Dr Umaima Kamran | Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan (original) (raw)
Research Articles by Dr Umaima Kamran
Journey Metaphors are among the most pervasive source domains used both in daily life and in poli... more Journey Metaphors are among the most pervasive source domains used both in daily life and in political discourse as they follow a clearcut source-path-goal schema where the direction is a fundamental element. The crossdomain mapping between source and target domains is a means of gaining insight into the cognitive activity of the speaker. Metaphors of the journey are widely used in the political discourse generated by Imran Khan with special emphasis upon direction. Metaphorical expressions identified from speeches of Imran in both English and Urdu language have been analyzed using the Critical Metaphor Analysis approach given by Charteris-Black (2005) where linguistic metaphors have been interpreted semantically, pragmatically and in cognition to generate conceptual metaphors. Khan's obsession with direction activates the PAKISTAN IS OFF TRACK conceptual metaphor necessitating a journey of change under his leadership. He highlights the failures of others to evoke images of a destructive past from which freedom becomes essential. the non-literal language of the leaders provide ample insight into the social practices of a region. Imran Khan, in his political speeches, makes extensive use of metaphorical expressions pertaining to the direction which this study analyses
This study presents an intercultural analysis of the speech act of apology in media discourse tak... more This study presents an intercultural analysis of the speech act of apology in media discourse taken from the Pakistani and American cultures. Speech acts are what the writer or speaker does with words while uttering them with a specialized intention. Words hold a universal status in communication, yet they can manifest differently in different cultures and languages. This poses a great challenge for communication cross-culturally as it is indicative of a broader socio-cultural difference that underlies language in use, thus giving rise to inter-cultural misunderstandings. All speech acts need to be understood in a cultural setting in which the users utter and interpret them. Apologies are a frequently used form of speech acts that are part of the politeness strategy and serve to maintain polite rituals to acknowledge serious offences. This study uses Aijmer's framework and qualitatively analyses speech acts of apology taken from a Pakistani and an American sitcom namely, 'Mera Nam Hai Muhabbat' and 'Desperate Housewives', respectively. The use of explicit
Balochi is an Iranian language (Dames 1904) classified as historically belonging to the Northwest... more Balochi is an Iranian language (Dames 1904) classified as historically belonging to the Northwestern branch (Korn 2003), but found today in the southeastern Iranian plateau as a consequence of a migration that may be dated to as early as the 8 th century C.E. (Elfenbein 1989). Owing to this migration, the language has undergone several changes, most of which can be described as Areal influences (Bashir 2008). This paper investigates an easternmost Balochi dialect in use in Dera Ghazi Khan district and looks for the evidence of three phonological features namely retroflex, aspirate and implosive sounds. Using primary data obtained in the form of conversational recordings and secondary data from the available literature on Balochi spanning 120 years, it is found that borrowing from the northwestern Indo-Aryan languages-in the present day (Grierson 1919) Sindhi, Siraiki, Khetrani, are a major factor that led to the proposed changes.
Global Regional Review
This research aims to analyze written skills of students enrolled in Business Communication cours... more This research aims to analyze written skills of students enrolled in Business Communication course by conducting a Needs Analysis survey. While focusing on the necessities, lacks and wants of learners, the current language proficiency of students was matched with the target level needed in business organizations. For this purpose, a needs analysis based on the target situation needs analysis model provided by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) was conducted. Two questionnaires were designed to collect data from learners and prospective business employers. Moreover, faculty members were interviewed to get an enriched data. A quantitative data was qualitatively analyzed to reveal that needs analysis is a neglected aspect of curriculum development in Pakistan and that the needs of students are not considered. Moreover, the written skills are being focused, but the current proficiency level of the learners does not match the target situation needs.
Global Regional Review
Khowar, the lingua franca of people living in district Chitral, is a rich language from a linguis... more Khowar, the lingua franca of people living in district Chitral, is a rich language from a linguistic perspective, possessing links with Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) languages in its inventory and lexical similarity with the Sanskrit language. The aim of the current study is to redefine and document its phonemic inventory with the possible, latest and authentic linguistic tools. The findings of this study will benefit both native speakers and educational institutions with their Khowar language script and will provide an easy way for interested researchers. This descriptive study followed both qualitative and quantitative scales, with segment acoustic description, explanation and charting formant values. The data has been collected in the form of recording from native speakers of Khowar language for segments included in the reading list proposed by the researchers. The recorded corpus has been analyzed using Praat software (2017). The research outcomes are updated and acoustically redefined p...
Global Regional Review
English is not more the language of few countries it has become an international phenomenon. That... more English is not more the language of few countries it has become an international phenomenon. Thats why many types of research all over the world are exploring the attitude of these non-native English learners towards it. The current study explores the attitude of Arab students (studding in Malaysia) towards learning English. This study adopted the methods of descriptive research design. In this approach, quantitative data from questionnaires of 49 respondents, Arab countries students studying at the University of Science Malaysia was collected. For data analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple recreations were conducted and it was found out that the Arab students with the attitude towards English had a significant correlation with English learning and importance and English language Policy of their country.
