were made interesting to the audience and all
From variationists perspective, the language of media have been the focus of
interest for the researchers from a long time. This basic approach focused
language use through the functions by its users. This approach also
aspects of social context. Labov (1972) being the pioneer in this approach
into account the social context. This approach in the study of language of
study pinpointed how the utterances in news media were structured, and how
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conversational turn-takings were negotiated. Their categorical motive in that
listener to hear the talk as neutral.. [Closing] off any questions about
Ryden (1975) and Bell (1985) both explored the use of noun phrase name
explored the tense ties between BBC English and the range of accent types in
U.K broadcasting and studied the wide range of talk patterns exhibited in
work on language of news grew strong and deep with the passage of time.
The work conducted by Bell (1991) has been found exploratory in the field of
news media in the wider sociolinguistic perspective. Drawing on the data from
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the news recordings and the leading newspapers, he studied the language of
was also highlighted that the percentage of determiner deletion varied highly
in different newspapers that exhibited the fact that certain distance reflected
Thus, Bell (1991) highlighted the story structure, phonological variation, some
grammatical features like speech act verbs, direct and indirect speech and
noun phrases across a variety of news writing and news reporting situations
but his work proved more valuable from stylistic point of view and only few
individual linguistic features were made prominent in the news genre. Geis
(1987) studied the verb tenses, deixis, quotations, and conversation structure
in the six American television broadcasts. Roeh and Nir (1990) worked on
Israeli Hebrew news reports and highlighted the multiple uses of pronouns,
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along a continuum reflecting different degrees of directness in reporting the
study highlighted the fact that the speech presentation reflected a "rhetoric of
focused upon the sentence length and passive verbs. Drawing on the data
from two Illinois newspapers, The Chicago Tribune and the Champaigne-
language of news section. He proved that sports and news sections varied in
vocabulary use whereas he found that the strategies for selecting the lexical
items for adding colour were same for both newspapers. Carter (1988)
descriptive schema for the recognition of core and non-core vocabulary. His
Mardh (1980) investigated the clause level syntax and grammar of front page
the omission of articles; the omission of verbs and of auxiliaries (the verb 'to
be' for example); nominalizations; the frequent use of complex noun phrases
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in subject position (in theme position); adverbial headlines, with the omission
of both verb and subject ; the use of short words ('bid' instead of 'attempt'); the
widespread use of puns, word play and alliteration; the importance of word
order, with the most important items placed first, even, in some cases, a verb;
and independent 'wh' constructions not linked to a main clause . Kress (1983)
explored the news articles and editorial language using the systemic-
that the use of quotation marks was one of the most significant forms of
investigated the types of speech with its peculiar contextualties in the radio
them the register markers of radio broad casting. His analysis based upon
individual linguistic features of sports radio broad casting and highlighted the
also pointed out the tense usage and the preferred use of present tense to
his corpus of soccer commentaries of The Times. He did not compare these
uses to any other type of newspaper language or any kind of norm but
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stressed on the fact of comparison for establishing a register. A variety in the
sense of a register can only be established when the findings are compared
complexity of noun phrase drawing on the data from eleven leading British
features. His analysis not only highlighted the structure and variability of noun
study between Guardian and Daily Mirror British newspapers and highlighted
pronouns were used more frequently in informal speech and in the less-formal
sections of The Washington Post than in formal speech and in the more-
explored language of press editorials and found that press editorials could be
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investigated in triads, three part structures resembling two-part or three-part
the production of the editorials and exhibited how they were significantly
influenced and restricted by the ideologies of both the writer and newspaper
owner as well as by the situational context within which they were written.
British and American Newspapers. Guy & Bayley (1995) examined relative
pronoun choice in 943 relative clauses from speech and writing drawing on
the data from transcribed speeches of White House and various articles on
language variation in written form. Their analysis proved that the animacy of
antecedent and the relativized element all had significant effects on the choice
and Kenyan newspaper. The specific focus, in each case, was the
representation and evaluation of social actors, the events themselves and the
schematic structure of the editorials. His analysis revealed the fact that the
advancing and confirming in-group ideologies and agendas. All these studies
just focused upon the individual linguistic features of language of print media.
for register variation studies, Biber (1988) investigated the news reportage
genre in his seminal study of variation across speech and writing. Biber
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analyzed almost a million words of data taken from nearly 500 texts out of the
sorts from each text,: tense and aspect markers, place and time adverbials,
Through his factor analysis of the 67 variables in the 481 texts, Biber arrived
His study also analysed the linguistic variation within sub-categories of news-
reportage as well. But his study focused on linguistic variation across written
smaller level.
