An Analysis of Lexico-Semantic Variations in Pakistani English Newspaper Corpus

Abstract

The present study focuses on the corpus-based lexico-semantic analysis of Pakistani English to identify the variations in the language of newspapers. It also investigates how Pakistani English newspapers consider their readers' cultural and social ideals for intelligible contact while selecting language posts. As a result, they often deviate from the native norms of the language adopting many indigenous linguistic features and emerging new varieties of New English to define their tasks easier in order not only to facilitate but to attract people’s attention. Therefore, Moag’s model on New Englishes, Boas’s theory of cultural relativism, and Kachru’s Theory of Nativisation and Acculturation with the conception of the Outer Circle (1986) mainly connected to institutionalize Second Varieties of English have been used for the theoretical analysis within Pakistani context dependent socio-cultural scenario. The usage of these lexical items shows that Pakistani English is derived from the source, namely, Standard British English, for example, shadi hall, Jihadi outfits, etc. These lexical item categories followed in coinage, borrowing, idiomatic collocations, and semantic shift. This study also attempts to create lexicographical entries to represent the diverse Pakistani English and become available to society's educational and global communication. The study purposively compiled the 2 million corpora from the websites of two major Pakistani English Newspapers, The Nation and The News, and then analyzed it by using corpus software tools Antconc 3.5.8w to search for the key terms and to identify these elements of the stance. The study's finding highlights the New English variety of Pakistani English Newspapers and the adapted lexemes used in the local sociolinguistics context. One of the study's most significant findings shows that the New Englishes lexemes are infused with Islamic, historical, and social culture, highlighting the diverse local colours adapted to the Pakistani setting. The New Englishes in Pakistan comprises the amalgamation of Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, and English lexemes. The study also broadens the horizon of society's educational and communicational usage while maintaining the endonormative standard.