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Cultural Trauma and the question of Sovereignty: A Study of Osama Alomar's The Teeth of the Comb and other Stories Title: Cultural Trauma and the Question of Sovereignty: A Study of Osama Alomar’s The Teeth of the Comb and Other Stories This research attempts to study the representation of necropolitics and cultural trauma experienced by Syrian civilian characters in the flash fiction collections written by Osama Alomar, a Syrian refugee author. The selected collections of flash fiction include The Teeth of the Comb and Other Stories (2017) and Fullblood Arabian (2017). The satirical, metaphorical, and allegorical narratives presented in both collections have been interpreted to analyze the implications of wide-scale violence, unrest, and instability in Syria in the wake of the Syrian civil war. This research is guided by two theoretical perspectives, including Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics and Jeffrey C. Alexander’s theory of cultural trauma. Both theories are triangulated to show the working of Syrian necropowers in the selected collections; how they exert their sovereignty over Syrian civilians to strengthen their rule over Syria and subdue opposition, which, in turn, leads to cultural trauma at a collective level. The analysis of cultural trauma experienced by Syrian civilian characters is carried out through the exploration of their disrupted collective identity, the breakdown of collective consciousness, the collapse of the broader social fabric of Syria, and the extensive displacement of civilian characters. This research is qualitative in nature and Catherine Belsey’s textual analysis method seems to be the most suitable method to unpack the allegorical narratives full of satire and metaphors. This method is helpful for examining the ramifications of necropolitics and cultural trauma caused by the Syrian civil war on the cultural, social, and political fabric of Syrian society. This research also contributes to the ongoing discussions on necropolitics as a theoretical perspective by making an intervention in Achille Mbembe’s exploration of necropolitics. By drawing attention to the importance of resistance strategies that are adopted by any oppressed factions of society, which I term as ‘the pursuit of a ‘justified resistive autonomy’ that is exhibited by the Syrian civilian characters in the selected collections, my research adds to the discussions of necropolitics.
SURVIVAL UNDER OCCUPATION: A NECROPOLITICAL STUDY OF THE SELECTED PALESTINIAN SHORT STORIES IN ENGLISH Title: Survival under Occupation: A Necropolitical Study of the Selected Palestinian Short Stories in English. This research work aims to study the predicament of the Palestinian population under occupation as depicted in the selected Palestinian short stories from the collections Gaza Writes Back (2014), Qissat (2006) and The Sea Cloak and Other Stories (2019), under the lens of Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics and Fanon’s ideas regarding violence and decolonization. It draws on Mbembe’s work on necropolitics to study the genocide of the Palestinian Arabs by the Israeli state and the constant state of pain the Palestinians are living in under Israel’s necropolitics as mentioned in the selected texts. Furthermore, the researcher has invoked Fanon’s work on violence and Mbembe’s conception of suicide bomber and martyrdom to study the consequent armed resistance of the Palestinian Arabs. For this purpose, the researcher undertakes qualitative research and utilizes textual analysis to study the selected texts in depth to achieve the research objectives and reach a definite conclusion. This study reveals, in light of the selected texts, how Palestinian Arabs are killed mainly based on the relationship of enmity and chiefly on the basis of the mere suspicion and are living under the constant fear of death due to endless bombing and firing. However, this research also uncovers, using textual evidence, how the Palestinian population has resorted to violence to show resistance to the Israeli occupation. Through this research, the researcher intends to draw attention towards the repressed narrative of the Palestinian Arabs by demonstrating how the Palestinian population has been suffering interminably under Israeli occupation and that it has resorted to violence to counter its oppressors. This research work will also contribute to the understanding of necropolitics prevalent in the contemporary world as well as will help in deciphering the resistance undertaken by the repressed nations to counter the necropolitics.
