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Patron-in-Chief Maj. Gen. (R) Zia Uddin Najam HI (M)
Rector, National University of Modern Languages
Patron Brig. Azam Jamal
DG, National University of Modern Languages
Editor Dr. Farheen Ahmed Hashmi
Assistant Professor, Quality Enhancement Cell, National University of Modern Languages
Editorial Board
Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja Associate Professor Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Ryan Skinnell Assistant Professor Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Maria Staton Assistant Professor Department of English, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA
Dr. Claire Chambers Lecturer in Global Literature Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, Heslington, York, UK
Dr. Samina Qadir Vice Chancellor Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Dr. Riaz Hassan Former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, AIR University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Dr. Nelofer Halai Professor Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
Dr. Shahid Siddiqui Vice Chancellor Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Dr. Carl Leggo Professor Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dr. Dawn Langley Dean, General Education & Development Studies, Piedmont Community College, Roxboro, NC, USA
Dr. John Gibbons Adjunct Professor School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Bernhard Kelle Professor of Linguistics University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Dr. Steven Talmy Associate Professor Department of Language & Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dr. James Giles Professor Emeritus Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
Dr. Haj Ross Professor Department of Linguistics and Technical Communication, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Robin Truth Goodman Professor The English Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Technical Assistance
Muhammad Nawaz Computer Assistant, Quality Enhancement Cell, NUML
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Vol 13 (II), December, 2015 ISSN 2222-5706
CONTENTS
Contents I
Editorial Board II Contributors IV
Research Papers
Sajid Ahmad & Muhammad Asim Mahmood 1
Comparing Explicit Features of Pakistani Press Reportage with
British Press Reportage: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis
Jamil Asghar 32
The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation-Ideology
Nexus
Muhammad Saboor Hussain Raja 50
Relevance of Authentic Materials to the Attention Span of Adult
Learners in English Language Classes in Pakistan
Qaisar Khan, Nighat Sultana & Arab Naz 73
The Linguistic Representation of Gender Identities in Pakhtu
Proverbs
Copyright Statement 88
Disclaimer 89
Call for Papers 90
Subscription Form 91
II
Editorial Board
Patron-in-Chief Maj. Gen. (R) Zia Uddin Najam HI (M) Rector, National University of Modern Languages
Patron Brig. Azam Jamal DG, National University of Modern Languages
Editor Dr. Farheen Ahmed Hashmi Assistant Professor, Quality Enhancement Cell, National University of Modern Languages
Editorial Board Dr. Carl Leggo Professor Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dr. Dawn Langley Dean General Education & Development Studies, Piedmont Community College, Roxboro, NC, USA
Dr. John Gibbons Adjunct Professor School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Malbourne, Australia
Dr. Bernhard Kelle Professor of Linguistics University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Dr. Steven Talmy Associate Professor Department of Language & Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dr. James Giles Professor Emeritus Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
Dr. Haj Ross Professor Department of Linguistics and Technical Communication,
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College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Robin Truth Goodman Professor The English Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja Associate Professor Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Ryan Skinnell Assistant Professor Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Dr. Maria Staton Assistant Professor Department of English, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA
Dr. Claire Chambers Lecturer in Global Literature Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, Heslington, York, UK
Dr. Samina Qadir Vice Chancellor Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Dr. Riaz Hassan Former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, AIR University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Dr. Nelofer Halai Professor Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
Dr. Shahid Siddiqui Vice Chancellor Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan
IV
Contributors
Comparing Explicit Features of Pakistani Press Reportage with British Press Reportage: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis
Sajid Ahmad (Main Author) is serving as Assistant Professor of English at Government Postgraduate College Samundri, District Faisalabad. He is a PhD English Linguistics scholar at Government College University Faisalabad. His doctoral research work focuses on register variation in Pakistani English and explores linguistic variation across press reportage in Pakistani print media by compiling the first ever special purpose Pakistani News Corpus. He has authored a number of research publications in different national and international journals. He has also participated in national and international conferences/workshops on Corpus Linguistics. He is particularly interested in language variation studies, register variation, Corpus Linguistics, Corpus Stylistics, and Critical Discourse Analysis.
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Muhammad Asim Mahmood (Co-Author) is serving as Chairman, Department of Applied Linguistics, Government College University Faisalabad. His PhD is in the area of World Englishes. His doctoral research is acclaimed to have been a pioneering work in the field of Corpus Linguistics in Pakistan and includes compilation of first ever general purpose corpora on Pakistani Written English. He has authored more than sixty research articles in different esteemed national and international journals. He has also presented and participated in many national and international conferences and symposia. His research interests include language variation studies, register variation, Genre Analysis, Corpus Linguistics, Corpus-based and Corpus-dirven research work in Pakistani English, and English Language Teaching.
Email: [email protected]
The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation-Ideology Nexus
Dr. Jamil Asghar is currently working as Assistant Professor at the Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. He earned his PhD in English from National University of Modern Languages. He also has master’s degrees in Philosophy and Political Science. He holds a research fellowship in Linguistics from the University of North Texas, USA. His teaching and research experience stretches over fifteen years. He has presented papers at national and international conferences and has contributed to various renowned
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research journals. His areas of interest include Postmodernism, Literary Theory, Translation Studies, Philosophy of Education, and Postcolonial Studies.
Email: [email protected]
Relevance of Authentic Materials to the Attention Span of Adult Learners in English Language Classes in Pakistan
Dr. Muhammad Saboor Hussain Raja is General Coordinator in English Language Unit at Qassim University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has a rich and diversified experience of teaching English at different levels and at various places like Army Burn Hall College, Abbotabad, Government Gordon College, Rawalpindi, and National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. He has also worked as Assistant Professor at Islamabad Model College for Boys, H-9 Islamabad. His research interests include Psycholinguistics, Applied Linguistics, and issues related to Action Research in ELT (EFL and ESL) domain.
Email: [email protected]
The Linguistic Representation of Gender Identities in Pakhtu Proverbs Dr. Qaisar Khan (Main Author) is working as Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He is also shouldering the responsibility of heading the department. He has recently completed his PhD degree in English Linguistics from National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. Dr. Khan has published several research articles in national and international journals. His areas of interest include language, gender, curriculum and education. His recent research endeavors are to understand the working and operation of madrassas (religious seminaries) and to facilitate English Language Teaching reforms in their curriculum.
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Nighat Sultana (Co-Author) is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Higher Studies, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad. She obtained her PhD from the same university in 2007 in English. Having a teaching experience of more than 27 years, she has been engaged in research and supervision of postgraduate students. She has also been active in streamlining the syllabus and facilitating research students as a Graduate Advisor. Besides, she is also a member of PhD Board of Advisory Committee at the university. Her areas of specialization are Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Language and Gender, and Critical Discourse Analysis.
Email: [email protected]
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Dr. Arab Naz (Co-Author) is Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Social Work at University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He completed his PhD from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. As a research scholar, he has worked on gender development and empowerment and has published several research articles and has contributed to books at national and international level. As a social scientist, he has facilitated several reputed organizations to collaborate with the university in improving life standard and educational prospects of women in Malakand Division that was the worst affected area in the ongoing War on Terror.
Email: [email protected]
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Comparing Explicit Features of Pakistani Press Reportage with British Press Reportage: A Multi-Dimensional
Analysis
Sajid Ahmad (Main Author)
Muhammad Asim Mahmood (Co-Author)
Abstract
Pakistani English being a non-native variety has its distinct registers which exhibit variation at different levels of language. Previous quantitative studies on Pakistani news register have emphasized the unique linguistic characteristics of Pakistani news register on the basis of individual linguistic features. These studies prove to be of limited value due to their reliance on frequency of individual linguistic features, unrepresentative data and lack of external comparisons. Biber (1988) established the fact that register variation studies based upon individual linguistic features instead of co-occurring features are subjective and can be misleading in nature. He regards multi-dimensional analysis as the most suitable alternative approach to investigating the linguistic variation which is corpus-based, quantitative, empirical and comparative in nature. The multi-dimensional (MD) approach lays emphasis on the co-occurrence of linguistic features in register variation studies and highlights the fact that individual linguistic features cannot reliably distinguish among registers. The current study, being a pioneering research work, explores the Pakistani press reportage register through multi-dimensional analysis. The present research investigates sub-categories of Pakistani press reportage by constructing a special purpose representative corpus of press reportage in Pakistani print media. Pakistani News Corpus (PNS) has been divided into four different categories of reportage and each category speaks for its categorical presence in Pakistani print media. The present study compares its results with British press reportage on Biber’s five textual dimensions and explores the significant statistical linguistic differences between Pakistani press reportage and British press reportage register. Findings of the study reveal that Pakistani press reportage has been found highly informational, narrative, explicit, non-abstract and least overt in expression of persuasion/argumentation.
Keywords: Pakistani English, MD Analysis, register, press reportage
Introduction
The concept of language variation has necessitated analysis of linguistic patterns across registers for the description of varieties of
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 13, (II), December, 2015 ISSN 2222-5706
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English. Registers are defined by situational characteristics and therefore termed as situationally defined varieties. Register variation is widely considered to be intrinsic to all cultures. Trudgil (1999) being pioneer in this field, studied variation in the English language and worked on different dialects of England. He highlighted the fact that a certain part of concern diverted from phonological, lexical and historical level towards syntactic level which received less attention from all dialectologists. He also made clear that English language was undergoing change: “The further you travel, the more different dialects will be found and the reason is that English, like all other languages is changing and the change starts from a specific area and spreads to neighboring areas” (p. 7). It has also been observed that the number of non-native speakers of English in comparison with the native speakers of English has been on the rise over the years. Crystal (1997, p. 54) aptly estimates the speakers of English in terms of Inner Circle 320-380 million, Outer Circle 150-300 million, Expanding Circle 100-1000 million. The same fact has also been observed by many other linguists. Kachru (1996) points out that “There are now at least four non-native speakers of English for every native speaker” (p. 241). Certain cultural and linguistic differences played their role in the evolution of different varieties of English all over the world. These varieties were labeled as “world Englishes.”
The term “world Englishes” was exhaustively explained by Kachru and Smith (2008) who worked on it. They propounded the real idea of pluricentricity behind the term which has spread all around the globe with formal variations. “Englishes symbolize the functional and formal variation in the language, and its international acculturation. The language now belongs to those who use it as their first language and to those who use it as an additional language” (Bolton, 2006, p. 241). The future of the World Englishes will have to be seen whether these New Englishes could maintain their status in the World or they get merged into the other native varieties. Paradigm shift might continue and if this shift is bound to happen, the New Englishes users should also adapt themselves to the rights as claimed by the mother-tongue speakers. “I would argue that English as an international language is not distributed, as a set of established encoded forms, unchanged into different domains of use, but it is spread as a virtual language” (Widdowson, 1994, pp. 139-40).
