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| Title | Abstract | Action(s) |
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| Proverbiality and Worldview: A Comparative Study of The Thematic Categorization of Proverbs Across Languages | Proverbs construct social reality of its users. This research aims to study the deterministic and relative aspects of languages. It thematically categorizes five hundred Urdu proverbs and equal five hundred proverbs taken from English language, using The Matti Kussi International Type System of Proverbs. Furthermore it investigates the Universal and Relative aspects of proverbs. The results show both similar as well as culturally different themes. Proverbs give insight about the worldview reflected through them and in them. |
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| Impact of Cynicism in Contemporary Ethics | Cynicism is one of the most important movement in the history of ancient greek which started in fourth century BC. Untill the time of romans. The aim of the present research is to describe historical review of cynicism, and its impact on modern as well as postmodern ethics. Here, the first chapter deals with origin of Cynic movement and the ideology of Cynicism. In this chapter, I highlight the problem of source of information concerning Cynicism. I also gave a detailed overviewed of socrates ethics as it was the roots of Cynicism. I also discussed in this chapter the three eminent Cynic Philosophers namely, Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, and Crates of Thebes. The other Cynics who emerged after three important intellectuals are merely carried on certain tradition are also the part of discussion. The second chapter deals with modern ethics and Cynicism, in this chapter, eight important enlightenment thinkers include B. Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, Christopher Wieland, J. Rouuseau, D. Diderot, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and F. Nietzsche. I found major Cynic impact on these intellectuals as used to adopted in the past. The third chapter deals with postmodern ethics and Cynicism. Here. I include four major postmodern intellectuals namely, M. Foucault, Richard Rotary, J. Lytord, , z. Bauman. I this chapter, some major Cynic ideologies like virtue, knowledge, cosmopolitanism, and freedom specially freedom of speech, living close to nature by understanding by understanding human nature and cosmic nature as a whole are discussed that are being found in the ethical and political thoughts of the postmodern thinkers. It shows the strong impact of Cynicism on Contemporary ethics. It is also mentioned that the mood of behaviour of the contemporary intellectuals is same as Cynics used to adopt in the past. It is also observed that contemporary intellectuals are also naturalistic philosophers and are the part of legacy of the Cynics. |
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| A Social Semiotic Analysis of the Websites of Top Rated HEC Recognized Public and Private Universities of Pakistan | Websites are an important telecommunication tool as all around the world people rely on the websites as means of communication and retrieving information. Especially the educational institutes use websites to facilitate national as well as international students by providing important information and a chance to interact with the university officials. The aim of this research is to investigate the semiotic resources exploited by the websites of Top rated HEC recognized public and private universities to account for the technology utilized by these websites and their interactivity level. It throws light on various tactics used by the producers and organizers of the educational websites to attract the audience and explores the ideologies propagated by these websites. At the same time, it also throws light on the variations present in various educational websites in terms of basic layout and design features and the use of written, visual, verbal and sonic modes of representation to create meanings. The homepages of websites of ten public and private universities of Pakistan were analysed by applying a social semiotic multimodal framework of website analysis proposed by Pauwels (2012). Insights from Kress & van Leeuwen’s (2006) multimodal framework and van Leeuwen’s (2006) modal of typography were incorporated into Pauwels’ modal and this triangulation of methods helped in providing comprehensive results supported by authentic proofs. The results have indicated that the interactivity of these websites is independent of the sector to which they belong and most of the universities like LUMS, CIIT, Riphah, IIUI, UoK, BZU and PU have adopted unique ways to provide the means of interaction to the target audience. Both the private universities and Public universities like BZU, CIIT, UoK and IIUI have focused more on increasing interactivity through social media sites and blog posts while PU is the only one that provides a chance of one-to-one interaction between the users and the producers. Keywords: Multimodality, websites, social semiotic analysis |