A Comparative Study of the use of Metadiscourse Markers in Pakistani and American Journals of English Language: A Corpus Based Study v ABSTRACT Title: A Comparative Analysis of Metadiscourse Markers in Pakistani and American Journals of English Language: A Corpus-Based Study Abstract This thesis presents a comparative study on the use of metadiscourse markers in the abstract sections of approved Pakistani and American journals. Metadiscourse markers play a crucial role in organizing and persuading the text while engaging the readers. This study examines the contrast in language used in journal abstracts from Pakistan and the United States, focusing on the frequency and categories of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers. The theoretical framework utilizes Hyland's (2005) taxonomy model, while the analysis relies on the metadiscourse markers theory. Data was collected using a judgment sampling approach, with a total of five Pakistani and five American journals over a five-year period (2018-2022). The American corpus had a larger sample size, consisting of 332 abstracts compared to the Pakistani corpus with 240 abstracts. The software Metapak 2.0 was employed to extract and analyze the data, considering categories such as frame markers, evidential markers, endophoric markers, code glosses, transitions, boosters, hedges, attitudes, self-mentions, and engagement markers. The findings reveal a higher frequency of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers in the American data compared to the Pakistani data. Moreover, both corpora demonstrated a preference for using transition markers as the most frequent metadiscourse marker. The study highlights that authors from both countries establish reader-friendly texts by employing text-oriented cues and establishing connections with the readers, particularly in language-focused research.
Morphosyntactic ability of Gender Marking in Urdu- English Simultaneous Bilinguals: A Psycholinguistics Investigation Title: Morphosyntactic Ability Of Gender Marking In Urdu-English Simultaneous Bilinguals: A Psycholinguistic Investigation Bilingualism is an important aspect of today’s bi/multilingual world community and empirical explorations into its various psycholinguistic mechanisms are crucial. In the context of Pakistan, the development of early bilingualism for children has lately become a trend among an ever-increasing number of parents and schools alike. The present study seeks to get empirical insights into the development of morphosyntactic development of Urdu-English early bilinguals. The study specifically aims at exploring the psycholinguistic mechanisms involved in the children’s acquisition of gender marking ability in two languages, Urdu and English, which have distinct gender systems. For this purpose, the data has been collected from a sample of 48 early bilinguals from three local schools of Bahawalpur. The selected participants were categorized into two groups on the basis of gender, boys and girls, and further into three age groups within the broader age bracket of 4 to 10 years to conduct a fine-grained analysis of morphosyntactic ability in relation to gender, age of acquisition and the sequence of language acquisition. To explore their morphosyntactic ability of gender marking, the data was gathered with the help of three psycholinguistic experimental tests, which included: grammatical judgment task, picture naming task and translation task. The analysis of the data revealed that for simultaneous bilinguals, there is a clear interference between two distinct gender systems of Urdu and English. The results showed that simultaneous Urdu-English bilingual children face difficulty in assigning gender to Urdu inanimate nouns, which is clearly an influence of English gender system where inanimate nouns are gender neutral. The results of the study have important implications for elementary schools as well as for parents who encourage the children’s active use of one language and downplay the other instead of helping the children maintain a balance in the use of both the languages
A Corpus assisted Study of cohesion Patterns of Academic discourse in FSS at NUML Title: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Cohesion Patterns of Academic Discourse in FSS at NUML Cohesion is an important aspect of academic writing. When writing is coherent or "sticks together," readers can understand it well. The present research has been carried out to investigate the use of grammatical cohesive patterns in MPhil theses produced in the departments of Education, International Relations and Pakistan Studies in the faculty of social sciences at NUML. The study was specifically intended to explore various types of grammatical cohesion. The cohesion model proposed by Halliday and Hassan (1976) has been used as a theoretical lens in this study. The first objective of this research was to investigate the most common type of grammatical cohesion used by the students in their academic discourse and the second objective was to investigate the inappropriate use of grammatical cohesive devices. Data analysis was done by using a mixed method approach as data has been analyzed by using both quantitative and qualitative methods. A corpus was constructed by selecting thirty theses from three departments of social sciences. The data analysis was done in two phases. Firstly, the researcher used the computational software AntConc (3.5.8) to find out the frequency of each type of grammatical cohesion found in the selected academic discourse, which was followed by the manual reading of the corpus to see the inappropriate use of those grammatical cohesive patterns. Consequently, the findings of the present research showed that the three most frequent types of grammatical cohesion were references (12.53%), conjunctions (5.71%), and ellipses (0.28%). Contrarily, the least frequent kind of grammatical cohesion in the academic discourse of the chosen departments was substitution (0.09%). The research discovered fewer misuses of grammatical cohesive devices as wel
