Department of English Language and Literature

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https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/497

Higher degree by research can be a very different experience from postgraduate study. Research, either at the University of Management and Technology (UMT) or elsewhere in the world, opens up new fields of inquiry. When a student is studying hard for his/her degree, he/she wants to be rest assured that he/she is in the best hands.

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Promoting critical pedagogy in language education
(2009) Muhammad Shaban Rafi
This research investigates effects of critical pedagogy on the development of critical thinking through teaching English essay writing. The research also provides guideline to English Language Teachers to promote critical thinking in language learning and to teach language for reasoning. Quantitative and Qualitative data were collected from 53 English Language Teachers and 34 Civil Superior Services (CSS) students to test the hypothesis (by incorporating critical thinking through English Essay Writing promotes reasoning skills among the students). Descriptive Statistics, Paired Sample t-test and graphic representation were executed for the analysis of data. A marked difference (41.26 Mean Score) was measured in the performance of English language teachers in the result of critical thinking instructions into the composition of English Essay Writing. A significant difference was measured between Post-test I and II among the CSS students. The results signify that by incorporating critical thinking in teaching English Essay Writing promotes reasoning skills among the subjects. The research suggests replacing the old cycle of transmission pedagogy with critical thinking pedagogy in language education – a vehicle through which the students gradually discover themselves in the process of language leaning, and develop the cognizance of appropriate language to reason.
Semantic variations of punjabi toneme
(2010) Muhammad Shaban Rafi
This study highlights that Punjabi spoken in the suburbs of Lahore is loosing its tonality to mark semantic variations. This study based on numerical data examines: (a) whether or not Punjabi (spoken in Pakistani Punjab) is spoken with its tonal features (level, fall and rise pitch), and (b) Do Punjabi speakers perceive semantic variations of Punjabi tonal words (Kora, Cha and Kera)? Acoustic and perceptual data were elicited from 20 Punjabi speakers between 20 to 22 years old, belonging to the suburbs of Lahore, the Punjab. Tonal words: Kora, Cha and Kera with their conventional semantic variations were manipulated at three different positions: Phrase Initial, Phrase Medial and Phrase Final in 27 phrases in order to neutralize effects of stress. Similarly, to neutralize effects of intonation, these tonal words were also recorded in the form of statement and question. Phonetic analysis and sound manipulations were performed with the help of PRAAT, speech processing tool designed for windows users. Results illustrate that the above mentioned Punjabi tonal words are overwhelmingly articulated with fall pitch and they are perceived with marginal pitch variations in a discourse. Instead of using their phonological knowledge to perceive pitch variations, the Punjabi speakers activate their pragmatic knowledge to entail different meaning of tonal words.
Leadership discourse and role of humor in it: A new orientation of business English
(2012) Irbaz Khan, Muhammad
The role of English cannot be ignored in global business. Humor, in its quintessence, bears numerous multi-faceted benefits for business and should be taken seriously. Discourse constitutes a crucial aspect of leadership performance. It has even been pointed out that „Imagining leadership outside of language is all but impossible‟ (Lyons & O‟Mealy, 1998). Indeed, it appears that many of the central leadership activities, such as creating and communicating a vision or mission statement, encouraging, motivating and guiding subordinates, setting a goal and ensuring subordinates‟ compliance all involve language (Bennis & Thomas, 2002). In spite of this long-winded relationship between leadership and language, there are amazingly few studies which view leadership performance from a linguistic standpoint (Wodak, 1997; Mullany, 2007). This paper aims at addressing this new orientation by illustrating some of the ways through which analysis of leadership discourse especially that involves humor will be carried out. The data analyzed in the paper proves that humor has a positive and productive effect in leadership discourse. CEO‟s may encourage this feature in their negotiations, daily written and verbal interactions and may feel the difference by miraculous impact of humor in their leadership practices.
