Representing Crime in Pakistani English Newspaper Headlines: A Transitivity Analysis

Abstract

This purpose of this study is to investigate the crime-reporting headlines in the Pakistani English newspaper Dawn using Halliday's Transitivity Model within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis is based on a corpus of 50 crime-reporting headlines published between April 2024 and April 2026. These headlines are classified into three key categories of crime: rape and sexual assault, murder and killing, and robbery and snatching. The focus of this study is to explore how the language used in headlines shapes crime events and how various social actors, especially victims, offenders and state institutions are framed. The results show a definite prevalence of material process in all categories, i.e., headlines are more concerned with actions, events, and physical consequences than psychological conditions or social situations. This is an indication of a discourse pattern in which crime is shown as progression of actions as opposed to human experiences that are not simple. An important linguistic phenomenon has been noted agent deletion, particularly in the rape and murder headlines where the offenders are often not mentioned using passive tense. This causes the undermining of criminal responsibility and placement of victims as passive participants or goals of actions. In contrast, state institutions are consistently constructed as active actors in material processes, performing decisive actions such as arresting suspects and conducting investigations. This exclusive visibility brings out the strength and success of law enforcement. This study concludes that the Dawn headlines serve an ideological purpose in purifying violence by wordplay, downplaying the presence of perpetrators in sensitive issues, and reinforcing a state-focused discourse that focuses on institutionalizing crime.