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| De/constructing Gender Stereotypes: A Feminist Stylistics Analysis of Disney Animated Movies | The present study is an attempt to de/construct gender stereotypes in Disney animated movies. In order to locate gender de/construction in popular culture two animated movies i.e. Brave (2012) and Frozen (2013) are linguistically and semiotically analyzed to lay their embedded ideologies regarding de/constructing gender stereotypes in the selected animated movies. For this purpose the researcher has analysed selected dialogues and semiotics from the aforementioned Disney animated movies. The researcher has analyzed linguistic and semiotic discourses from the movies concerning the concept of breaking gender stereotypes by employing Mills’ 1995 model of Feminist Stylistic Analysis to deconstruct dialogues and Barthes’ 1974 model of Semiological Discourse Analysis (SDA) for the analysis of semiotics carrying the concept of de/constructing gender stereotypes. Moreover, the researcher has validated her findings of semiotic analysis of selected images carrying the concept of challenging gender stereotypes through Disney animated movies by conducting two focus group discussions each of one hour i.e one of linguists and other of non-linguists by employing Kruger’s 2000 model (video recording is attached). The findings of the research suggest that Disney animated movies can play a significant role in the de/construction of gender stereotypes among the viewers. Because cinematic representation of gender stereotypes through Disney animated movies can play a significant role in shaping the mindset of the target viewers as desired by the controlling ideological group behind the production of such movies. Furthermore, the present study suggests that popular culture is one of the best cite for ideological investment regarding the concept of de/constructing gender stereotypes. Key words: De/construction, Gender Stereotypes, Feminist Stylistics, Animated Movies |
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| PEER FEEDBACK: HOW IT WORKS WITH ESL LEARNERS?" | Learning is best seen in students when they are fully engrossed in the learning process. Their full participation in learning does not involve only their timely completion of assigned tasks but, the critical analysis of the work done by the students themselves may reflect learning at optimum level. In the current era of 21st century, the focus for critical analysis has been shifted from teacher centeredness to student centeredness approach. This indicates that assessment of learning in the form of exam and test has been substituted by assessment for learning that is effectively driven by students. Peer feedback is one of the shapes of assessment for learning. It has got position in the literature in educational context that serves as a formative tool. This study first presents the findings from survey on the existing practices of assessment strategies of writing skills of ESL learners at tertiary level. The findings reveal the scarcity in the use of online peer feedback in writing skills class that leads an intervention study through action research. Action research aims at investigating the impact of the implementation of an online interactive formative peer feedback in blended learning environment. The framework for action research has been designed from a constructivist and interventionist perspective, using a learning upshots approach. The purpose behind this action research is to enhance student awareness about peer feedback maintaining the quality feedback, their understanding and recognition of competency levels, their realization for uptakes of feedback, and to improve their writing skills at their level of ease. Preliminary results indicate students rate the peer feedback as an enjoyable learning tool and it has significantly affected their writing skills. |
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| "Code-mixing in Urdu News of a private Pakistani Channel: A case study" | Code-mixing is a common phenomenon in the modern multilingual and bilingual world and it as much occurs in media as it does in other areas of society. This research aimed to explore the extent to which code-mixing is done in Urdu news of a private Pakistani news channel, if any, and the effects of this code-mixing on Urdu language as well as on the viewers. It was a case study in which research technique of mixed methods approach has been applied. A questionnaire and an interview protocol were designed besides the relevant on-air news recordings with a purpose of data collection. Questionnaires were conducted on sixty viewers whereas five news reporters were interviewed. four-research questions were raised. The results answered the questions and revealed that code-mixing is frequent in Urdu news. Although, most of the words have their equivalence in Urdu language but they are not a part of people’s active vocabulary and are not usually used in everyday conversations. It reflected the general behaviour prevailing in the society and media that those words are used which are easily available at hand and can facilitate easy and fluent conversation, no matter if they are used by performing code-mixing. The study further threw light on the fact, as evident in the responses of the interviewees, that this phenomenon is most likely to continue in future and grow widely, will most probably have a profound effect on the Urdu language proficiency of people in the society and an increased code-mixed communication in all spheres of society. The research will help in bringing awareness to news writers and concerned persons about their own practice of code-mixing, so that they remain conscious of the fact that English words do have their equivalents in Urdu language and should be used instead. |
