This study examined how smog is portrayed in English-language newspapers in Pakistan, using a corpus-assisted ecolinguistic approach. The research analyzed a collection of 154 news articles, with 77 pieces each from Dawn and The Nation, published between October 2024 and September 2026. Using Sketch Engine, the data was examined for normalized frequency, keywords, collocations, Word Sketch patterns, and concordance lines related to smog. The themes that the analysis revolved around included framing, erasure, and the ecosophical ideals of well-being, ecological justice, and sustainability. The findings indicate that both newspapers represent smog as a severe and measurable air-quality problem, a common epidemic of health, and a concern, which requires government and social response. Such adjectives as Hazardous, severe, toxic, dense, and heavy, as well as verbs, combat, control, curb, and tackle, form a story with a lot of danger, urgency, and necessity to act. Both of the publications also emphasize the noteworthy human-induced sources such as vehicle emissions, industrial activities, brick kilns, agricultural burning, and waste incineration though some of the grammar construction of the texts will down-play the agents initiating the factors. Dawn is more focused on monitoring and institutional processes, whereas The Nation is more focused on crisis and enforcement. This discussion is rather ambivalent, and it is more concerned with numerous positive elements that foster health consciousness and responsibility, yet it does not offer more consistent coverage to ecological justice and sustainability.
Print Media Coverage of Smog: A Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics Study of Pakistani English Newspapers in Dawn and The Nation
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References
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