Zahid Ashraf2016-03-292016-03-292015https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/1636Supervisor: Dr. Nazir MalikIn the emerging era of globalisation, the role of communication is becoming crucial for the educational institutes. This is however creating challenges for the students coming from diverse cultures for their academic and professional development. Therefore, the aim of the study is to explore those cross-cultural and sociolinguistic barriers that create hindrance in their academic development at higher educational institutions of Pakistan. Focused group discussions of 30 students have been conducted where thematic analysis was used to identify the important themes. The findings show that students from different cultural background face a number of problems such as cultural issues, problems of being native and non-native, problem of adjustment and psychological barriers in this context. It can be said that cross-cultural barriers pose a serious threat to them. But effective policies and better management of diverse intake can address the problems of cross-culture and it is the duty of the teacher to cope with these issues; otherwise, students confront a number of issues in their academic career. Furthermore, the current study will provide a solution to the problems of sociolinguistic and cross-cultural barriers for academicians, students, teachers and top management at the university level.Cross-cultural BarriersSociolinguistic IssuesStudentsTeachersHigher Institutes and PakistanThesis