Exploring Lexico-Grammatical Patterns in Saudi Press Reportage: A Multidimensional Analysis

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate patterns of linguistic variation in Saudi press reportage, revealing how the language of press reportage in Saudi Arabia differs from or resembles that of British press reportage. This research is significant as no previous study has attempted to find the differences and similarities between the English used in Saudi press reportage in comparison with British Press reportage. This study aims to analyze linguistic variation between the categories of Saudi press reportage of the selected countries and to see which category of the news resembles British English the most. For this purpose, a corpus of Saudi newspaper reportage was compiled. Biber’s (1992, 2006) multidimensional model explored the linguistic variations among the Saudi and British press reportage sub-categories. ANOVA was applied to measure the significant statistical differences among them. The results indicated that Saudi business reportage is the most informational, narrative, and explicit among all the sub-categories of British press reportage and the rest of the sub-categories of Saudi press reportage. Saudi sports reportage is the most non-argumentative, and British business reportage is the most abstract among other sub-categories. The results provided substantial evidence that English used in Saudi press reportage is a distinct register indicating that Saudi English is a different variety of English. This study will support the pedagogical practices regarding English for academic purposes and in academic language teaching classrooms.