A pragmatic analysis of News Editorials in DAWN and the New York Times Covering the Afghan Conflict Title: A Pragmatic Analysis of News Editorials in Dawn and The New York Times Covering the Afghan Conflict The study of pragmatics is what a speaker communicates and what a listener infers from a conversation immersed in different circumstances, including the situational setting, the mental states of the participants, the previous discourse, and others. The purpose of this research has been to find out how language is employed pragmatically to develop a perspective, particularly on the controversial issue of Afghanistan between Pakistan and America. For this, two top newspapers, i.e., Dawn and the New York Times from Pakistan and America respectively are chosen to conduct the research. News editorials from both newspapers are collected from August to December 2021. This study uses a mixed-method approach focusing on news editorials covering Afghan peace process. The qualitative data is analyzed through thematic analysis using Searle’s model of speech acts, whereas quantitative data is analyzed through descriptive statistics where frequencies of speech acts are gauged. Austin and Searle’s Speech Act Theory (1969) has been selected as the framework. This theory is employed to find out that what type of speech acts are paramount in the editorials and how different speech act help construct Afghan conflict in Dawn and the New York Times. The study also clarifies whether both the newspapers’ perspectives on the Afghan issue are similar or different. This study is important because it makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how news editorials construct and convey a perspective through speech acts. The findings demonstrate that the use of speech acts in the news editorials does not follow a specific order. The results show that certain speech acts used in the editorials vary in their frequency. It was observed that both newspapers express different perspectives on the Afghan conflict when the hidden messages are examined using the speech act theory at that particular time when USA troops were initially withdrawn from Afghanistan. Pakistan has strong desire for the settlement of Afghanistan and tries to show positive image of Taliban’s government. Whereas U.S shows that there is chaos and people are not satisfied with the Taliban government. Theory of speech acts can be used by researchers in future to investigate speech acts in variety of fields, including education, court, and editors in editorials with larger sample
Linguistic Fallacies in Argumentative Writings of Undergraduate Students as Numl: A case Study Title: Linguistic Fallacies in Argumentative Writings of Undergraduate Students at NUML: A Case Study Linguistic fallacies are common errors in reasoning that can make an argument seem less logical. When writing an argument, these fallacies show that the arguments are not valid or are not important. Therefore, the purpose of this case study is to identify and analyze different types of linguistic fallacies used in the argumentative writings of students enrolled in the third semester of the English Department at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad. This case study employs a descriptive exploratory methodology. One hundred and twenty argumentative essays are collected from students who take an academic writing course as a subject. Mayfield’s (2014) model of inductive and deductive fallacies is used to determine the informal fallacies. The findings of the study demonstrate that students made a number of linguistic fallacies (inductive and deductive) in their work. Some of these fallacies were so basic that they could really be prevented with the use of clear and explicit instruction. The results also show that students came to a conclusion without presenting sufficient evidence to support it in their writing. The findings provide a contribution to improving the effectiveness of writing materials and courses by focusing on the unique characteristics of students and also provide strategies for students to avoid fallacies in argumentative writing in future.
Collective memory and identity Construction : An analysis of selected kashmiri Texts
From attachement disorder to perpetration: A Psychological study of narrative identity in Netflix Original you an 13 reasons why Title: From Attachment Disorder to Perpetration: A Psychoanalytical Study of Narrative Identity in Netflix Original You and 13 Reasons Why This thesis examines the concept of Narrative Identity and its relationship to individuals who engage in harmful behaviors, the perpetrators. It focuses on the characters Joe Goldberg from the series "You" and Bryce Walker from "13 Reasons Why" to investigate the influence of Reactive Attachment Disorder on their actions. By integrating micro- level perpetration experiences into their narrative identities, the study aims to understand the complexities of their behaviors and moral development. Drawing on Finkel and Straus' categorization of perpetration, McAdams and McLean's theory of narrative identity, and Freud's concept of the unconscious mind, the research explores how attachment disorders in early childhood overshadow the identity development of perpetrators in the selected texts. Furthermore, it observes the changes in the behaviors of Joe Goldberg and Bryce Walker throughout the series. Additionally, the study examines the differences in the treatment of the perpetrators and the focus on their lives between the novels and their visual adaptations.