Volume V Issue I
This article describes the syllable of Pakistani English (PE. It compares the syllable of PE with... more This article describes the syllable of Pakistani English (PE. It compares the syllable of PE with British English, in the light of concepts of syllabic (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), syllabification, template, syllable pattern, model of syllable structure, phonotactics and syllable weight. In the end, the following differences in syllabic phonology of PE and British English are summarized: In phonotactic constraints, one difference is found that is in the syllable of PE cluster of three consonants i.e. /s/, /p or t or k/, /l or r/ is allowed only in monosyllabic words, whereas word internally this cluster is not permissible. So, [ek.sklIUd] becomes [eks.klIUd] in PE; the weight of the syllable in PE is not only based on the quality of vowel but also the quality of consonant; in PE every syllable must contain vowel as a nucleus.
Global Language Review
This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonolo... more This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax in Pakistani languages. According to Shackle (2014) Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki languages belong to the Indo-Aryan language family. However, there are found many lexical differences significant enough to make these languages quite different from one another. The study focuses on these lexical variations based on three types of interfaces, i.e. Phonology/Morphology, Phonology/Syntax, and Morphology/Syntax. The data has been collected from the native speakers of Urdu, Punjabi, and Seraiki. The analysis of the data includes finding out the three types of interfaces, making derivations and notations (Chomsky and Halle; 1968), and formulating the rules. Then a comparison of all these rules and lexical variations have been discussed. Results have shown that these interfaces play an important role to cause lexical variation among Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki; the languages ...
Corporum: Journal of Corpus Linguistics, June 2022 Vol 5, Issue 1, 2022
Hedges and boosters are significant in writing since they show the writer's point of view. The pa... more Hedges and boosters are significant in writing since they show the writer's point of view. The paper identifies two types of metadiscourse markers in Benazir Bhutto's speeches. It further aims at analyzing the pragmatic function and frequency of selected markers. The sample included thirteen selected speeches delivered from 1989 to 1997 by Benazir Bhutto and are explained through Hyland's (1996) theories related to hedging and boosters. AntConc software has been used to extricate the hedges and boosters from the corpus. This study indicates that hedges (131) are used frequently as compared to boosters (150). After the analysis of the data, the finding reveals that the most frequently occurred hedges are "could" which appears 35 times and "need" 27 times. Results show that the speaker's usage of hedge marks shows her cautiousness in speaking style. Moreover, the most frequently occurring boosters are "should" which appear 65 times and "must" 34 times. This shows that the authors' voice is appeared assertive and confident. Frequency is also calculated to know which type of metadiscourse maker is used more frequently. The frequency shows that more boosters are used as compared to the hedges which show the potency of her speeches.
Women University, 2023
Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact... more Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact, in similar and different manners among themselves, and how they strive to converse cross culturally. This becomes particularly significant given potential frequency of interaction and/or the nature of relationship. The claim of Pakistan-China friendship with new economic agreements in the form of CPEC is opening up new avenues requiring effective cross-cultural communication. One of which is in the academic domain with an increased students exchange. The aim of the present research is to explore the cross-cultural conversational strategies used by female Chinese students at International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan while conversing in English. The current study focuses to identify their cultural context i.e. high context culture or low context culture by exploring their method of developing the topic, ways of responding difficult questions, participation in term of interaction, and their promptness of disagreement through verbal and nonverbal indications. The cultural framework of Hall (1976, 2000) is found particularly useful and is employed as a theoretical framework. For the elicitation of linguistics data, questionnaires (adapted from Xu Lin (2007) and interviews are used for data collection. The study concludes that the female Chinese students are low context people who rely on words, avoid silence and actively participate in the conversation for better understanding of the topic. It is evident from the responses of interviews as well as questionnaires that they actively engage in conversation; immediately disagree through verbal and nonverbal indications; do not give short answers instead try to develop the topic raised in the questions and even try to respond difficult questions.
Air University, 2023
Rhetorical moves, Book review, Genre analysis Synchronized Model
English, a non-native variety, is the official and most prestigious language in Pakistan. This va... more English, a non-native variety, is the official and most prestigious language in Pakistan. This variety is now accepted and referred to as "Pakistani English" PE. However, PE is not a single variety, but a group of localized varieties shaped and influenced by the local languages. Having typical and marked characteristics, these varieties can be referred to as the localized subvarieties of PE. The purpose of the present study is to carry out phonological analysis of phonemes of the subvarieties of PE focusing on them as different varieties of English and not as inferior or impoverished English. Following endo-normative standards, this study not only finds out the phonemic differences but also conducts a phonemic comparison of these sub-varieties with Standard British English SBE. First, it accounts for the variation in phonemes of the sub-varieties. Secondly, it has explained which speech segments of SBE are influenced in Pakistan by the six major local languages. Thirdly, it investigates the transfer-based phonetic reshaping of SBE phonemes. Fourthly, the phonemic inventories of the sub-varieties have been developed. It is a descriptive study which involves both qualitative and quantitative scales in the course of analysis. Sample data was accessed from the English non-native speakers of the six major languages of Pakistan. Data was collected by employing Wells" framework for vowels, and a list of carefully selected words for consonants aiming at elicitation of the data through recordings from the natives speaking standard varieties of each language with equal number of samples of Urdu, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, who speak English as second or third language. The results show that there are variations in both vowels and consonants. There are at least ten basic vowels and twenty-two consonants in each of these subvarieties. Various difference were realized in plosives, fricatives, liquids, glides, and nasals.
