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The language used in the press has aroused interest in recent years for a variety of reasons. It not only provides evidence for a register that is so widely used and encountered in all modern societies but also shows how means can be manipulated to “justify the ends.” In the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (henceforth TRNC), where Turkish is the state language, ten daily newspapers are published with an approximate circulation of 12,000. The aim of this article is to try to find out to what extent the ideological viewpoint of these papers influences the language they use. The data comprise samples from headlines and advertisements over a 45-day period of the five most popular papers.
The analysis shows that the language used in the papers is not a simple, neutral representation of reality as such, but an effective means to manipulate it in line with the ideology of the newspaper and the expectations of its readers, which is best done through the language used in the headlines. The study of the sample advertisement texts, on the other hand, indicates that the global role of English as a means of communication is increasing every day even in a small community such as that in the TRNC.
