Evolving Syntactic Patterns in Pakistani English Editorial Headlines: A Comparative Analysis of 2023 and 2025

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16971194

Abstract

Headlines play a critical role in shaping how readers engage with and interpret news content. This study investigates the syntactic structures employed in editorial headlines of two leading Pakistani English-language newspapers: The News International and The Nation. The primary dataset consists of twenty headlines focused on social issues collected between March and May 2023. A follow-up mini-sample of fifteen headlines from June–July 2025 was compiled to explore whether structural preferences have shifted over time. Each headline was categorized as a noun phrase, verb phrase, complete sentence, or adverbial phrase. The findings reveal that noun phrases remain the dominant form across both periods, with The Nation demonstrating a particularly strong inclination toward this structure. The News International displayed slightly more variation by incorporating occasional verb phrases and complete sentences. These results indicate a stable preference for concise, topic-focused headline structures in Pakistani editorial writing.

Keywords: Headline syntax, Pakistani newspapers, noun phrase, editorial discourse, comparative study