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LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN FIRST INFORMATION REPORTS AND COURT REPORTS: A GENRE ANALYSIS OF MURDER CASE REPORTS his study is an attempt to analyze the linguistic and generic patterns of language use in the legal genre of FIRs and Court reports. Numerous valuable studies have been carried out to identify underlying structure of language in the genre of legal texts in the western countries; it is still minimal in Pakistan. The study thus explores the lexical and generic choices of legal genre that characterize both registers in the Pakistani context. The data for this research comprises a sample of 32 FIRs and court reports of murder cases taken from January 2009 to 2011. An exploratory qualitative analysis technique has been employed for the data analysis. After analyzing the data in the light of Vijay Bhatia’s seven step model of genre analysis, it has been found that the FIRs and court reports contain lexical, syntactical and textual devices. The findings of the research reveal that first information reports and court reports have some set patterns of textual and grammatical structuring characterized by archaic words, doublets, technical terms, nominalized expressions, long and complicated sentences and ordinary words with special meanings. Thus, the findings may help the future researchers in exploring the new trends in the field of forensic linguistics and legal discourse and writing.
GENDER IN AUTHORIAL VOICE THROUGH METADISCURSIVE MARKERS: A CORPUS-ASSISTED ANALYSIS OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE The use of meta discursive markers to project authorial voice in dissertations, which has got much pedagogical attention over time, has become more complex in recent years. The present study has undertaken to explore authorial voices by utilizing meta discursive markers in M.Phil dissertations of Education, Pakistan Studies and International Relationship. The interpersonal model presented by Hyland has been applied and Ivanic and Camps’ voice typology used as lens to find authorial voices by using these markers. The primary objective of present research was to explore the interactional and interactive meta-discursive markers used by both genders to constitute their authorial voice in dissertations of social sciences. The other objective was to analyze the different strategies of applying meta-discursive markers by both genders to represent their authorial voice in academic discourse. The mixed method approach was used to analyze the data. It was analyzed both at textual and interpersonal levels through a software (AntConc) in order to find authorial voices in dissertations. It was hypothesized that there would be significant differences between males’ and females’ voices in dissertations. Data was collected in soft form through Elibrary at NUML. The findings revealed that in education dissertations both genders projected different authorial voices and used different strategies of entailing their readers in their written text. In Pakistan Studies, there was no clear variation between males and females’ voices because both females constituted same voices and both males constituted different voices but only in International Relations, both genders used same authorial voices that’s why there was no gender difference in IR. Further studies can be investigated on other disciplines to find variations among disciplines rather than gender. It can also be expanded to include comparisons of other disciplines. It can also be carried out for different levels of education such as bachelors, language assignments in matriculation, higher or secondary education level and in different age groups and cross cultures. The differences in projecting voices do not only depend on genders but sometimes they depend on disciplines as well as content.
Concentering the Fantastic and the Postmodern: A Study of Fabulation in J.R.R Tolkien’s Legendarium This study is an exploration of British fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) trilogy from a fabulative perspective. Fabulation, a term coined by Robert Scholes, is associated with postmodernism and I employ this concept to highlight the concentering or common points where postmodernism overlaps with the fantastic. As a twentieth century fantasy fiction text, The Lord of the Rings trilogy provides ample opportunity to investigate the fabulative aspects of modern fantasy. The central argument of the study is that postmodernism and modern fantasy fiction are dissimilar genres that largely run along diverging lines; however they converge and overlap at certain points. I postulate that this convergence is along fabulative lines. Fabulative world-making in fantasy fiction entails inventing secondary worlds with an arresting strangeness. These secondary worlds mimic the primary or real world; therefore, amidst the strangeness the reader can still sense a semblance of similarity with the real world. The readers commit their belief to the secondary reality because as soon as their belief falters, the immersive experience of the imaginary fabulative world disappears. On the outset, it seems as if the imaginary worlds are composed of other-worldly, supernatural elements but on closer inspection it is revealed that there is a juxtaposition of reality and the unreal in modern fantasy texts such The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This study also undertakes a discussion of the Tolkienian concepts of Fall, Mortality and the Machine (or Magic) as fabulative devices. The research method employed in this study is textual analysis. This study is likely to be a significant addition in the production of knowledge in the field of Tolkien studies and fantasy fiction.
