Representation of Power Struggle between Supreme Court and Government on Panama Leaks Case in the Headline Discourse of Pakistani English Newspapers

Abstract

Investigation of the phenomenon of power struggle between state institutions has been a searing debate among the linguists of the world in recent decades. On the issue of Panama leaks scandal, power struggle between Supreme Court and the then government started, which resulted in disqualification of the Prime Minister and the entire issue was represented Pakistani print media.  Panama case verdict was announced on 28^th July 2017 but the nexus between judiciary, establishment and media has been exposed recently. To investigate the phenomenon, 44 headlines from two widely distributed English newspapers, The Nation and, Express Tribune (May 2017-July 2017) were selected randomly. Fairclough’s (1989) three-dimensional modal of Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings of the study indicate the representation of issue as a power struggle between the dominant institutional powers using certain linguistic choices, like, metaphors, metonymic expressions, modality, passivization and nominalization in an ideological way.