The Dialogue, 2019
Being a war ally, President Musharraf had to confront this situation of creating a discourse that... more Being a war ally, President Musharraf had to confront this situation of creating a discourse that would favour inevitable war within the boundaries of Pakistan. The propagation and projection of a specific version of ideology in an already torn ideological front. This study analyses interviews and speeches of President Musharraf during his tenure as Premier of Pakistan and investigates into the macro and micro level structures of the selected discourse on war on terror to probe into the ways Musharraf has tried to legitimize the war on terror. Legitimization of the war against the past heroes was also challenged abroad and more severely at home by the concerned stakeholders. The hypothesis that the war on terror was also fought at the level of discourse in making it acceptable and legitimate for the people of Pakistan to be the part of US alliance has been investigated through the application of socio-cognitive model of Van Dijk (2002), which provides relevant tools of analysis of the text and talk on media. The analysis of interviews and speeches of Musharraf signifies that different socio-political and cultural aspects of Pakistani society have been incorporated by Musharraf in order to develop the discourse and make it more acceptable and favorable for his audience.
Keywords: Discourse, Propagation, Legitimization, Projection, socio-cognitive model, text and talk.
Journal of Asian Civilizations, 2021
Pashto is an Iranian language (Morgenstern, 1982) classified as historically belonging to the nor... more Pashto is an Iranian language (Morgenstern, 1982) classified as historically belonging to the northeastern branch of the Iranian family. This linguistics study is comparative and historical in nature. It carries out a lexical comparison of Pashto and the Sogdian language, and investigates their phonological development by further expanding their corss-comparison with data from the Proto-Iranian language. Drawing on secondary data available in Sogdian and Pashto and on the reconstructed roots of Proto-Iranian, the current study seeks to describe the historical reciprocal changes in the phonology of Pashto and Sogdian. Moreover, it discusses thoes changes in each language thoes they have in common, and the retentions of Proto-Iranian reflexes in Pashto and Sogdian, highlighting differences and commonalities in their clusters. Proto-Iranian sonorants are of paramount importance as isoglosses. This suggests that the forefather of the Pashto language was historically in close contact with the Sogdian language and can be located in Central Asia, from where it migrated to its present homeland. This migration is witnessed in the living language by the development of retroflex sounds in Pashto precisely due to contact with the Indo-Aryan.
English, as a non native variety, in Pakistan has acquired its own form most pronounced on the ph... more English, as a non native variety, in Pakistan has acquired its own form most pronounced on the phonological level. The few attempts have been made to study its structures and treated phonology as marginalized part of lexical or syntactic descriptions. And even when phonological descriptions are carried out, the focus was segmental features only. Consequently, the present study aims to explore supra-segmental features exclusively; which make significant differences in pronunciation and cause problem of unintelligibility. Among many sub-varieties of Pakistani English PE, syllable structures and syllabification of variety of English news media of PE are described. Finally, for the sake of precision and accuracy, optimality theory (OT), proposed by Prince & Smolensky (1993), is selected as a model to analyze syllable structures of PE. For this purpose, the constraints on these phonological features were ranked to make a grammar by forming violation Tableaus to understand interaction of these constraints. The violation computing method VCM (Nadeem, 2016) is applied by ranking constraints of syllable structures in PE. It is concluded that PE forms different syllable structures and syllabification patterns. For example, syllabic consonant C is not found in PE. Furthermore, Maximum Onset Principle MOP is not applicable word internally in PE. Syllable constraints hierarchy of PE is:
Peak, Faith V, Faith C, Son-seq (undominated) »
CCC » CCC » Onset » No-coda » SLH
Results show that PE does not allow cluster of three consonants word internally, so to capture this process CCC , CCC constraints are added in the grammar of PE; because ‘*Complex’ constraint prohibits occurrence of cluster of only two consonants.