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(1988, 1995). Drawing on the data from upmarket 20th century newspapers,
the ten decades of the 20th century. Through a diachronic study, she proved
narrative through the 20th century along the five textual dimensions.
Furthermore, the texts gradually relied less on complex post modification and
. Pakistani Print media exhibit local culture influences which have been the
creating suspicions for researchers over a certain period of time. The print
news media has gained its strength in Pakistan over the years and its
language has become the key area for the researchers at large. Print Media in
Pakistan generate a lot of language that is heard and spoken in society. News
is determined by values and the kind of language in which that news is told
reflects and expresses those values. Audience feel that the way in which
language is used must affect the content of what is received by media. Bell
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use language is often larger than life and the research which
Within the media, the news is the primary language genre. The daily
newspapers are filled with news of all kinds. In Pakistan, language of media is
highly important. It reflects the frequent public opinion about how the
messages. Thats why; the content of media is always of high importance for
researchers due to its valuable content. It is always easy for the researchers
or more words of text and the real problem faced by researchers how much
The news stories that we read or hear are structured in a certain way,
2010, p.27).
Language of Pakistani media has been a key area for researchers due to
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systematic cause of variation in Journalese register of Pakistani English.
Grover & Deepak (2004) ascertains the fact that language of Pakistani Print
of the coverage of English and Urdu dailies of Pakistan on the issue of judicial
restoration. Her analysis showed that there was hardly a difference between
two, both were equally important in giving the right place and position of the
news stories related to the issue. Mansoor (2013) investigated the language
of Pakistani print media from gender-based study point of view and explored
From variationists perspective, Uzair, Mahmood & Raja (2012) studied the
people of that particular society. It was made clear how writers borrowed
such a way as to remove the social barriers. Their study highlighted the
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impact of lexical deviations and indigenization upon the language of
the syntactic features of Pakistani journalistic English like word order, WH-
clauses, tense & aspect, conditional clauses and the use of connectives and
distinct registers. This study faces validity threat due to its reliance on analysis
Douglas Biber in his well-acclaimed work (1988) established that any effort to
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variation which is corpus-based, empirical, quantitative and comparative in
nature.
There has been only one study conducted on advertising register in Pakistani
studied the linguistic variation. This study is pioneering in its nature which laid
stress on the fact that other registers of Pakistani English should also be
data from 137 magazines and 37 newspapers, his research work investigated
Pakistani media resembled written discourse rather than the language of face-
to-face conversations.
1988 study. Register studies always have three basic features: the
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situational and linguistic features:
Functions
Conventions
(Biber1994, P.33)
Genre, style and register certainly not different types of texts but in real terms,
they are the different approaches to study the different text varieties:
Conrad 2009).
complete texts are examined, formatting of texts are investigated on the basis
studied. On the contrary, both register and style studies focus on sample of
Likewise, the register study differs from genre and style perspectives in
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whereas, in genre studies, the linguistic features are not functional rather
register features, register markers are also common and pervasive in the
register. Register features are different from genre markers and register
markers. The main difference is that genre markers are not pervasive and
they occur usually one time in a text and they are not so frequent whereas
distributed throughout texts that represent style, and frequent- occurring more
commonly in the style than in most comparison styles( Biber, Conrad 2009,
p.54).
Register features are actually the form of structures at any linguistic level
syntactic constructions.
The key point about register features is that the focus is on the extent
might occur to some extent in most (may be all) registers, but it will be
26
registers. This distributional difference is what makes the word or
features like Anwar (2011) studied the individual distinct linguistic features of
Pakistan journalese register but Biber &Conrad (2009) made it quite clear that
all studies based on individual linguistic features are faulty and subjective in
nature.
the two ways of analyzing the linguistic features either focusing on individual
Hymes (1974) and Brown &Fraser (1979) identified the importance of co-
occurrence features of register analysis. Biber in his seminal 1988 work also
conducted the study of co-occurring features required for register analysis and
semiotics and framing and even variationists approach do not study the
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language of media in the paradigm of register analysis and thus do not meet
the demands of register analysis. A few studies that claim to have studied the
language of media from register perspective fail in its quality due to three
individual linguistic features and lack of their comparisons with other varieties.