Pakistani English
Pakistani English being a non-native variety has its distinct registers which exhibit variation at different levels of language. Certain cultural and linguistic factors along with postcolonial scenario have given birth to new varieties of English. In Pakistan, the English language has established its status and has become a Lingua Franca. It has proved a
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major link language and bridged the country with the whole world. The English language is not only used for the official purposes but also beneficially used in Islamic law and Sharia. Platt (1984) put forward four basic criteria to declare any variety as new English. First, he highlighted the fact that New English is to be preferred as a subject in the educational institutions. New English should be taught as the mode of instructions above all other native languages. Second, New English must have developed as a non-native variety in the form of pidgin or creole. Third, New English must be performing various internal functions of the country and should be used in different departments of that country. For example, official correspondence, legal proceedings, etc. It should perform the function of a Lingua Franca. Fourth, it should be localized in the pronunciation and intonation and form and expressions. English in Pakistan meets all the four criteria and takes the title of New English. English language came in the sub-continent when the English needed the office staff for their work; therefore, they started the teaching of English language in the 19th century. At present, the English Language is taught in Pakistani educational arena as a compulsory subject up to graduation level. English medium educational institutions are preferred and most of the syllabus of all the subjects is set in English language.
Being a non-native variety, English language in Pakistan has absorbed different kinds of words, structures, expressions from the native languages. It exhibits many characteristics of its own norm different from those of standard British English. These distinctive features signify independent trend of the Pakistani English. As a non-native variety, Pakistani English has been researched so far from different approaches. The approach propounded by Kachru (1983) highlighted the tendencies of using more complex structures in the South Asian Englishes which made them overloaded in diction. It focused on the frequent use of interrogative structures without even shifting the place of subject and verb. This approach also explored the morpho-syntactic features of South Asian Englishes.
The influence of Urdu language upon the language of newspapers in a detailed form has been investigated by Baumgardner (1993). His research put forward the fact that Pakistani English borrowed frequent words from Urdu and the regional languages. It was highlighted that words like atta (flour), baradri (clan), goonda (thug), kabbadi (a sport), kachiabaadi (shanty town), mela (fair), wadera (Sindi landlord) are found frequently in Pakistani English (p. 46). It was also proved that on lexical level, the prefixes and suffixes were found to be very productive and innovative in the Pakistani English (pp. 88-89). Words in edibles have been concocted from Urdu and quite frequently being used in Pakistani English
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e.g., Tandoori roti, naans, pekoras, samosas, chapatti, dal, kebab, pulao, daal-chawal, roast, charga, tikkas, aaloo-chola, siri-pae, nihari, chutney, etc. Baumgardner (1993, p. 90) also states the fact that wedding celebrations are much prolonged in the Pakistani culture and words related to these functions are much popular and very distinct and frequently used in Pakistani English. Words like shaadi, dulha, dulhan, mayun, dholki, luddi, mehndi, baraat, rukhsati, nikah, valima are quite common. Baumgardner also highlights that Urdu nouns and adjectives are quite popular in the Pakistani English and used in all the publishing material in Pakistan on frequent basis.
Another important contribution is of Rahman (1990) who focused on the phonology, lexis and grammar of the Pakistani English. His approach highlighted some distinct morphological and syntactic features in the Pakistani English and pointed out the use of progressive aspect with the habitual and completed action frequently found in Pakistani English.
Many researchers tried to identify Pakistani English as an independent variety. Talaat (2002) studied the form and functions of the English language in Pakistan and pinpointed the impact of Urdu language upon the English language in Pakistan. She studied text analysis to identify the ongoing process of change in any non-native language like Pakistani English. She took the investigation of study away from the item analysis to text analysis to investigate the process of variation in a comprehensive manner. She also investigated the form and functions of the English language in Pakistan and put forward the impact of Urdu language upon the English language in Pakistan.
Empirical approach towards investigating Pakistani English as an independent variety which focused on the deviant features of Pakistani English through corpus-based studies was introduced by Mahmood, A. (2009) and Mahmood, R. (2009). Mahmood, R. (2009) studied the lexico-grammatical aspects of the nouns and noun phrases in Pakistani English. The different patterns of the nouns and noun phrases were studied in comparison with the British and American Corpus. Mahmood, R. (2009) also worked on the Collocations, Colligation (grammatical Collocation) and word-grammar in Pakistani English.
Mahmood, A. (2009) worked on different trends in the Pakistani English through a corpus-based study and verified the authenticity of claims made by previous researchers working on Pakistani English. Majority of exact quoted examples by Talaat (2002), Baumgardner (1993) and Rahman (1990) were studied and differences were analyzed. Further investigations were carried on Verb-particles; Verb-complementation, adverbs, lexical words, and differences were analyzed. 300 lexical words
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were also studied being chosen on the gender and culture-specific basis and their pattern of use was observed in the available Pakistani English Corpus and a comparison was made with the different patterns of use in Standard British English.
Register Variation
The quantitative sociolinguistics has found variation in language in different forms: “Variation associated with constraints in the linguistic environment, variation associated with the social or demographic characteristics of speakers, and variation associated with situations of use” (Biber, 1995, p. 316). Other linguists have stressed upon the importance of register variation studies. Ure (1982) also highlighted the importance of register variation by saying “Each language community has its own system of registers, corresponding to the range of activities in which its members normally engage” (p. 5).
Registers differ from social dialects precisely because they serve different purposes, topics, and situations. They naturally differ in content as well as in form. Speakers do not typically "say the same thing" in conversation as in lectures, reports, academic papers, and complimentary messages. Thus, variation across registers includes different linguistic features, rather than semantically neutral variants of a single feature. In register studies, the linguistic differences are focused and elaborated. The basic working idea found in sociolinguistic study of register variation is “a communication situation that recurs regularly in a society (in terms of participants, setting, communicative functions, and so forth) will tend over time to develop identifying markers of language structure and language use, different from the language of other communication situations” (Biber, 1994, p. 48).
Register analysis always includes three basic features i.e., the situational background, the linguistic features, and the functional relationship between situational background and the linguistic features. Registers are marked with specific lexical and grammatical features and all these grammatical features are seen in the situational context in which all these registers are used and described. All these linguistic features in registers exhibit functional content in general: “Linguistic features are always functional when considered from a register perspective. That is, linguistic features tend to occur in a register because they are particularly well-suited to the purposes and situational context of the register” (Biber & Conrad, 2009). Language used in a register belongs to different contexts, different circumstances and motives. Therefore, the register differences are also important like the sociolinguistic based study of a non-native variety. “The register perspective differs from the traditional sociolinguistic
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studies in both regards: it describes the patterns of language use in all spoken registers, and it describes patterns of language use in terms of the full inventory of Lexico-grammatical characteristics” (Biber, 2009, p. 825). Pakistani English being a non-native variety has its distinct registers which exhibit variation at different levels of language. Register variation is widely considered to be intrinsic to all cultures. Ferguson (1983, p. 154) emphasized the fact that “register variation in which language structure varies in accordance with the occasions of use, is all-pervasive in human language.” Hymes (1984, p. 44) argues that the analysis of register variation i.e. “Verbal repertoire” in his terms - should become the major focus of research within linguistics, “The abilities of individuals and the composite abilities of communities cannot be understood except by making Verbal repertoire, not language, the central scientific notion.” The present study also explores linguistic variation in a register of Pakistani English and investigates the following research question:
Q. How far is the language of press reportage register in Pakistani print media different from British press reportage register analyzed in Biber’s 1988 study?
Need of Multi-Dimensional Analysis for Register Variation Studies
The present research uses multi-dimensional (MD) approach for the register analysis of press reportage in Pakistani print media following the register variation model presented by Douglas Biber (1998) in his seminal work Variation across Speech and Writing. MD analysis was actually developed to indicate the prominent linguistic co-occurrence patterns in a language in an empirical manner. The basic idea of MD approach lies in the fact that individual linguistic features cannot distinguish among registers; rather, sets of co-occurring features work together towards getting a shared a communicative goal. These are marked in MD analysis as dimensions. The primary research goal of the approach is to focus on the linguistic analysis of texts and text types and it undermines the analysis of individual linguistic features.
MD approach lays stress on the fact that different kinds of text differ linguistically and functionally, so it is not proper to make conclusions about any discourse after analyzing one or two text-varieties. Biber (2009) emphasizes upon the need of sets of co-occurring features in a register analysis of any genre:
It turns out, though, that the relative distribution of common linguistic features, considered individually, cannot reliably distinguish among registers. There are simply too many different linguistic characteristics to consider, and individual features often have idiosyncratic
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distributions. However, when analyses are based on the co-occurrence and alternation patterns for groups of linguistic features, important differences across registers are revealed. (p. 824)
Linguists like Hymes (1964), Firth (1966), Trippe (1972), Brown and Fraser (1979), and Halliday (1985) also emphasized the need of analysis of co-occurrence of features. In addition, Conrad stated “it can be misleading to concentrate on specific, isolated (linguistic) markers without taking into account systematic variations which involve the sets of co-occurrence of markers” (2009, p. 5). The MD approach is multi-dimensional which indicates the fact that no single dimension or parameter is sufficient enough to highlight the differences among registers.
Three major theoretical differences have been found between earlier studies on register variation and the MD approach. Most investigations have proved that a single parameter/dimension is not proper to explore the situational differences among registers; whereas, MD approach focused upon the idea that different sets of co-occurring linguistic features highlight the different functional interpretations e.g. interactiveness, planning, informational focus, etc. Second, previous studies revealed the fact that register variation can be analyzed in the form of dichotomous distinctions. On the contrary, MD approach reveals that there is no continuous range of linguistic variation linked with each of these dimensions. Therefore, MD investigations are quantitative and continuous parameters of variation which unfold the differences among the continuous range of texts or registers. That’s why; dimensions may be used as a parameter to evaluate the extent to which registers are found similar or different. Third, it is not certain that groupings of linguistic features selected on intuitive level co-occur for certain in the texts; whereas, MD approach uses quantitative statistical techniques and provides the identification of the prominent co-occurrence patterns in a language.
Multi-dimensional approach of register variation synthesizes quantitative and qualitative functional methodological techniques. The basic part of MD approach is that the statistical analyses are interpreted in functional ways to evaluate the underlying communicative functions related with each distributional pattern. Thus, MD approach focuses on the notion that statistical co-occurrence patterns explore the underlying shared communicative functions.