Key words: Pakistani English, syllable structures, syllabification, optimality theory, Maximum Onset Principle
Pakistan is a multilingual country where languages of different families are spoken in various ge... more Pakistan is a multilingual country where languages of different families are spoken in various geographical areas. This study aimed to find pronouns of major and minor Pakistani languages for typological study that is concerned with formulating different types of languages on the basis of their common and uncommon patterns of pronominal features across the languages. Pronoun is basically a grammatical category and it functions to replace the noun. Every language has its own pronoun system. There are types of languages that differ in structural attributes of the pronouns. The data is collected from the native speakers and is represented in tables which provide the pronoun systems of the Pakistani languages under study. According to typological classification four types of languages are made out of sixteen languages and are shown in feature hierarchies of each corresponding language type. Feature hierarchy shows marked and unmarked features of these Pakistani languages. Considering it representative, universal statements are devised. It is found that languages of Pakistan are not very complex in term of their personal pronouns. In the studied sixteen languages of Pakistan minimum number of pronouns is five and Balti has maximum number of pronouns i.e. ten.
Emergence of communication through modern modes of communication such as texting has greatly infl... more Emergence of communication through modern modes of communication such as texting has greatly influenced the written communication among students. This impact of texting can also be traced from their academic writings. The present research investigates those effects of texting on students' spelling in academic writing. It focuses on the factors that are affecting the academic performance, regarding the possible influence of textisms in language on student's spellings. Being quantitative research in nature on its way to uncover the questions under investigation are based on two sources of data; structured close and open-ended questionnaires and written checked assignments taken as primary data from students of Bachelor Studies (BS) of different departments of from Pakistan's most renowned institution, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad. This research unveils the greater part of students' textisms language that how formal writing is influenced by text language. The present study reveals that the use of text language by BS students is good only in their text communication text has short space of 160 characters, so they need to precise it to deliver the long message in short words. In contrast when students use these textisms terms in their academic writing that become a reason for spelling mistakes and it creates a major problem for students to memorizing correct spelling for formal writing.
The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative study of the consonant system of Pakistani Standa... more The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative study of the consonant system of Pakistani Standard English (PSE) and British Standard English (BSE). Although some studies have been conducted on the Pakistani English Phonology, in which consonant system of PE is briefly described, there is a need to analyse it more accurately. The sample for the study is taken from twenty participants (ten male and ten female), who were enrolled for MPhil/PhD English degree and were teaching English Language at International Islamic University, Islamabad. They were recorded while reading list of 178 words which is later transcribed. For the BSE, data was collected from ‘Oxford Talking Dictionary’. Both varieties were compared to find out the similarities and differences. The differences at different levels were described in different sections and illustrated with the help of graphs. The result shows that there are many inventorial, realizational, incidental and distributional differences in the consonant system of the two varieties.
_______________________________________________________________ Abstract The present study was co... more _______________________________________________________________ Abstract The present study was conducted to identify and classify the most common errors committed by students at postgraduate level in English writing skill. English is considered as second language for Pakistani students. It is used as medium of instruction in many universities in Pakistan. The main focus of the study was to investigate L2 learners' errors in writing skill. To achieve the objective of the study, data from 90 students were obtained from six institutes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Fifteen participants were selected randomly from each institute, studying at postgraduate level at the department of English. Sample students were assigned to write essay of 250 to 300 words on one of the three given topics: My Favourite Season, An Unforgettable Incident of my Life, and My Hobby. For identifying common errors in L2 writing, the students' writings were analyzed with the help of checklists in order to classify different types of errors made by the respondents. The results of the study revealed that the most common and frequent errors made by the students were of verb tense, spelling, inappropriate use of vocabulary and subject/verb agreement.
Mother Tongue Horizons for Education and Research , Gandhara Hindko Board, Peshawar, Pakistan. , 2017
Seraiki is spoken in central area of Pakistan. It has different varieties; two of them like Multa... more Seraiki is spoken in central area of Pakistan. It has different varieties; two of them like Multani and Derawali are
described in present study. It belongs to Indo-Aryan family and having Perso-Arabic script. It is believed that
Seraiki is contact variety between Sindhi and Punjabi and other languages of Pakistan. The study focuses onhistorical perspective and phonological features of Seraiki language. It explores that Seraiki has 48 consonantal phonemes (Shackle, 1976:18) in its inventory but there are some differences in the consonantal allophones of
different varieties of Seraiki. These differences like realizational, incidental and distributional are described between two varieties of this language. Moreover, other phonological changes at segmental and supra-segmental level in the central variety of Seraiki are also discussed. This study will be significant in understanding phonological
change that has occurred in this variety of Seraiki over the time.