These three issues are further discussed in detail in the following pages.
Paradigm:
The data in the previous studies on language of media in general and even in
corpora have only been studied. Whereas, the present research includes few
All leading corpora include the press reportage texts but of short size and
special corpora on press reportage are very rare. Xiao (2009) highlighted a
as special purpose corpora and national corpora as well. Almost all national
corpora reviewed by Xiao (2009) included British National Corpus and The
MCLC( Modern Chinese), The Slovak National Corpus were also reviewed.
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Biber (1988), Barnbook (1996), Biber, Conrad and Reppen (1998), in their
National Corpus, London-Lund corpus and Brown corpus and special based
corpora but short texts of press reportage were included and no sub-
Although media texts have been considered in almost all previous corpora,
but special purpose corpora based upon the different categories of the press
reportage have not so far been developed. The present research has
texts of shorter size files based upon just only one file with no sub-categories
of press reportage in Pakistani print media. This is the only corpora available
(2011) which just collected the news from Pakistani English newspapers and
corpora was of shorter size and did not focus on any categories of press
on Pakistani print advertisements which was also of shorter size and focused
29
on the multidimensional analysis of advertising register in Pakistani Print
Very few studies by linguists have earlier recognized the categories of press
reportage and most of the previous studies on press reportage have just
taken it as a single general category. This section includes all the account of
newspapers and his work focused upon the clause and syntactic deviation
only category of the British newspaper sports commentary and explored the
press reportage in two newspapers i.e. The Chicago Tribune and the
other press reportage section of these two newspapers. By comparing the two
level but his data was of smaller level collected from just two newspapers and
press news: hard news, feature articles, special topic news e.g. sports, racing,
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business/financial, arts, agriculture, computers, headlines, sub-headings,
features. He made it also clear that hard news included the reports of
explained that soft news provided the background and were seen bylined with
the writers names. In his further discussion, he pinpointed the fact that the
boundaries between hard news and soft news are quite unclear and research
problems arise when language users own basic categories are overlooked
(Bell 1991, p. 14).The third category propounded by Bell (1991) i.e. special-
topic news appeared in sections of the paper which focused on the subject
matter such as business or sports editor pages. The fourth category was
general linguistic features from the leading newspapers and did not collect his
data according to his defined categories. His collected data was in the limited
not explore the defined categories of his selected leading British newspapers.
His research work actually focused upon the variation across speech and
writing and therefore, very few sub-registers were explored with smaller data.
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In his 1988 study, he identified the categories which were already defined in
LOB and London-Lund corpus and no effort was made to explore the new
investigated the six categories of British press reportage and explored the
were outlined. The press reportage of whole month of the leading Pakistani
English newspapers was studied which included all reportage of all sections
that in a typical language contact situation the Urdu language brought about
English.
press i.e. news texts, column texts and editorials. Their data included the
genres, none of the genre included any sub-categories and just small sized
texts were included in each genre. Their research work relied on the analysis
32
of individual linguistic features of Pakistani English and asserted its linguistic
English and did not include any special corpora based upon the sub-
upon the sub-categories of press reportage in Pakistani print media has been
conducted so far.
linguistic features: whereas many other linguists also stressed upon the same
fact: when analyses are based on the co-occurrence and alternation patterns
frequency differences of the linguistic features and face validity threat. The
33
(2011) which explored the distinctive grammatical and syntactic features
linguistic features of journalistic register of Pakistani print media that are quite
different and deviant from those of British English but this research work was
Pakistani journalese English but this work disregarded the importance of co-
Biber in his 1988 study studied the press reportage register taking into
account the co-occurrence of linguistic features. Biber studied the five textual
Biber (1988) found the press reportage as more involved, more colloquial and
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(1988) study proved the abundance of frequency of nouns, prepositions,
The current studies explored the press reportage in Pakistani print media and
frequencies of past tense, public verbs, third person pronoun and verb- aspect
verbs and thus proved be highly narrative in purpose in comparison with the
Pakistani print media was found to be highly explicit in nature which showed
British press reportage which was found more situation dependent showing
35
positions, coordinating conjunctions and singular noun-nominalizations (See
Ch.4 for detailed differences). Thus, in MD analysis, the linguistic features are
not chosen subjectively; rather, factor analysis provides the sets of co-
because they only observe the number of frequency within their data but did
provide any quantitative figures based upon any linguistic variation model. For
Pakistani print press reportage but even did not number of frequencies of
studies are not even comparable with future studies due to any quantified
data.
