CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL REPRESENTATIONS THROUGH PAKISTANIZATION OF ENGLISH: A LINGUISTIC CRITIQUE OF PAKISTANI-AMERICAN FICTION

Abstract

This study investigates the nature, scope and implications of and reasons for Pakistanization of English in Pakistani-American fiction. It draws upon the conceptual frameworks developed by Fowler (1996) and Muthiah (2009), and employs earlier models offered by Kachru (1983), Baumgardner, Kennedy and Shamim (1993), Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffins (2002), and the recent ones by Chelliah (2006), and Muthiah (2009) from the fields of linguistic criticism, sociocultural linguistics, world Englishes and postcolonial studies. Three Pakistani-American fiction works, namely, An American Brat by Bapsi Sidhwa, Home Boy by H. M. Naqvi and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin, are selected for separate analyses under these models that are then converged into a three-dimensional model for postcolonial linguistic critique. It was found that all the texts under study follow postcolonial language ideology. This is where the findings of this research diverge from those given by Muthiah (2009) who asserts that fiction writers of the works under her study adopt colonial language ideology by constructing Indian English as substandard variety. However the texts under this study, by employing the strategies of abrogation and appropriation, and techniques of hybrid innovations and lexical borrowings, etc., ‘Pakistanize’ English, and represent and counter-represent a variety of cultural and ideological beliefs, norms and practices. This study also demonstrates that Pakistanization of English in Pakistani-American fictional works is indicative of the ongoing process of linguistic hybridity where English is negotiating with indigenous linguistic insurgency to accelerate the emergence of ‘Urdish.’ This thesis acknowledges Pakistani English as a variety of English as sixteen characteristic linguistic features of its own are found employed in the texts under study. This acknowledgment reinforces the findings of some of the previous studies in the area such as Mahboob (2009), Uzair (2011), Khan (2012), etc. However, the frequency of Pakistani expressions used in each of the texts under study remains formulaic, and is below 0.50%.