EMERGENCE AND DISSOLUTION OF HIERARCHY: A POST-ANARCHIST READING OF VERONICA ROTH’S FICTION Many works of contemporary young-adult fiction in English have the common themes of domination and violence as depicted in a panoptic world. The present research deals with Veronica Roth’s three texts, Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012) and Allegiant (2013) representing dystopian Fiction. Out of the many attributes of dystopian fiction, the selected texts depict various aspects of a specific dimension of reality by highlighting the guiding beliefs and ideals of the society as portrayed in these novels. In this research, I explore the primary texts for the causes of hierarchal domination and the elements of freedom in a society and look at possible ways for improving the societal structures for their balanced sustenance. Using Bookchin’s theorizing about the domination and oppression in hierarchical structures of a society, this study examines the recurring hostility between the multiple authority units which exercise power on other strata of society as portrayed in the selected trilogy. It also studies the represented use of subjective violence by various organizations of these novels and how they achieve and secure their political and economic interests. Applying a bricolage of selected lenses, this exploration critically studies the symbolic role of government and its institutions of the selected fiction with reference to the situation of violence and anarchy. This study also investigates how violence and insurgency on one hand, weakens and damages the society along with the lives of citizens, and on the other hand, it causes the peripheral voices of society to dismantle the authority. This qualitative study also examines the ruthless measures taken by the city to curb the violence created by dissident groups and how this insurgency impacts the fabric of society. Using textual analysis as a research tool, this investigation of the selected texts locates the reasons of domination and repression and the consequent subjugation and outbreaks due to this unchallenged authority.
Stance and Engagement in Support Groups: A Corpus-Based Study of Online Discourses This study has attempted to discover the Stance and Engagement features of Online Discourses. The researcher chose to study the language of Online Forums. Three domains of Online Forums that were forums for Mental Health, Physical Health and Social Issues were selected for study. The researcher found that there were no comparative researches conducted on the language of these forums from Metadiscourse perspective. So, this research has been done to fill that gap and, reveal and compare the data of selected forums. To conduct the research, the researcher compiled three corpora, everyone having half a million words. Ant Conc., a corpus software, was used for the analysis of data. To find Metadiscoursal features of corpora Hyland’s (2005) Metadiscourse model was applied. This model has two components i.e. Interactive and Interactional. The study investigated the Interactional component which is further divided into Stance and Engagement. Results showed that participants of Mental Health Forums used 1115.4 Stance Markers per ten thousand words. However, the users of Physical Health Forums and Social Issues Forums employed 883.58 and 725.84 Stance Markers per ten thousand words. Frequencies show that in MHC, online users were more committed to what they said and showed personal emotions towards propositions. Regarding Engagement features, results revealed that the participants of Physical Health Forums used 417.64 Engagement Markers per ten thousand words. Whereas the participants of Social Issues Forums and Mental Health Forums utilized 402.24 and 400.32 Engagement Markers per ten thousand words respectively. This means that online users in PHC were slightly keener to drag readers into the discussion using Engagement Markers (Hyland, 2005a). The results show that online users used Stance features more than Engagement features in their writings. The results of this research can be useful for people related to social work, the medical field or welfare. Moreover, it is envisaged that other researchers will also look into the language of online discourses as it has plenty of potential to be investigated.
THE VARIETY WITHIN: COMPETING VISIONS AND VERSIONS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN SELECTED AMERICAN FICTION This study intends to explore the divide and fissures present in the American Revolutionary war portrayed through the perspectives of two opposing groups: Loyalists and Patriots. For the portrayal of these differing perspectives on the American Revolution, two works of fiction have been selected, namely, Oliver Wiswell (1940) by Kenneth Roberts and The Glorious Cause (2002) by Jeff Shaara. The study attempts to understand the two perspectives via the concepts of modernity and alternative modernity in the context of the American Revolution. Bill Ashcroft’s concept of “multiple modernities” outlined in his essay, Postcolonial Modernities, (2014) forms the backbone of the study while Eric Hobsbawm’s ideas on the emergence of nations and inventions of tradition (The Invention of Tradition 2012) help frame the American Revolution in a new light. The study investigates the divided ideological scenario that the American nation faces during the revolutionary war and demonstrates how modernity facilitates and transforms American identity and consciousness.