Key words: Seraiki, phonemic inventory, phonological change, realizational, incidental, and distributional differences, segmental and supra-segmental level
Journey Metaphors are among the most pervasive source domains used both in daily life and in poli... more Journey Metaphors are among the most pervasive source domains used both in daily life and in political discourse as they follow a clearcut source-path-goal schema where the direction is a fundamental element. The crossdomain mapping between source and target domains is a means of gaining insight into the cognitive activity of the speaker. Metaphors of the journey are widely used in the political discourse generated by Imran Khan with special emphasis upon direction. Metaphorical expressions identified from speeches of Imran in both English and Urdu language have been analyzed using the Critical Metaphor Analysis approach given by Charteris-Black (2005) where linguistic metaphors have been interpreted semantically, pragmatically and in cognition to generate conceptual metaphors. Khan's obsession with direction activates the PAKISTAN IS OFF TRACK conceptual metaphor necessitating a journey of change under his leadership. He highlights the failures of others to evoke images of a destructive past from which freedom becomes essential. the non-literal language of the leaders provide ample insight into the social practices of a region. Imran Khan, in his political speeches, makes extensive use of metaphorical expressions pertaining to the direction which this study analyses
This study presents an intercultural analysis of the speech act of apology in media discourse tak... more This study presents an intercultural analysis of the speech act of apology in media discourse taken from the Pakistani and American cultures. Speech acts are what the writer or speaker does with words while uttering them with a specialized intention. Words hold a universal status in communication, yet they can manifest differently in different cultures and languages. This poses a great challenge for communication cross-culturally as it is indicative of a broader socio-cultural difference that underlies language in use, thus giving rise to inter-cultural misunderstandings. All speech acts need to be understood in a cultural setting in which the users utter and interpret them. Apologies are a frequently used form of speech acts that are part of the politeness strategy and serve to maintain polite rituals to acknowledge serious offences. This study uses Aijmer's framework and qualitatively analyses speech acts of apology taken from a Pakistani and an American sitcom namely, 'Mera Nam Hai Muhabbat' and 'Desperate Housewives', respectively. The use of explicit
Balochi is an Iranian language (Dames 1904) classified as historically belonging to the Northwest... more Balochi is an Iranian language (Dames 1904) classified as historically belonging to the Northwestern branch (Korn 2003), but found today in the southeastern Iranian plateau as a consequence of a migration that may be dated to as early as the 8 th century C.E. (Elfenbein 1989). Owing to this migration, the language has undergone several changes, most of which can be described as Areal influences (Bashir 2008). This paper investigates an easternmost Balochi dialect in use in Dera Ghazi Khan district and looks for the evidence of three phonological features namely retroflex, aspirate and implosive sounds. Using primary data obtained in the form of conversational recordings and secondary data from the available literature on Balochi spanning 120 years, it is found that borrowing from the northwestern Indo-Aryan languages-in the present day (Grierson 1919) Sindhi, Siraiki, Khetrani, are a major factor that led to the proposed changes.
Global Regional Review
This research aims to analyze written skills of students enrolled in Business Communication cours... more This research aims to analyze written skills of students enrolled in Business Communication course by conducting a Needs Analysis survey. While focusing on the necessities, lacks and wants of learners, the current language proficiency of students was matched with the target level needed in business organizations. For this purpose, a needs analysis based on the target situation needs analysis model provided by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) was conducted. Two questionnaires were designed to collect data from learners and prospective business employers. Moreover, faculty members were interviewed to get an enriched data. A quantitative data was qualitatively analyzed to reveal that needs analysis is a neglected aspect of curriculum development in Pakistan and that the needs of students are not considered. Moreover, the written skills are being focused, but the current proficiency level of the learners does not match the target situation needs.
Global Regional Review
Khowar, the lingua franca of people living in district Chitral, is a rich language from a linguis... more Khowar, the lingua franca of people living in district Chitral, is a rich language from a linguistic perspective, possessing links with Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) languages in its inventory and lexical similarity with the Sanskrit language. The aim of the current study is to redefine and document its phonemic inventory with the possible, latest and authentic linguistic tools. The findings of this study will benefit both native speakers and educational institutions with their Khowar language script and will provide an easy way for interested researchers. This descriptive study followed both qualitative and quantitative scales, with segment acoustic description, explanation and charting formant values. The data has been collected in the form of recording from native speakers of Khowar language for segments included in the reading list proposed by the researchers. The recorded corpus has been analyzed using Praat software (2017). The research outcomes are updated and acoustically redefined p...
Global Regional Review
English is not more the language of few countries it has become an international phenomenon. That... more English is not more the language of few countries it has become an international phenomenon. Thats why many types of research all over the world are exploring the attitude of these non-native English learners towards it. The current study explores the attitude of Arab students (studding in Malaysia) towards learning English. This study adopted the methods of descriptive research design. In this approach, quantitative data from questionnaires of 49 respondents, Arab countries students studying at the University of Science Malaysia was collected. For data analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple recreations were conducted and it was found out that the Arab students with the attitude towards English had a significant correlation with English learning and importance and English language Policy of their country.
Volume V Issue I
This article describes the syllable of Pakistani English (PE. It compares the syllable of PE with... more This article describes the syllable of Pakistani English (PE. It compares the syllable of PE with British English, in the light of concepts of syllabic (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), syllabification, template, syllable pattern, model of syllable structure, phonotactics and syllable weight. In the end, the following differences in syllabic phonology of PE and British English are summarized: In phonotactic constraints, one difference is found that is in the syllable of PE cluster of three consonants i.e. /s/, /p or t or k/, /l or r/ is allowed only in monosyllabic words, whereas word internally this cluster is not permissible. So, [ek.sklIUd] becomes [eks.klIUd] in PE; the weight of the syllable in PE is not only based on the quality of vowel but also the quality of consonant; in PE every syllable must contain vowel as a nucleus.
