The Main Tendencies of Discourse Representation of Immigrant Workers: A Critical Discourse Analysis in Malaysian Online News Portals

Abstract

Being one of the most industrialised nations in Southeast Asia, Malaysia has been receiving many immigrant workers from neighbouring countries to provide labour for economic expansion. The government was heavily criticised following its announcement on the intake of 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers into the country. The local media have profoundly reported on the issues of immigrant workers in Malaysia. This study focuses on the main tendencies of discourse representation of immigrant workers in Malaysia, specifically in The Star and Malaysiakini online news portals. A total of 20 news articles, 10 from each news portal concerning the above-mentioned issues are analysed according to Fairclough’s (1995) Discourse Representation in Media Discourse framework. Each phrase undergoes a five-level parameter analysis to investigate the language and the strategies employed. As a whole, both online news portals maintained the ideational meaning of the primary discourse in their news reports.