Presupposition in some Ghanaian newspaper articles: A pragmatic analysis
Keywords:
audience, media, presupposition, pragmatics, relevance theoryAbstract
Media has been described in democratic countries as being the ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’. This status puts a lot of responsibility on the profession and as such its practitioners exercise a lot of power; ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ is a familiar saying. The media, in reporting news, presuppose some vital pieces of information which are to inform their respective clients. This paper attempts to find out whether the presuppositions are fair or unfair based on the amount of processing efforts their clients may invest in their effort to fathom the information. Five articles from three daily newspapers have been selected for the analysis within the general framework of pragmatics. The conclusion is that the media stand to lose their clients if they continue to overburden them with unfair presuppositions. The study should inform people with interest in the core values of the media, media studies and the accessing and processing of information in the media.
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