A corpus-based comparative ideational meta-functional analysis of Pakistani English and UK English newspaper editorials on COVID-19

Abstract

This comparative study examines Pakistani English and UK English newspaper editorials regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The systemic functional linguistic (SFL) model of Halliday is used as a theoretical framework. From the SFL model, the transitivity analysis of ideational meta-function is studied, and newspaper editorials are used as research material taken from the famous newspapers of Pakistan and the UK. The two separate corpora of Pakistan and the UK newspaper editorials were designed. In order to find out transitivity, a quantitative research methodology is used. Clauses play the primary role in transitivity analysis; that is why the clauses are selected from newspaper material. This study investigates COVID-19 and its influences on the lives of individuals and the society of Pakistan and the UK. For analysis, a corpus-based software UAM is used. The transitivity process and its types were closely examined, including the participants, circumstances, and configuration of the newspaper editorials of Pakistan and the UK. The results show that the material process is the highest transitivity process in newspaper editorials. The writers have used the material process to show the catastrophic conditions of Pakistan and the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the study reveals how writers of both newspapers vary in constructing their ideologies and social meanings linguistically in the discourse of newspaper editorials. The present study can help understand the transitivity process and examine various texts by analyzing them with the ideational meta-functional model of SFL.

Keywords

• clause
• COVID-19
• ideologies
• newspaper editorials
• SFL
• social meanings