Browsing by Author "Siti Afifah Hashim, Ph.D"

Newspaper is one of the reliable sources for people to get updated with current news and issues. A comprehensive news content is very crucial to avoid misunderstanding among readers in perceiving the message. A good sentence construction plays an important role to ensure the comprehensiveness of the news content to prevent any language issues like structural ambiguity. Structural ambiguity is a language issue that causes a sentence may produce two possible meanings. This leads to a wrong interpretation among readers towards the news they have read. Thus, this study aims to analyze structural ambiguities found in a Malaysian English newspaper by using the X-bar theory approach. It is purposely to demonstrate the use of X-bar theory in breaking down ambiguous sentences into small units, so that two possible interpretations made could be justified. This qualitative content analysis study involved a two-month period of analysis in which New Straits Times (NST) newspaper articles were analyzed from the 1st December 2020 to 31st January 2021. The result showed that the structural ambiguities found in the newspaper articles were majorly caused by the attachment of the Prepositional Phrase (PP). Besides, the phenomenon of the structural ambiguities can be clearly explained by using the X-bar theory approach because X-bar theory illustrated on how two possible meanings of each ambiguous sentence occurred. The constituent of tree diagrams portrayed the phrase attachments that causes the sentences become ambiguous. To add on, one major factor causing structural ambiguities in the news articles was when the phrase attachments function as an adjunct. This concluded that structural ambiguity is one of the language issues that can be found in the selected NST newspaper articles and it should be taken into account as an assurance of a good quality of newspaper article writing. Keywords: English Malaysian newspaper, structural ambiguity, X-bar theory, Prepositional Phrase (PP)

This study is a meaning-based analysis of Modals used as Hedges and Boosters in Engineering and Education academic articles based on the Columbia School framework. The study aims to identify the distribution and the use of modals as hedges and boosters in academic articles from two different academic disciplines: Engineering and Education. The data gathered from 30 Engineering and 30 Education academic articles published in 2019 and 2020 were analysed quantitatively. The results show that Modal hedges are prevalent in both Engineering and Education academic articles as the distribution of modals as hedges preceded the use of modals as boosters. Moreover, the study's statistical analysis indicates that there was no statistically significant difference in the use of modals as hedges and boosters between Engineering and Education academic articles; however, some differences exist. The differences in this study suggest greater use of Modal Hedges in Education rather than in Engineering academic articles. Meanwhile, the deployment of Modals Boosters in Engineering academic articles was higher than Education academic articles. Therefore, the study results conveyed that using modals in written discourse effectively establishes a writer-reader relationship since the language structure is constructed according to the communication need. Withal, the present study would assist the language educators in precisely use modals and assist language users to understand the function of modals as hedges and boosters in written discourse.