A Lexico-grammatical Study of Noun Phrase in Pakistani English

Abstract

The enormous and unprecedented spread of English has made it difficult for the so- called ‘Native Speakers of English’ to exercise their control over it. The non-native varieties of English are establishing their niche alongside the standard varieties of English. A paradigm shift can be noticed from ‘EFL, ESL, ENL’ to EIL paradigm. The non-native varieties of English have initiated their codification and description. In this scenario, this research studies Pakistani English as a non-native institutionalized variety and aims at identifying various features of it. The lexico-grammatical features of noun phrase in Pakistani English have been explored from six aspects. A corpus of written Pakistani English (PWE), 2.1 million words, has been compiled as a research tool. PWE comprises 29 text categories to enhance the representativeness of the corpus. PWE has been used to identify the features on the basis of actual instances or corpus evidence. BoE, BNC, Brown, Frown, LOB, and FLOB corpora have been used as reference corpora. This investigation is mainly a corpus driven research and the components of this research are based on corpus evidence observed during the study. One inference can be drawn from all the components of the present research that the differences between Pakistani English and the Standard varieties of English are not so wide as to create any serious problems in mutual intelligibility. But the differences seem wider than those between the British and American Englishes. The chapter 1 introduces the research and chapter 2 explores the theoretical undercurrents related to World Englishes and Pakistani English. It discusses the spread of English and the emergence of non-native varieties, conflicting standards among varieties, role of English in non-native context, the impact of pluricintricity, language policy and which model Pakistani English should follow etc. Chapter 3 is the survey of literature and links the present research with the research already done in the areas of Pakistani English, corpus linguistics, collocations, lexico-grammar, and noun phrase. Chapter 4 discusses the steps taken in the compilation of the corpus and introduces the corpus (PWE). Methodological framework has been kept separate from methodology. Chapter 5 describes the methodological framework of the research and explores the paradigm this research is II aligned with. Due to the complex methodology of the six components of the research, the methodology (a guide for the replication of the research) has been discussed in each component of the noun phrase before analysis in Chapter 6. The sixth chapter comprises six components of research and presents their analysis. The first component deals with mechanics i.e. hyphenated compounds in PWE, and highlights the differences from BNC and also addresses the importance of such issues in the context of Non-native varieties of English. The second component, Urduization, is the study of Urdu words in PWE and tabulates the data in various domains to show how Pakistani English as a non-native variety of English is bound in socio-cultural make up of the community. The third component, Noun Noun Compounds explores nine trends in the noun compounds and reveals hundreds of examples to identify trends in PWE. The fourth component, Modifying Adjectives, uses Yibin Ni’s (2004) model to explore lexico- grammatical and semantic categories of the modifying adjectives of 50 nouns selected on the basis of frequency and detailed consistency. The quantitative differences of this component have been further explored in the fifth component of the research. The same 50 nouns have been used as nodes of concordance lines to study the 1R and 1L collocates. These collocates have been grouped into lexical fields. The results of this component loudly pronounce that the real differences between Pakistani English and other varieties of English are mainly of collocations. One hundred nouns in PWE, which have been identified as vocabulary differences between British and American Englishes by Davies (2005), have been studied in the final component of the research. Chapter 7 concludes the research and shares some observations I made during the research. Chapter 8 is forward looking and introduces various researchable areas the present research has identified. In the light of the detailed discussion on theoretical undercurrents, it can be assumed that the results obtained in the data analysis are significant for description of Pakistani English and establishing the status of Pakistani English. Moreover, the results are insightful in ELT because they can show the difference between what is taught and what is being used. The information obtained as the results of the data analysis can be used in lexicographical activities. A supplement can be added to the already existing dictionaries.