Marginalization of Regional Languages and Footprints of English---A Case Study of Civil Servants of Pakistan
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Date
2019
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
This thesis is concerned with use and influence of English, Urdu, and Pakistan’s regional languages by Pakistan’s civil servants in their official duty. The main target of the study is to evaluate the possibility for regional languages to survive, and to analyse government’s policy on language marginalization. It is argued that multilingualism in Pakistan is hierarchical in nature, characterized by a double divide, one between the elitist language of power and the major regional languages (vernaculars) and, the other, between the regional languages and the dominated ones. The nature and implications of this double divide are analyzed in respect of the relative positions of English, Urdu and regional languages, which are further divided into majority and minority. The prime concern was to evaluate the survival chances of regional languages and steps taken by government in the form of policy regarding this issue of language marginalization. The study uses a quantitative research approach that includes a close-ended structured questionnaire to collect primary data from Pakistan’s civil servants. In the analysis portion first each research question is answered from the data collected furthermore data is correlated with the excerpts from the research articles of various scholars.