Linguistics and Literature Review (LLR) is the Higher Education Commission (HEC), recognized 'Y' category Journal. LLR is a peer-review Journal. Various international indexing and abstracting agencies cite the Journal. The Journal is primarily concerned with publishing research to national and international relevance on all aspects of linguistics, applied linguistics, and literature through linguistic lens. Phone: Tel:+ 92 42 111 300 200 Ext: 3641 Address: University of Management and Technology C-II, Johar Town, Lahore, Pakistan.
Translation of poetry is a hard nut to crack. Especially, when it is loaded with cultural connota... more Translation of poetry is a hard nut to crack. Especially, when it is loaded with cultural connotations. Beyond any doubt, translation demands linguistic and cultural skills from a translator to express meanings. Hence, the process of translation becomes challenging when both the source language and the target language belong to two different language families. The present study explores the linguistic challenges faced by translators when translating Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Urdu poetry into English. The researchers have found that translating Urdu metaphorical expressions and compound words used in Faiz’s Urdu poetry is near to impossible as these expressions are rooted in specific cultural, social, political and historical backgrounds.
From the theoretical perspective of lexical morphology (LM), this paper analyzes neutral and non-... more From the theoretical perspective of lexical morphology (LM), this paper analyzes neutral and non-neutral affixes and their general organizational position in the morphology of derived words in Urdu. It explores the properties and behavior that Urdu affixes exercise during their attachment or insertion into roots/bases to produce new words, to question the assumptions of LM. Nine hundred and eighty sample words were randomly selected from our observations, articles in Urdu newspapers, and Urdu news television channels in Pakistan. While LM helps a lot regarding the analysis of neutral and non-neutral affixes, its assumptions concerning the hierarchical organization of affixes in derived word-formations do not correspond with the morphology of words in Urdu. This paper contributes as an initial step toward formulating a theory of the morphology of derived words in Urdu – a language rarely theoretically analyzed regarding the morphology of its derived words.
The paper is about the acoustic effect of Urdu phonological rules on Pakistani Urdu speakers' Eng... more The paper is about the acoustic effect of Urdu phonological rules on Pakistani Urdu speakers' English speech. The objective of the study is to discuss the phenomenon of multiple pronunciations of an English word that has the same spellings, meaning, and part of speech but different pronunciations in the English speech of Urdu speakers. Sometimes these alternative pronunciations are considered mispronunciation rather than multiple pronunciations. The primary purpose of this study is to make a boundary-line between mispronunciations and multiple pronunciations of English vocabulary. Thus, an acoustic analysis of Urdu speakers' English speech has been done by collecting speech data of 30 Urdu speakers from the Public sector universities of Pakistan. Consequently, this paper caters to language-dependent variations of Urdu. This paper only deals with three phonological rules, i.e., segment alternation, ellipsis, epenthesis, which become the cause for re-syllabification of English words. These three foci of research have been selected because the data analysis has confirmed that the 'multiple pronunciation' is mainly occurred due to these three elements. These three categories cover several sub-categories that cover many instances in the data analysis. The data also confirms that phonological variations occur due to stress shifting in Urdu speakers' English speech in Pakistan.
The present study analyzes Pakistani English written discourse through multidimensional analysis.... more The present study analyzes Pakistani English written discourse through multidimensional analysis. For this purpose, two corpora types, including Pakistani universities' newsletters and Pakistani human rights NGOs' annual reports, have been complied. It has been investigated how the language of newsletters of Pakistani universities differs from that of annual reports of Pakistani human rights NGOs on D1 and D2 of the multidimensional approach. Biber’s (1988) multidimensional analysis provides the theoretical grounding to the present study. MAT software (1.3) has been used to tag and analyze the data. Co-occurrences of linguistic features are quantitatively analyzed and then qualitatively interpreted through D1 and D2 of multidimensional approach. The results reveal that the language of this written discourse of Pakistani English is informational on D1. By comparing it with Biber's work of 1988, it has been revealed that this genre is close to the official documents on D1. The language of Pakistani universities' newsletter is more informational on this dimension than that of the genre of Pakistani NGOs annual reports as the mean scores for both are -26.79 and -25.13, respectively. The analysis of the D2 indicates that the genre of the selected written discourse is non-narrative. However, Pakistani universities' newsletters are close to broadcasts, whereas the annual reports of human rights NGOs are close to the personal letters. Moreover, the newsletters discourse is strongly non-narrative than that of the annual reports.
John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to u... more John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to understand it from the perspective of depth psychology/archetypal criticism. The odes of John Keats have been studied from historicist, feminist, and biographical perspectives. This paper aims to complement these perspectives by elaborating the mythical dream imagery of the poem as referring symbolically to the process of psychic integration and poetic creativity. The paper also views the poem as exemplifying the need for a complementary ongoing communication between the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the mind to maintain a holistic psyche. Archetypal theory is used to frame the figurative structure of the poem as a symbolic mythical variant of the process of poetic creativity. The paper employs three theoretical constructs, namely syzygy or complementation of opposites; active imagination; and individuation, as a framework to analyze the poem from an archetypal perspective. Employing a depth psychological perspective to understand poetry enhances the aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry and enhances the 'healing effect' of poetry by illuminating the psychological connotations of the poem. The paper concludes by attempting to answer two research questions explored in the analysis. First, does archetypal perspective contribute to enhancing readers' aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry? Second, what are the theoretical contributions of the current analysis towards contemporary Jungian literary theory?
'Native informant' acclaims the transmission of stereotypical representation of Muslim society as... more 'Native informant' acclaims the transmission of stereotypical representation of Muslim society as a general rule and women specifically. The present work provides a comprehensive prospect of women status defined by religion Islam to build consciousness globally. Through qualitative inquiry, the present study critically analyzes Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003). Iranian writer Azar Nafisi assumes the role of 'native informant' who amplifies the narrative to authenticate her account. The study employs 'amplification' as apparatus to scrutinize fundamentalist perspective of religion Islam reflected in Iranian fiction. Spivak's concept of 'native informant' is reproduced in the narratives to establish the narrator's role as a hybrid character whose thoughts regularly record and oppose the assumed fundamentalist obligations set by the Islamic regime. The narrative begins in the narrator's house, who ardently assembles her university students and discusses various classical literary works. The memoir recounts a woman's experience in Tehran before, during, and after the revolution. Names of characters are concealed to keep individuals safe from probable vengeance and degradation. Primarily, the study enquires how knowledge production through writing personal narratives runs into mainstream culture, characterizing the representation of stereotypes. Narratives inform about a specific culture and mirror the role of 'native informant' in amplifying fundamentals of native culture and religion. Nafisi's account of extensive cultural and religious judgments from context-specific attempts to extrapolate that Islamic Republic Iran vehemently formed a desperate unobtrusive region, which maltreated women. Nafisi may have a self-protective standpoint for women, but she emerged more like a "native informant" rather than a social reformer by amplifying the situation.