Variety of the structure of some significant non-kernel clauses
(International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2012) Mahrukh Baig
The current paper presents an in-depth analysis of a variety of non-kernel clauses in English. The structures discussed include interrogatives and negatives with their contrastive types and uses. It further takes up clausal combinations such as subordinates and coordinates with reference to their various functions. Moreover, a detailed exploration of thematic variation follows with particular regards to information structure. Such constructions deal with extrapositioning, existentials and clefts as to how these clauses take account of information packaging in a message, thereby combining syntactic functions to the semantic and pragmatic strategies.
Sms text analysis: language, gender and current practices
(2012) Muhammad Shaban Rafi
This article tests the assumption that SMS language is like a pidgin in every speech community. The article also examines the assumption that a great motor of SMS lives among females whose lexical and morpho-syntactic choices are different from males. It further speculates influence of SMS language on language of media. One hundred messages were taken randomly from 20 cell phones and perceptions of 25 males and 25 females were recorded on an ordinal scale for analysis. The text was analyzed to look into lexicology, morphology and syntactic levels of texters, and influence of SMS on language of commercials. The results show that a novice intelligible language has evolved through SMS, which is influencing language of media. A significant difference is found between male and female texters’ linguistic properties.
Developing a human resource-best practices scale for Pakistani general public sector universities
(University of Management and Technology, 2012) Furrakh Abbas; Shehzad Ahmed
The purpose of the study was to develop a scale for identifying the effectiveness of Human Resource Practices (HRPs) in general public sector universities in Pakistan. The development of the research instrument was done very carefully, keeping in view all the intricacies and specifications taken from literature review. The prevailing scenario of the higher educational institutes of Pakistan was always kept in mind during the research scale development process. The research scale encompassed the six categories of HRMPs namely recruitment and selection, orientation, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation and benefits, and working environment. The research instrument was validated through peer review and with the help of experts‟ opinions in the field. Finally, a poll of 34 statements was developed. Two hundred and fifty (250) faculty members from different faculties, gender, designation, qualification, teaching experience and age, filled the questionnaire. The overall Cronbach Alpha was found 0.937, whereas for each factor, alpha ranged from 0.598 to 0.927. The positive, strong and significant correlation was found among the six components of the HRBP‟s indicating the uni-dimensionality of the scale.
Human resource management practices: Perceptions of academia
(University of Management and Technology, 2012-03) Furrakh Abbas; Shehzad Ahmed
The major purpose of this research study was to explore the perceptions of academia about human resource management practices at University of the Punjab, Lahore as well as to examine link among these practices. This study being descriptive in nature, utilized survey technique. A sample of 150 permanent faculty members was selected through simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by using the Human Resource-Best Practices Scale (HR-BPS) developed by Ahmed, Abass & Akhter (2011). Descriptive statistics and item loading were run for data analysis. Results showed that the satisfaction level of academia about the execution of human resource management practices is low, especially about the performance appraisal practice. It was also found that a significant positive relationship exists between various kinds of practices. This research study confirms the need for strengthening the human resource management practices at university.
Dictionary using habits of electrical engineering students in Lahore, Pakistan
(2012-04-04) Anjum Naseem Rao
The modern day dictionaries, particularly the EFL learner dictionaries, have improved enormously on their micro-macro and super structure, yet the potential users of these kinds of dictionaries are not fully aware of this comprehensive improvement. As a result, the wealth of information, both linguistic and encyclopedic goes unheeded by the potential learners. The main cause of all this is attributed to the lack of requisite reference skill (Dictionary using skills) by the learners. The aim of this study is to find out the extent to which the students of electrical engineering at UMT possess the necessary reference skills to be able to use the EFL learner dictionaries efficiently in situations of linguistic and pragmatic failure. The research methodology used in this investigation is eclectic drawing on the essential principles of both qualitative and quantitative approaches for a comprehensive understanding of the situation under investigation. As many as one hundred students were selected randomly for this study. The findings of the pilot study suggest that most of the students lack the necessary dictionary using skills to make the most of the information provided in the dictionary which, of course, underscores the need to teach the students on how to use the dictionary, the kind of dictionary most suitable for them and integrating the dictionary with the language class. Such a measure is expected to improve the linguistic and communicative competence of the learners and will make them confident and self reliant in their study.
