Under Western Eyes: A Critical Consideration of Fictitious Muslim Stereotyping in English Fiction
English fiction pertaining to the British rule in India marked Indian Muslims intovisibility through the portrayal of their stable stereotypical identity, and since its publication, A Passage to India has gained the status of authentic imagining of Muslims asconservative religious ‘Other’ of the West. As such, they are analyzing this text as an instance ofcolonial fixity necessitates the identification and consideration of those discursive strategies used bythe text for the projection of abrasive Muslim images. The focus of this paper is to critically approachA Passage to India through the application of Fairclough’s threedimensional model so as to validate the claim of stereotypicalrepresentation of Muslims in India during colonial rule. Largely amatter of despotic manipulation within the text, the narrator doteson the anecdotal treatment of Muslim characters with a purpose tojustify. By adhering to colonial discursive binarism, this noveldepicts colonized Muslims as dehumanized and caricatured othersin essentialist terms by shelving their political, historical andcontextual identification.
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Colonial Discourse, Foreground, Image Construction, Stereotypical Representation, Colonized Muslims
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(1) Kanwal Zahra
Assistant Professor, Centre for Languages and Translation Studies, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Aisha Jadoon
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Analysis of Political Discourse in Pakistani Party Manifestos
Political discourse is inarguably deemed an essential tool, impercetably influencing people’s perception within a socio-political zone. The present research revolve around the critical discourse analysis of manifestos of Pakistani political parties, pertaining to the general election of 2013. The theoretical framework for the study triangulates VanDijks (1998) Socio-Cognitive Model, along with the support of Turner and Tajfels (1979) Social identity approach and Budge and Farlies Salience theory (1983). The research revealed that all the political parties under study used the discursive strategies in their party manifestos in order to enhance the positive self-image of party to in-group people, by focusing the negative aspects of the out-group, thereby (re)constructing peoples political identities and ideologies and achieving the desired hegemony for itself.
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Political manifesto, Political Discourse, Identity and Ideology
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(1) Mehwish Malghani
Assistant Professor,Department of English, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan.
(2) Shabana Akhtar
Assistant Professor, Department of Pakistan Studies, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan.
(3) Farhat Farooqi
Lecturer, Department of English,The Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering, and Management Sciences, Quetta
Language, Women and Discourse in Toni Morrison’s Fiction
The present study, grounded in the qualitative research paradigm, is an interpretive and explanatory analysis of Toni Morrison's fiction from the critical perspective of post structuralist feminist literary theory and fiction. In my reading of Toni Morrison's fiction as the manifestation/materialization of the knowledge in terms of discursive (re)configuration of women and to analyze their works from "feminine sentence" perspective, I have used Feminist poststructuralist theories in the discourse-theoretical/methodological background. As part of the methodology, this project draws extensively upon feminist theories, particularly those propounded by French Feminists Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva, which I have used in the backdrop of discourse analysis methods proposed by Michel Foucault. This fusion of Feminist theories as a theoretical framework and discourse analysis as a methodology has illuminated systematically the process of the discursive formation, dissemination, and institutionalization of the knowledge about women. For my analysis of the discourse spectrum of the texts-to-be-analyzed, I have used extensively Foucault's notions about discourse and knowledge as discussed comprehensively in his books, articles, and interviews.
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Language, Women, Discourse Analysis, Toni Morrison, French Feminist.
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(1) Mumtaz Ahmad
Assistant Professor of English, Government Guru Nanak Postgraduate College, Nankana Sahib, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Umar Hayat
Lecturer in English, Government Guru Nanak Postgraduate College, Nankana Sahib, Punjab, Pakistan.
(3) Nasir Iqbal
Lecturer in English, Government Guru Nanak Postgraduate College, Nankana Sahib, Punjab, Pakistan.
Hybridity and Linguistic Pluralism: A Pragmatic Analysis of University Academic Discourse
The language used in academic texts and pedagogy is referred as academic discourse. Being student and teacher, the researchers observed that mixing of home language with academic language was a common practice in many institutions. Some linguists appreciate it, while others resist it by claiming it detrimental to objectivity and neutrality. Chiang (2006) finds role of teacher’s discourse a determining factor in pedagogy. Current study was conducted to observe the phenomenon of hybridization in academic discourse and to assess it in the light of pragmatics. Pragmatic analysis is known as a useful method to infer covert and implicit meanings of language (Savignon, 2007) and the researchers deemed it appropriate for current research. The pragmatic analysis could provide a newer outlook on academic discourse. Data was collected through observation sheet from the classes. Questionnaire was also used to get relevant data from teachers. The findings revealed that teachers often relied on cultural and ideological underpinnings in their pedagogy. The individual conversational styles were also responsible for different mode of hybridization and subsequently reinforced diverse facet of discourse different in pragmatic nature. The data was first analyzed for hybridization followed by its pragmatic analysis. The study was important in the backdrop of one of many beliefs, that meaning never remains fixed and it resides in socio-cultural structures and lack of pragmatic knowledge among interlocutors impedes semantic proficiency. The study revealed utility of pragmatic competence in turning this mixing of discourses in a class into a continuum. It also found that knowledge of academic pragmatics could reinforce semantic proficiency.
