Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this study attempts to examine the representation of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (henceforth RASIM) in news reports from three selected English online newspapers in Malaysia: The Star, The New Straits Times (NST) and Malaysiakini. This research aims to reveal the representations of RASIM and attempts to unravel the ways in which ideology and context shape the discourse surrounding RASIM. The focus of the article is the Refugee Swap Deal between Australia and Malaysia that was announced in 2011. Although the Refugee Swap deal did not take place, the media discourse provided distinctive information about discursive strategies that media draw upon to represent RASIM. The general characteristics of the news reports disclose that there are ideological differences at play and that three main themes are frequently utilised to attribute certain characteristics to RASIM: refugee protection, people smuggling and human trafficking, and policy and national security. In Malaysian media, the reporting on RASIM has been framed according to the political stance of newspapers: in a positive supportive way by the government linked media, The NST and The Star, and in a more balanced way in the alternative, or non-government linked media, Malaysiakini. These reporting styles show differences in situational context and ideology that shaped the discourse of the newspapers, contributing significantly to the portrayal of RASIM in particular ways.
In view of the recurrent issues concerning university students' inability to comprehend reading passages in their studies, texts used in a Malaysian examination for tertiary education were analysed. This study investigates the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in the reading passages of Malaysian University English Test (MUET). A specialised corpus of MUET test papers comprised of only the reading passages grouped into two main disciplines namely arts and science was built. Besides identifying commonly used LBs, this study aims to compare and contrast structural types of LBs found in arts and science-based texts. Using WordSmith Tools version 5, the lists of LBs of the identified disciplines were generated. They were analysed qualitatively based on Biber, Conrad & Cortes' (2004) Structural Taxonomy. Findings revealed that the number of LBs in both disciplines differs significantly but many similar LBs are employed. It was also evident that science-based texts tend to employ more NP-based and VP-based LBs while the most commonly used structure in arts-
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