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| "Difficulties in implementation learner centered Approach at tertiary ESL class rooms". | This study explores the difficulties of implementing Learner-centred approach in traditional teacher-centred educational context of Pakistan. Students are usually familiar with teacher centred approach in their early schooling and colleges as the most applicable pedagogical approach in diverse educational system of Pakistan. This research states the implementation of LCA in ESL classes at tertiary level and explains the difficulties of LCA implementation by teachers’ perspectives. The conceptual background of this study based on constructivist theory that supports Learner centred pedagogical approach. This research was conducted under the Qualitative approach that followed Phenomenological research design to explore the difficulties of implementation of learner centred approach at Tertiary ESL Classrooms. This research design provided a better understanding of current phenomenon by the individual experiences of the people who face that phenomenon in their life. Only the ELT’s who claimed to implement LCA in their ESL tertiary classes was included in this study. To find the general views of ELTs about their perception of LCA implementations in ESL classes at tertiary level as well as to address the difficulties they encountered during implementation twenty ELTs from different universities of Karachi were selected through screening out unstructured open ended interviews. The data was collected through teachers written responses and semi structured interviews. This study was limited for its research design it dealt less in numbers of items in terms of the practices of Learner centred Approach implementation process. Only twenty selected public and private sectors universities were included in this study. Generalizability may be found in different dimensions though it has been recommended pedagogy by all over the world for education system. The threat of internal validity in terms of fairness and ontological authenticity was focused by researcher to make it reliable and authentic in present research. |
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| "Evaluation of the Intermediate English Compulsory Book-II published by Sindh Text Book Board Sindh | This study evaluated the Intermediate English (Prose) Textbook published by Sindh Textbook Board Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. A textbook is a well prepared source that guides the guide (teacher) what to teach. If the textbooks are misused, the scope of the education can be harmful. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the content of the English (Prose) textbook-II for the Intermediate level published by the Sindh Textbook Board, Jamshoro Sindh. The study also aims to find out either the purpose of the book are well served or not. If we have an eagle eye on the contents, we find that it does not fulfill the requirement presented in the National Curriculum. And the other problem that we find is that the course content are outdated and have the vocabulary that is not easy to understand for the students of the intermediate level. Textbook serves both the purposes, good and bad. Either a good teacher uses an unsound textbook or and unsound teacher uses the well-produced textbook, in both the cases the process of education is affected. The literature review assures that textbook evaluation is an integral part of study if good methods are involved in it this is the way to improve the quality of the textbook for the future generation move over of gives the idea of strength and weaknesses of the material being taught. This study aims to evaluate the intermediate English Textbook-II. It can be a valuable approach because it is for the first time that the research is made on such topic. One cannot find any known research about it. The research is unique because it evaluates the book that is being taught for more than thirty years. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to evaluate the Textbook. A research questionnaire was also design for the purpose. It was found that the textbook is not attractive due to lack of the features recommended in the guideline. The first hypothesis of the research says, “Does the course content of the Intermediate English Textbook - II published by Sindh text book Board meet with the set objectives?” The findings contradict the hypothesis. It is observed that the course contents of the textbook do not meet with the set objectives. The other hypothesis states that “The intermediate English Textbook – II draws the attention of young learners to learn English as a secondary language”. The findings opposed the hypothesis. We do not find any attractive features in the Textbook that can get attention of young learners. The research is concluded with suggestions and recommendations for the improvement of Intermediate English (Prose) Textbook published by Sindh Textbook Board Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. |