Humor as an essential component of tourism education
(2012-07-05) Irbaz Khan, Muhammad
Tourism education plays a vital role in promoting tourism. This is the core foundational platform where from emerges tourist guides and tourism administrators. In tourism education classroom, appreciations, rewards and mutual competitions are considered sufficient as attention capturing techniques, but there is another newly evolving technique that is asserting its significance day by day. Humor is an emerging technique now in tourism education classroom. Humor has been finding its place and getting more and more productive and positive effects on learners in improving pleasantness of their personality. Researchers and experts are emphasizing that humor is always engaging and engagement is the key factor towards participator’s involvement. Humor as a motivational tool in tourism education classroom, in this global economic set up hit by recession, is the most economical technique that can be practiced and availed of even by poor countries of the world. It casts nothing but proves more fruitful. Muhammad
Cohesion coherence interdependence: Analysing cohesive devices to study coherence in the text
(2012-10) Mahrukh Baig
This paper places its focus on an in-depth analysis of text-forming (cohesive) devices in a literature-based discourse. The purpose behind the research is to highlight a significant role of cohesion in generating coherence of a text. Moreover, a detailed study of the language use in a post-war literary piece aims to facilitate the comprehension of linguistic varieties in the chaotic periods of turmoil.
A comparative analysis of Ezra Pound’s "In a Station of the Metro" and T. S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
(Maryland Institute of Research, 2012-10) Mahrukh Baig
Pound and Eliot’s satiric criticism on the new morality of the modern world is skillfully achieved in their famous poems, “In a Station of the Metro” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. This research paper is aimed at a comparative analysis of these poems, with particular regards to their thematic concerns and stylistic features.
Developing Urdu WordNet using the merge approach
(Society for Natural Language Processing, Pakistan (SNLP), 2012-11) Ayesha Zafar
The current paper describes the process of developing an Urdu WordNet. The process includes selecting words, identifying their senses and documenting their use. The current work also ties the Urdu senses with corresponding senses in English. Challenges in developing the WordNet and the solutions being implemented are discussed. Finally, this paper presents the work planned in the future.
Analyzing the Advertising Discourse-A Journey from Sight to Mind
(International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 2013) Mahrukh Baig
This research paper sets out to project an in-depth study of the advertising discourse by applying methodological approaches of Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis to the chosen “advertisements”. It aims at examining the ‘power relations and struggles’ among product-producers and product-consumers, to gauge the level of psychological dominance exercised through the advertising discourse. The study, fundamentally, presents a counteranalysis of ‘advertising strategies’, as to how far they influence the consumers’ attitudes and to what extent the consumers direct their ‘discourse’. In other words, this research attempts to answer the question: ‘who turns out to be more powerful by controlling the other’s mind, in advertiser-consumer relationship?’, whether it is the consumer who shapes the discourse of advertisements through their demands, or the advertiser who affects the consumers’ beliefs through their ‘discourse’! Thus, the current paper presents a comprehensive review of the relevant literature leading towards a theoretical framework of preferred DA and CDA approaches to be further applied on the discourse of advertisements. And towards the end, it states the final remarks concluding the entire discussion and reflecting upon the effectiveness of Critical Discourse Analysis in its application on the advertising phenomena.