Construction of Maximal Complementiser Phrase Projections by Binary Merger Operations: A Comparative Minimalist Study of Punjabi and English ABSTRACT Thesis Title: Construction of Maximal Complementiser Phrase Projections by Binary Merger Operations: A Comparative Minimalist Study of Punjabi and English Strong Minimalist Thesis, as proposed by Chomsky (2000), holds that language is an optimal solution to the legibility (interface) conditions. As a recent development in Universal Grammar, it assumes that language, a component of human mind, is a computational system CHL which meets the other systems of mind at their respective interfaces: Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) and Sensori-Motor (SM). CHL provides a mechanism for valuation of the features of lexical items which are un-interpretable at the interfaces. Rooted in Strong Minimalist Thesis, this study attempts to conduct a comparative study of the derivation of Complementiser Phrase (CP) projections in two languages: Punjabi and English. The theoretical framework is borrowed from Chomsky (2008) where CHL is based on a primary operation Merge and a secondary operation Agree which values the un-interpretable ϕ-features of T and v* and structural case features of the NPs under probe/goal relation. The derivation completes in two phases C and v*. This is an exploratory study which uses qualitative method of analysis. The data is collected from the authentic sources of grammar of both languages and divided into different types with respect to different categories (each constituting a separate section of analysis): vdef, v*, Tdef, Adjuncts, and wh-/k-expressions. The schematic derivation of a structure is presented in the form of set configurations. Rigorous analysis of the data yields that derivations with nominative subjects are obtained by somewhat similar mechanism in the two languages; however, the ergative subject derivations of Punjabi are obtained differently. Ergative is an inherent case sourced from v* to the third person subjects of unergative and transitive CPs in perfective derivations. The ergative case does not render v* inactive for further Agree. Unlike English, Punjabi is a wh-in-situ language where the apparent movement of k-expressions is not because of wh-dependencies. Based on key findings, this study proposes that owing to different assignment mechanisms a functional head (e.g., v*) may assign both structural and inherent case in one derivation. Furthermore, this study proposes the mechanism of an Internal Pair Merge which may contribute significantly for future cross linguistic studies aiming to resolve the free movement of certain constituents in different languages.
MEDIATION AND COHESION IN SOUTH ASIAN FICTION: AN ANALYSIS OF TAGORE’S HOME AND THE WORLD AND MUNAWEERA’S ISLAND OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS This dissertation is a reading of two South Asian Anglophone novels: Rabindranath Tagore’s Home and the World (1919) and Nayomi Munaweera’s Island of a Thousand Mirrors (2012). This project rests on the premise that contemporary South Asian Anglophone fiction depicts a rupture in received categorizations of colonial/postcolonial, east/west, local/translocal. Both the selected texts provide ample amount of space to examine a rejection of binaristic hierarchies and an investigation into the importance of transnational concerns and intermingled South Asian histories. The main argument is based on the assumption that postcolonial theory is reductive and creates hierarchies, distinctions and divisions, thereby exhibiting imperialist nostalgia. Sara Suleri’s argument in her counter-discourse Rhetoric of English India (1992)—where she accuses postcolonial theorists and writers of perpetuating Eurocentric binarism—seems useful. Moreover, both the selected works of fiction also focus on the geographical locale from where they have emerged: they highlight their respective country’s culture, traditions and political unrest, thus foregrounding South Asia. Harish Trivedi’s argument in his essay “South Asian Literature: Reflections in a Confluence” seems to supplant Suleri’s thesis. He debunks the efficacy of postcolonial theory in reading South Asian texts and demands locally produced theoretical framework(s) that would shed the burden of empire and tie their narrative to their geography. The selection of one Bengali and one Sri Lankan novel is also significant; it challenges the recessive position given to these regions in academia and complicates the superiority of India and Indian-English fiction, which due to a problematic generalization, largely represent South Asia.