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| The Effects of Strategy-based Reading Instruction on Reading Comprehension, Meta cognitive Reading Strategy Awareness & Reading Anxiety of Pakistani Undergraduate Students" | The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of strategy-based reading instruction on the reading comprehension, metacognitive reading strategy awareness and foreign language reading anxiety of Pakistani Undergraduate Business Administration students in a private sector university in Karachi, Pakistan. A quasi-experimental design was adopted and two intact groups of students were assigned to a control group (31 students) and an experimental group (31 students). A pre-test of reading comprehension based on an official version of the reading section of IELTS was conducted to ensure there was homogeneity in the level of reading ability between the two groups. In addition, the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies was measured through Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) and foreign language reading anxiety was measured through Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) at the beginning of the study. The control group was taught through teacher-centred traditional reading instruction, whereas the experimental group was taught through strategy-based reading instruction for eight weeks through 2-hour long weekly sessions. The experimental group was trained to use 30 reading strategies (18 Cognitive, 7 Metacognitive, 3 social/affective and 2 Test-taking strategies) during the intervention following the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach and using Reciprocal Teaching Procedure Activities. At the end of the reading intervention, the post-test of reading instruction (a different official version of IELTS reading section) was conducted and the measures of metacognitive strategy awareness (SORS) and reading anxiety (FLRAS) were taken again. The data were analysed through t-tests, ANOVA and descriptive statistics. The results of an independent samples t-test revealed that the experimental group students had scored significantly higher than the control group students on reading comprehension post-test (t-value = -2.771 and p value = .007, at the significance level of 0.05). The Cohen’s d value measuring the effect size was calculated to be 0.71, indicating a medium effect of reading strategy-instruction on students’ reading comprehension. The experimental group students had been divided into low, average and high proficiency groups based on their reading comprehension pre-test scores to measure the effects of strategy training on different proficiency level students. The results of ANOVA revealed that high proficiency group had gained more improvement than low and average proficiency students, whereas low and average proficiency students had achieved similar levels of improvement in reading comprehension. The analysis of responses on SORS through an independent samples t-test revealed that the experimental group students had shown significantly higher improvement in metacognitive strategy awareness than control group students (t-value = -3.23 and p value = .002, at the significance level of 0.05). Cohen’s d was also calculated to measure the effect size of reading strategy-instruction on metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, which was 0.81, indicating a large effect size. However, there was no significant difference found in the foreign language reading anxiety levels of control and experimental group students, as indicated by the analysis of their responses on FLRAS (t-value = - 1.35 and p value = .261, at the significance level of 0.05), although both the groups had shown slight decrease in their reading anxiety levels at the post-instructional stage. The study recommends strategy-based reading instruction to be an effective option for teaching reading comprehension skills at the university level in Pakistani universities and in the contexts which share similar characteristics. Key Words: Strategy-based reading instruction, Metacognitive strategy awareness, foreign language reading anxiety |
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| Objectification of Personhood: an analysis of Female heroes in american TV series | ABSTRACT Thesis Title: Objectification of Personhood: An Analysis of Female Heroes in American TV Series This dissertation examines the representation of the female hero in the American television drama series which at a cursory glance seems to be informed by the enlightened discourse of feminism. The study looks into the notion of the female hero through a feminist lens in order to determine what ways of objectification, or treating women as objects, are at work in the depiction of the female hero in American television drama series. The objectives of the study were to determine the extent to which the female hero is objectified in American television drama series and expose ideological biases in terms of instrumentality, autonomy, agency, violability and subjectivity that exists in the representation of the female heroes in television drama series. For the purpose of the study of objectification of the female hero three drama series were selected: Grey’s Anatomy, Castle and The Good Wife. Martha Nussbaum’s theory of objectification delineating seven notions of objectification, namely: instrumentality, denial of autonomy, violability, inertness, denial of subjectivity, fungibility and ownership formed the theoretical framework of the study. Horace Newcomb and Paul M. Hirsch’s textual critical approach was used to study and interpret the dominant messages embedded in the pleasant disguise of fictional entertainment. A detailed analysis of the three notions of objectification: instrumentality, denial of autonomy and ownership (Chapter IV) shows that despite being given the role of the hero around whom the action of the drama series revolves, the female heroes, Meredith, Beckett and Alicia are undermined in various ways through objectification. Members of their family, male or female co-workers objectify them and deny them autonomy and claim ownership of them. The needs, interests and experiences of these