Beyond Words

A Corpus-Based Investigation of Cultural Sides Through Transitivity Patterns in Pakistani And International Newspapers’ Headlines Concerning Oceangate Submarine Incident

Abstract

The current study aimed to comparatively analyze the transitivity patterns employed in the headlines related to the OceanGate Submarine incident published in Pakistani and International newspapers. The study also intended to explicate the way Pakistani and International newspapers framed the headlines. Moreover, the societal and cultural factors influencing the choices of transitivity patterns in the newspapers were investigated. The study adopted a mixed-method design as the data analysis involved both numerical measures and qualitative interpretations. The sample for the study consisted of 30 news headlines taken from three Pakistani and three International newspapers. From three Pakistani newspapers (Tribune, Dawn News, and Business Recorder), 15 news headlines were taken. Out of the 15 headlines, five headlines were taken from each newspaper. Similarly, from three International newspapers (The Guardian, The New York Times, and Daily Mail), 15 headlines, five from each, were taken as the sample. Halliday’s (1994) model of Transitivity was employed for the analysis of the data. The transitivity patterns were tagged and analyzed using the UAM Corpus tool. The results of the study suggested that headlines of Pakistani newspapers demonstrated emotional processes highlighting the cultural and societal factors, while international newspapers reported the incident in a more contextualized and detailed manner. Further, the cultural factors contributing to the construal of headlines in international newspapers were evident from the importance given to individuality. The findings of the study provide insightful implications for academicians and researchers in the field.