This research article portrays the comprehensive picture of a society in which Khalil Gibran is f... more This research article portrays the comprehensive picture of a society in which Khalil Gibran is found giving numerous principles aimed at the prevalence of harmony and peace. His book (The Prophet) is comprised of twenty-six different essays that lead towards a perfect society. Gibran’s art of depicting Universality in The Prophet inspires people towards the creation of an ideal society. The themes of the book, which are universal, are not only concerned with one nation but with all nations and religions across the globe. This study highlights the issues of people along with solid solutions through given essays. The study explores, discusses, and critically analyzes multiple socio-psychological issues facing men in his/ her brief sojourn on the planet earth. The study exploits qualitative design using textual analysis based on the novel's close reading to arrive at results.
This paper investigates the translation of address terms or name labels in comics from English to... more This paper investigates the translation of address terms or name labels in comics from English to Malay. The two aims of this study are: (i) to identify the main translation strategies used in the target text regarding Baker's (1992) typology of translation strategies and (ii) to discuss how effectively the source author’s name labels are transposed in Malay by using Eugene Nida’s (1964: 182) basic principles of "the general efficiency of the communication process" and "comprehension of intent" as a yardstick. The data comprises 187 name labels identified in 14 series of the Spider-Man comics and their Malay counterparts. The findings revealed that the three most frequently used strategies are paraphrasing by using related words followed by omissions of name labels and translating by using less expressive or neutral words. With regard to the efficacy of the Malay translations in conveying the semantic robustness of the English name labels, it was found that the translator has prioritized a transparent translation to achieve easy comprehensibility for the target reader over a faithful preservation of the author's style and the finer nuances expressed by the name labels.
Case is a morphological realization on a noun phrase (NP) to represent the NP's grammatical relat... more Case is a morphological realization on a noun phrase (NP) to represent the NP's grammatical relationship with the main verb of the clause. With respect to case, languages, in many cases, can be broadly divided into two alignment systems, i.e., ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative. In the former type of languages, e.g., Punjabi, the subjects usually receive an ergative post position in transitive clauses (with perfective aspect) while in the latter type of languages, e.g., English, the subject, i.e., in nominative case receives, no post position. There has been a widespread controversy on whether ergative is a structural case or a lexical/inherent case and how the arguments are, i.e., subject and objects valued case in case of ergative clauses. With this ongoing debate in the background, this study aims to compare the marking of case on the arguments, i.e., subjects and objects in the transitive clauses of English and Punjabi. The study is conducted under the minimalist framework of Chomsky (2008), who emphasized on Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT): language provides the best possible solution to the interface conditions imposed by other systems of the human mind, i.e., related to meaning and sound, which interact with language through their interfaces Conceptual Intentional (C-I) and Sensori-Motor (SM) respectively. In this framework, a feature valuation mechanism is induced by the probes, i.e., C and v*. The study finds that in split ergative languages (the languages which take both case patterns, i.e., nominative and ergative) like Punjabi, the EA, i.e., subjects of perfective transitive clauses are assigned the ergative case by the functional heads v* at [Spec-v*] while the IA, i.e., objects are valued accusative case by the same functional head v* under Agree operation. A consequence of this finding concludes that T has default agreement in such languages, which is possible because Punjabi (like its other South Asian counterparts, e.g., Urdu-Hindi, Bengali, and Kashmiri) is a pro-drop language. So, it is easy to assume that EPP and Agree features of T are an option.
The present study aims to unravel the language of fear aroused in the English Newspapers about he... more The present study aims to unravel the language of fear aroused in the English Newspapers about health and economy during Covid-19. The qualitative data was drawn from the daily Dawn, and 'The News'. Eight articles, four from each newspaper, were analyzed through qualitative lens. Findings reveal that the language of fear related to the country's healthcare system and economy is deployed mostly. The study demonstrates that certain phrases were used repeatedly to report about the worst economic recession and overwhelming situation in hospitals. A discourse of fear was created by sensationalizing certain situations and exploiting the language of Covid-19. The recommends reporting more about solutions to the problem than to create a hype that may damage the mental health of readers.
This study aims to know the e-learning modality that stimulates students' learning process accord... more This study aims to know the e-learning modality that stimulates students' learning process according to twenty-two English teachers in Santander, Colombia, and the correlation between learners' motivation and the challenges and opportunities in an online EFL class. To carry out this study, a mixed research approach was applied. To gather such information, a questionnaire was sent to the participants via email. Once data was scrutinized, it was found that this group of English teachers view synchronous encounters and access to information regardless of the geographical position as elements that can positively impact the students' motivation levels. Furthermore, this sample stated their role is significant, especially when mediating online lessons.
The paper investigates the thematic patterns of health awareness campaigns made during the COVID-... more The paper investigates the thematic patterns of health awareness campaigns made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to scrutinize the types of themes used in such prosocial advertisements by analyzing the theme placement and the elements inside those themes. COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in 2020 due to which health organizations proceeded to spread warnings and health awareness campaigns. In these circumstances, the language of these campaigns played a significant role in delivering the message to the people. In total, 75 posts were taken from official Instagram accounts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) between March 21st , 2020 and June 21st, 2020. In this mixedmethod study, a quantitative method has been used to obtain the ratio of unmarked and marked themes present in the data, which are further analyzed qualitatively with Halliday’s (1994) theme-rheme model. We found that the majority of the clauses use unmarked themes, while marked themes are not as frequent. Through the preference of simple Theme over multiple Theme, complex language structure (clause complex) has been avoided. This shows the awareness of respective organizations regarding the critical role language plays in influencing the audience, especially during a global health crisis.
This study aims to explore the most common misinformationtopics
about COVID-19, people's percepti... more This study aims to explore the most common misinformationtopics about COVID-19, people's perceptions concerning disinformation, and its consequences. A purposive sample of 50 posts and thousands of comments on coronavirus was drawn from social media networking sites. The data were also collected through informal interviews of 30 participants of different demographic backgrounds. The selected data were analyzed as dialogic communicative content between the participants. The study reveals that the most common topics regarding coronavirus misinformation are about cure and conspiracy theories. The participants have shown a mixed response towards the misinformation. The study has concluded the severe consequences of misinformation concerning the virus. Hence, I would like to recommend compulsory social media education for the internet users regarding how to respond to such a crisis while Abiding by the Internet regulations.