Unveiling Knowledge Patterns in Intermediate English Textbooks through Voyant Text Mining Tools: A Digital Humanities Study ABSTRACT Thesis Title: Unveiling Knowledge Patterns in Intermediate English Textbooks through Voyant Text Mining Tools: A Digital Humanities Study The contemporary digital era faces the challenge of extracting knowledge patterns from big diversified data which are difficult to read with the traditional “close reading” method. Likewise, traditional paper textbooks are considered inadaptable and less appealing, so their reading becomes uninteresting, time-consuming and less knowledge- investigative. This dissertation on text mining primarily aims to discover interactive knowledge patterns, innovative and idiosyncratic knowledge bearing dimensions through “distant reading”. To address the research problem, intermediate English textbooks have been analysed with five Voyant tools: Summary, Cirrus, Phrases, Links and Contexts. The main focus of the analysis is the transformation of static traditional Pakistani intermediate English textbooks into interactive data visuals of Summary, Cirrus, Phrases, Links and Contexts. Theoretical triangulation integrates Knowledge Discovery Theory and Hermeneutica Theory. Accordingly, the textbooks have been analysed with mixed methods to explore new interactive knowledge patterns. Results have been displayed in the form of data visualization, tabular, qualitative and quantitative data. The current research finds that Summary tool precisely quantifies stylometric features of total words, unique words, vocabulary density, average sentence length and the most frequent themes in each piece of writing. Cirrus discovers most of the key themes and characters. Phrases tool extracts 168 which are the most repeated standard collocation patterns. It was also found that Links tool interrelates almost all key ideas with one another through accurate Knowledge Graphs. Further, Context’s tool disambiguates word sense by discriminating their context, contextual meanings and parts of speech. The current study contributes by resolving the research problem, saving time with distant reading and adding aesthetic appeal for Voyant users. Finally, pedagogical implications of the current study introduce autonomous learning and teaching of textbooks, corpus building, visual generation, interesting knowledge pattern discovery and the data unification for libraries. Moreover, the current study also diverts students, teachers and publishers to digital text mined learning, teaching and publishing.
RHIZOMATIC PLOT AND CHARACTERS: A SCHIZOANALYSIS OF MEGAN TERRY AND JEAN CLAUDE VAN ITALLIE’s SELECTED PLAYS This research focuses on the impact of postmodernism on drama and its constituent elements. Situating the selected postmodern plays in the theoretical concepts of rhizome, schizoid individuals and schizoanalysis research method propounded by Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, the research investigates the narrative structure and characters of the selected plays. The research highlights the postmodern tendencies of non-conformity and inconsistency exhibited by the selected plays who have rhizomatic structures. This research also investigates various ways through which the selected transformation plays have challenged the prevailing realistic theatre characters. The postmodern dramas freely sabotage and violate the characterization norms hence, the concept of character is rather a controversial subject in postmodern action. The research substantiates this argument and affirms that characters undertake massive transformation in postmodern literature in accordance with the paradoxical and contradictory essence of postmodernism. Hence, they cannot be defined with regard to the conventions of characterization. Through these transformation plays, the playwrights have questioned the conception of a fixed, objective truth. The research validates that the American playwrights Megan Terry in Comings and Goings and Calm Down Mother and Jean-Claude van Itallie in Interview and Motel have attempted to create a unique Postmodern American identity and have revolutionized the genre of drama. Key
ERASURE IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BOOKS: AN ECOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS This study analyzes the use of the strategy of erasure in three environmental science books. These environmental science books draw on various linguistic resources to construct erasure of the ecosystem and animals from consciousness. Stibbe’s (2015) theoretical framework has been used as a lens to study erasure in the texts. He asserts that the natural world is marginalized in texts through the use of certain linguistic strategies; these strategies run throughout the whole discourse to construct the erasure of the ecosystem. Stibbe mentions nine linguistic strategies for the construction of erasure in environmental discourses. These strategies are passive voice, nominalisation, co-hyponymy, hyponymy, metaphor, metonymy, construction of noun phrases, transitivity patterns and massification. The researcher has looked for the aforementioned linguistic strategies in the discourses to see how the erasure of the ecosystem has been constructed. Through the analysis of these linguistic strategies, she has identified erasure of the ecosystem at three levels: complete omission (void), partial omission (trace) and misrepresentation of the reality (mask). It is argued that all these strategies are repeatedly used in environmental texts to construct erasure at the three levels-void, mask and trace. The frequency of the occurrence of these devices varies across the books. The study suggests a new way to look at the language of ecological discourses and proposes further studies on how the use of euphemistic language in these discourses can negatively influence readers.