Global Language Review
This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonolo... more This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax in Pakistani languages. According to Shackle (2014) Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki languages belong to the Indo-Aryan language family. However, there are found many lexical differences significant enough to make these languages quite different from one another. The study focuses on these lexical variations based on three types of interfaces, i.e. Phonology/Morphology, Phonology/Syntax, and Morphology/Syntax. The data has been collected from the native speakers of Urdu, Punjabi, and Seraiki. The analysis of the data includes finding out the three types of interfaces, making derivations and notations (Chomsky and Halle; 1968), and formulating the rules. Then a comparison of all these rules and lexical variations have been discussed. Results have shown that these interfaces play an important role to cause lexical variation among Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki; the languages ...
Corporum: Journal of Corpus Linguistics, June 2022 Vol 5, Issue 1, 2022
Hedges and boosters are significant in writing since they show the writer's point of view. The pa... more Hedges and boosters are significant in writing since they show the writer's point of view. The paper identifies two types of metadiscourse markers in Benazir Bhutto's speeches. It further aims at analyzing the pragmatic function and frequency of selected markers. The sample included thirteen selected speeches delivered from 1989 to 1997 by Benazir Bhutto and are explained through Hyland's (1996) theories related to hedging and boosters. AntConc software has been used to extricate the hedges and boosters from the corpus. This study indicates that hedges (131) are used frequently as compared to boosters (150). After the analysis of the data, the finding reveals that the most frequently occurred hedges are "could" which appears 35 times and "need" 27 times. Results show that the speaker's usage of hedge marks shows her cautiousness in speaking style. Moreover, the most frequently occurring boosters are "should" which appear 65 times and "must" 34 times. This shows that the authors' voice is appeared assertive and confident. Frequency is also calculated to know which type of metadiscourse maker is used more frequently. The frequency shows that more boosters are used as compared to the hedges which show the potency of her speeches.
Women University, 2023
Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact... more Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact, in similar and different manners among themselves, and how they strive to converse cross culturally. This becomes particularly significant given potential frequency of interaction and/or the nature of relationship. The claim of Pakistan-China friendship with new economic agreements in the form of CPEC is opening up new avenues requiring effective cross-cultural communication. One of which is in the academic domain with an increased students exchange. The aim of the present research is to explore the cross-cultural conversational strategies used by female Chinese students at International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan while conversing in English. The current study focuses to identify their cultural context i.e. high context culture or low context culture by exploring their method of developing the topic, ways of responding difficult questions, participation in term of interaction, and their promptness of disagreement through verbal and nonverbal indications. The cultural framework of Hall (1976, 2000) is found particularly useful and is employed as a theoretical framework. For the elicitation of linguistics data, questionnaires (adapted from Xu Lin (2007) and interviews are used for data collection. The study concludes that the female Chinese students are low context people who rely on words, avoid silence and actively participate in the conversation for better understanding of the topic. It is evident from the responses of interviews as well as questionnaires that they actively engage in conversation; immediately disagree through verbal and nonverbal indications; do not give short answers instead try to develop the topic raised in the questions and even try to respond difficult questions.
Air University, 2023
Rhetorical moves, Book review, Genre analysis Synchronized Model
English, a non-native variety, is the official and most prestigious language in Pakistan. This va... more English, a non-native variety, is the official and most prestigious language in Pakistan. This variety is now accepted and referred to as "Pakistani English" PE. However, PE is not a single variety, but a group of localized varieties shaped and influenced by the local languages. Having typical and marked characteristics, these varieties can be referred to as the localized subvarieties of PE. The purpose of the present study is to carry out phonological analysis of phonemes of the subvarieties of PE focusing on them as different varieties of English and not as inferior or impoverished English. Following endo-normative standards, this study not only finds out the phonemic differences but also conducts a phonemic comparison of these sub-varieties with Standard British English SBE. First, it accounts for the variation in phonemes of the sub-varieties. Secondly, it has explained which speech segments of SBE are influenced in Pakistan by the six major local languages. Thirdly, it investigates the transfer-based phonetic reshaping of SBE phonemes. Fourthly, the phonemic inventories of the sub-varieties have been developed. It is a descriptive study which involves both qualitative and quantitative scales in the course of analysis. Sample data was accessed from the English non-native speakers of the six major languages of Pakistan. Data was collected by employing Wells" framework for vowels, and a list of carefully selected words for consonants aiming at elicitation of the data through recordings from the natives speaking standard varieties of each language with equal number of samples of Urdu, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, who speak English as second or third language. The results show that there are variations in both vowels and consonants. There are at least ten basic vowels and twenty-two consonants in each of these subvarieties. Various difference were realized in plosives, fricatives, liquids, glides, and nasals.