This study aims to explore neologisms related to Covid-19 through the
lens of the language-mind r... more This study aims to explore neologisms related to Covid-19 through the lens of the language-mind relationship, in terms of linguistic relativity. From a list of 25 Covid-19 neologisms collected from online dictionaries and Twitter.com, eight scientific and pop culture neologisms were selected to assess the motive of creation by exploring their first recorded use. Subsequently, the usage of Covid-19 neologisms in social media discourse was contextually analysed using the SFL framework of field, tenor, and mode to investigate whether it was illustrative of language influence over perception, or vice versa. A cyclic relationship was observed, in which perception prompted the creation of neologisms, whereas language influence on perception was evident in their usage in discourse.
This investigation was focused on exploring the relationship between
learning and teaching Englis... more This investigation was focused on exploring the relationship between learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19 which were propitious for students and teachers. Judgmental sampling of twenty-five textual units from online news blogs was drawn. Axial coding was applied to analyze thematic patterns in data. Findings flaunted that Internet use was surging during Covid-19. Teachers and students were engaged in digital interaction to overcome the academic loss, and they were not ready for the online shift. Internet speed, connectivity, and availability of laptops to lowincome parents were grim realities questioning universities' capacity to go for online mode of learning and teaching English, which entailed to be devised afresh. Students were experiencing a high level of digital divide and decreasing equity during Covid-19. The study resulted that universities were preparing to cope with learning and teaching English during Covid-19 by shifting online mode even in the dearth of resources, both teachers and students needed to learn necessary software and applications for teaching and learning English through online mode. The usefulness of the study was marked by way of planning the future scheme strategically for learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19.
This research aimed to get an insight into Pakistani people’s thought
patterns and matters of con... more This research aimed to get an insight into Pakistani people’s thought patterns and matters of concern through social media humor. The data collected through online crowdsourcing have been analyzed, adapting the Linguo-Cultural Approach by Petrova. The ‘culturemes’ have been arranged based on their 'semantic density' in a descending order. The highest dense ‘cultureme’ consists of the memes about gender, reinforcing the traditional notions of patriarchal tendencies. The second and third categories target the people's non-seriousness about the precautionary measures and the 'online classes', respectively. Satirical posts about political figures and governmental decisions are in the fourth position. The aggressive role of police, coupled with the expected population increase, has taken the fifth position in the hierarchy. The sixth category is about the masses' tendency to shop carelessly. The seventh category comprises self-deprecating memes, followed by the eighth category about over-eating and getting fat during the stay at home. Memes about China being labeled as the creator of the virus have taken the ninth position, and the posts about the ethnic slur come next. The least dense category consists of the posts about the hype created by news channels. This hierarchical arrangement of the semantic densities has revealed real-life situations and concerns and doubts and belief systems of the current social media users in Pakistan. The need of the hour is to employ content creators to come up with the comic, but creative memes and jokes to condition people's subconscious to be more careful about their health.
Pakistan has 30 toastmasters clubs that are chartered with toastmasters International, USA. A toa... more Pakistan has 30 toastmasters clubs that are chartered with toastmasters International, USA. A toastmasters club aims to promote the communication, public speaking, and leadership skills of people to uplift their morale for attaining various beneficial outcomes. The rationale of the study is to determine how toastmasters clubs in Pakistan during COVID-19 lockdown can reduce the English as the second language (L2) speech anxiety and fears of the participants through planned online activities. The authors used the qualitative research method and designed a survey questionnaire consisting of close and open-ended questions to collect data from 23 toastmasters representing two toastmasters clubs established by highly reputed Pakistan's public and private universities. It is perceived that toastmasters clubs are using innovative and dynamic strategies to produce interactive sessions. However, speakers feel anxiety during the delivery of online speeches and presentations. They practice novel approaches and techniques to overcome their stress. Several new lessons have been acquired from participating in online meetings and contests organized during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. It has been found that clubs in Pakistan have rapidly adapted to new situations to maintain regular meetings and activities since lock down. Interestingly, it is discerned that Pakistani toastmasters clubs have made incredible progress during the lockdown and achieved Smedley Distinguished Award. The findings discuss that timely implementation of initiatives to prevail over the challenges emerging from COVID-19 has enhanced the quality of the Pakistani toastmasters clubs. The research recommends that toastmasters' university activities be used as an effective model to dispel employees' fears, apprehensions, and anxiety.
The study presents a corpus-based analysis of the influence of COVID19 on the lexical features of... more The study presents a corpus-based analysis of the influence of COVID19 on the lexical features of English in Pakistan. News on Web Corpus (NOW), managed by English-Corpora.org, formerly known as BYU Corpora, with a specification of English language used in web news of more than 70 websites form Pakistan, was used data analysis. The section of the corpus of English in Pakistan news on the web contains approximately more than one billion words. The usage of 58 keywords, including the top 20 collocated words given by Oxford Dictionary (OED, 2020a), following COVID-19, from 2017 to 2019, was compared to 2020 till June 17, 2020. The analysis shows an exponential rise in the use of some new words and acronyms (e.g., self-quarantine, nCoV, and SARS). Many words that existed previously were used in media discourses to a great extent after COVID-19 (e.g., self-isolation, social-distancing, pandemic, and virus). Moreover, the trends in using such words are different in Pakistan from the trends in the other part of the World. The findings of the study may be used to expand the existing knowledge about language change, viewing coronavirus pandemic (and similar events) on the wheels of technology as another possible socio-psychological factor of language change.
The 21st-century world has seen several natural calamities in the form
of widespread diseases suc... more The 21st-century world has seen several natural calamities in the form of widespread diseases such as SARS outbreak (2002-2004), swine flu pandemic (2009), and now the Covid-19. The outbreak of coronavirus has put the world in a state of anxiety and fear. As a result, a considerable social myths content has been disembarked as a dynamic response to the pandemic. Like elsewhere, the social media discourse on Covid-19 myths is being constructed and consumed in Pakistan. Considering Bouchard's concept of configuration of social myths as either "strictly contextualized" or having "universal features with loose ties to social mechanism," the investigation of the configuration of social myths of Covid-19 in Pakistani social media is explored. Furthermore, the myths were analyzed for co-relation and interconnectedness through intertextuality. The study propounds that the social media discourse of dominant social actors hailing from religious, social, and philosophical domains construe locally contextualized ideas of Covid-19. The social actors' coalition of all social myths set the scene for a Pakistani CovidArchemyth, which is intertwined with peculiarities of Pakistani tradition and culture.
