THE EFFECT OF CENSORSHIP ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN PAKISTANI PRINT MEDIA

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to explore the typical linguistic patterns of the censored words in Pakistani print media precipitation and judge the effect of these tendencies on the register and the framing of sensitive issues. The researcher created a large corpus containing every printed English newspaper in Pakistan during the year 2023 along with their magazines. The corpus was then processed through the AntConc tool. The censored words and phrases were listed and categorized. In the present study, five articles, on a daily basis, were chosen from each newspaper using simple random sampling methods and then CDA (Fairclough, 1989) was performed on those articles. The author found that whatever policies followed such as social issues, politics, religion, sexuality, violence and terrorism, national and ethnic issues, and cultural sensitivities, are censored, with some words and phrases repeatedly targeted and limited. The researcher concluded that the nature of censorship constrains speech, restricting not only what is said but also how these matters are discussed, forcing people to choose their words extremely carefully and often express their opinions in hush. It is recommended that the Pakistani print media industry, especially journalists and media organizations should advocate for more freedoms and fewer censors.