The Dialogue, 2019
Being a war ally, President Musharraf had to confront this situation of creating a discourse that... more Being a war ally, President Musharraf had to confront this situation of creating a discourse that would favour inevitable war within the boundaries of Pakistan. The propagation and projection of a specific version of ideology in an already torn ideological front. This study analyses interviews and speeches of President Musharraf during his tenure as Premier of Pakistan and investigates into the macro and micro level structures of the selected discourse on war on terror to probe into the ways Musharraf has tried to legitimize the war on terror. Legitimization of the war against the past heroes was also challenged abroad and more severely at home by the concerned stakeholders. The hypothesis that the war on terror was also fought at the level of discourse in making it acceptable and legitimate for the people of Pakistan to be the part of US alliance has been investigated through the application of socio-cognitive model of Van Dijk (2002), which provides relevant tools of analysis of the text and talk on media. The analysis of interviews and speeches of Musharraf signifies that different socio-political and cultural aspects of Pakistani society have been incorporated by Musharraf in order to develop the discourse and make it more acceptable and favorable for his audience.
Keywords: Discourse, Propagation, Legitimization, Projection, socio-cognitive model, text and talk.
Journal of Asian Civilizations, 2021
Pashto is an Iranian language (Morgenstern, 1982) classified as historically belonging to the nor... more Pashto is an Iranian language (Morgenstern, 1982) classified as historically belonging to the northeastern branch of the Iranian family. This linguistics study is comparative and historical in nature. It carries out a lexical comparison of Pashto and the Sogdian language, and investigates their phonological development by further expanding their corss-comparison with data from the Proto-Iranian language. Drawing on secondary data available in Sogdian and Pashto and on the reconstructed roots of Proto-Iranian, the current study seeks to describe the historical reciprocal changes in the phonology of Pashto and Sogdian. Moreover, it discusses thoes changes in each language thoes they have in common, and the retentions of Proto-Iranian reflexes in Pashto and Sogdian, highlighting differences and commonalities in their clusters. Proto-Iranian sonorants are of paramount importance as isoglosses. This suggests that the forefather of the Pashto language was historically in close contact with the Sogdian language and can be located in Central Asia, from where it migrated to its present homeland. This migration is witnessed in the living language by the development of retroflex sounds in Pashto precisely due to contact with the Indo-Aryan.
English, as a non native variety, in Pakistan has acquired its own form most pronounced on the ph... more English, as a non native variety, in Pakistan has acquired its own form most pronounced on the phonological level. The few attempts have been made to study its structures and treated phonology as marginalized part of lexical or syntactic descriptions. And even when phonological descriptions are carried out, the focus was segmental features only. Consequently, the present study aims to explore supra-segmental features exclusively; which make significant differences in pronunciation and cause problem of unintelligibility. Among many sub-varieties of Pakistani English PE, syllable structures and syllabification of variety of English news media of PE are described. Finally, for the sake of precision and accuracy, optimality theory (OT), proposed by Prince & Smolensky (1993), is selected as a model to analyze syllable structures of PE. For this purpose, the constraints on these phonological features were ranked to make a grammar by forming violation Tableaus to understand interaction of these constraints. The violation computing method VCM (Nadeem, 2016) is applied by ranking constraints of syllable structures in PE. It is concluded that PE forms different syllable structures and syllabification patterns. For example, syllabic consonant C is not found in PE. Furthermore, Maximum Onset Principle MOP is not applicable word internally in PE. Syllable constraints hierarchy of PE is:
Peak, Faith V, Faith C, Son-seq (undominated) »
CCC » CCC » Onset » No-coda » SLH
Results show that PE does not allow cluster of three consonants word internally, so to capture this process CCC , CCC constraints are added in the grammar of PE; because ‘*Complex’ constraint prohibits occurrence of cluster of only two consonants.
Key words: Pakistani English, syllable structures, syllabification, optimality theory, Maximum Onset Principle
Pakistan is a multilingual country where languages of different families are spoken in various ge... more Pakistan is a multilingual country where languages of different families are spoken in various geographical areas. This study aimed to find pronouns of major and minor Pakistani languages for typological study that is concerned with formulating different types of languages on the basis of their common and uncommon patterns of pronominal features across the languages. Pronoun is basically a grammatical category and it functions to replace the noun. Every language has its own pronoun system. There are types of languages that differ in structural attributes of the pronouns. The data is collected from the native speakers and is represented in tables which provide the pronoun systems of the Pakistani languages under study. According to typological classification four types of languages are made out of sixteen languages and are shown in feature hierarchies of each corresponding language type. Feature hierarchy shows marked and unmarked features of these Pakistani languages. Considering it representative, universal statements are devised. It is found that languages of Pakistan are not very complex in term of their personal pronouns. In the studied sixteen languages of Pakistan minimum number of pronouns is five and Balti has maximum number of pronouns i.e. ten.