The study investigates COVID-19 language of fear and phobia in Pakistani newspaper's political ca... more The study investigates COVID-19 language of fear and phobia in Pakistani newspaper's political cartoons. These cartoons are a powerful medium for visual communication of any current and significant scenario as one image depicts the whole story. The editorial cartoons are also used to convey a specific meaning behind visual features. The present study is mainly concerned with the coronavirus, which affected life all over the world, and it is observed how newspapers are reporting this pandemic through political cartoons. Data is collected from 'The Dawn' newspaper. The research is qualitative. Machin's (2007) multimodal analysis is adapted for data analysis. Images denote and connote to convey a specific meaning according to the social and historical contexts. The study reveals that these political cartoons disseminate fear and mental illness among the people. However, they are also mocking and criticizing the official authorities for the economic crisis by highlighting the financial problems of the masses, as they did not make the wise decisions on time to control this pandemic
Translation of poetry is a hard nut to crack. Especially, when it is loaded with cultural connota... more Translation of poetry is a hard nut to crack. Especially, when it is loaded with cultural connotations. Beyond any doubt, translation demands linguistic and cultural skills from a translator to express meanings. Hence, the process of translation becomes challenging when both the source language and the target language belong to two different language families. The present study explores the linguistic challenges faced by translators when translating Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Urdu poetry into English. The researchers have found that translating Urdu metaphorical expressions and compound words used in Faiz’s Urdu poetry is near to impossible as these expressions are rooted in specific cultural, social, political and historical backgrounds.
From the theoretical perspective of lexical morphology (LM), this paper analyzes neutral and non-... more From the theoretical perspective of lexical morphology (LM), this paper analyzes neutral and non-neutral affixes and their general organizational position in the morphology of derived words in Urdu. It explores the properties and behavior that Urdu affixes exercise during their attachment or insertion into roots/bases to produce new words, to question the assumptions of LM. Nine hundred and eighty sample words were randomly selected from our observations, articles in Urdu newspapers, and Urdu news television channels in Pakistan. While LM helps a lot regarding the analysis of neutral and non-neutral affixes, its assumptions concerning the hierarchical organization of affixes in derived word-formations do not correspond with the morphology of words in Urdu. This paper contributes as an initial step toward formulating a theory of the morphology of derived words in Urdu – a language rarely theoretically analyzed regarding the morphology of its derived words.
The paper is about the acoustic effect of Urdu phonological rules on Pakistani Urdu speakers' Eng... more The paper is about the acoustic effect of Urdu phonological rules on Pakistani Urdu speakers' English speech. The objective of the study is to discuss the phenomenon of multiple pronunciations of an English word that has the same spellings, meaning, and part of speech but different pronunciations in the English speech of Urdu speakers. Sometimes these alternative pronunciations are considered mispronunciation rather than multiple pronunciations. The primary purpose of this study is to make a boundary-line between mispronunciations and multiple pronunciations of English vocabulary. Thus, an acoustic analysis of Urdu speakers' English speech has been done by collecting speech data of 30 Urdu speakers from the Public sector universities of Pakistan. Consequently, this paper caters to language-dependent variations of Urdu. This paper only deals with three phonological rules, i.e., segment alternation, ellipsis, epenthesis, which become the cause for re-syllabification of English words. These three foci of research have been selected because the data analysis has confirmed that the 'multiple pronunciation' is mainly occurred due to these three elements. These three categories cover several sub-categories that cover many instances in the data analysis. The data also confirms that phonological variations occur due to stress shifting in Urdu speakers' English speech in Pakistan.
The present study analyzes Pakistani English written discourse through multidimensional analysis.... more The present study analyzes Pakistani English written discourse through multidimensional analysis. For this purpose, two corpora types, including Pakistani universities' newsletters and Pakistani human rights NGOs' annual reports, have been complied. It has been investigated how the language of newsletters of Pakistani universities differs from that of annual reports of Pakistani human rights NGOs on D1 and D2 of the multidimensional approach. Biber’s (1988) multidimensional analysis provides the theoretical grounding to the present study. MAT software (1.3) has been used to tag and analyze the data. Co-occurrences of linguistic features are quantitatively analyzed and then qualitatively interpreted through D1 and D2 of multidimensional approach. The results reveal that the language of this written discourse of Pakistani English is informational on D1. By comparing it with Biber's work of 1988, it has been revealed that this genre is close to the official documents on D1. The language of Pakistani universities' newsletter is more informational on this dimension than that of the genre of Pakistani NGOs annual reports as the mean scores for both are -26.79 and -25.13, respectively. The analysis of the D2 indicates that the genre of the selected written discourse is non-narrative. However, Pakistani universities' newsletters are close to broadcasts, whereas the annual reports of human rights NGOs are close to the personal letters. Moreover, the newsletters discourse is strongly non-narrative than that of the annual reports.
John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to u... more John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to understand it from the perspective of depth psychology/archetypal criticism. The odes of John Keats have been studied from historicist, feminist, and biographical perspectives. This paper aims to complement these perspectives by elaborating the mythical dream imagery of the poem as referring symbolically to the process of psychic integration and poetic creativity. The paper also views the poem as exemplifying the need for a complementary ongoing communication between the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the mind to maintain a holistic psyche. Archetypal theory is used to frame the figurative structure of the poem as a symbolic mythical variant of the process of poetic creativity. The paper employs three theoretical constructs, namely syzygy or complementation of opposites; active imagination; and individuation, as a framework to analyze the poem from an archetypal perspective. Employing a depth psychological perspective to understand poetry enhances the aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry and enhances the 'healing effect' of poetry by illuminating the psychological connotations of the poem. The paper concludes by attempting to answer two research questions explored in the analysis. First, does archetypal perspective contribute to enhancing readers' aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry? Second, what are the theoretical contributions of the current analysis towards contemporary Jungian literary theory?
'Native informant' acclaims the transmission of stereotypical representation of Muslim society as... more 'Native informant' acclaims the transmission of stereotypical representation of Muslim society as a general rule and women specifically. The present work provides a comprehensive prospect of women status defined by religion Islam to build consciousness globally. Through qualitative inquiry, the present study critically analyzes Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003). Iranian writer Azar Nafisi assumes the role of 'native informant' who amplifies the narrative to authenticate her account. The study employs 'amplification' as apparatus to scrutinize fundamentalist perspective of religion Islam reflected in Iranian fiction. Spivak's concept of 'native informant' is reproduced in the narratives to establish the narrator's role as a hybrid character whose thoughts regularly record and oppose the assumed fundamentalist obligations set by the Islamic regime. The narrative begins in the narrator's house, who ardently assembles her university students and discusses various classical literary works. The memoir recounts a woman's experience in Tehran before, during, and after the revolution. Names of characters are concealed to keep individuals safe from probable vengeance and degradation. Primarily, the study enquires how knowledge production through writing personal narratives runs into mainstream culture, characterizing the representation of stereotypes. Narratives inform about a specific culture and mirror the role of 'native informant' in amplifying fundamentals of native culture and religion. Nafisi's account of extensive cultural and religious judgments from context-specific attempts to extrapolate that Islamic Republic Iran vehemently formed a desperate unobtrusive region, which maltreated women. Nafisi may have a self-protective standpoint for women, but she emerged more like a "native informant" rather than a social reformer by amplifying the situation.
