A FORENSIC LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE OF NEWS CRIME REPORTS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

This study aimed to decode the crime news reporters’ intention or motive behind the language they use in their reports. Ten Crime news report headlines were collected from “Dawn” newspaper and were analyzed qualitatively through “Relevance theory” which blends the pragmatic and semantic approach for the sake of text exploration. To support the analysis, the content analysis method was also used. The paper aimed to do a forensic linguistic analysis of the language of crime news report headlines to answer the ideology behind the language used in the reports. It is found after analysis that mass media has the authority to control the minds of the masses as the language of crime news report headlines may leave positive or negative effects simultaneously on its readers based on the choice of words they make in their reports. The current study analyzed that language leaves a more negative impact on the audience than the positive one.