AUDITORY AND VISUAL LEARNING OF BILINGUAL INPUT: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION AND RETENTION IN URDU-ENGLISH SPEAKERS The study is motivated by the link between learners’ learning style preference and the modality through which they learn better in the different languages they use. In the previous studies involving bilinguals and learning modalities, Urdu-English bilinguals have not been paid much attention. The study aims to investigate the impact of two different modalities, i.e., auditory and visual, on the performance of Urdu-English bilingual learners on comprehension and retention tasks. It involves two languages, i.e., Urdu and English, in order to find out whether the impact of different modalities on the participants’ learning is similar or different for the two languages. Furthermore, the study is concerned with ascertaining whether the preferred modalities of Urdu-English bilinguals are the same as the ones through which they perform better on comprehension and retention tasks in the two languages. The study is based on two models: the first model is Visual, Auditory, Read/write and Kinesthetic (VARK) model, and working memory model. The study uses Language History Questionnaire, VARK questionnaire and comprehension and retention tests to find out the participants’ language background, learning styles and performance on comprehension and retention tasks, respectively. Findings of the study reveal that the relationship between learning style preferences and the modalities in which the participants perform better are different for retention and comprehension tasks. Moreover, the results obtained for Urdu and English language are similar in the case of retention tests but different in the case of comprehension tests. Furthermore, the findings show that bimodality does not necessarily enhance learning. The present study helps in bringing into view the importance of modalities in learning and their connection to learning styles. Moreover, it uncovers the difference in the effect of modalities on learning when an individual is learning in two different languages.
Grammatical Metaphor in Academic Writing of Undergraduate Students of English: A Corpus-Assisted Case Study In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), grammatical metaphor (GM) is considered as a primary resource for the creation of condensed and compact meaning in academic discourse. Students of English at university level require awareness of this fundamental linguistic tool. Adopting the theoretical framework of SFL, the present study is an attempt to quantify the deployment of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor and different nominalization forms in the academic writing of undergraduate students of English. Another aim is the description of the problems in the use of GM traceable in their academic writing. Working in the theoretical framework of SFL, I have employed the approach of a mixed-method study in which both numerical and descriptive data analysis tools are used. After the collection of handwritten essays in response to the given prompt from 81 students in BS final semester, a corpus was constructed. Starting with manual reading that is followed by computational analysis of the corpus, I have found that the sample population shows slight growth in their repertoire of paradigmatic choices offered in the form of ideational grammatical metaphor, especially nominalization. Furthermore, the students’ metaphorical control is still at intermediate stage which constraints the development of their argumentation. Therefore, suitable pedagogical interventions are suggested.
DECOLONIZING RACE AND GENDER?: A STUDY OF SELECTED SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORIC POETRY This research aims to explore the different themes through which South Asian writers in diaspora attempt decolonize race and gender in selected poetry. Literary practices of South Asian women play a significant role in their contribution to feminist discourse and their written experiences reflect on how feminism is practiced and perceived by brown women in diaspora. Such form feminism and feminist practices emerge from an intersectional approach to gender and race. The poetry selected for analysis is taken from the works of Rupi Kaur, Fatimah Asghar and Leah-Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha who are second generation immigrant women from South Asia. The researcher uses theoretical frameworks provided by Chandra Mohanty‘s Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity and Sara Suleri‘s Women Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition to analyze the themes in selected poetry. The researcher uses the framework to determine the role of race in postcolonialism as well as South Asian feminisms. This study considers the main factors that contribute to presentation of racial and feminist experiences in South Asian diaspora in North America. Aspects of racism, classism, misogyny and oppression are common issues addressed in the themes. These themes are also scrutinized through the repetition of binaries, uneasiness of immigrants in identity formations and generalizations made through autobiographical depiction of their experiences in their poetry. This research also explores various elements of South Asian feminism that can be found in contemporary literature and theory but were marginalized in Western colonial and phallocentric historical discourse. Keywords: Postcolonialism, Race, Gender, Feminism, Decolonization.