This research article portrays the comprehensive picture of a society in which Khalil Gibran is f... more This research article portrays the comprehensive picture of a society in which Khalil Gibran is found giving numerous principles aimed at the prevalence of harmony and peace. His book (The Prophet) is comprised of twenty-six different essays that lead towards a perfect society. Gibran’s art of depicting Universality in The Prophet inspires people towards the creation of an ideal society. The themes of the book, which are universal, are not only concerned with one nation but with all nations and religions across the globe. This study highlights the issues of people along with solid solutions through given essays. The study explores, discusses, and critically analyzes multiple socio-psychological issues facing men in his/ her brief sojourn on the planet earth. The study exploits qualitative design using textual analysis based on the novel's close reading to arrive at results.
This paper investigates the translation of address terms or name labels in comics from English to... more This paper investigates the translation of address terms or name labels in comics from English to Malay. The two aims of this study are: (i) to identify the main translation strategies used in the target text regarding Baker's (1992) typology of translation strategies and (ii) to discuss how effectively the source author’s name labels are transposed in Malay by using Eugene Nida’s (1964: 182) basic principles of "the general efficiency of the communication process" and "comprehension of intent" as a yardstick. The data comprises 187 name labels identified in 14 series of the Spider-Man comics and their Malay counterparts. The findings revealed that the three most frequently used strategies are paraphrasing by using related words followed by omissions of name labels and translating by using less expressive or neutral words. With regard to the efficacy of the Malay translations in conveying the semantic robustness of the English name labels, it was found that the translator has prioritized a transparent translation to achieve easy comprehensibility for the target reader over a faithful preservation of the author's style and the finer nuances expressed by the name labels.
Case is a morphological realization on a noun phrase (NP) to represent the NP's grammatical relat... more Case is a morphological realization on a noun phrase (NP) to represent the NP's grammatical relationship with the main verb of the clause. With respect to case, languages, in many cases, can be broadly divided into two alignment systems, i.e., ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative. In the former type of languages, e.g., Punjabi, the subjects usually receive an ergative post position in transitive clauses (with perfective aspect) while in the latter type of languages, e.g., English, the subject, i.e., in nominative case receives, no post position. There has been a widespread controversy on whether ergative is a structural case or a lexical/inherent case and how the arguments are, i.e., subject and objects valued case in case of ergative clauses. With this ongoing debate in the background, this study aims to compare the marking of case on the arguments, i.e., subjects and objects in the transitive clauses of English and Punjabi. The study is conducted under the minimalist framework of Chomsky (2008), who emphasized on Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT): language provides the best possible solution to the interface conditions imposed by other systems of the human mind, i.e., related to meaning and sound, which interact with language through their interfaces Conceptual Intentional (C-I) and Sensori-Motor (SM) respectively. In this framework, a feature valuation mechanism is induced by the probes, i.e., C and v*. The study finds that in split ergative languages (the languages which take both case patterns, i.e., nominative and ergative) like Punjabi, the EA, i.e., subjects of perfective transitive clauses are assigned the ergative case by the functional heads v* at [Spec-v*] while the IA, i.e., objects are valued accusative case by the same functional head v* under Agree operation. A consequence of this finding concludes that T has default agreement in such languages, which is possible because Punjabi (like its other South Asian counterparts, e.g., Urdu-Hindi, Bengali, and Kashmiri) is a pro-drop language. So, it is easy to assume that EPP and Agree features of T are an option.
The present study aims to unravel the language of fear aroused in the English Newspapers about he... more The present study aims to unravel the language of fear aroused in the English Newspapers about health and economy during Covid-19. The qualitative data was drawn from the daily Dawn, and 'The News'. Eight articles, four from each newspaper, were analyzed through qualitative lens. Findings reveal that the language of fear related to the country's healthcare system and economy is deployed mostly. The study demonstrates that certain phrases were used repeatedly to report about the worst economic recession and overwhelming situation in hospitals. A discourse of fear was created by sensationalizing certain situations and exploiting the language of Covid-19. The recommends reporting more about solutions to the problem than to create a hype that may damage the mental health of readers.
This study aims to know the e-learning modality that stimulates students' learning process accord... more This study aims to know the e-learning modality that stimulates students' learning process according to twenty-two English teachers in Santander, Colombia, and the correlation between learners' motivation and the challenges and opportunities in an online EFL class. To carry out this study, a mixed research approach was applied. To gather such information, a questionnaire was sent to the participants via email. Once data was scrutinized, it was found that this group of English teachers view synchronous encounters and access to information regardless of the geographical position as elements that can positively impact the students' motivation levels. Furthermore, this sample stated their role is significant, especially when mediating online lessons.
The paper investigates the thematic patterns of health awareness campaigns made during the COVID-... more The paper investigates the thematic patterns of health awareness campaigns made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to scrutinize the types of themes used in such prosocial advertisements by analyzing the theme placement and the elements inside those themes. COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in 2020 due to which health organizations proceeded to spread warnings and health awareness campaigns. In these circumstances, the language of these campaigns played a significant role in delivering the message to the people. In total, 75 posts were taken from official Instagram accounts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) between March 21st , 2020 and June 21st, 2020. In this mixedmethod study, a quantitative method has been used to obtain the ratio of unmarked and marked themes present in the data, which are further analyzed qualitatively with Halliday’s (1994) theme-rheme model. We found that the majority of the clauses use unmarked themes, while marked themes are not as frequent. Through the preference of simple Theme over multiple Theme, complex language structure (clause complex) has been avoided. This shows the awareness of respective organizations regarding the critical role language plays in influencing the audience, especially during a global health crisis.
This study aims to explore the most common misinformationtopics
about COVID-19, people's percepti... more This study aims to explore the most common misinformationtopics about COVID-19, people's perceptions concerning disinformation, and its consequences. A purposive sample of 50 posts and thousands of comments on coronavirus was drawn from social media networking sites. The data were also collected through informal interviews of 30 participants of different demographic backgrounds. The selected data were analyzed as dialogic communicative content between the participants. The study reveals that the most common topics regarding coronavirus misinformation are about cure and conspiracy theories. The participants have shown a mixed response towards the misinformation. The study has concluded the severe consequences of misinformation concerning the virus. Hence, I would like to recommend compulsory social media education for the internet users regarding how to respond to such a crisis while Abiding by the Internet regulations.
