Psychological Implications Of Linguistics Choices Used To Portray Crimes In Print Media: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis Of Crime Reports From Islamabad And Rawalpindi Published In The Dawn And The Express Tribune

Abstract

Newspaper discourse has always been a crucial part of communication and has influenced the ideologies and perceptions of the people. Similarly, the current study in this regard is of utmost importance as it has been designed to understand the behavior and psychological implications of lexical choices used in crime reports published in two Pakistani English newspapers The Dawn and The Express Tribune. The study further aims to investigate these lexical choices' pragmatic and psychological effects on the readers of the crime reports. Lexical choices such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives are identified with the use of the computer software UAM corpus tool for the quantitative data. Furthermore, Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach (2014) has been used for analyzing the effects of these lexical choices on the minds of the readers to form certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. In addition, the Theory of Relevance by Sperber and Wilson (2002) is used to underpin the pragmatic effects of the use of lexical choices in crime reports. The analysis of the collected corpora reveals that the linguistic choices of crime reports create a sense of fear, danger, and insecurity among the masses. However, certain lexical choices give the readers a sense of the existence of law enforcement authorities and legal systems.