The Queen Is Gone: Reading Former Colonies’ Reaction Through Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The study probes the Britain’s former colonies reaction to Queen Elizabeth II’s death. British people often glorify the Queen as an epitome of benevolence, but there is a need explore how people of British former colonies perceive her. To serve this purpose, news articles from four former British colonies have been chosen. These colonies are India, Pakistan, Africa, and Bangladesh. Using non random sampling, four news articles have been archived from The Dawn, The Daily Star, Times of India, and Punch news. It is within the framework of Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis Model (2007) that the research has critically examined the news articles following interpretive paradigm. The researcher has found that in all the news articles, Queen is portrayed as the ‘negative-other’, whereas ex-colonies are described as victims of her empire. Therefore, the discursive device of victimization is most frequently used in the chosen articles. The findings of the study indicate that the Queen's passing serves as a somber reminder of the darkest moments of colonial history. The findings also show that to former colonies, the death of Queen is tantamount to end of the bloodiest chapter in the history.