A SEMIOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF US- TALIBAN RELATIONSHIP IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH NEWSPAPER

Abstract

Print media semiotic discourses are regarded as a language in graphic form. They mirror a constructed social reality from the lens of a particular ideological group. US- Taliban relationships have been through various phases in history and are represented likewise through print media semiotic discourses. A recent study decodes the semiotic discourses related to the US- Taliban relations through the semiotic discourses of DAWN (a Pakistan daily newspaper). The data for the study has been collected from January 2019 to December 2019 to show how linguistic and semiotic devices work discursively to shape the readers' perception of US-Taliban relations. The present research employs Hodge and Kress' (2010) model of the Contemporary Social semiotic Approach. The levels of analysis include participants, settings, poses, objects, expression and discourse. The findings of semiotic analysis have also been validated through two focus group discussions. The levels of Focus Group discussions include word, context, frequency and finding the big idea. This has been done to incorporate the general perception of the selected images. It concludes that politics is a game of interests and nothing is absolute in politics. However, print media semiotic discourses are one of the best sites for ideological investment and represent the desired version of a constructed reality by employing the notion of word-picture conjunction.