Investigating the Differend: A Study of Heterogeneous Voices in Anglophone South Asian Fiction Thesis Title: Investigating the Differend: A Study of Anglophone South Asian Fiction This dissertation is a study of heterogeneity of conflicting religious, cultural, political, and social voices in Anglophone South Asian fiction. It is delimited to Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim (2011), Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil (2008), and Shashi Tharoor’s Riot: A Novel (2001). This research project investigates how the Muslim difference is inscribed in fictional writings of local/home and diasporic Anglophone South Asian writers. This study claims that these writers employ the value system of secular rationalism and liberal humanism to analyze the largely faithbased ontology of the Muslims in South Asian and diasporic spaces. It also argues that these writings self-consciously undertake to explicate the nature of differences among incongruent religious and ideological groups with a view to effect their imaginative resolution. But these irreducible differences, termed as differends by French Philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, may not be settled to the satisfaction of all sides of the divide. This genre of fiction, then, in order to offer the possibility of an imaginary resolution of the disputes among ideological adversaries, inflicts wrongs on one of the parties to the conflict. This dissertation argues that when the fictional or fictionalized conflict is articulated by Anglophone South Asian writers, in which the Muslims constitute one of the parties to the conflict, the resolution turns them into ‘victims’ because of the rational secular and liberal humanist value judgment system brought to bear on the conflict. I intervene in the critical scholarship about this genre by exploring the dynamics and assumptions that contribute towards the perpetuation of the sense of injustice felt by the believing and practicing Muslims because of their representation in these writings. It is through both disrupting and confirming the Western and non-Muslim world’s perception of the figure of the Muslim, raising Muslims’ voice yet participating in the mechanisms that suppress it, overturning erstwhile stereotypes but proliferating new negative images about them, this genre of fiction problematizes and complicates contemporary production of knowledge about the Muslim difference.
Prescribing The Present Over The Past: A Study of Presentism In Postmodern Visual Narratives Prescribing The Present Over The Past: A Study Of Presentism In Postmodern Visual Narratives This thesis analyses two postmodern visual narratives - a 1998 film, Pleasantville, and a 2008 mini-series, Lost in Austen. The former is a depiction of High Modern American society while the latter is set in Regency England. The primary concern of my study is to identify and examine the ‘presentist’ elements in these visual narratives and how they overshadow the actual socio-cultural dilemmas of Regency England and High Modern America, as well as the tools and techniques used to achieve this. Jane Austen’s Regency romance novel, Pride and Prejudice, is analyzed parallel to Lost in Austen, while Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s is juxtaposed with Pleasantville, as cultural artifacts detailing the respective eras depicted in both visual narratives. This research also examines the influences of the postmodern era that have resulted in such presentist portrayals as represented in the selected film and mini-series. My research identifies how the actual events and occurrences of the postmodern age shaped the contexts of production of the film and mini-series, and are the purpose behind the presentist elements depicted in them. It concludes that owing to the filmmakers’ presentist inclination; racial bias, gender discrimination and dubiety of new knowledge and advancements have trickled into more contemporaneous depictions of Regency and High Modern periods. It further reveals the actual socio- cultural dilemmas of people from both eras as represented in Pride and Prejudice and Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Perpetrators Are Not Totemic! An Analysis of The ‘Malefactors’ from The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto and in The Company of Strangers by Awais Khan Title: Perpetrators are not Totemic!: An Analysis of ‘Malefactors’ from The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto and In the Company of Strangers by Awais Khan Perpetrator pertains to an individual or group accountable for perpetrating acts of violence or harm, propelled by resolute ideological convictions. An act of perpetration denotes the actual violent action or offense carried out by the perpetrator, guided by their extremist beliefs or motivations. Dana K. Nelkin's and Michael Mann's ideas on Moral Responsibility and Ideological Killers have been diverse concepts evident in the selected Pakistani literary texts. Grounded in perpetrator studies, this research aims to qualitatively analyze how the perpetrator and the act of perpetration in Pakistani fiction are different from or similar to the selected perpetrator typologies (Moral Responsibility and Ideological Killers) set forth by the theorists in the global north. Furthermore, it seeks to explore how a perpetrator cannot be held responsible wholly for his action without considering the reasons behind his perpetration. The present study concludes that political, psychological, personal, social, and ideological reasons lead the perpetrators toward an act of perpetration. The comprehensive research validates that the perpetrator typologies set forth by the theorists in the global north are ubiquitous. The study, likewise, discovered how a culprit could not be held accountable entirely for his perpetration without being mindful of the factors involved, as those reasons appear to be tenacious. Social, political, ideological, personal, and psychological problems impel people to drift apart from the laws and act vilely. Hence, considering people erroneous and imposing sanctions on them for something unchangeable is not apt precisely if the contributory reasons are psychological. Understanding perpetrator psychology and the complexities surrounding acts of perpetration is crucial to unraveling the mysteries of violent behaviors within specific contexts and ideological frameworks.
