Context Over Lexicon: Semantic Shift in Arabic Health Reporting on Al-Jazeera

Abstract

In health news discourse, Arabic vocabulary is often polysemic and undergoes shifts in meaning depending on the context of use. This requires an understanding and analysis that focuses not only on lexical meaning but also on the mechanisms of contextual meaning formation. This study aims to examine lexical-contextual meaning transformations and the mechanisms of meaning shifts in health news texts on Al-Jazeera. This study employs a descriptive qualitative approach with a semantic perspective on three Al-Jazeera health news texts selected purposively based on the presence of polysemous vocabulary. Analysis was conducted through the identification of lexical meanings based on dictionaries, the interpretation of contextual meanings, and the classification of forms of meaning shift. The results indicate that discourse context plays a dominant role in determining meaning, causing lexical meanings to transform into more specific meanings tailored to medical communication needs. Four primary forms of meaning shift were identified: narrowing of meaning, terminological specialization, shift in emotional value, and reinforcement of contextual meaning.