Re-contextualizing of urdu as the official language of pakistan; issues, challenges and prospects
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Date
2017
Authors
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Publisher
University of Management and Technology
Abstract
The main purpose of this research is to analyzeinter-textual and inter-discursive links between former language policies and the Supreme Court (SC) ruling of 2015. Furthermore, this research intends to investigate what are the issues and challenges which emerged in order to re-contextualize Urdu as the national and official language of Pakistan in the current socio-political and educational contexts. The current research is qualitative in nature. This study integrates two approaches in critical paradigm, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and ethnography of language policy (ELP) by introducing the re-contextualization of Urdu as the official language and exploring multiple challenges to Urdu at macro level (National language policies) and micro level (interpretation and appropriation of policy at grass-root level). CDA is applied to examine the inter-discursive and inter-textual connections between the Supreme Court ruling of 2015 and the former language policies.Ethnography of language policy is used to uncover the connections between the multiple layers of inter-textuality in the Supreme Court ruling of 2015, ethnicity and pedagogyin order to reveal the re-contextualization of the Urdu language and its impacts on the current socio-political and educational domains. Thus the combination of ethnography of language policy and CDA is particularly useful to demonstrate how the impact of ideology, power and globalization re-contextualize the position of Urdu as the national and official language of Pakistan in the capacity of symbolic identity and medium of instruction. The first deals with ethnic politics of Pakistan and second with power, social class, deprivation and political Islam. CDA data is collected in the form of contemporary political discourse, language policies (the SC order 2015 and former language policies),educational discourse as well as a scouring of newspaper accounts and scholarly studies. Ethnographic data is collected and recorded through observation and interviews. Ethnographic data is mainly based on interviews which were conducted in March – September 2017 with teachers, students, linguists, and professionals. The current research identifies the actual issues and challenges at micro level in adopting Urdu in social and education domains and further determines the possible prospects
Description
Supervised By,. María Isabel Maldonado García
Keywords
Former language policies, Inter-discursive and inter-textual