Emergence of communication through modern modes of communication such as texting has greatly infl... more Emergence of communication through modern modes of communication such as texting has greatly influenced the written communication among students. This impact of texting can also be traced from their academic writings. The present research investigates those effects of texting on students' spelling in academic writing. It focuses on the factors that are affecting the academic performance, regarding the possible influence of textisms in language on student's spellings. Being quantitative research in nature on its way to uncover the questions under investigation are based on two sources of data; structured close and open-ended questionnaires and written checked assignments taken as primary data from students of Bachelor Studies (BS) of different departments of from Pakistan's most renowned institution, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad. This research unveils the greater part of students' textisms language that how formal writing is influenced by text language. The present study reveals that the use of text language by BS students is good only in their text communication text has short space of 160 characters, so they need to precise it to deliver the long message in short words. In contrast when students use these textisms terms in their academic writing that become a reason for spelling mistakes and it creates a major problem for students to memorizing correct spelling for formal writing.
The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative study of the consonant system of Pakistani Standa... more The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative study of the consonant system of Pakistani Standard English (PSE) and British Standard English (BSE). Although some studies have been conducted on the Pakistani English Phonology, in which consonant system of PE is briefly described, there is a need to analyse it more accurately. The sample for the study is taken from twenty participants (ten male and ten female), who were enrolled for MPhil/PhD English degree and were teaching English Language at International Islamic University, Islamabad. They were recorded while reading list of 178 words which is later transcribed. For the BSE, data was collected from ‘Oxford Talking Dictionary’. Both varieties were compared to find out the similarities and differences. The differences at different levels were described in different sections and illustrated with the help of graphs. The result shows that there are many inventorial, realizational, incidental and distributional differences in the consonant system of the two varieties.
_______________________________________________________________ Abstract The present study was co... more _______________________________________________________________ Abstract The present study was conducted to identify and classify the most common errors committed by students at postgraduate level in English writing skill. English is considered as second language for Pakistani students. It is used as medium of instruction in many universities in Pakistan. The main focus of the study was to investigate L2 learners' errors in writing skill. To achieve the objective of the study, data from 90 students were obtained from six institutes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Fifteen participants were selected randomly from each institute, studying at postgraduate level at the department of English. Sample students were assigned to write essay of 250 to 300 words on one of the three given topics: My Favourite Season, An Unforgettable Incident of my Life, and My Hobby. For identifying common errors in L2 writing, the students' writings were analyzed with the help of checklists in order to classify different types of errors made by the respondents. The results of the study revealed that the most common and frequent errors made by the students were of verb tense, spelling, inappropriate use of vocabulary and subject/verb agreement.
Mother Tongue Horizons for Education and Research , Gandhara Hindko Board, Peshawar, Pakistan. , 2017
Seraiki is spoken in central area of Pakistan. It has different varieties; two of them like Multa... more Seraiki is spoken in central area of Pakistan. It has different varieties; two of them like Multani and Derawali are
described in present study. It belongs to Indo-Aryan family and having Perso-Arabic script. It is believed that
Seraiki is contact variety between Sindhi and Punjabi and other languages of Pakistan. The study focuses onhistorical perspective and phonological features of Seraiki language. It explores that Seraiki has 48 consonantal phonemes (Shackle, 1976:18) in its inventory but there are some differences in the consonantal allophones of
different varieties of Seraiki. These differences like realizational, incidental and distributional are described between two varieties of this language. Moreover, other phonological changes at segmental and supra-segmental level in the central variety of Seraiki are also discussed. This study will be significant in understanding phonological
change that has occurred in this variety of Seraiki over the time.
Key words: Seraiki, phonemic inventory, phonological change, realizational, incidental, and distributional differences, segmental and supra-segmental level
Global Language Review, 2019
This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonolo... more This paper is about language variation i.e. lexical variation caused by the interfaces of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax in Pakistani languages. According to Shackle (2014) Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki languages belong to the Indo-Aryan language family. However, there are found many lexical differences significant enough to make these languages quite different from one another. The study focuses on these lexical variations based on three types of interfaces, i.e. Phonology/Morphology, Phonology/Syntax, and Morphology/Syntax. The data has been collected from the native speakers of Urdu, Punjabi, and Seraiki. The analysis of the data includes finding out the three types of interfaces, making derivations and notations (Chomsky and Halle; 1968), and formulating the rules. Then a comparison of all these rules and lexical variations have been discussed. Results have shown that these interfaces play an important role to cause lexical variation among Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki; the languages ...
International Journal of Linguistics and Culture
Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact... more Cross-cultural communication is the study of ways people from multi-cultural backgrounds interact, in similar and different manners among themselves, and how they strive to converse cross culturally. This becomes particularly significant given potential frequency of interaction and/or the nature of relationship. The claim of Pakistan-China friendship with new economic agreements in the form of CPEC is opening up new avenues requiring effective cross-cultural communication. One of which is in the academic domain with an increased students exchange. The aim of the present research is to explore the cross-cultural conversational strategies used by female Chinese Students studying at International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan while conversing in English. The current study focuses to depict their cultural context i.e. high context culture or low context culture by exploring their method of developing the topic; ways of responding difficult questions and participation in term of...