Lexical Expressions of Compare and Contrast in Business News Articles

Abhinan Wongkittiporn; Nopphanon Hongbil

Authors

Abhinan Wongkittiporn English Language Department, Rangsit University
Nopphanon Hongbil MA student, Program in English for Professions, College of Liberal Arts, Rangsit University

Keywords:

Lexical expressions of compare, Lexical expressions of contrast, Business news articles

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the use of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in business news articles. Related previous studies concerned with this type of study observed the use of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in the writing of EFL learners (i.e., Japanese students, Indonesian students and Thai students) and the materials of applied linguistics research articles. However, this study aims to contribute to the field by using the materials of business news articles to investigate the use of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in English. The source of data was gathered from the business section in The New York Times, which is the national American newspaper that gains the highest circulation. The dataset of this daily business news articles was collected between January 1, 2023 and February 28, 2023. A total of approximately 120,000 words contains 280 tokens with lexical expressions of compare and contrast. In regard to the data analysis, the framework of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in this study follows Swan (2016). After the process of data analysis, three linguists whose mother tongue is English were instructed to validate the data analysis via inter-rater reliability to ensure their validity and reliability. The results show that the percentages of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in business news articles are 59.29 percent and 40.71 percent, respectively. This phenomenon is explained by principle of informality, principle of subjectivity and opposite information via antonyms. It is expected that the results in this study will be beneficial to learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in terms of applying the preference styles of lexical expressions of compare and contrast in business writing correctly and appropriately.

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