taken into her study. Her investigation explored the newspaper editorials but
her earlier work did not analyse the data according to Biber (1988) five
dimensions and thus her work face validity threats due to insufficient
its true sense. Biber (1988) analysed the press reportage register in his
seminal work but data of press reportage in his study was very small and it
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included only 44 texts of press reportage from LOB and London-lund corpus.
Secondly, his study was conducted 25 years ago and the time-lapse has been
a big concern for researchers. Moreover his study included only the sub-
categories of press reportage already defined LOB & London-lund corpus and
press face validity threats due to many reasons in Pakistani context: certain
Pakistani print media context and time span of more than twenty-five which
reportage do not investigate the press reportage with the current paradigm of
fit into Pakistani print media context and thus, due to unrepresentative data,
context.
Pakistani media context and the variation within the specified non-native
register has also not been analysed so far, though many corpus based
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variation or register variation model. Moreover, the language of press
reportage has not been compared with other registers; whereas, the language
reportage has been only analysed in the previous studies with reference to
Tripp( 1972), Hymes(1974) have stressed upon the fact that register analysis
based upon individual linguistic features is unreliable and all of them focus on
the fact that individual linguistic features cannot put any text on textual
communicative function.
the fact that individual linguistic features cannot distinguish among registers;
primary research goal of the approach is to focus upon the linguistic analysis
of texts and text types and it undermines the analysis of individual linguistic
features.
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MD approach lays stress upon the fact that different kinds of text differ
Linguists like Firth, Halliday, Ervin-Trippe and Hymes, Brown and Fraser
markers without taking into account systematic variations which involve the
Three major theoretical differences have been found between earlier studies
39
that different sets of co-occurring linguistic features highlight the different
Second, previous studies pinpointed the fact that register variation can be
communicative functions.
Biber (1988) made it clear that no single dimension can differentiate between
spoken and written form of texts. Previous studies upon the language of
press reportage are marked with one feature: those studies try to distinguish
press reportage from other register on one dimension. Past studies (Anwar
2011, Uzair 2012, and Mahmood 2012) focused upon the language of press
40
reportage and analysed the individual features of Pakistani Press reportage
but these studies prove to be unreliable and face validity threat on only one
point: they did not discuss the functional interpretation of linguistic differences
one parameter is not valid and emphasized upon the fact that language of
the functional interpretations for the variation found among the sub-categories
Biber in his seminal 1988 study also made clear that textual dimensions in
which the co-related linguistic features are further explored for their shard
in multidimensional analysis:
41
analysis here is purposeful in a way because it explores the register
both linguistic and functional content. Once, the sets of co-occurring features
are derived through statistical factor analysis, the co-occurring features are
textual dimensions were recognized. For example, the following features co-
verb. Owing to the shared function of these features, this dimension has been
(1992) studied the medical research writing. Biber, Conrad & Reppen (2002)
investigated the university registers. Biber & Finegan (1994) investigated the
author styles using the old MD analysis. Gray (2011) explored the linguistic
42
features of registers published in academic journals, taking into account the
analysis. But no study has been conducted so far on the press reportage in
factor analysis. Recent work on the language of press has explored new
textual dimensions after applying new factor analysis. Condi de Souza (2014)
The present research work is based on Old and New MD analysis of language
of press reportage in Pakistani print media. The current research work has
43
textual dimensions (Five old dimensions in 1988 study and four textual
comparison with other varieties in reference with 1988 MD study and it also
controlled and monitored by space rather than time. Pakistani print media
society. Pakistan being a developing country has a low rate of literacy level
and thus books are available to only a small portion of society or the elite
class.
Newspaper is one of the most important and effective print media in Pakistan.