This study aims to explore neologisms related to Covid-19 through the
lens of the language-mind r... more This study aims to explore neologisms related to Covid-19 through the lens of the language-mind relationship, in terms of linguistic relativity. From a list of 25 Covid-19 neologisms collected from online dictionaries and Twitter.com, eight scientific and pop culture neologisms were selected to assess the motive of creation by exploring their first recorded use. Subsequently, the usage of Covid-19 neologisms in social media discourse was contextually analysed using the SFL framework of field, tenor, and mode to investigate whether it was illustrative of language influence over perception, or vice versa. A cyclic relationship was observed, in which perception prompted the creation of neologisms, whereas language influence on perception was evident in their usage in discourse.
This investigation was focused on exploring the relationship between
learning and teaching Englis... more This investigation was focused on exploring the relationship between learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19 which were propitious for students and teachers. Judgmental sampling of twenty-five textual units from online news blogs was drawn. Axial coding was applied to analyze thematic patterns in data. Findings flaunted that Internet use was surging during Covid-19. Teachers and students were engaged in digital interaction to overcome the academic loss, and they were not ready for the online shift. Internet speed, connectivity, and availability of laptops to lowincome parents were grim realities questioning universities' capacity to go for online mode of learning and teaching English, which entailed to be devised afresh. Students were experiencing a high level of digital divide and decreasing equity during Covid-19. The study resulted that universities were preparing to cope with learning and teaching English during Covid-19 by shifting online mode even in the dearth of resources, both teachers and students needed to learn necessary software and applications for teaching and learning English through online mode. The usefulness of the study was marked by way of planning the future scheme strategically for learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19.
This research aimed to get an insight into Pakistani people’s thought
patterns and matters of con... more This research aimed to get an insight into Pakistani people’s thought patterns and matters of concern through social media humor. The data collected through online crowdsourcing have been analyzed, adapting the Linguo-Cultural Approach by Petrova. The ‘culturemes’ have been arranged based on their 'semantic density' in a descending order. The highest dense ‘cultureme’ consists of the memes about gender, reinforcing the traditional notions of patriarchal tendencies. The second and third categories target the people's non-seriousness about the precautionary measures and the 'online classes', respectively. Satirical posts about political figures and governmental decisions are in the fourth position. The aggressive role of police, coupled with the expected population increase, has taken the fifth position in the hierarchy. The sixth category is about the masses' tendency to shop carelessly. The seventh category comprises self-deprecating memes, followed by the eighth category about over-eating and getting fat during the stay at home. Memes about China being labeled as the creator of the virus have taken the ninth position, and the posts about the ethnic slur come next. The least dense category consists of the posts about the hype created by news channels. This hierarchical arrangement of the semantic densities has revealed real-life situations and concerns and doubts and belief systems of the current social media users in Pakistan. The need of the hour is to employ content creators to come up with the comic, but creative memes and jokes to condition people's subconscious to be more careful about their health.
Pakistan has 30 toastmasters clubs that are chartered with toastmasters International, USA. A toa... more Pakistan has 30 toastmasters clubs that are chartered with toastmasters International, USA. A toastmasters club aims to promote the communication, public speaking, and leadership skills of people to uplift their morale for attaining various beneficial outcomes. The rationale of the study is to determine how toastmasters clubs in Pakistan during COVID-19 lockdown can reduce the English as the second language (L2) speech anxiety and fears of the participants through planned online activities. The authors used the qualitative research method and designed a survey questionnaire consisting of close and open-ended questions to collect data from 23 toastmasters representing two toastmasters clubs established by highly reputed Pakistan's public and private universities. It is perceived that toastmasters clubs are using innovative and dynamic strategies to produce interactive sessions. However, speakers feel anxiety during the delivery of online speeches and presentations. They practice novel approaches and techniques to overcome their stress. Several new lessons have been acquired from participating in online meetings and contests organized during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. It has been found that clubs in Pakistan have rapidly adapted to new situations to maintain regular meetings and activities since lock down. Interestingly, it is discerned that Pakistani toastmasters clubs have made incredible progress during the lockdown and achieved Smedley Distinguished Award. The findings discuss that timely implementation of initiatives to prevail over the challenges emerging from COVID-19 has enhanced the quality of the Pakistani toastmasters clubs. The research recommends that toastmasters' university activities be used as an effective model to dispel employees' fears, apprehensions, and anxiety.
The study presents a corpus-based analysis of the influence of COVID19 on the lexical features of... more The study presents a corpus-based analysis of the influence of COVID19 on the lexical features of English in Pakistan. News on Web Corpus (NOW), managed by English-Corpora.org, formerly known as BYU Corpora, with a specification of English language used in web news of more than 70 websites form Pakistan, was used data analysis. The section of the corpus of English in Pakistan news on the web contains approximately more than one billion words. The usage of 58 keywords, including the top 20 collocated words given by Oxford Dictionary (OED, 2020a), following COVID-19, from 2017 to 2019, was compared to 2020 till June 17, 2020. The analysis shows an exponential rise in the use of some new words and acronyms (e.g., self-quarantine, nCoV, and SARS). Many words that existed previously were used in media discourses to a great extent after COVID-19 (e.g., self-isolation, social-distancing, pandemic, and virus). Moreover, the trends in using such words are different in Pakistan from the trends in the other part of the World. The findings of the study may be used to expand the existing knowledge about language change, viewing coronavirus pandemic (and similar events) on the wheels of technology as another possible socio-psychological factor of language change.
The 21st-century world has seen several natural calamities in the form
of widespread diseases suc... more The 21st-century world has seen several natural calamities in the form of widespread diseases such as SARS outbreak (2002-2004), swine flu pandemic (2009), and now the Covid-19. The outbreak of coronavirus has put the world in a state of anxiety and fear. As a result, a considerable social myths content has been disembarked as a dynamic response to the pandemic. Like elsewhere, the social media discourse on Covid-19 myths is being constructed and consumed in Pakistan. Considering Bouchard's concept of configuration of social myths as either "strictly contextualized" or having "universal features with loose ties to social mechanism," the investigation of the configuration of social myths of Covid-19 in Pakistani social media is explored. Furthermore, the myths were analyzed for co-relation and interconnectedness through intertextuality. The study propounds that the social media discourse of dominant social actors hailing from religious, social, and philosophical domains construe locally contextualized ideas of Covid-19. The social actors' coalition of all social myths set the scene for a Pakistani CovidArchemyth, which is intertwined with peculiarities of Pakistani tradition and culture.