Biber (1988) made it clear that no single dimension can differentiate between spoken and written form of texts. Previous studies upon the language of press reportage are marked with one feature: those
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studies try to distinguish press reportage from other register on one dimension. Past studies (Anwar, 2011; Mahmood 2012; Uzair, 2012) investigated the language of press reportage and emphasized the individual features of Pakistani press reportage but these studies prove to be unreliable and face validity threats on only one point, that is, they did not discuss the functional interpretation of linguistic differences found in Pakistani journalistic register. Biber (1988) has proved through MD approach that studies of press reportage register based upon one parameter are not valid and emphasized the fact that language of press reportage should be studied in MD parameters to explore the functional interpretations for the variation found among the sub-categories of British press reportage register.
Biber (1988) also made clear that textual dimensions in multi-dimensional studies are investigated through the process of factor analysis in which the co-related linguistic features are further explored for their shared communicative function. Biber (1988) discussed the concept of factor analysis in MD analysis, “Factor analysis enables quantitative identification of underlying dimensions within set of texts. Factor analysis provides primary analysis, but it is dependent on the theoretical foundation provided by an adequate data base of texts and inclusion of multiple linguistic features” (p. 65). In MD analysis, factor analysis is a major statistical procedure used to identify the systematic co-occurrence patterns in a set of variables. The use of factor analysis here is purposeful in a way because it explores the register differences involving underlying linguistic co-occurrence patterns, that is, “When applied to linguistic data, factor analysis can therefore be used to identify sets of linguistic features that tend to co-occur across the texts of a corpus” (Grieve, 2010, p. 5).
It is also a notable fact in multi-dimensional analysis, although the sets of co-occurring features or dimensions are not only quantitatively calculated but also their functional content is interpreted accordingly. So, MD analysis includes both linguistic and functional content. Once, the sets of co-occurring features are derived through statistical factor analysis, the co-occurring features are given names as dimensions in a functional way. In Biber’s (1988) study, five textual dimensions were recognized:
1. Involved versus Informational Discourse
2. Narrative versus Non-Narrative Concerns
3. Explicit versus Situation-Dependent Discourse
4. Overt Expression of Persuasion/Argumentation
5. Abstract versus Non-Abstract Information
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No study has been conducted so far on the press reportage in Pakistani media using Biber’s (1988) multi-dimensional analysis. The current research work has explored variation across different sub-categories press reportage along five textual dimensions.
Previous Register-Based Studies in Pakistani English
Very few people have worked on register variation of Pakistani English. All the research work so far has been conducted to prove Pakistani English on individual linguistic differences but the functional interpretation of linguistic differences have not been explored which is a marked feature of register studies. There is only one study conducted on advertising register in Pakistani print media by Shakir (2013) that used MD approach which investigated the linguistic variation based on internal and external comparisons. This study is pioneering in its nature and lays stress on the fact that other registers of Pakistani English should also be explored to highlight the linguistic variation and linguistic identity of Pakistani English as a non-native variety. This study disregarded already conducted researches on advertising due to their reliance on frequency of individual linguistic features and being based upon unrepresentative data. Drawing on data from 137 magazines and 37 newspapers, his research work investigated how far Pakistani print advertisements varied with reference to source, audience and product category on five textual dimensions propounded by Biber (1988). His study proved that Pakistani print advertisements showed significant variance in accordance with source and product category. The present study has also explored another register i.e., press reportage register of Pakistani print media.
Language of Pakistani Press Reportage & Previous Studies
Pakistani print media exhibits local cultural influences which have been arousing interests for researchers over a certain period of time. The print news media has gained its strength in Pakistan over the years and its language has become the key area for the researchers. News is determined by values and the kind of language in which that news is told reflects and expresses those values. Audience feel that the way in which language is used by media. Bell (1991, p. 4) also emphasized upon the importance of language of news media, “The uses in which language is put in the mass media are intrinsically important to us as language users and receivers. The linguistic means are adopted purposefully. How does the media use language, is often larger than life.”
Within the media, news is the primary language genre. Daily newspapers are filled with news of all kinds. In Pakistan, language of print media has gained importance over the years. It reflects the frequent public opinion about how the language is used purposefully by Pakistani media.
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Language is the most important part of the content of what Pakistani media communicates to public at large. Thus, language is a tool and expression of Pakistani media messages. That’s why; the language of media is always of high importance for researchers due to its valuable content. It is always easy for the researchers working on Pakistani media language because of its availability. It is easier to collect data of language of Pakistani print media than that of conversation. Moreover, it is always available in large quantities. On average, each newspaper contains 100,000 or more words of text and the real problem faced by researchers how much data should be enough for the analysis (Cotter, 2010, p. 21).
The news stories that we read or hear are structured in a certain way, following a set of reporting, writing, and editing rules. News is embodied in stylistic consistency, rhetorical accessibility, and brevity as well as story structure, use of quotes and a well-wrought lead. (Cotter, 2010, p. 27)
As compared to foreign researches, the language of Pakistani print media has not been explored so much. Most of the studies have been conducted from the content analysis framework in Pakistani print media. Sadaf (2011) investigated the language of Pakistani English and Urdu newspapers. Focusing on the content analysis approach of studying Pakistani print media, she conducted a comparative content analysis of the coverage of English and Urdu dailies of Pakistan on the issue of judicial restoration. Similarly, Mansoor (2013) investigated the language of Pakistani print media from gender-based perspective and explored the gender stereotypes and gender prejudices in the print media.
From variationist’s perspective, Uzair, Mahmood & Raja (2012) studied the role of Pakistani English newspapers in promoting the lexical deviations. Their study investigated how the language of newspapers reflected the mindset of people of that particular society. It was made clear how writers borrowed words, used hybridization or exploited words according to their convenience in such a way as to remove the social barriers. Their study proved the impact of lexical deviations and indigenization on the language of newspapers to validate the individual morpho-syntactic features of Pakistani English.
In Pakistan, the English language has established its status and has become a Lingua Franca. It has proved a major link language and bridged the country with the whole world. The English language is not only used for the official purposes but also in Islamic law and Sharia. Platt (1984) put forward four basic criteria to declare any variety as New English. First, he highlighted that New English is to be preferred as a subject in the
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educational institutions. New English should be taught as the mode of instructions above all other native languages. Second, New English must have developed as a non-native variety in the form of pidgin or creole. Third, New English must perform various country internal functions and should be used in different departments of that country. It should be performing the function of a Lingua Franca. Fourth, it should be localized in the pronunciation and intonation and form and expressions. English in Pakistan meets all the four criteria and takes the title of New English. English language came in the sub-continent when the English needed the office staff for their work; therefore, they started the teaching of English language in the 19th century. At present, the English Language is taught in Pakistani educational arena as a compulsory subject up to graduation. English-medium educational institutions are preferred and most of the syllabus of all the subjects is set in English language.
The study conducted by Anwar (2011) on the register of Pakistani newspaper English is the prominent work which studied the individual linguistic characteristics of Pakistani Journalistic English. Drawing on the data from Pakistani English newspapers, he investigated the different grammatical and syntactic features of Pakistani journalistic English. Exploring the grammatical features like plural marking, quantifiers, adjectives, use of genitives and omission/addition of particle, it was made clear that Pakistani Journalistic English exhibits deviant linguistic characteristics in comparison with British English. He also studied the syntactic features of Pakistani journalistic English like word order, WH-clauses, tense & aspect, conditional clauses and the use of connectives and double intensifiers. In this way, he explored the Pakistani press reportage register and validated Pakistani English as a non-native independent variety with reference to news register. This study faces validity threat due to its reliance on analysis of individual linguistic features of Pakistani journalistic register and excited the present research work to study the Pakistani press reportage register by using multi-dimensional approach of register variation which has categorically highlighted the distinct linguistic identity of news register of Pakistani English. Muhabat, Noor & Iqbal (2015) also claimed Pakistani journalistic register as independent register in comparison with British English and worked on the divergence in hyphenated lexemes in Pakistani Journalistic English. Drawing on data from Pakistani newspapers, they proved that hyphens in Pakistani Journalistic English are used for emphasis. The deviant use of hyphens was found productive in forming new prefixes, adjective-compounds, noun compounds and compound adjectives. But, this study just focused on the individual linguistic features of Journalistic English and does not meet the requirements of register variation studies.
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Douglas Biber in his well-acclaimed work (1988) established the fact that any effort to study linguistic variation based upon individual linguistic features instead of co-occurring linguistic features is misleading and cannot produce correct results. He suggested a multi-dimensional approach which is corpus-based, empirical, quantitative and comparative in nature. The present study investigates the press reportage in Pakistani print media based on multi-dimensional analysis and compares its findings with the results of British press reportage analyzed in Biber’s 1988 study.
Corpus Construction Process and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
The present research uses multi-dimensional approach to study the sub-categories of Pakistani press reportage by constructing a representative corpus of press reportage in Pakistani print media. The following table describes the sub-categories of press reportage in Pakistani print media included in the current study.
Table 1: Sub-Categories of Press Reportage in Pakistani Print Media along with Abbreviations
S. No. Sub-Categories of Press Abbreviations
1 Business Press Reportage BU.PR
2 Metropolitan Press Reportage ME.PR
3 Political Press Reportage PO.PR
4 Sports Press Reportage SP.PR
It is also a notable fact that the comparison of Pakistani press reportage has been made only with four categories of press reportage and found similar to the categories in Biber’s 1988 study. Pakistani print media has fixed special pages to these categories in Pakistani newspapers and these categories are apparent in Pakistani newspapers. Most of the newspapers fix more than one page to business category and a few newspapers publish business survey on weekly basis by publishing additional pages to the newspaper. Similarly, metropolitan news reportage is quite apparent section in Pakistani print media and most of the newspapers have fixed more than two pages to this kind of reportage.
As regards political category, this section is also a key part of Pakistani print media and a proper section of newspaper reportage is dedicated to this category by all newspapers. This category is deemed to be well read and liked by readers; therefore, few key political news items are also given space to 1/8 page as well. As far as, sports reportage in Pakistani media is concerned, this category is also most prominently found
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in all newspapers and enough space is dedicated to this category as well. Like all other categories, more than two pages are fixed to this category and even special editions are also published based upon this category on weekly or fortnightly basis. There is hardly any corpus available so far based upon the categories of press reportage and special purpose corpora based upon sub-categories has always been a need to explore the press reportage register of Pakistani English. Anwar (2011) collected only general news items in his study without taking into account the apparent categories found in Pakistani press reportage, so the proposed model in the current study based upon sub-categories in press reportage of Pakistani print media is pioneering in nature for the exploration of register based studies related to press reportage.
