Media portrayal of sexual violence in Pakistan: A critical discourse analysis of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway incident

Abstract

Sexual violence against women is one of the serious social concerns that still persist across the world in its various forms and manifestations. This study talks about the portrayal of the gang-rape of a woman in Pakistani English Print media who was travelling on the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway when her car ran out of petrol where two armed men came along and raped her. Grounded in the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Transitivity analysis from Halliday's systemic functional linguistics is utilized to explore the language used by leading Pakistani English newspapers to report the incident. Moreover, the study examines how print media affects the opinion of the people towards the incidents of sexual violence against women in Pakistan. These discursive features of a language enable us to see deep into the thought-processes of the people of a society. The paper concludes that reporting on violence against women shapes and is shaped by the approach of the people towards women and the forms of violence against them.