The study investigates COVID-19 language of fear and phobia in Pakistani newspaper's political ca... more The study investigates COVID-19 language of fear and phobia in Pakistani newspaper's political cartoons. These cartoons are a powerful medium for visual communication of any current and significant scenario as one image depicts the whole story. The editorial cartoons are also used to convey a specific meaning behind visual features. The present study is mainly concerned with the coronavirus, which affected life all over the world, and it is observed how newspapers are reporting this pandemic through political cartoons. Data is collected from 'The Dawn' newspaper. The research is qualitative. Machin's (2007) multimodal analysis is adapted for data analysis. Images denote and connote to convey a specific meaning according to the social and historical contexts. The study reveals that these political cartoons disseminate fear and mental illness among the people. However, they are also mocking and criticizing the official authorities for the economic crisis by highlighting the financial problems of the masses, as they did not make the wise decisions on time to control this pandemic
International Conference of the Department of English Language and Literature (ICDELL) was
organi... more International Conference of the Department of English Language and Literature (ICDELL) was organized on April 6-7, 2019. The event was supported and funded by University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Allied Book Company (Lahore), and Multi-Line Books (Lahore). The Conference combined together keen researchers and innovative practitioners of theoretical and applied linguistics and English literature to an interactive and stimulating forum which turned out to be a premier, vibrant and trend-setting event for both local and international researchers because of the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of its thematic focus.
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information, a questionnaire was sent to the participants via email. Once
data was scrutinized, it was found that this group of English teachers view synchronous encounters and access to information regardless of the geographical position as elements that can positively impact the students' motivation levels. Furthermore, this sample stated their role is significant, especially when mediating online lessons.
unmarked and marked themes present in the data, which are further analyzed qualitatively with Halliday’s (1994) theme-rheme model. We found that the majority of the clauses use unmarked themes, while marked themes are not as frequent. Through the preference of simple Theme over multiple Theme, complex language structure (clause complex) has been avoided. This shows the awareness of respective organizations regarding the critical role language plays in influencing the audience, especially during a global health crisis.
about COVID-19, people's perceptions concerning disinformation,
and its consequences. A purposive sample of 50 posts and thousands
of comments on coronavirus was drawn from social media
networking sites. The data were also collected through informal
interviews of 30 participants of different demographic backgrounds.
The selected data were analyzed as dialogic communicative content
between the participants. The study reveals that the most common
topics regarding coronavirus misinformation are about cure and
conspiracy theories. The participants have shown a mixed response
towards the misinformation. The study has concluded the severe
consequences of misinformation concerning the virus. Hence, I
would like to recommend compulsory social media education for the
internet users regarding how to respond to such a crisis while Abiding by the Internet regulations.
lens of the language-mind relationship, in terms of linguistic relativity.
From a list of 25 Covid-19 neologisms collected from online dictionaries and Twitter.com, eight scientific and pop culture neologisms were selected to assess the motive of creation by exploring their first recorded use. Subsequently, the usage of Covid-19 neologisms in social media discourse was contextually analysed using the SFL framework of field, tenor, and mode to investigate whether it was illustrative of language influence over perception, or vice versa. A cyclic relationship was observed, in which perception prompted the creation of neologisms, whereas language influence on perception was evident in their usage in discourse.
learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19
which were propitious for students and teachers. Judgmental
sampling of twenty-five textual units from online news blogs was
drawn. Axial coding was applied to analyze thematic patterns in data.
Findings flaunted that Internet use was surging during Covid-19.
Teachers and students were engaged in digital interaction to
overcome the academic loss, and they were not ready for the online
shift. Internet speed, connectivity, and availability of laptops to lowincome parents were grim realities questioning universities' capacity
to go for online mode of learning and teaching English, which
entailed to be devised afresh. Students were experiencing a high level
of digital divide and decreasing equity during Covid-19. The study
resulted that universities were preparing to cope with learning and
teaching English during Covid-19 by shifting online mode even in the
dearth of resources, both teachers and students needed to learn
necessary software and applications for teaching and learning English
through online mode. The usefulness of the study was marked by way
of planning the future scheme strategically for learning and teaching
English through online mode during Covid-19.
patterns and matters of concern through social media humor. The data
collected through online crowdsourcing have been analyzed, adapting
the Linguo-Cultural Approach by Petrova. The ‘culturemes’ have been arranged based on their 'semantic density' in a descending order. The
highest dense ‘cultureme’ consists of the memes about gender, reinforcing the traditional notions of patriarchal tendencies. The second
and third categories target the people's non-seriousness about the
precautionary measures and the 'online classes', respectively. Satirical
posts about political figures and governmental decisions are in the
fourth position. The aggressive role of police, coupled with the
expected population increase, has taken the fifth position in the
hierarchy. The sixth category is about the masses' tendency to shop
carelessly. The seventh category comprises self-deprecating memes,
followed by the eighth category about over-eating and getting fat during
the stay at home. Memes about China being labeled as the creator of the
virus have taken the ninth position, and the posts about the ethnic slur
come next. The least dense category consists of the posts about the
hype created by news channels. This hierarchical arrangement of the
semantic densities has revealed real-life situations and concerns and
doubts and belief systems of the current social media users in Pakistan.
The need of the hour is to employ content creators to come up with the
comic, but creative memes and jokes to condition people's
subconscious to be more careful about their health.
section of the corpus of English in Pakistan news on the web contains
approximately more than one billion words. The usage of 58 keywords,
including the top 20 collocated words given by Oxford Dictionary
(OED, 2020a), following COVID-19, from 2017 to 2019, was compared to 2020 till June 17, 2020. The analysis shows an exponential rise in the use of some new words and acronyms (e.g., self-quarantine, nCoV, and SARS). Many words that existed previously were used in media discourses to a great extent after COVID-19 (e.g., self-isolation, social-distancing, pandemic, and virus). Moreover, the trends in using such words are different in Pakistan from the trends in the other part of the World. The findings of the study may be used to expand the existing knowledge about language change, viewing coronavirus pandemic (and similar events) on the wheels of technology as another possible socio-psychological factor of language change.
