Language Used in Condolences

Abstract

This research attempts to study linguistic as well as special features of language used in the notices of condolence in the newspapers fromNepal and India. Notices of condolence have been analyzed in terms oflinguistic and non-linguistic features in the present study. It aims toanalyse the type of language in terms of differentcriteria such as sentencetype, aspect, voice and length; to analyse the non linguistic features; andto analyse special features of language. Altogether 70 NOCs taken from the newspapers from Nepal andIndia namelyThe Kathmandu Post, The HimalayanTimes, The Times ofIndiaand Hindustan Timeswere the major sources of data. Non-randomjudgmental sampling was used to collect the data. The researcher usedonly secondary sources of data. Observation was the major tool of datacollection. The researcher found that the use of simple sentences, non pasttense, simple aspect and active voice were mostly used. He found 63.8words as an average number of words and 2.7 sentences as an averagenumber of sentences. Moreover, he found that use of some pictures(hands offering flower, enclosed within flower etc.), various size, varietyin the place of date used were common. Furthermore, the researcher alsofound both direct and indirect ways of addressing, variety in the use oftitle, both prosaic and poetic form andsome collocation (eternal peace,bereaved family etc.) of words in the notice of condolence. The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is introductionand consists of general background, literature review, objective of the ix study, significance of the study and definition of the terms used in thethesis. Chapter two deals with the methodology applied to conduct aresearch. The chapter consists of sources of data, sampling procedure,tools of data collection and limitations of the study. Chapter three consists of the analysis and interpretation of the data.The data collected through the observation table (checklist) wereanalyzed and interpreted in this chapter. This chapter also includes somestatistical tools like percent, average, etc. Chapter four deals with findings and recommendations. Referencesand appendices have been included in the final section of the thesis.