From Violence to "Utmost Happiness": An Anarchist Critique of South Asian Anglophone Fiction Title: From Violence to “Utmost Happiness”: An Anarchist Critique of South Asian Anglophone Fiction Imparting a new dimension to the critical inquiry, the current research is an anarchist critique of selected literary texts with an attention to violence in South Asian context. I have selected Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing (2013), Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), and Nayomi Munoveera’s Island of Thousand Mirrors (2012) as primary texts. The strategic location of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, with povertyridden population, war-torn communal structures, an intensifying religious fundamentalism, ethnic homogeneity, and ecologically worsening environment, has inspired many writers to raise the question of affability of civilization in their creative writings. With the help of a multi-modeled theoretical framework, I question the logic of the present technological civilization founded upon the principle of “development” and “progress” as explicitly stated by hegemonic convictions and examine civilization’s bearing and implications for multiple forms of life existing in these locales, as presented by the writers. The contemporary elevation of civilization as harbinger of symmetrical power relations, class parity, social justice and “happiness” has been questioned by South Asian writers; they deem the current model of civilization as suffused with perennial violence and its proliferation of social injustice, class disparity, and strangulation of ethnic communities in the name of “nationalism” as genocidal. In addition to that, the alternatives voiced by these writers in their respective contexts are also studied and analysed. The thesis examines the atrocious consequences of land appropriation, alienation and objectification of human beings, disintegration of non-human life, only for economic and political gains, as engines of perennial violence. I explore if civilization and its strategies, as identified in the selected fiction, are subjecting all forms of life to erasure for the vested interest of a few segments. I contend that by narrating the violent strategies of civilization, manifested in the social, economic, political and environmental spaces of their lands, the selected writers state the disruption created for multiple forms of life and by giving an alternative solution for a violence-free life, the South Asian writers are broadening the scope of contemporary knowledge produced in this field.
Trafficking Humanitarianism: A Postcolonial Feminist Analysis of Selected American Fiction Title: Trafficking Humanitarianism: A Postcolonial Feminist Analysis of Selected American Fiction The present study is conducted to analyze the representation of the sex trade that takes place due to human trafficking and how it gets featured in literary texts by Western writers. This study also targets the White Euro-American males who are shown available to handle the bundle and burdens of brown/ black women while rescuing them or giving them their voices. Spivak’s idea of ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ and ‘Othering’ is added to the study as the source for the theoretical framework applied to the three literary texts: Sold 2006, A Walk Across the Sun 2012, and A Garden of Burning Sand 2013 to understand the concept of voicelessness, marginalization, humanitarian trafficking, and trafficked subalterns. Patricia McCormick and Corban Addison as American writers are writing on behalf of brown/ black women from the global south and portraying White men as their only well- wishers and rescuers. The study is conducted on the three literary texts belonging to the genre of ‘Young Adult Fiction’ and they are being analyzed through the lens of postcolonial feminist theory, Can the Subaltern Speak (1988), Othering (1985) and General Strain Theory (1992) by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Robert Agnew, respectively. The textual analytical approach is applied to the study to explore the idea of postcolonial feminism when applied to the subaltern trafficked victims. The study concludes with the analysis that brown/ black women living under the pressure of society, patriarchy, and imperial rule also undergo suppression similar to the abuse when involved in the trafficking network by the traffickers. White men are considered a specific agency that is involved actively in the trafficking of humanistic as well as activist roles through which they think they can rescue the trafficked subaltern women