of widespread diseases such as SARS outbreak (2002-2004), swine flu
pandemic (2009), and now the Covid-19. The outbreak of coronavirus has put the world in a state of anxiety and fear. As a result, a considerable social myths content has been disembarked as a dynamic response to the pandemic. Like elsewhere, the social media discourse
on Covid-19 myths is being constructed and consumed in Pakistan. Considering Bouchard's concept of configuration of social myths as either "strictly contextualized" or having "universal features with loose ties to social mechanism," the investigation of the configuration of social myths of Covid-19 in Pakistani social media is explored. Furthermore, the myths were analyzed for co-relation and interconnectedness through intertextuality. The study propounds that the social media discourse of dominant social actors hailing from religious, social, and philosophical domains construe locally contextualized ideas of Covid-19. The social actors' coalition of all social myths set the scene for a Pakistani CovidArchemyth, which is intertwined with peculiarities of Pakistani tradition and culture.
information, a questionnaire was sent to the participants via email. Once
data was scrutinized, it was found that this group of English teachers view synchronous encounters and access to information regardless of the geographical position as elements that can positively impact the students' motivation levels. Furthermore, this sample stated their role is significant, especially when mediating online lessons.
unmarked and marked themes present in the data, which are further analyzed qualitatively with Halliday’s (1994) theme-rheme model. We found that the majority of the clauses use unmarked themes, while marked themes are not as frequent. Through the preference of simple Theme over multiple Theme, complex language structure (clause complex) has been avoided. This shows the awareness of respective organizations regarding the critical role language plays in influencing the audience, especially during a global health crisis.
about COVID-19, people's perceptions concerning disinformation,
and its consequences. A purposive sample of 50 posts and thousands
of comments on coronavirus was drawn from social media
networking sites. The data were also collected through informal
interviews of 30 participants of different demographic backgrounds.
The selected data were analyzed as dialogic communicative content
between the participants. The study reveals that the most common
topics regarding coronavirus misinformation are about cure and
conspiracy theories. The participants have shown a mixed response
towards the misinformation. The study has concluded the severe
consequences of misinformation concerning the virus. Hence, I
would like to recommend compulsory social media education for the
internet users regarding how to respond to such a crisis while Abiding by the Internet regulations.
lens of the language-mind relationship, in terms of linguistic relativity.
From a list of 25 Covid-19 neologisms collected from online dictionaries and Twitter.com, eight scientific and pop culture neologisms were selected to assess the motive of creation by exploring their first recorded use. Subsequently, the usage of Covid-19 neologisms in social media discourse was contextually analysed using the SFL framework of field, tenor, and mode to investigate whether it was illustrative of language influence over perception, or vice versa. A cyclic relationship was observed, in which perception prompted the creation of neologisms, whereas language influence on perception was evident in their usage in discourse.
learning and teaching English through online mode during Covid-19
which were propitious for students and teachers. Judgmental
sampling of twenty-five textual units from online news blogs was
drawn. Axial coding was applied to analyze thematic patterns in data.
Findings flaunted that Internet use was surging during Covid-19.
Teachers and students were engaged in digital interaction to
overcome the academic loss, and they were not ready for the online
shift. Internet speed, connectivity, and availability of laptops to lowincome parents were grim realities questioning universities' capacity
to go for online mode of learning and teaching English, which
entailed to be devised afresh. Students were experiencing a high level
of digital divide and decreasing equity during Covid-19. The study
resulted that universities were preparing to cope with learning and
teaching English during Covid-19 by shifting online mode even in the
dearth of resources, both teachers and students needed to learn
necessary software and applications for teaching and learning English
through online mode. The usefulness of the study was marked by way
of planning the future scheme strategically for learning and teaching
English through online mode during Covid-19.
patterns and matters of concern through social media humor. The data
collected through online crowdsourcing have been analyzed, adapting
the Linguo-Cultural Approach by Petrova. The ‘culturemes’ have been arranged based on their 'semantic density' in a descending order. The
highest dense ‘cultureme’ consists of the memes about gender, reinforcing the traditional notions of patriarchal tendencies. The second
and third categories target the people's non-seriousness about the
precautionary measures and the 'online classes', respectively. Satirical
posts about political figures and governmental decisions are in the
fourth position. The aggressive role of police, coupled with the
expected population increase, has taken the fifth position in the
hierarchy. The sixth category is about the masses' tendency to shop
carelessly. The seventh category comprises self-deprecating memes,
followed by the eighth category about over-eating and getting fat during
the stay at home. Memes about China being labeled as the creator of the
virus have taken the ninth position, and the posts about the ethnic slur
come next. The least dense category consists of the posts about the
hype created by news channels. This hierarchical arrangement of the
semantic densities has revealed real-life situations and concerns and
doubts and belief systems of the current social media users in Pakistan.
The need of the hour is to employ content creators to come up with the
comic, but creative memes and jokes to condition people's
subconscious to be more careful about their health.
section of the corpus of English in Pakistan news on the web contains
approximately more than one billion words. The usage of 58 keywords,
including the top 20 collocated words given by Oxford Dictionary
(OED, 2020a), following COVID-19, from 2017 to 2019, was compared to 2020 till June 17, 2020. The analysis shows an exponential rise in the use of some new words and acronyms (e.g., self-quarantine, nCoV, and SARS). Many words that existed previously were used in media discourses to a great extent after COVID-19 (e.g., self-isolation, social-distancing, pandemic, and virus). Moreover, the trends in using such words are different in Pakistan from the trends in the other part of the World. The findings of the study may be used to expand the existing knowledge about language change, viewing coronavirus pandemic (and similar events) on the wheels of technology as another possible socio-psychological factor of language change.
of widespread diseases such as SARS outbreak (2002-2004), swine flu
pandemic (2009), and now the Covid-19. The outbreak of coronavirus has put the world in a state of anxiety and fear. As a result, a considerable social myths content has been disembarked as a dynamic response to the pandemic. Like elsewhere, the social media discourse
on Covid-19 myths is being constructed and consumed in Pakistan. Considering Bouchard's concept of configuration of social myths as either "strictly contextualized" or having "universal features with loose ties to social mechanism," the investigation of the configuration of social myths of Covid-19 in Pakistani social media is explored. Furthermore, the myths were analyzed for co-relation and interconnectedness through intertextuality. The study propounds that the social media discourse of dominant social actors hailing from religious, social, and philosophical domains construe locally contextualized ideas of Covid-19. The social actors' coalition of all social myths set the scene for a Pakistani CovidArchemyth, which is intertwined with peculiarities of Pakistani tradition and culture.
organized on April 6-7, 2019. The event was supported and funded by University of Management
and Technology, Lahore, Allied Book Company (Lahore), and Multi-Line Books (Lahore). The
Conference combined together keen researchers and innovative practitioners of theoretical and
applied linguistics and English literature to an interactive and stimulating forum which turned out
to be a premier, vibrant and trend-setting event for both local and international researchers because
of the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of its thematic focus.