A Syntactic Analysis of Cambodian News Discourse on COVID-۱۹ Outbreaks: Sentence Lengths and Structures as Predictors of Readability

The purpose of the study is to conduct a syntactic analysis of news discourse published online in four popular Khmer newspapers in Cambodia. A sample of ۶۰ articles on COVID-۱۹ outbreaks published from ۲۳ to ۲۹ January ۲۰۲۰ were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively, and with the PAN Khmer Line Breaking Program used to separate Khmer words for word count the way English words are counted as Khmer writing conventions do not require a space in between words but phrases. The researchers used descriptive and inferential statistics to calculate and compare average lengths of the articles, paragraphs, and sentences. The study compared its results to subject-specific academic discourse for Grade ۱۲ and undergraduate studies, and found no statistically significant difference in average sentence lengths between academic texts and the target articles, with sentences of the newspaper articles averaging ۳۲.۲۵ words, compared to ۳۴.۳ for the academic texts. Complex sentences were most commonly used, accounting for ۴۴% of a total of ۴۴۲ sentences in the study’s dataset. Based on the findings, Khmer journalistic writers are recommended to reduce complexity of clauses and sentences in their written news pieces, observing the standard readability of under ۲۰ words per sentence.

Keywords:

COVID-۱۹ , News Discourse , Readability , Syntactic Analysis , Sentence Structure