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Hybridity/Hybridization, Academic Discourse, Linguistic Continuum, Pedagogy, University Teachers
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(1) Nazakat
Lecturer, Department of English, Hazara University, Mansehra, KP, Pakistan.
(2) Muhammad Safeer Awan
Dean, Faculty of English Studies, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Feminist Discourses and Multiple Identities: A Postcolonial Representation of Woman in Hyder's River of Fire
This research paper foregrounds the postcolonial representation of women in Hyder's River of Fire. The novel covers a large span of history. In the entire novel, the female writer presents a lot of women in the backdrop of socio-political and historical backdrop. The western totalizing and Universalist discourses of feminism do not explain well the scope of representation of women in this novel. Even third-world feminism does not suffice here. The research shows that the novelist consciously writes back the colonial and postcolonial feminist representation of women. The analysis highlights that the question of marginalization and subjugation must be seen with multiple factors such as history, society, culture and class. The novel presents multiple identities of women in the historical flux of more than two thousand years.
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Feminist Discourse, Multiple Identities, Postcolonial Feminism, Third World Feminism, Western Feminism
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(1) Kanwal Zahra
Assistant Professor, Centre for Languages and Translation Studies, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Ahmad Nadeem
Assistant Professor, Government Ambala Muslim College Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan
(3) Aisha Jadoon
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, COMSATS, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Wh-Movement Pattern in the Spoken Discourse of Teachers: A Syntactic Analysis
This study investigates the syntactic structures of spoken discourse of teachers in academic discourse. The knowledge of syntactic structure of a language helps in understanding the spoken discourse. So, the study identifies the wh-Movement in the syntactic structures of teachers in English classroom sessions. The data was collected from two universities of Federal government, Pakistan. The one was Air University Islamabad and the second was National University of Modern Languages Islamabad. The data was collected through the recording tool where the English classroom sessions of the teachers were audio-recorded and transcribed. The analysis of data was quantitative and qualitative in nature. The frequency of wh-movement in the structures of recorded English spoken data was analysed quantitatively. In qualitative analyses, the transcribed data was analysed syntactically, keeping in view minimalist perspective, with the help of parsing rules and figures. The analyzed data shows that the teachers at undergraduate level use language where wh-movement is employed in syntactic structure of English used in classroom sessions. They move whexpression into other slots like internal merge and pied-pipe. However, the minimalist parametric unit, wh-movement, was found in the sentence structures of the teachers in the delivery of classroom sessions. So, the minimal pairs of sentence structure impacts different level of language.
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Academic Discourse, Classroom, Minimalism, Spoken Language, Syntactic Structures, Wh-Movement
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(1) Muhammad Saleem
MPhil. Scholar (English), Department of Humanities, Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(2) Fatima Alam Khan
Independent Researcher (English), Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, KP, Pakistan.
(3) Aleena Zaman
Graduate Scholar (English), Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Make-Belief in Language and Verity of Legitimized Oppression: A Critical Analysis of Selected Extracts From Anita Shreve's Body Surfing
The research in hand is a textual analysis of the novel Body Surfing by Anita Shreve which explains the role of language in the construction of an ideology as reality. The aim is to highlight the construction of a certain concept or ideology as a dominant truth claim in society through discourse and how is it blindly followed by all the members without the least strife to change that socalled dominant ideology. Language as a major agent in the construction and perpetuation of an ideology is forever the discourse of those who are in power. This research will propound the discourse active behind the verity of 'oppression' done to women as taken-for-granted and fair. By employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as research method, the study will critically examine the role of language in legalizing women oppression. We have cultivated the idea of 'women as weak' into something real, that has come to us generation after generation, through language. This supposition provides theoretical underpinnings for the research, which is arrived at through CDA by treating language post-structurally. The literature analyzed highlights the role of language in the process of meaning-making by considering it to convey reality. The various words and phrases from the extracts in hand with contextual and conceptual affiliation, are dealt with under the backdrop of Fairclough's (1992) Three Dimensional Model of CDA, which results in the recognition of oppression thought as legitimate by the ultimate use of language. The analysis done under the backdrop of poststructuralism will show that language is not the depiction of maximum reality rather; it is we, the users of language, who make it real by considering some concepts as truth and others as myth. The paper concludes that the opposite gender is actually oppressed and that this oppression is not given, rather the constructed one. CDA challenges this oppression and declares it the work of language only. It (language) has no signs of reality, subsistence or truth.
