Browsing by Author "Mehvish Riaz"

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    A comparative analysis of the formality differences between literary and colloquial English language
    (2011) Mehvish Riaz
    This research has been carried out to investigate the differences between literary and colloquial language through a contrastive and comparative analysis of the text of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen and the script of the movie made on the novel with particular focus on the levels of formality in the two genres. The concept of formality is based on the work done by Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) who proclaim formality as a way to diminish ambiguity through elaboration. It also derives the essence from the research made by Finegan and Biber (1994) who differentiate between literate and oral varieties on the basis of certain elaborate and economy features. To further analyze the text and script explicitly, research carried out by Iqbal (1999), Cook (1989) and Page (1984) has also been drawn on. More than 62 extracts from the novel have been compared with the same number of relevant extracts from the script of the movie. Moreover, a separate analysis of the literary language and colloquial language has also been made to find out the formality differences between them. It is found out that the presence of lexical and syntactic devices, for example, attributive adjectives, prepositional phrases, parallelism, sentence structure and the length maintained through logical connectors and lexical diversity are the markers of elaboration and well-formedness; and, consequently of formality in literary language. On the other hand, the presence of several features, for example, phrases, tag questions, contractions, clipping, topic-comment structures and passive constructions and incomplete utterances are the markers of ease and naturalness in colloquial speech and, therefore, make it appear as casual and flexibly or loosely structured. The study has wider scope in that it not only incorporates the features of literature and language, but also deals with spoken and written discourse. Thus, it can be used in the language class to 6 teach the function of various grammatical devices in the construction of two types of discourse. Likewise, it can be used for the students of literature to sensitize them to the role of language in the construction of literature. Moreover, they can be taught about the role of linguistic devices in creating a particular literary effect by the author.
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    Investigating hyper-reality:
    (UMT Lahore, 2022) Mehvish Riaz
    This study explores the four layers of hyper-reality in Paul Auster’s Travels in the Scriptorium. This qualitative and exploratory study assesses the ways the protagonist of the narrative gets entrapped in the hyper-real world thus failing to segregate the truth from hyper real truth. The selected novel deals with technology-oriented world based on virtual reality as well as virtual representation of life alongside social and historical simulation of truth. The four layers of hyper-reality, simulation, simulacrum, perversion of reality and reflection of reality, have been explored in the selected novel contrary to the earlier notions of critics who merely analyzed the quandaries of identity and postmodern urban life with reference to hyper-reality. Blank, the protagonist of the novel, gets confused and forgetful in prison where everything speaks through symbols and convey more than necessary information in terms of hyper-reality. Moreover, he faces social hyper-reality embedded in urban life style where everything represents the truth which is more than truth creating elusiveness in identity leading to ironical loss of contact with reality and insanity. This study critically evaluates the role of hyper-reality in furthering the plot and the development of characters in Travels in the Scriptorium.