female heroes are subordinated to those of the powerful, who are authority figures predominantly men and in some instances women as well, either in the family or the workplace. The female hero’s treatment as violable and her lack of autonomy (Chapter V) shows that she is not granted powers expected in the figure of a hero. Authority figures and men who control the female heroes’ lives fail to acknowledge that these women are owners of their own lives and have the right to self-determination and action. There is little awareness and resistance on the part of the women heroes as they sacrifice their individuality and independence and submit to the authority of men considering it beneficial to them. The analysis of the female heroes reveals that despite being given the role of heroes their agency is limited. They are not fully autonomous and are inert as someone else manages the decisions about their life and career. This inertness mars their status as heroes who are not fully active agents. It is a subversive strategy used in patriarchal societies to control tough women which reveals that women are only allowed to show power within certain parameters which do not threaten male dominance. |
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| The Politics of Media in Pakistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ideological Discourse Strategies adopted by GEO and ARY for protestor to representing Azadi March. | The current research aims to apply critical discourse ideological analysis uponThe Political Discourse Strategies adopted by GEO and ARY for representing Azadi March. The news media assume a crucial part in the public eye, yet it watches that people in general perspectives the media as inclined. The center is upon investigation of newses because this genre is exceptionally seen and also responsible for the ideological formation in different reputed news channels. The present study essentially distinguishes and clarifies how ideological discourse is built and exhibited in Pakistani private news channels. Newses uncover the underlying ideological preferences and hence the activity of force in news writings. The year 2014 incorporated a social regime change in Pakistan against arbitration by the government of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-n); the insurgence entitled with Azaadi March drove by Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). This protest movement got high electronic and also a print media, consideration and confronted a gigantic political contention. With a specific end goal to explore this issue in this study, investigate the inclination of ideological discourse in the news channel through certain levels of investigation. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Imran Khan spread the discourse of protest against the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, who reacted the protesters consequently; in charge of making the discourse of counter-protest. The data for the current study collected from two Pakistani Urdu news channel GEO and ARY to uncover the left and right wing ideologies by analyzing the discourse strategies of both news channels. The newses for the study is selected from both news channel in accordance with social uprising on 14 august 2014 to 30 august 2014. All these news extracts have been analyzed according to the terms of ideology or political strategies. The framework employed in this study, that is van Dijk's (2004) analytical framework of an ideological analysis of political discourse that acquire from Politics, ideology and discourse is utilized to recognize digressive structures or ideological strategies inside of the news extracts from both news channel Geo and Ary, and find the political ideologies is hiding them. The macro strategies of 'positive self-representation' and 'negative other-representation' (which are personally tied up with "Polarization" of in-group versus out-group philosophies or US-THEM) in addition to the next 25 more unpretentious strategies have ended up being extremely exact criteria for the assessment of demeanors, furthermore, suppositions. the comprehensive framework of Van Djik (2004) revealed that Geo news present the news stories or news headlines from the platform of their channel tend to be against the Imran Khan and his party PTI. However the democratic candidate Nawaz Sharif and his party demonstrated the opposite inclination towards Imran Kahn and his party. To legitimize their arguments, each news channel utilized elusive ideological or political strategies all of which could be ordered under the two noteworthy methodologies of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. Geo news frequently used the political or ideological strategy of Lexicalization 49%, polarization59%, irony 39%, or categorization49% as convincing tool for inducement and interpretation. Contrary to this Ary news channel frequently used the political and ideological strategy of Authority23%, Hyperbole38%, Presupposition58%, National Self Glorification56%, victimization 43%, and polarization 19%. Through this analytical framework uncover the left and right wing ideologies by analyzing the discourse strategies of both Pakistani Urdu news channel GEO and ARY. The discoveries of this study can be helpful for growing researcher' basic thinking capacities in the comprehension and production of language. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, Ideological discourse strategies, Political discourse, GEO and ARY news channel, Right-wing and Left-wing politics, Azaadi March |