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Critical Discourse Analysis, Fairclough, Construction, Oppression, Reality, Truth
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(1) Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, KP,Pakistan.
(2) Rab Nawaz Khan
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, KP,Pakistan.
Indigenous Culture and Academic Discourse: A Critique of English Textbooks in Pakistan
The paper aims to explore how far English textbooks in Pakistan embody Pakistan and its culture. In this connection, the reading passages and pictures/images of the textbooks taught at secondary level in the government schools of Punjab were analyzed. It was a mixed method study and the specific method employed was content analysis. For this purpose all the reading passages of both the textbooks were firstly categorized and quantified into three categories; Source Culture/s, Other Culture/s and Neutral and then the cultural elements of Source Culture/s were discussed qualitatively using an adapted checklist. The results of the study reveal that the English textbook of class 9 has 12 passages out of which 75% have Source cultural elements, 8.83% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 16.66% are Neutral. As far as the English textbook of class 10 is concerned, there are 13 reading passages out of which 23.07% have Source cultural elements, 15.38% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 61.53% are Neutral. The findings of the study show that English, being an international language and as a result of globalization, has become compulsory for people belonging to different countries to learn it. However, in order to retain their identity, they try to appropriate English language to underpin their own culture/s through English language used in the textbooks of Pakistan.
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Indigenous Culture, Academic Discourse, English Textbooks, Pakistan, Appropriation
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(1) Azhar Habib
PhD Scholar, Air University, Islamabad & Research Fellow, University of North Texas USA
(2) Inayat Ullah
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan
A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Linguistic Features of Billboards
The present research, "A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Linguistic Features of Billboards", has been accomplished in order to make a comprehensive analysis of the fact how advertising is manipulating and altering the basic philosophies, dogmas, creeds and ideologies of the common people. Advertising is a vast field, and it has influenced the lives of all of us in the last decades. Keeping this factor in view, the researcher has made an attempt to uncover those aspects which remain hidden in the glamorous and eye-catching commercials which contribute to the capitalist's efforts to make maximum profit by thrusting his products on the customers. The researcher has done the linguistic analysis by using Norman Fairclough's model of Critical Discourse Analysis (1993) of the billboard advertisements. The researcher has analyzed the language and images used on the billboards and had made an attempt to find out the basic notions for which these linguistic expressions have been used in the boards. For this purpose, he uses various tactics. The sincerity which is illustrated in the billboard advertisements by the advertiser is not factual. The real picture is on the other side.
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Linguistic Features, Critical Discourse Analysis, Exploitation, Billboards
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(1) Saleha Aftab
MPhil Research Scholar, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Multan Campus, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Muhammad Khurram Iqbal
Lecturer in English, Government College of Technology, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan.
(3) Abdul Rashid
Lecturer in English, Bahadur Sub Campus Layyah, Punjab, Pakistan.
Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Egyptian Political Movies: Framing Social Justice in the Movie Ahl El Kemma (Cream of the Crop)
Nascent research is conducted on the advancement of discourse analysis in film to include different modes as images, sound and text. This study is focused on how images are embedded within texts in an audio-visual medium such as cinema to highlight political messages; it also seeks to broaden our understanding of politics beyond a relatively narrow conceptualization of the "political" through studying non-traditional discourses such as cinematic discourse. The aim of the study is to develop a systematic approach to film analysis to examine political nuance sin film. The method adopted in this research is Multi modal Discourse Analysis (MDA) focusing on embedding visuals, audio, and text in the film to examine how a political meaning can be conveyed through the interaction between those different modes. Drawing on the multi modal discourse analysis literature, different modalities will be studied to understand how those modes interact in the cinematic discourse. The film, "Cream of the Crop", is selected as an example to examine how political meanings in film can tackle the cinematic representation of the notion of social justice. This study contributes to the vast array of literature on the multi modal discourse analysis of films by focusing on political dynamics within them.
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Egyptian Cinema, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Social Justice, Social Class, Desert, "Cream of the Crop" , the 25th of January Revolution
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(1) Mariam Waheed Mekheimar
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.