Pakistani News Corpus was constructed based on four sub-categories of press reportage in Pakistani print media. The data was collected from five leading newspapers in Pakistani print media according to the list provided by ministry of information, Islamabad, Pakistan. The representativeness of the newspapers (sample) was taken care of by selecting editions from the five provinces of Pakistan. The editions of the newspapers included in PNC were selected in the following way: Daily Dawn newspaper (Quetta edition representing Baluchistan province of Pakistan), The Daily Times newspaper (Karachi edition representing Sindh province of Pakistan), The Frontier Post (Peshawar edition representing KPK province of Pakistan), The Daily Newspaper (Lahore edition representing Punjab province of Pakistan), and The Daily Nation newspaper (Islamabad edition representing capital of Pakistan). The data was collected from 1st March to 30th April, 2014.
The number of words for each sample of the text was the issue to be sorted out in the process of collection of the texts. All newspapers having been available online were accessed easily and therefore, full texts of news items were collected. We decided to collect 50 texts per category of press reportage in Pakistani print media. Thus, 200 texts were collected per category of each newspaper. During the data collection process, it was also kept in view to take consecutive readings of each newspaper so that the linguistic characteristics used in each category by every newspaper may not be missed and total representation of each category of each newspaper may become part of the Pakistani News Corpus. The collected corpus comprising 1000 texts of sub-categories of five leading newspapers was reviewed for any formatting errors. The following table displays complete information about collected Pakistani News Corpus.
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Table 2: Details of Pakistani News Corpus
Total number of newspapers 5
Total number of sub-categories 4
Total number of texts per category 50
Average number of words per category 57,786
Total number of words in PNC 11,55,705
Once the corpus was compiled, the corpus was sent to Douglas
Biber at Northern Arizona University, America. Using the Biber Tagger and additional program called Tag Count, the corpus was tagged for parts of speech and the multi-dimensional analysis was carried out on press reportage register of Pakistani print media. The data of British press reportage has been taken from Biber’s 1988 study and all the frequencies of linguistic features of Brit.PR have been analyzed in that study in detail.
The data analysis in the current study includes three basic steps: tagging for different linguistic features of press reportage, taking raw counts of linguistic features, turning the raw counts into normalized frequencies and counting of dimension scores.
Step 1: Tagging of Pakistani News Corpus
Pakistani News Corpus was tagged by using Biber’s tagger. First, the tagger tagged the PNC using all linguistic features on different textual dimensions of 1988 MD analysis. The list of linguistic features relevant in 1988 study is given in (Appendix II). Detailed explanation of these features is available in Biber (1988) and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al., 1999).
Step 2: Computation of Raw Counts and Turning them into Normalized and Standardized Frequencies
Using Biber’s tagger and tag counts program, the data was tagged for different linguistic features; the raw counts of the frequencies of different linguistic features were counted and were later turned into normalized frequencies. Normalizing of the data is also necessary to avoid any error due to varying length of texts and that is why, the raw counts of linguistic features were computed out of 1000 words, a standard set by Biber (1988) and was followed in all other researches conducted using this model. The process is quite useful as has been discussed in Biber (1988) and is very easy to use, that is, actual frequency divided by total number of words in a text multiplied by 1000.
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After the normalization of frequencies, the data goes through the process of Standardization. The normalized frequencies were standardized to the mean of 0.0 and a standard deviation of 1.0 and in this way; all features on a dimension carries equal weights in computing dimension scores. For standardization process, the individualized normalized score were subtracted from the mean normalized scores and the resulting score was divided by the standard deviation.
Step 3: Calculations of Dimension Scores
Each dimension score of each text in the 1988 MD analysis was calculated by subtracting the standardized scores of negative features from the sum of standardized scores of positive features. The dimensions with no negative features include only sum of positive scores of linguistic features. In this way, dimension score of each text in 1988 MD analysis was calculated. The co-occurring linguistic features on five textual dimensions of 1988 MD analysis of press reportage are given in (Appendix III).
Results of Multidimensional Analysis
Previous researchers like Anwar (2011), Muhabat, Noor & Iqbal (2015) claimed that Pakistani English is an independent variety and its news register is also different from British news register with norms of its own. The present study has analyzed its results by making a comparison between British Press reportage (Brit.PR) and Pakistani Press reportage (Paki.PR) in Biber’s (1988) study and evaluated these claims.
Figure 1 given below compares the mean dimension scores of Pakistani press reportage register with British press reportage register on Biber’s 1988 five textual dimensions. Biber (1988) made it clear in his study that British press reportage exhibited high positive score and showed more informational and spoken discourse production. It is quite clear on dimension 1 that both Pakistani and British news registers have been found informational in discourse production which seems quite obvious norm in press reportage register to provide maximum information to its readers. Pakistani press reportage register has been found highly informational as compared to British press reportage register which calls for detailed analysis of grammatical features on this dimension. On dimension 2, it is quite interesting to observe that both registers exhibit different trends as Pakistani press reportage shows narrative trend; whereas, British press reportage exhibits least narrative nature .
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Figure 1: Comparison of Brit.PR with Pak.PR on Five Textual Dimensions
Language of press reportage register has to be studied taking into account that the cross-cultural factors that have resulted in the birth of different varieties of English. Pakistani English being a non-native variety has its registers whose language has to be seen keeping in view the context of its non-native culture. On dimension 3, the comparison between British press reportage and Pakistani press reportage seems to be interesting as the trend between both registers has been found quite opposite. British press reportage register has been found situation dependent whereas, Pakistani press reportage register has been found explicit. Therefore, both these two dimensions call for detailed analysis. On dimension 4, both registers have been found similar in producing least overt expression of persuasion/argumentation and both registers seem to imply that features in other dimensions seem to be working to produce argumentation/persuasion in press reportage register. On dimension 5, both Pakistani and British press reportage register speak of their similar trend towards producing impersonal and objective press reportage which is again to be the norm of press reportage genre.
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Brit.PR -15.1 0.4 -0.3 -0.7 0.6
Pak.PR -20.59 1.4367 4.8259 -2.503 2.0063
-25
-20
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-10
-5
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Figure 2: Informational Features in Brit.PR and Pak.PR
Figure 2 given above shows the grammatical features of both Pakistani press reportage and British press reportage on dimension 1. The grammatical features like nouns with mean score (220.5), prepositions (116.6) and attributive adjectives (64.5) being used by the Pakistani press reportage speak of high informational as compared to low values of grammatical features being used by British press reportage register. The following words in bold in Pak.PR exhibit the high informational focus of Pak.PR as the text has dense pattern of nominal information through prepositions and attributive adjectives.
Example: At least four people, including a girl and an assistant sub-inspector (ASI), were gunned down in three separate violence incidents in Quetta on Saturday. The first incident took place at Sariab Road near Bamra hotel, where ASI Qudratullah was mowed down by unidentified gunmen and his son wounded, according to Superintendent of Police Imran Qureshi. “Qudratullah and his son Najeebullah were heading towards a market when they came under an attack,” the official added. (See appendix for more examples).
Figure 3 given below discusses the dimension 2 between Pakistani press reportage and British press reportage and the narrative grammatical features have been compared. Pakistani press reportage has high ratio of past tense whereas, the British press reportage has low ratio of past tense which indicates the differences between both registers due to their cross-cultural background differences among their readership of press reportage. Among other features, British press reportage register exhibits high ratio of third person narration as compared to low ratio of third person narration in Pakistani press reportage register.
Brit.PR Pak.PR
Nouns 220.5 385.726
Prepositions 116.6 126.112
Attributive Adjectives 64.5 51.712
0
100
200
300
400
500
No
rmal
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Figure 3: Narrative Features in Brit.PR and Pak.PR
The following example of Pak.PR speaks for high presence of narrative focus to grab the attention of readership. Past tense and wh-relative pronoun and phrasal connectors being the key narrative linguistic features can be seen in dense use.
Example: At least two people were gunned down and three others sustained injuries in a firing incident in Pedarak area of Kech, on Tuesday. Balochistan Levies official Abdul Qadeer told the Daily Times that a convoy of three vehicles was on its way from Civil-Kor to Pedarak when unidentified people, riding a motorcycle, opened fire. As a result, two people were killed on the spot and three others sustained injuries. Balochistan Levies officials rushed to the spot soon after the incident and cordoned off the area. The deceased and the injured were taken to the district headquarters hospital for autopsy. “The victims went to Civil-Kor for a meeting and they were returning to Pedarak when they were targeted,” Qadeer Said. The deceased were identified as Shahmeer, a resident of Aabsar, and Jamal, a resident of Shahi Tump. The local administration registered a case and opened investigation.
Figure 4 discusses both Pakistani and British press register on dimension 3 and analyzes the differences between grammatical features of explicitness and their usage in both respective registers. The categorical difference may be seen in the use of nominalizations in both registers as Pakistani press register shows high value of nominalizations (70.2) which lend explicitness to discourse of Pakistani press reportage register as compared to much low value of nominalizations (19.2) in British press
Brit.PR Pak.PR
Past Tense 45.1 69.622
Perfect Aspect Verbs 8 10.832
Third Person Pronouns 28.1 18.948
Public Verbs 12 16.004
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
No
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reportage register that marks its trend towards situation dependent discourse according to needs of readership in British culture.
Figure 4: Features of Explicitness in Brit.PR and Pak.PR
The results of the current study on dimension 1 and dimension 3 in comparison with British Press reportage seem to endorse the claims made by previous researchers (Jan et al., 2013; Rosas-Moreno & Bachmann, 2012) that language of Pakistani press reportage has become highly informational and explicit over the years. British press reportage exhibits high value of adverbs with mean score (58.2) on this dimension as compared to low use of adverbs with mean score (21.12) in Pakistani press reportage register which accounts for the cross-cultural differences between Pakistani and British press reportage register. The following text manifests high frequency of wh-pronouns and nominalizations of Pak.PR and exhibits explicit discourse in Pakistani print media.
Example: Bhutto was born to accomplish great deeds. His finest hour came when he saved his war-weary and famished country from a total collapse and utter ruination. Pakistan, politically shattered and economically doomed, entered 1972 under the wise and dynamic leadership of Bhutto. The frustrated and defeated nation of the 1971 war with India slowly gained momentum, power and prestige while he brought 90,000 prisoners of war with honor from Indian military camps and won back 5,000 square miles of territory lost in war (Daily Times newspaper).