The scarlet letter and postmodernism
(The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 2013) Asim Karim
Postmodernism is a convoluted and nebulous term to define as it involves a plethora of major and minor details that appear in a wide variety of areas of study like art, literature, culture architecture, technology, education. Equally problematical is to locate it historically as well as temporally. One of the principal areas of post modernism that continues to inspire critical debate is its strong scepticism of the grand narratives of modernism. Contrary to the modernist focus on hierarchical grand positions, post modernism as Lyotard envisioned it “preaches an appreciation and respect for diversity, for local differences, for the plurality of ways in which human choose to live”. This study aims to analyse Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a postmodern text for it demonstrates a strong disinclination to uphold logocentric, monologic, absolute, universalist and structured metanarratives. It will be argued that a strong and hierarchical power structure supports and uphold these metanarratives for specific objectives of perpetuation of the governance and authority over the people. Thus, it links Lyotard’s scepticism of metanarratives with Foucault’s discourse of knowledge and power. It will be argued that resistance and opposition to this phenomenon is pre-eminently demonstrated not only by the most marginalized Hester Prynne, but also by Arthur Dimmesdale who has been one of the beneficiaries of these metanarratives. In countering and opposing the metanarratives, both establish a space for the legitimization of pluralism, diversity and heterogeneity as well as post modern liberation from the totalitarian persecution of the marginalized and the dissident voices.
Natural order of vocabulary acquisition
(EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH, 2013-08) Shaban Rafi, Muhammad
Past investigations conclude that L1 (first language) English learners acquire frequent, concrete, typical and basic level words faster and earlier than infrequent, abstract, atypical and super-ordinate level words. This study examines: (a) the natural order of vocabulary acquisition among 5 to 7 years old English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, and (b) whether the order of vocabulary presentation in the Grade-I English textbook, published by Punjab Textbook Board (PTB), Pakistan, coincides with the vocabulary acquisition habits of the learners. A vocabulary test was executed to gather data from one hundred and twenty ESL learners. A corpus analysis of the Grade-I English textbook was also carried out to compare the order of vocabulary presentation with the learners’ acquisition habits. The study revealed that Grade-I ESL learners acquire and memorize frequent, concrete, basic level and typical vocabulary of a category faster and earlier than infrequent, abstract, super-ordinate and atypical ones. Moreover, the order of vocabulary presentation in English textbooks does not match with the acquisition habits of the learners, which has implications for textbook writers.
Pragmatic study of heat lightning
(University of Management and Technology Lahore, 2015) Naheed Islam
This study aims at exploring the one-act play ‘Heat Lightning’ by Robert F. Carroll by applying pragmatic theories particularly observation, flouting and violation of ‘Cooperative principle maxims’. According to Grice (1975) for a successful communication human beings voluntarily observe certain principles, but it is the common observation that people often sacrifice these maxims .The maxims of cooperative principle are often applied on literary text to explore the possibilities of creating humour. I have investigated the flouting and violation of the maxims in the play ‘Heat Lightning’ to find out why, how and at what situation characters flout or violate these principles. The technique of purposive sampling was employed to select those utterances containing flouting and violation. The type of flouting and violation, the purpose and intention of the character and the effect that is achieved through flouting and violation is the focus of the study. The data is analyzed by applying descriptive qualitative approach as it is best suited because data is in form of words and utterances.The analysis shows that although all three characters in the play flout and violate the maxims but the in their own way.Grundy( 2000, p. 81)stated that an implicature is a result of an addressee drawing an inductive inference as to the likeliest meaning given in the context. The flouting on the part of the girl is in the form of the sudden emotional outbursts and is unintentional in the beginning but at the end of the play though the words are charged with emotions, is intentional. The man on the other hand tries to manipulate the situation and to elicit the required information from the girl. The second man flouts just to keep the flow of conversation. The analysis further reveals they violate the maxim to be sarcastic or to mislead others. The study is limited to a one-act play but can be helpful in shedding greater light on the meaning of the play and other literary genres through pragmatics. This kind of analysis scaffolds the reader’s creativity in interpreting the play.
