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Title Influence of Social Class on Cognitive Development of Syntax: A Study of Pakistani EFL Learners

Author(s) Ubaidullah Khan

Abstract ABSTRACT Influence of Social Class on Cognitive Development of Syntax: A Study of Pakistani EFL Learners There is an undeniable link between language and social class of the learners. This study explores the link between syntax and social class of the learners by studying correlation between the two variables. Cognitivists considered language a cognitive construct but social cognition theories believe that human cognition is a social phenomenon, and so is language. Social class, which is a social variable, not only affects cognition, but also language. Based on this approach, this research project explores correlation between social class and the cognitive development of syntax among the learners of English language in Pakistani universities. The research also explores the link between cognitive and social approaches to language acquisition and highlights the social nature of language development. The study followed correlational method of research to find out the relationship between social class of the adult learners of English and cognitive development of syntax among them. This study also took into account gender, marital status and age as extraneous variables and studied the relationship of these with the sample’s performance in syntax based test. The population for this study consisted of male and female students of language courses belonging to three universities of Pakistani capital Islamabad. To collect social class data and test syntactic skills of the sample, two research tools were designed; a Socio-economic Index (SES Index or SEI) and in the Syntax-based test. The SES Index consisted of five social class variables. These are occupation, income, educational qualification, medium of instruction, and property. The sample was asked to provide details of the said variables about three family members; the subjects themselves, their fathers and mothers. The second tool designed for this research was Syntax based test which aimed to test various syntactic skills of the learners. Students’ performance in the syntax based test was considered an indicator of their cognitive development. The participants were required to fill up the SES Index and solve the test. Both the tools had equal marks, that is, 100. This class score of the respondents was studied for its correlation with the syntax score. SPSS was used to study correlation between social class score / SES score of the individuals and their syntax score. The results yielded moderately significant positive correlation between social class of the individuals and their syntax score and the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between the two variables was retained. Further, the population was divided into three social classes on the basis on 33% percentile and regression was run to see mean score difference, which pointed out significant mean difference in three SC groups. Apart from social class, gender, marital status and age were identified as extraneous variables. T-test and Mann Whitney were run in SPSS to study the relationship between each of the said variables and syntax. The data were categorised according to these variables and then the tests were applied. In case of gender, which is the first extraneous variable, the mean difference between males and females was significant with females scoring more in syntax test than males, but SPSS showed that these results were statistically non-significant, so the hypothesis of unequal variance between males and females was rejected. The t-test regarding married and single population proved statistically significant difference with married scoring higher than the singles in syntax test. Unlike gender and marital status variables, age variable had three groups, and due to non-homogenous population in these three groups, non-parametric Mann Whitney test was run. No statistically significant difference was found in the mean rank of age group 1 and 2, and 1 & 3. Also, no statistically significant difference was found in the mean rank of the two age groups, which proved equal performance in syntax test by both groups.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2018-07-11

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