Comparison of British BU.PR with Pakistani BU.PR Category
The comparison on the first sub-category of business has also been carried out which describes differences between both registers due to their cross-cultural differences. On D1, both Pak.BU.PR and Brit.BU.PR
Brit.PR Pak.PR
Adverbs 52.8 21.128
Time Adverbials 6.5 2.436
Place Adverbials 4.7 7.45
Nominalizations 19.2 70.276
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
No
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have been found highly informational in nature. On D2, Pak.BU.PR has been found narrative in nature; whereas, Brit.BU.PR has been found non-narrative in nature. On D3, Pak.BU.PR has been found explicit in nature; whereas, Brit.BU.PR has been found situation dependent in business discourse production. On D4, both registers have been found least overt in expression of argumentation/persuasion; whereas, on D5, both registers have been found impersonal in business discourse production. Significant differences can be seen on D2 and D3 and cross-cultural variation factors seem be quite obvious as Brit.PR has been found non-narrative and situation-dependent in comparison with explicit and narrative Pak.BU.PR. Figure 5 below displays the comparison of Pakistani Business press reportage and British press reportage on five textual dimensions. It seems quite obvious that Pak.BU.PR shows consistent non-narrative nature due to the technical lexicon of this press reportage. The non-narrative nature of BU.PR shows that it focuses on the informational purpose of this reportage. Barnhurst (2005, p. 1) speaks about the same notion in media, “Competition among news media pushes media organizations to focus more on people, on informational focus, and on local angles.”
Figure 5: Comparison of British BU.PR with Pakistani BU.PR
Comparison of British ME.PR with Pakistani ME.PR Category
The comparison on the second category of metropolitan has also been carried out. It presents differences between both registers due to their cross-cultural differences. On D1, both Pak.ME.PR and Brit.ME.PR have been found highly informational in nature. On D2, Pakistani Metropolitan press reportage has been found narrative in nature; whereas, British Metropolitan press reportage has been found non-narrative in nature. On D3, Pak.ME.PR has been found explicit in nature.
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Brit.BU.PR -17.6 -2 -0.2 -1.1 2.7
Pak.BU.PR -23 0.01 2.63 -3.14 0.71
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
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This trend is found similar in Brit.ME.PR as it has also been found explicit in metropolitan discourse production.
On D4, both registers have been found least overt in expression of argumentation/persuasion; whereas, on D5, both registers have been found impersonal in metropolitan discourse production. In this category, it becomes evident that Pakistani and British press reportage registers show differences in metropolitan discourse production on D2 and D5. Language of metropolitan press reportage has been found non-impersonal and non-narrative which seems to be evident of the cross-cultural differences between Pak.PR and Brit.PR. Pakistani metropolitan press reportage has shown marked variation on D3 which also speaks for the non-native background of Pakistani press reportage and its demands for their readership. Figure 6 given below compares the mean dimension scores of Pakistani metropolitan press reportage with British metropolitan press reportage on five textual dimensions.
Figure 6: Comparison of British ME.PR with Pakistani ME.PR
Comparison of British PO.PR with Pakistani PO.RP Category
The data in Pakistani press reportage register reveals the fact that four categories in Pakistani press reportage are found similar to categories of British press reportage register results found in 1988 study of Biber and the current study compares the results of four categories to further analyze the variation between Pakistani and British press reportage register.
Figure 7 displays the differences on political (PO) reportage between Pakistani and British press reportage registers. On D1, both Pak.PO.PR and Brit.PO.PR have been found informational with negative
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Brit.ME.PR -16.1 -0.4 1 -2.1 -0.9
Pak.ME.PR -25.61 2.92 5.17 -1.97 2.83
-30 -25 -20 -15 -10
-5 0 5
10
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dimension scores which certainly is the norm of press reportage register. On D2, Pak.PO.PR shows trend towards non-narrative discourse production with negative scores in comparison with Brit.SP.PR positive score and this difference certainly accounts for the cross-cultural background differences between Pakistani and British press reportage readership. On D3, the results have been found opposite in both Pakistani and British press reportage. Pak.PO.PR speaks for situation dependent discourse as compared to the explicit discourse of Brit.PO.PR. In the political reportage category, Pakistani political press reportage presents facts according to situational realities of Pakistani politics and the opinionated discourse in Pakistani press reportage seems to be in prevalent use which has made Pakistani press reportage situation-dependent. Whereas, British press reportage has been found explicit in nature. On D4, Pak.PO.PR has been found least overt in expression of persuasion/argumentation whereas, Brit.PO.PR has been found overt in expression of argument and these differences speak for the cross-cultural background differences between readership of both registers. On D5, both registers have been found impersonal in discourse production which is norm of press reportage register.
Figure 7: Comparison of British PO.PR with Pakistani PO.PR
Comparison of British SP.PR with Pakistani SP.PR
Figure 8 displays the comparison on the category of sports which accounts for the differences between both registers due to their cross-cultural differences. On D1, both Pakistani and British Sports reportage have been found highly informational in nature. On D2, Pak.SP.PR has been found narrative in nature; whereas, Brit.SP.PR has been found non-narrative in nature. On D3, Pakistani press reportage has been found
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Pak.PO.PR -17.8 0.8 -0.9 0.6 0.6
Brit.PO.PR -23.01 0.01 2.63 -3.4 0.71
-25
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explicit in nature; whereas, British press reportage has been found situation dependent in sports discourse production. Pakistani press reportage register seems to exhibit maximum ratio of nominalizations which emphasizes explicitness of Pakistani press reportage. On D4, both registers have been found least overt in expression of argumentation/ persuasion; whereas, on D5, both registers have been found impersonal in sports discourse production.
Figure 8: Comparison of British SP.PR with Pakistani SP.PR
Conclusion & Future Directions
The current study has compared the Pakistani press reportage register with British press reportage register on 1988 five textual dimensions and has found out differences on different dimensions. On dimension 1, both Pakistani press reportage register and British press reportage register have been found highly informational as it justifies the norm of press reportage register. On D2, Pakistani press reportage register has been found highly narrative in nature; whereas, British press reportage register has been found non-narrative in press discourse production which certainly speaks for the cross-cultural differences between both varieties of English. On D3, British press reportage has been found situation dependent in discourse production of press reportage in comparison to Pakistani press reportage register which has been found highly explicit in nature. On D4 and D5, no differences have been observed between both varieties of English.
On further exploration of grammatical features on D2 and D3, it has been found that Pakistani press reportage uses adverbs; past tense and third person in great number as compared to low ratio of British press reportage register which also accounts for the cross-cultural needs of
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Brit.SP.PR -14.7 -0.4 -1.2 -0.5 0.1
Pak.SP.PR -15.99 0.32 2.45 -2.69 0.7
-20
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readership of respective varieties. On further comparison of four similar sub-categories between Pakistani press reportage register and British press reportage register, differences seem to have been found on D2 and D3 as well. On business, metropolitan, political and sports press reportage, Pak.PR has shown preference for narrative and explicit news discourse production; whereas, Brit.PR has shown trend towards usage of non-narrative and situation-dependent news discourse and certainly these differences speak of the cross-cultural factors of both British and Pakistani English. Categorically speaking, the findings of the current study prove the fact that Pakistani Journalistic English has been found highly informational, narrative, explicit and non-abstract and least overt in expression of persuasion/argumentation. Moreover, it emphasizes the distinct linguistic characteristics of Pakistani Journalistic register which speaks of its categorical independent existence with its own independent norms.
The results of current study have been compared with British press reportage register analyzed in Biber’s 1988 study and only a general comparison has been made between Pakistani press reportage register and British press reportage register due to non-availability of any research work on British press reportage based upon its sub-categories. The results of the present research could be a useful resource to researchers working in the area of identification of Pakistani English as an independent variety. One of the significant uses to which MD studies have been put in many earlier studies is to observe the historical change in the registers of Pakistani English as being a non-native variety. Future researchers might observe language change in the Pakistani press reportage register by conducting a diachronic study of press reportage of Pakistani print media after collecting the last ten years press reportage corpus and comparing its results with the present study to evaluate the language change in the press reportage register. So far, one Pakistani register of print ads has been studied through MD analysis. The results of press reportage in Pakistani print media can be compared with results of print advertisements register and the comparison may be valuable one as it will evaluate the linguistic differences and similarities between two distinct non-native registers of Pakistani English.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks are due to Prof. Douglas Biber, US and Dr. Jack Grieve, UK for valuable insight in the research work. We owe special thanks to Dr. Jesse Egbert, US for tagging and running Multi-Dimensional Analysis on Pakistani News Corpus.
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Appendix I
Mean Dimension Scores of Sub-Categories of Five Newspapers
BU.PR Mean Min. Max. SD
D1 -25.26 -24.48 -8.23 3.5973
D2 -0.13432 -2.974 3.57 1.51698
D3 4.56772 -2.64 7.21564 2.48024
D4 -2.532 -6.062 0.8264 1.98778
D5 1.65424 -2.1 10.03 2.88518
ME.PR Mean Min. Max. SD
D1 -24.61 -24.238 -16.144 4.74804
D2 2.21268 0.012 7.3736 2.21598
D3 6.24444 4.138 9.13504 2.31322
D4 -2.5594 -3.062 0.732 2.14106
D5 2.1804 -0.62 7.11 2.0118
PO.PR Mean Min. Max. SD
D1 -22.198 -25.31 -14.074 3.57666
D2 -22.447 -27.8125 -14.836 3.573915
D3 1.92416 0.0184 6.1372 1.947596
D4 6.63325 2.3395 11.2225 2.197365
D5 2.0583 0.078 6.67 1.96932
SP.PR Mean Min. Max. SD
D1 -15.766 -24.346 0.9 6.24142
D2 0.27036 -2.246 3.592 1.39194
D3 2.03636 -4.33 9.278 3.20428
D4 -2.723 -5.914 1.952 1.89398
D5 0.81588 -2.5 6 2.06476
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Appendix II Linguistic Features Relevant to 1988 MD Analysis of Press Reportage
Private verb (e.g., believe, feel, think)
‘That’ deletion (e.g., I think[that] he did it)
Present tense verb (uninflected present, imperative and third person)
Pro-verb ‘do’
Demonstrative pronoun (that, this, those, these)
Adverb/Qualifier-emphatic (e.g., just, really, so)
First person pronoun (e.g., we, our)
Pronoun it/its
Verb ‘Be’ (uninflected present tense, verb and auxiliary
Subordinating conjunction-causative (e.g., because)
Discourse particles (sentence initial, well, now)
Nominal pronoun (e.g., someone, everything)
Adverbial-Hedge (e.g., almost, may be)
Adverb/ Qualifier, amplifier (e.g., absolutely, entirely) Wh-question
Modals of possibility (can, may, could, might)
Coordinating conjunction-clausal connector
Wh-clause (e.g., he believed what I told him)
Stranded preposition (appearing at sentence end)
Noun (excluding nominalization and gerund)
Preposition
Attributive adjective (e.g., national interest, annual return)
Past tense verbs
Third person pronoun (except ‘it’)
Verb-perfect aspect
Public verb (e.g., assert, complain)
Wh-pronoun- relative clause-object position ( the person who he likes)
Wh-relative clause-subject position (e.g., the participants who like to join…) Wh-relative clause-object position with prepositional fronting (‘pied piping’) way way way , he was trained
Co-ordinating conjunction-phrasal connector
Nominalization (e.g., organization, development)
Adverb-time (e.g., instantly, soon)
Adverb-place (e.g., above, beside)
Adverb other (excluding adverb/Qualifier, Hedge, Emphatic, Time, Place, Amplifier
Infinitive verb
Modals of prediction (will, would.)