A Case Study of Language Development in 0.1-0.9 Year Old Child
(University of Management and Technology Lahore, 2015) Naila, Shahadat
The purpose of this study was to observe language development in a child from the birth up to the age of 9 months. The present research focused on the acquisition of human speech sounds by a child, in comparison with non-human sounds. Other than that, the study also tried to explore the effects of audio-visual elements on language development. A newbornbaby boywasthe subject of the current study. The total observation period of 9 monthswas broken down into three stages. Each stagecomprised ofthree months of child’s age. The data was collectedin the form of audio and video recordings, documents and interviews with family members of the subject. After observing the subject for 9 months, conclusions were drawn and compared with past studies in the same area. A child goes through many human and non-human sounds during his language acquisition period but as devised by Chomsky (2004) that language is innate (Chomsky, 2004), child accepts only human speech signals to acquire language. The research concluded that both sound and image help a child to acquire a language. Individually, they cannot be beneficial in developing language in a child. Language development is a systematic process, whichis achieved by a child in the early period of his or her life, no matter child comes across how many human and non-human sounds. It becomes easier for a child when he or shefinds pictorial representation of what he or she listen.
Relationship between social stratification and motivation to learn english as foreign language
(University of Management and Technology Lahore, 2015) Asma Saeed
Disparities in social classes prevail in all human societies. Pakistani society has noticeable disparity on different grounds including income, power, prestige and source of earnings. The purpose behind this study was to investigate the relationship between social stratification and motivation to learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL).Although motivation to learn English at different levels has been widely explored by many researchers,yet the relationship between social status and language learning motivation is still needed to be explored. This study has investigated the relationship social stratification has with motivation to learn English as foreign language as well as which social status more facilitates English as Foreign Language learning.For this purpose, 250 English as foreign language learners at BS level from 7 renowned universities of Lahorewere selected as participants. These learners were grouped as upper, middle and lower classes in terms of their social backgrounds. Data was collected through their responses to a 5Llikert scale questionnaire based on questions related to Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation in EFL learning. The quantitative data was statistically analyzed through Stata. The findings revealed a significant relationship between social stratification and motivation to learn EFL. The findings exposed that social status exerts considerable impact on EFL learning motivation. The middle social class tends to be more motivated as compared to upper and lower social class.Administrators, policy makers and instructors may find this study useful for assessing the essential changing and requirement in the fieldof English as foreign language learning. The study recommends that there should be teacher training courses to trainthem strategies to improve motivation for English learning and workshops should be conducted for both teachers and learners to enhance learners’ motivation
Grammatical Analysis of Urdu Auxiliary Verbs
(University of Management and Technology Lahore, 2015) Mushtaq, Zakia
This thesis examines and illustrates the existence, internal structure, syntactic arrangement and semantic contribution of Urdu auxiliaries (single to multiple in a verb phrase). The study investigates the behavior of auxiliary verbs ending with different morphemes and how these auxiliaries can be classified on the basis of different morphological forms. The different auxiliaries have been classified and enlisted in the form of tables so that one group can be clearly distinguished from the other. The dissertation explores that syntactic places of multiple auxiliaries are generally fixed and the position of auxiliaries cannot be changed or swapped. This aspect has been explained with the help of linear examples as well as syntactic trees. It has been shown that the syntactic trees can acquire various auxiliaries and intensifier simultaneously that evolves the trees from simple to complex forms. The current work also draws attention towards the semantic information Urdu auxiliaries bring with them. It attempts to describe that the inflection in auxiliaries contributes the aspectual meanings of the main verb. Moreover, it is noticed that addition of auxiliaries does not always refer to the addition or change of meanings; it generally emphasizes or strengthens the existing interpretations. This research attempts to enlist all auxiliaries and their individual semantic properties.
(Post-)Colonial Silence(s) and Critical Practice(s): Some Perspectives on Waseem Anwar’s “Black” Women’s Dramatic Discourse
(Linguistics & Literature Review, 2015) Muhammad Furqan Tanvir
This article comments on Waseem Anwar‟s book “Black” Women’s Dramatic Discourse: A Psychosemiotic Study of Silence in Selected Plays by African American Women Dramatists to illustrate how the essential plurality of postmodern critical practices, in spite of their overt emphasis on anti-traditionalism, are rhetorically governed by academic jargon that is a multifaceted tradition in its own right. In doing so, it will introduce the reader to Waseem Anwar‟s critique, in the wake of postcolonial studies, of the dialogic nature of language in evaluations of race and gender.

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