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| AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH LEXICAL STRESS PATTERNS BY PASHTUN ESL LEARNERS | This research study investigates the lexical stress patterns and stress-related errors in the pronunciation of the Pashtun English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. The subjects selected for this study were sixty students of undergraduate level, studying in the Department of English, University of Malakand, Pakistan. The subjects were asked to read the list of words and sentences that contained the sample words with various number of syllables and stress positions. In order to find out the patterns used and deviations committed by the subjects in pronunciation with respect to the English lexical stress, the researcher selected one hundred and fifty disyllabic and tri-syllabic words commonly in use at this level. The words were divided into five groups in terms of the number of syllables and the position of stress in the words. The participants’ performance was recorded through a mic connected to a laptop and the audios were analyzed through the PRAAT software. After analyzing the data, it was found that the subjects put stress mostly on the second syllable in all the disyllabic words and on the third and sometimes on the second syllable in the tri-syllabic words. In addition, the subjects mostly used the acoustic feature of intensity to determine stressed syllables in the words. The results also revealed that these deviations were committed because of the differences of the stress-patterns of the Pashtu and English languages and the interference of the learners’ mother tongue in their target language (English). The researcher suggests that the learners should be exposed to the native speakers of English and should be made aware of the lexical stress patterns of English to overcome the problems they face with regard to the lexical stress of the English language. |
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| INVOLVED VERSUS INFORMATIONAL PRODUCTION IN ONLINE REVIEWS OF PAKISTANI PRODUCTS: A CORPUS- BASED STUDY | The present study investigated the language of online reviews of the Pakistani Products through the first dimension, i.e. interactional versus informational production, of Multidimensional analysis developed by Douglas Biber (1988) with the aim to highlight their nature. The corpus for the present study was collected and compiled from Online reviews of Pakistani products. Different online review sites were used at the time of data collection. A corpus based methodology was used, while Multidimensional analysis tagger (v.1.3) was used to tag and analyse data. Frequencies of linguistic features and co-occurrences of linguistic features were deeply studied through Dimension 1 of MD Analysis. Data was interpreted qualitatively, while frequency scores were calculated quantitatively. The results reveal that Online reviews of Pakistani products fall in the category of informational production. Four famous products (M Apps, e book reviews, Pak assembled cars and beauty products) were the sample of this study. Among the four products, it was revealed that the category of Book reviews was highly informational due to excessive use of nouns, adjectives and preposition etc. Highly informational text indicates that Online reviews were written with extreme care. |
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| PSYCHO-SOCIO STUDY OF MANIZA NAQVI’S I’LL FIND MY WAY AND DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN’S IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS | Language has a vital role in controlling minds, thoughts and actions. For ages, man remained producer of literary texts that made language phallocentric. Post-feminists revolt against the misrepresentation of femininity by male writers. French feminists, particularly Helene Cixous, addresses the issues regarding psycho-sexual development of a woman in a patriarchal set-up. The purpose of the study is to investigate women’s psychological suppression in a male dominated society where language is strictly based upon oppositions in the Pakistani short fiction in English. It is also intended to explore, through the textual analysis of the selected short stories, the role societal norms play in suppressing women’s thoughts and creativity. Along with indicating patriarchal injustice towards women, the study also purports to explore the ways to get out of linguistic and societal oppression by inventing a new form of writing known as ‘woman speaks’. The researcher has studied symbolic norms, figurative use of language (paradoxes, similes, metaphors, oxymoron, etc.) and imagery to interpret linguistic stereotypes in a patriarchal society. It is an exploratory research and textual analysis is applied for the analysis of selected stories. It has been analyzed in the Pakistani short fiction in English that genders have been represented in numerous ways. Writers, in fact, mostly produce phallocentric texts to privilege men in society. On the other hand, feminist writers portray women in a new state of mind, urging them to speak themselves. Some writers write about women who are being silenced by patriarchy and how they can transform the history by presenting characters in short stories from subservient and submissive to independent and self-determining. Whereas, some writers are working hard to rebuild patriarchal notions by incorporating binary opposites in their writings. |
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