Suasive verb (e.g., ask, command)
Subordinating conjunction-conditional (if, unless)
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Modal of necessity (ought, should, must)
Adverb within auxiliary (splitting aux-verb)( e.g., the product is specifically meant)
Adverbial-conjuncts (however, therefore, thus)
Agentless passive verb (e.g., however, therefore, thus)
Agentless passive verb (e.g., the scheme was introduced)
Passive verb+ by (e.g., the plan was introduced by principal)
Passive post nominal modifier (e.g., the message conveyed by)
Subordinating conjunction-other (e.g., as, excepts, until)
Present tense verbs (uninflected present, imperative and third person)
2nd
Person Pronoun
Ist
Person Pronoun
Verb ‘Be’
Noun (excluding nominalization and Gerund)
Preposition
Verb perfect aspect
Predictive adjectives
Passives all
That-complement clause controlled by stance verb
To-complement clause controlled by stance verb
To-complement clause controlled by stance adjective
Process nouns, (isolation)
Other abstract nouns (e.g., idea)
Activity verb (e.g., give, take)
Mental verb (e.g., believe, enjoy)
Seem
Contractions
Split infinitives
NOT neg.
P-and
O_AND
FINAL PREP.
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Appendix III
Co-occurring Linguistic Features on Five Textual Dimensions of 1988 MD Analysis of Press Reportage
Dimension 1: Involved vs. Informational Discourse
Positive Feature Negative Features Private verbs Nouns (excluding gerund) Nominalization Preposition ‘That’ deletion Attributive Adjective Verb (uninflected present, imperative & third person) Second person pronoun/possessive Verb ‘do’ Demonstrative pronoun Adverb/Qualifier-emphatic (e.g., just, really) First person pronoun/possessive Pronoun ‘it’ Verb ‘Be’ (uninflected present tense, verb, and auxiliary) Sub-ordinating conjunction-causative Discourse particle Nominal pronoun Adverbial-Hedge Adverbial/Qualifier-amplifier Wh-question Modals of possibility Co-ordinating conjunction-clausal connector Wh-clause Stranded preposition
Dimension 2: Narrative vs. Non-narrative Concerns Positive Feature Negative Features Past tense verb (No negative Features) Third person pronoun (except ‘it’) Verb-perfect Aspect Public verbs
Dimension 3: Explicit vs. Situation-Dependent Discourse Positive Feature Negative Features Wh-pronoun-relative clause-object position Adverb of time Wh-pronoun-relative clause-subject- position Adverb of Place Wh-pronoun-relative clause-object position Adverb Other With prepositional fronting (pied-piping) Coordinating conjunction–phrasal connector Singular noun-nominalization
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Dimension 4: Overt Expression of Persuasion/Argumentative Positive Features Negative Features Infinitive verb (no negative features) Modal of prediction Suasive verb Subordinating conjunction-conditional Modal of necessity Adverb within auxiliary
Dimension 5: Impersonal (Abstract vs. Non-Abstract Style)
Positive Features Negative Features Adverbial-conjuncts (no negative features) Agentless passive verb Passive verb + by Passive post nominal modifier Subordinating conjunction-other
Example: Highly Informational Discourse in Pak.PR The provincial governments all over the country, including Punjab administration, are not serious to provide security to Fruit & Vegetable Markets across Pakistan despite deadly incident of terrorism in federal capital, leaving more than two dozen fruit vendors dead. All Pakistan Fruit & Vegetable Market Ittehad president Ch Zaheer stated that Fruit & Vegetable Markets are not being provided security after the blast incident in Islamabad (The Nation newspaper). Example: Explicit Vs Situation-Dependent Discourse in Pak.PR Americans used more health services and spent more on prescription drugs in 2013, reversing a recent trend, though greater use of cheaper generic drugs helped control spending, according to a report issued on Tuesday by a leading healthcare information company. Spending on medicines rose 3.2 percent in the United States last year to $329.2 billion. While that was far less than the double-digit increases seen in previous decades, it was a rebound from a 1 percent decline in 2012, the report by IMS Health Holdings Inc found. Among factors driving the increased spending were the cost of new medicines, price increases on some branded drugs, a $10 billion reduced impact of patent expirations (The Nation newspaper). Example: Highly Narrative Discourse in Pak.PR Some unknown people gunned down two persons and injured three at Pedak in the outskirts on Tuesday morning here, Local TV reported. Levies Force confirmed that some unidentified people abruptly opened fire on five passers-by in Pedak town, killing Shah Mir and Jamal on the spot, while the other three sustained injuries. The injured were shifted to Turbat Civil Hospital for medical aid. The motive behind the firing could not be immediately known (The Nation newspaper).
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The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation-
Ideology Nexus
Jamil Asghar
Abstract
The paper, situated at the intersection of translation studies, cultural studies and postcolonialism, seeks to contribute to the theory of translation with reference to the power politics of the target texts. The possibility and inevitability of translation is one of the most evident characteristics of our communication. This possibility and inevitability is hardwired into our communal and cognitive structure and it features prominently into our inter-cultural sensibilities. It is widely admitted, thanks to the “cultural turn” of the late 1970s, that translation is a site of contact as well as conflict. It is in the light of these considerations that the present study has been conceived which is a plea to re-envision translation in a broader politico-cultural perspective. Today, as humankind has just crossed the threshold of a new millennium, our first-hand understanding of other cultures and nations remains appallingly low. One major step to alleviate this problem is to accord greater and more nuanced recognition to the source texts emanating from cultures light years from our own. The present research subscribes to the view which posits translation as a rewriting of the source texts. This rewriting is said to have ideological considerations of its own and is, more often than not, manipulative in its practice. The researcher maintains that there is an urgent need to appreciate adequately the power relations inherent in the process of translation and to recognize the bearings they have on the practice of translation per se. It is largely due to these power relations that a new conceptualization of translation is required which could help us bear in mind its ideological and value-driven nature. This is what this paper intends to bring about.
Keywords: translation, rewriting, postcolonialism, domestication
Translation Distrusted and for Good Reasons
Language is the principal and arguably the most apparent means employed by humans to make their social existence possible. Humans express their deepest sentiments, talk about their likes, communicate their apprehensions and share their optimisms in and through language. It is language which not only makes our shared existence possible but also sustains it throws all the mutations of time and clime. If language grants the possibility of our collective existence and ensures the perpetuity of our social relations, it also poses a formidable challenge in the form of
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 13 (II), December, 2015 ISSN 2222-5706
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translation. The problem is that translation, most of the time, is taken merely as a linguistic and theoretical challenge as the “rendering of words from one language to another” is the typical way of putting it (Crystal, 1995, p. 123).
However, the present study seeks to problematize this traditional and facile understanding of translation and aims at illustrating the immensity of its political and ideological intricacies. Traditionally what we do not seem to appreciate is the fact that translation obstructs our understanding not just because of linguistic reasons but also because of a vast array of non-linguistic factors. True, the usual discussions of translation routinely take into account the relevance of such notions as context, co-text or culture, but the perspective these discussions take on such notions is extremely narrow. Moreover, this danger becomes all the more real when we take into consideration the bafflingly vast range of languages and cultures in the ambit of which translation, of necessity, has to operate.
Historically, the idea of translation coupled with the mystique to know the foreign has always fascinated the theorists and scholars of language. From this historical perspective, it can be affirmed that, at the broadest level, all human communication is centered upon the very notion of translation. Primarily translation aims at actuating some inter-lingual communicative patterns along with effecting some intercultural dialogic engagements. However, in these intercultural and inter-lingual engagements, the complex notions of politics, manipulation, control and dominance inevitably emerge and complicate the relations between the source text (the original text that is to be translated into another language) and the target text (the finished product of a translated text). Furthermore, the inherently subjective and culture-sensitive character of language adds to the complexity of the power politics so closely associated with translation. Therefore the ubiquitous risk of miscommunication in translation ranges from the unintentional semantic misidentifications to a systematic and intentional propaganda (Crumbley, 2008, p. 4).The “mist and veil of words,” as the Irish philosopher George Berkeley put it, is still a frequently debated issue in the discipline of translation studies (Daniel, 2007, p. 145).
However, George Berkeley is not alone in doubting the capability of language to communicate. A large number of philosophers and translation theorists harbor a considerable distrust of language and have been questioning its authenticity as a clear windowpane which could reveal facts with objectivity and total neutrality (Baker, 2006, p. 98). We have novelists like George Orwell who disputed our linguistic capacity to communicate and, at the same time, we have iconoclasts like Friedrich
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Nietzsche who terms language utterly incapable of objective description because of its thoroughly metonymic nature (Emden, 2005, pp. 86, 140, 159).
Notwithstanding this distrust expressed by philosophers, semanticists and scholars, translation has been playing an extremely significant role all through human history whenever there has been a conjunction of cultures and/or languages. Nevertheless, it is also true that for a considerable part of history, the act of translation has been viewed as subversive, controversial and perilous — an act of betrayal necessitating suspicion, distrust and even executions:
There is an Italian proverb that says, “Translators are traitors” (Traddutore, traditore), and it’s true. All translation loses meaning. All translators are traitors to the actual meaning. There is no such thing as a noninterpretive translation. Anyone who says otherwise probably has limited exposure to translation theory and it may not be worth discussing the point with them. (Mounce, 2003, p. 73)
Some of the translation theorists attribute this distrust of translation to the fact that, by and large, the act of translation amounts to a rewriting of the source text. The dominant socio-political institutions play a major role in these acts of rewriting accomplished in the name of translation. This rewriting emerges after an elaborate process. The discourses based upon such themes as racism, gender inequality, minority rights or unipolarism become a mouthpiece for entire social institutions. These institutions, by virtue of their power, exercise huge influence and as a result of this influence ideologies emerge. These ideologies in turn shape the visions of reality in their own images. Once sufficiently shaped, these visions of reality guide the trajectories of the translation practices (Hatim & Munday, 2004, p. 93).