Pakistan and more and more English newspapers are being registered with
newspapers in Pakistan interpret and explain the matters at large and play the
role of opinion building as they help the Pakistan readers to build opinion
about different national and international issues and events through its
44
Press reportage in Pakistani English newspapers is a great source of public
education. It narrates every topic ranging from news to literature; provides the
readers up-to-date information about science and technology and also English
has bridged the gap between people and Govt. The public and Govt. both
explain their points of views through newspapers. With the help of democratic
press, Pakistani democracy has flourished over the years and Pakistani press
guides the public opinion and on the other hand, expressed the newspapers
organizational policies.
The current research studies the language of press reportage from the
reportage iv. Sports press reportage v. Crime press reportage vi. National
45
press reportage vii. International press reportage viii. Metropolitan Press
reportage.
most of the political press reportage is found at page 1&8 of the newspapers.
Pages 1 & 8 of each newspaper are highly precious in the eyes of editors and
media that exercises the decision power in the selection of news items. It
decides from the multitude of potential stories that arise on a daily basis,
which ones will feature. It also determines the tone and content surrounding
the reporting of a political event, how long a story will run and its key
message.
This sub-category is also found quite obvious in Pakistani print media and
sections this sub-category. There are many things that can inform a person
with all kinds business news. If a person has a concern regarding investing,
company. Only after that, the investments could be made. Thus, latest
46
sections on certain days and this reportage is much awaited by Pakistani
Like other sub-categories, Pakistani print media also specifies special press
the leading newspapers in Pakistan fix more than one pages to cultural news
has to compete with entertainment formats that satisfy the need of consumers
for leisure and fun. Media coverage in general, in Pakistani print media has
press reportage. Even, some sports news reportage of mega events may get
press reportage in Pakistani print media is known for its special use of lexicon
and verbal pedagogy which has not been linguistically analyzed so far. Sports
enthusiasts like to play sport and they like to read sport reportage. It is
believed that sports readers and listeners demand accuracy and sound
judgment. In Pakistan, sports-lovers often read the sports pages before any
other part of the paper. That is why street sellers often show one pile of
47
papers showing page one and another pile showing the back page or sports
an audience who may have no knowledge of the events and media can and
news media: Since the early beginnings, one of the vital functions of the news
drawing attention to the ethical issues arising from a specific criminal act and
newspapers give at least one page to this portion of press reportage and its
certain linguistic items of this section also speaks of its linguistic identity.
Pakistani print media also gives due space to international press reportage
and this sub-category is also quite obvious in Pakistani press reportage. Pate
news does not end at informing the citizens, it also legitimizes the interest and
large. This category was also not analysed in Biber!1988) study as it is the
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vii. National Press Reportage
Fundamentally, media has become an essential part of our life. Moreover, the
media has played the most significant role towards promoting the political,
social and economic aspirations of the nation (Uche, 1989, P:27). This sub-
speaks for its non-native context. Pakistani English newspapers fix more than
one page to this reportage and this sub-category is blend of all issues related
to politics, culture and other genres. This reportage also speaks high of its
certain linguistic items and it is also the new sub-category in Pakistani press
reportage which is not found in the British press reportage and has been
analysed linguistically. The present study has also analyzed this press
press reportage. This category of Pakistani press reportage includes all local
narratives on metropolitan cities that project the rich and the poor, glamour,
gossip and entertainment and depict the life style of all and sundry.
Commercial interests always influence the way; news about the city is chosen
development, to a range of social and civic issues, to its places of interest, its
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To sum up, the present study disregards the previous studies on Pakistani
press reportage due to many reasons: First, the previous studies conducted
on journalistic register did not develop any special purpose corpora based
upon the sub-categories of news register; second, it did not follow the
focused upon the individual linguistic features and thus all previous studies
on Pakistani press reportage face validity threats. The present study on press
which is the most suitable approach for studying press reportage language in
comparison with other registers and it also finds out the internal variation
of Pakistan?
iii) Is the language of Press reportage register in Pakistani Media
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1. Involved Vs. Informational Production
2. Narrative Vs. Non-narrative Concerns
3. Explicit Vs. Situation Dependent Reference
4. Overt Expression of Argumentation ( Persuasion)
5. Impersonal ( Abstract) Vs. Non-impersonal ( Non-abstract) Style
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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