Construction of “Identity” in Reporting Smog Crisis: An Ecological Discourse Analysis of Pakistani English Newspapers
Abstract
The worsening smog problem in Pakistan has attracted significant media attention. This study aims to explore the linguistic construction of identities in news reports on smog in Pakistani English newspapers, using qualitative ecological discourse analysis framed by Stibbe (2021). The study analyzes general environmental discourse and examines how identity is constructed at the lexical and grammatical levels. The data comprise 150 news reports from 2016 to 2026, collected through purposive sampling from the digital archives of Dawn, The News International, and The Express Tribune. The analysis examines the processes of nomination, categorization, predication, allocation of agency, transitivity, referential strategies, and collective representation that identify different social actors. The findings reveal how recurrent linguistic patterns normalize particular ecological identities while marginalizing others, thereby shaping public understanding of responsibility and environmental relationships. This study advances eco-linguistic scholarship by examining how environmental journalism shapes anthropocentric and eco-centric identities in smog-related news reporting. It also contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (10 and 13) by highlighting gaps in the construction of environmental identities that may help institutions, policymakers, and media experts. Future research may focus on examining data in national and regional languages, collected from print, electronic, social, and digital resources.