The act of rewriting operates on the politics of inclusions/ exclusions as well. Which readers/writers, systems of values and sets of beliefs are to be privileged and which ones are to be deprived? This is a fundamental question and plays a critical role in the politics of inclusions/exclusions. It is also interesting to note that how a large body of foreign literatures translated into English mostly tend to look similar. This can largely be accounted for by appreciating the tendency of the target text to enforce its own constraints on the source text during the process of translation. However, in the context of the power politics of translation, this implies some sort of inclusions/exclusions somewhere—either denying a certain constituency of readers the access to a certain text or forcing
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them to read it in a particular way. It also implies somewhere “an author committed to oblivion or a translator doomed to be invisible” (Hatim & Munday, 2004, p. 94).
The Anglo-American translation tradition is particularly noted for its tendency to practice these exclusions/inclusions. This is usually done through selectively adopting such apparently apolitical and innocent-sounding strategies as gisting, free translation, compensation, heavy glossing, or ennoblement. At the same time, the so-called translation norms also come into play and effectively transform translation into an ideological weapon with power to exclude/mute a writer by engaging in such seemingly innocuous techniques as normalization, clarification or rationalization. This is usually done to achieve such edifying goals as bringing fluency and preventing boredom. Eventually, the translators themselves fall prey to the same politics of exclusions by the hard-nosed editors and money-minded publishers (p. 95).
All this elaborately structured politics of exclusions/inclusions paves the way to what we have just discussed as the rewriting of the source text. The notable French translation scholar André Lefevere aptly describes the damaging and culturally alienating effects of this practice of rewriting not only on literature but also on society:
Translation is, of course, a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and in its positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature and a society . . . But rewriting can also repress innovation, distort and contain, and in an age of ever increasing manipulation of all kinds, the study of the manipulative processes of literature as exemplified by translation can help us towards a greater awareness of the world in which we live. (Lefevere, 1992, p. 67)
Obviously when translation becomes a rewriting, it is bound to depart from the cultural and linguistic specificities of the source texts. All rewritings, regardless of their motives, have firm ideological underpinnings (p. 68). To Lefevere, ideology is one of the “very concrete factors” which steadily govern the course of translation and eventually help it turn into a rewriting (p. 2).
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The 20th Century Indictment of Translation
In spite of all the previous problematizations of the practice of translation, it is its 20th century indictment by such scholars as André Lefevere, Antoine Berman, Lawrence Venuti, Philip Lewis, Tejaswini Niranjana and Gayatri Spivak which helped lay bare the real nexus between translation and ideology (Munday, 2013, p. 156). These scholars and theorists also successfully brought the inner workings of politics of translation to the fore. The deep-rootedness of the discursive and highly institutionalized power operative behind and through translation came in the lime light and powerful pleas were made for a self-critical reflection on the part of the translators. Translation was perceived as a discursive construct which essentially deals with two distinct linguistic codes underwritten by two distinct cultural patterns (Munday, 2007, p. 96). In short, a move was made from the appreciation of translation as text to translation as culture and politics and Mary Snell-Hornby named this trend as the cultural turn. This was subsequently taken up by other translation theorists as a metaphor for the politico-cultural characterization of translation. The cultural turn, over time, came to denote a conglomeration of influence semanating from the power of publishing industry, pursuits of ideologies, feminist writing, cultural appropriation and colonialism (Munday, 2001, p. 125). This cultural turn, in this way, proved to be a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of translation and some really unprecedented questions were raised such as:
WHO is translation?
For WHOM is he or she translating?
WHY is this translation being made?
WHOM does this translation benefit?
WHOM does this translation harm?
In fact, it was largely due to the raising of such radical questions that the cultural complexity and the ethico-political role of translation were adequately recognized. Furthermore, the translation theorists and the postcolonial critics also began to appreciate the fact that it is not enough to approach translation merely from the perspectives of literature and humanities. Instead, such disciplines as media studies, international relations, cultural studies, corpus analysis, feminism and post-colonialism should also be taken into account.
This radically new conceptualization took translation as a site of ideological conflicts marked by struggle for power and supremacy underpinned by a variety of socio-historical and political factors. It was
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largely for this reason that the translation theorists maintained that meanings are not just carried by texts as such; rather, they are constantly constructed and reconstructed by an intersection of situational, ideological and linguistic variables. It was in this perspective that Hermans saw translation as a patent form of manipulation in which the text coming from a dominant culture invariably triumphs (1995, p. 67).This conceptualization of translation formed an extremely important benchmark in the modern history of translation.
In this new conceptualization of translation, the discipline of cultural studies (in line with the trend set by the cultural turn) played a very important role. Arguably, cultural studies has done more than any other discipline to make translation studies a truly multidisciplinary subject and to bring it in tandem with the contemporary debates and issues. Sherry Simon illustrates the importance of cultural studies in these words: “Cultural studies brings to translation an understanding of the complexities of gender and culture. It allows us to situate linguistic transfer within the multiple ‘post’ realities of today: poststructuralism, postcolonialism and postmodernism” (Simon, 1996, p. 100).
As the act of translation does not take place in a vacuum, therefore, it is inevitably complicit with the larger questions of power, transformation, authority and marginalization. Moreover, translation has also been playing a foundational part in the creation, perpetuation and distribution of differential and asymmetrical power relations across cultures and nations. Moreover, as translation invariably involves the socio-cultural imperatives, it appears to be more like a political and narrative scheme which results not only in social convergence but also in social antagonism. In this context, it is not difficult to see how the repercussions of translation go well beyond the syntactic and semantic bounds of the text and create and socio-political network in which individuals as well as cultures situate themselves in relations to one another as well as the society at large (Meschonnic, 2011, pp. 77, 110).
However, this broader politics of power, manipulation and control also operates at a micro level, i.e. at the level of equivalence and sentence. It is at this level that we come across such problems as distortions, misidentification of meanings, false friends, inadequate equivalents, lacunae, etc. All this partly results from a translator’s inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to communicate the delicate semantics of the source text. One example of this subtle mistranslation is the English equivalent demand for the French word demande. Here the problem is that the French demande simply means a request, which is similar to but also very different from a demand in English and demandar in Spanish. Sometimes, when a word is borrowed from another language, it undergoes
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a thorough semantic transformation. For example, angst means fear in a general sense (as well as anxiety) in German, but when it was borrowed into English in the context of psychology, its meaning was usually taken as a neurotic feeling of anxiety and depression.
We run into the similar difficulties when we translate the Arabic word فکر (fikr) into English as thought. The Arabic word fikr is not exactly thought. Rather the word thought with its contemporary meaning hardly occurs in the traditional Islamic texts. In fact, what would better correspond to the proper meaning of fikr would be something more like the French word pensée as used by Blaise Pascal which could be translated into English as meditation rather than thought. In this sense, the Arabic word fikr exactly correspond to the Persian word اندیشہ (andíshah). In the traditional Islamic philosophy, both fikr and andíshah are associated with meditation and contemplation (See Nasr, 1987, p. 99).
However, with the increasing awareness of the power politics of translation, such issues as gender, identity, ethics, hegemony, power, and cultural relativism were brought into sharp focus by the researchers and the students of translation alike (Venuti, 2013, pp. 78-83). André Lefevere’s notion of rewriting and Lawrence Venuti’s idea of domestication and foreignization have considerably helped bring the questions of ideology and politics to the fore. As a result, not only the scope but also the definition of translation studies has been broadened. This shift increasingly conceptualizes translation in metalinguistic terms — an intercultural communication embedded in numerous discursive practices and underwritten by politico-ideological considerations. How these metalinguistic terms influence translation can be seen by the following statement of Amitav Ghosh, a modern Bengali writer, who bemoans the fate of a South Asian writer, “To make ourselves understood, we had both resorted [. . .] to the very terms that world leaders and statesmen use at great, global conferences, the universal, irresistible metaphysic of modern meaning” (1993, p. 237).
The statement characteristically describes the power politics which typifies the translation practices in the contemporary global world. What Ghosh means by irresistible metaphysic of modern meaning is a complex combination of geopolitical and economic factors which privileges certain nations and the discourses emanating therefrom. The ascendancy of this metaphysic of modern meaning is more cultural than textual and it is primarily underpinned by the scientific and economic supremacy. This ascendency affects the entire process of translation right from the selection of the works and their interpretation to their publication and circulation. Aijaz Ahmad, a well-known Marxist literary theorist and
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political commentator, describes the far-reaching outcome of this ascendency:
By the time a Latin American novel arrives in Delhi, it has been selected, translated, published, reviewed, explicated and allotted a place in the burgeoning archive of “Third World Literature” through a complex set of metropolitan mediations. That is to say, it arrives here with those processes of circulation and classification already inscribed in its very texture. (1994, p. 45)
This means that the act of translation is situated on a continuum with hosts of factors, each having politics of its own. All translations are embedded not just in language but also in institutions, practices, marketing dynamics and varied cultural and social economic configurations. Therefore, a translation is inevitably interwoven, intertwined and implicated with so many things besides language.
Translation: From Subjugation to Conquest
For millenniums the study of translation just focused on the purely literary and linguistic aspects of the texts and the questions of power and ideology were not accorded due recognition. Too much attention was paid to the aesthetic and stylistic features of language to the virtual exclusion of the issues of politics and power embedded in the practice of translation (Asghar, 2014). The attention of the translation scholars has been appallingly limited to such issues as comparisons, contrasts, thematic analysis and textual criticism. A cursory look at the European tradition of literary translation makes it abundantly clear that it has been more of a norm than an exception with the European translators to subjugate and domesticate the non-European texts while translating them. Lawrence Venuti’s book The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (1995) is a landmark study of this phenomenon. In this book, Venuti cogently contends that the European translators routinely sought to adapt the Oriental source texts to the Western norms and canons of translation (2013, p. 127).
In this magnum opus, Venuti shows how the Oriental texts were usually treated by the European translators as ‘raw material’ which it was their duty to turn into elegant and edifying target texts. Therefore, it was not uncommon with the European translators to remove all the supposed coarseness and inappropriateness from the Oriental texts and make them acceptable to the urbane and cultured readership at home. The translators felt no qualms in going to great length in improving and refining the source texts. Scholars like Edward Said, Philip Lewis, Venuti and Niranjana consistently censured this condescending attitude of the European
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translators and dismissed it as mere euphemism and apology for geographical or cultural imperialism (Venuti, 1995).
