The Language of Legitimization and Delegitimization in Pakistani Newspaper Editorials: Investigating Fear Appeal through Proximization Strategies in Discourses of Climate Change

Abstract

The study explores on catastrophic effects of climate change represented in Pakistani English newspapers editorials (2019-2023). The study is an explorative research and has employed Fear Appeal theory and Piotr Cap's STA model as theoretical and analytical frameworks respectively to investigate the discursive construction of fear and threat through spatial, temporal, and axiological linguistic techniques. The research reveals the discursive construction and linguistic realization of space, time and emotive deictic perspective employed in editorials to represent the catastrophic effects of climate change in Pakistan that are further bound up with fear, security and conflict. The study also highlights the discursive acts of legitimizing such as self-apologizing as a source of authority and reason, and delegitimizing such as scapegoating as a source of attacking rationality and sanity in the data sets. With the ongoing environmental hazards and disasters in Pakistan, this study proves to be significant academic voice in domains of  socio-cognitive pragmatic features in linguistics, news construction and environmental studies.