The Critical Discourse Analysis of Press Release andConference in Response to Special Court Verdict: Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach

Abstract

The current study is aimed at to analyze the elite forces public relations department press release and its representative’s press conference in response to special court decision in distinguishing figure of elite department case. The specially constituted court announced its short verdict order on 17 December 2019 and complete decision on 19 December 2019. Former President retired General Pervez was sentenced to death on the charge of high treason under article 6 of the constitution of Pakistan. The public relations department of elite forces reacted to the special court short decision by issuing press release No.PR-206/2019 the same day. The elite forces representative addressed a brief press conference during which he avoided to take questions on 19 December 2019 after the complete decision court order. Systemic functional grammar/linguistic theory of Hallidayhas been employed in this research study for the purpose of analysis. The researchers have focused only the ideational meta-function from SFG. The transitivity and transformational techniques of nominalization and passivization have been used as major analytical instruments in this research study. The findings show that nominalization and passivization in the press release has been used to be objective and impersonal in the criticism. Verbal processes are working as awareness creators among the listeners about the speaker’s institution. The discussion reveals that writer/speaker has used transitivity process, nominalization and passivization discursively and he is affecting listeners’ ideology telling them that the institution he is representing needs their support in the The current study is aimed at to analyze the elite forces public relations department press release and its representative’s press conference in response to special court decision in distinguishing figure of elite department case. The specially constituted court announced its short verdict order on 17 December 2019 and complete decision on 19 December 2019. Former President retired General Pervez was sentenced to death on the charge of high treason under article 6 of the constitution of Pakistan. The public relations department of elite forces reacted to the special court short decision by issuing press release No.PR-206/2019 the same day. The elite forces representative addressed a brief press conference during which he avoided to take questions on 19 December 2019 after the complete decision court order. Systemic functional grammar/linguistic theory of Hallidayhas been employed in this research study for the purpose of analysis. The researchers have focused only the ideational meta-function from SFG. The transitivity and transformational techniques of nominalization and passivization have been used as major analytical instruments in this research study. The findings show that nominalization and passivization in the press release has been used to be objective and impersonal in the criticism. Verbal processes are working as awareness creators among the listeners about the speaker’s institution. The discussion reveals that writer/speaker has used transitivity process, nominalization and passivization discursively and he is affecting listeners’ ideology telling them that the institution he is representing needs their support in the current specific matter.