Venuti is obviously not alone in problematizing and questing the European translation tradition. A prominent postcolonial critic and theorist Gayatri Spivak has also discussed this ideological aspect of the European translation tradition at length in her works. To her, the Third World literature is not rendered proper justice when it is translated into English. Spivak has addressed this issue in her seminal essay The Politics of Translation:
In the act of wholesale translation into English there can be a betrayal of the democratic ideal into the law of the strongest. This happens when all the literature of the Third World gets translated into a sort of with-it translatese, so that the literature by a woman in Palestine begins to resemble, in the feel of its prose, something by a man in Taiwan. (2000, p. 338)
Lefevere also bears Venuti and Spivak outand maintains that the European and the non-European literary traditions are at such a great variance from oneanother that a translator while dealing with these traditions has to engage in a process of cultural mapping. It is only through this cultural mapping that a bi-culturalism can emerge and which can assist a translator in rendering greater justice to the autonomy and distinctiveness of the source text. To Lefevere, the non-European texts have been usually conceived, constructed and situated in the categories, thought-patterns and genres derived from the European translation tradition (see Bassnett, 2011, p. 158). However, it remains to the credit of Venuti to bring all these varied concerns together and give them a systematic and disciplinary expression. To Venuti, the European translation traditions have their own well-defined canons of acceptability, notions of correctness and highly institutionalized conventions which inevitably come to bear upon the practice of translation. It is not uncommon for the target text to domesticate the source text and to recast it in its own image. In this domestication, the patterns of variations along with the linguistic and cultural distinctiveness of the source text are usually obliterated by the target text. This subjugation, so to speak, of the source text leads to its ultimate conquest:
Translation is often regarded with suspicion because it inevitably domesticates foreign texts, inscribing them with linguistic and cultural values that are intelligible to specific domestic constituencies. This process of inscription
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operates at every stage in the production, circulation, and reception of the translation. (Venuti, 1998, p. 209)
The first step to subjugate a source text is to familiarize it to the reading constituencies at home. A source text is uprooted from its original historico-cultural setting and is re-planted into an altogether different milieu where the foremost task of the translator is to familiarizeit to the readers at home. It is certainly in this act of familiarization that a source text goes through a systematic and extensive process of trimming and accretion which results in a huge linguistic and cultural loss. The translator situates the foreign outside the cultural comprehension and the literary imagination of his domestic readers. The utmost care is taken by the translator not to perturb the urbane sensibilities of the readers at home, no matter how much linguistic and cultural loss is caused to the particularities of the source text. Such an idea of translation is a strategic schematization of an idealized inter-national world in which nations are situated at various geographical points, enclosed by territorial borders and invested with nationalist narratives (Venuti, 2013). All this tends to lead to kind of cultural closures and can have far-reaching repercussions for our global world. To some of the cultural critics, such closure scan, at times, possibly result into the ethnocentric states of mind which can be dangerous for our shared and collective existence (Bayart, 1996, pp. 7-21).
What goes hand in hand with this large-scale domestication of the less privileged discourses or what provides it with a rationale to operate is the Eurocentric tendencies in our socio-academic world. From Macaulay’s denunciation of the entire Indian and Arabic literature to Fredric Jameson’s highly unflattering view of the ‘Third World novel’, we come across a long line of these Eurocentric tendencies which put the non-European texts at a clear disadvantage in the power politics of translation. Here is Macaulay’s utterly sweeping statement, “. . . a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia” (in Momma, 2013, p. 97). Now look at this totalizing statement by Frederic Jameson, “The third-world novel will not offer the satisfaction of Proust or Joyce” and will only “remind us of outmoded stages of our own first-world cultural development” (in Bahri, 2003, p. 18). These two statements by two leading spokes persons of the European politico-cultural world go, at least, some way illustrating that patronizing attitude which, to Venuti and Spivak, has been a hallmark of the European literary traditions.
This makes one wonder as to whether Hafiz Shriazi (a Persian poet whose works are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature), Baba Farid (a Sufi saint of the Punjab), Sultan Bahu (a Sufi mystic, poet and scholar active mostly in the Punjab), Abu Aqil Labid ibn Rabiah (an Arabian poet of
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exceptional literary prowess), Abu Ali Ahmad ibn Miskawayh (a philosopher and historian from Iran who was the author of the first major Islamic work on philosophical ethics), Al-Jahiz (a notable Arabic prose writer), Francis Marrash (a Syrian writer and poet of the Nahda movement—the Arabic renaissance), Maulana Rumi (a Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic),Tulsidas (a Hindu poet-saint, reformer and philosopher), Muhammad Iqbal (legendary Urdu poet and the ideological father of Pakistan) and other scores of such Arab, Indian and Persian writers are as worthless as not to produce the brilliance and grandeur of ‘a single shelf of a good European library. This also makes one wonder as to what is there in Proust or Joyce which one does not find in Taha Husayn, Tawfiq al-Hakim or in Naguib Mahfouz. Moreover, if the artistic majesty and literary merits of Bahaa Taher, Nawal El Saadawi or Orhan Pamukare not known to the European readership, it is largely due to the power politics of translation because of which either such literary giants have not been translated at all into the European languages or they have been translated in a highly domesticated fashion. Therefore, when a non-European writer of exceptional merit and prowess is translated into a European language in a domesticated way, he/she ipso facto loses the lion’s share of his/her originality and turns out to be just harping on the commonplace European literary themes and motives.
Although considerable effort has been made even within the European cultural as well as the academic world to combat such stereotypical legacies, people like Venuti, Niranjana and Spivak have shown its vigorous persistence to this day. To these writers, when it comes to translation, the non-European literatures are usually relegated to the genre of non-canonical literature. The supposed canonicity of the European literatures invests them with greater power and influence. These practices and trends have contributed to the asymmetry of the contemporary cultural relations. At the same time, they have been one of the main causes behind the traditional European estimation of the non-European literatures. Obviously the European scholars are aware of only those Oriental works which have been translated into any of the major European languages. What has not been translated into any of the European languages just does not exist for them as such. This is once again what I have discussed above as the politics of exclusions. Even Frederic Jameson has been indicted of it by Aijaz Ahamad. To Ahmad, Jameson is guilty of a facile overgeneralization and his statement about the Third World Literature is insufficiently theorized (1994, pp. 98-110). To mention yet another case in point: even the most celebrated and influential Muslim poet, Rumi, was introduced to Europe as late as 1935, when R. A. Nicholson translated him into English. Similarly, there are scores of
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Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arabic, African literary giants waiting to be translated into any major European language.
The Way Out
It is paramount to re-think this way of going about the business of translation. Thanks to the radical and insightful theorizations of the late 20th century, at present a sizable critical literature is available which can help us appreciate the power politics of translation and take steps to avoid it. People like Venuti, Berman, Lefevere, Niranjana and Spivak stand for an ethics of difference in translation (Munday, 2013, p. 128). The golden principle endorsed by these scholars is crisp and effective: instead of moving the author to the reader, seek to move the reader to the author (p. 134). This means that a translator should avoid obliterating the linguistic and cultural distinctiveness of a source text as much as possible. Instead of rewriting a source text in the image of a privileged target text, the job of a translator should remain to communicate it on its own terms as much as possible.
This obviously is not an easy task given the sedimented and centuries-old notions such as appropriateness, transparency, correctness and fluency. These notions are firmly rooted not just in the minds of a large number of translators but also in the publishing industry and the academia. The difficulty of breaking away from them has always been recognized by the translation scholars mentioned above (Saldanha & O’Brien, 2013, p. 198). Therefore, Venuti calls for more valor and greater courage on the part of the translators and asks them to resist and defy the Eurocentric hegemony and discursive dominance in an ethnodeviant manner. After all, speaking truth to power has been the dream of all the postcolonial theorists ranging from Edward Said to Gayatri Spivak (Munday, 2013, p. 93).
All these theorists and scholars agree that the syntactic specificities and the cultural distinctiveness of the source texts should not be sacrificed for the sake of spurious and stereotypical notions of urbanity, taste and accuracy. All such elitist notions are bourgeoisie constructs formed to perpetuate the Anglo-American discursive dominance in a post-industrial and globalized world. The best way to stand up to the appropriations and rewritings of the source texts is the strategy of foreignization—a technique advocated by Lawrence Venuti. Foreignization can be understood as a radical translation technique which is aimed to send the reader abroad instead of bringing the author home (Boase-Beier, 2011). It does not advance the pseudo claim of substituting the source text in an absolutist and unmediated way. Its avowed aim remains to vigilantly
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register and communicate all the essential linguistic and cultural characteristics of a source text (Toury, 2012, pp. 48, 210).
Furthermore, foreignization does not seek to barter away the actuality of the source text with the acceptability of the target text. In this way, the technique of foreignization efficiently excludes any possibility of setting up the ideological dominance of the target text over the source text. Instead, it puts the source text at par with the target text and the power imbalance between them is strategically calibrated. In a systematic way, the strategy of foreignization foregrounds the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of the source text by enhancing their visibility and reinforcing their centrality (Asghar, 2014). This calls for a kind of interventionism on the part of the translator which Venuti describes in the following words:
I want to suggest that insofar as foreignizing translation seeks to restrain the ethnocentric violence of translation, it is highly desirable today, a strategic cultural intervention in the current state of world affairs, pitched against the hegemonic English-language nations and the unequal cultural exchanges in which they engage their global others. Foreignizing translation in English can be a form of resistance against ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism, in the interests of democratic geopolitical relations. (Venuti, 1995, p. 208)
It should also be noted that the technique of foreignization does not seek to overly familiarize the source text to the reader. Rather a quasi-surrealist ambience of mystique is retained in which the reader is set free to develop his/her own understanding in an experimental and incremental way. The suspense and curiosity of the foreign is not totally repealed. Nor is any overly patronizing assistance offered to the reader. The autonomy of the reader is as much respected as the autonomy of the source text. The regimes of power are replaced with democratic textualities. As a result, instead of being a liability, it appears to be one of the most remarkable assets of a translation to look unfamiliar and foreign (Munday, 2013, pp. 57, 62). Therefore, in its most characteristic form, foreignization prevents the source and non-canonical texts from being standardized, internalized, in short, cannibalized (Asghar, 2014).
However, it is not enough to just foreignize the source text. Along with this a paradigm shift of perspective is required which would allow a re-thinking of the non-European and non-canonical literatures. Moreover, what is commonly called the World Literature (sometimes in contradistinction with the so-called Third World Literature) is not to be taken as an outcome of the contemporary internationalization but instead
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as a critical dimension by which various cultures and cultural turmoils can be appreciated in their complexities.
Arjun Appadurai, the Indian-born US ethnologist and writer, has ingeniously introduced some new post-national perspectives which seek to substitute translation with deterritorialization, that is, by transferring, blending and shifting the local towards the metropolitan (1996, p. 198).
The post-national demographic dynamics such as diaspora, exile and migration are throwing new challenges to the practice of translation. The present day Syrian refugee crisis, galvanized by the tragic death of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy whose image made global headlines after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to escape the civil war in Syria, aptly illustrates the immensity of these challenges. As a corollary of this, the idea of a nation as the carrier of culture and the sole source and target of translation is being increasingly questioned. Therefore what needs to be revised is not just the practice of translation but the canons of cultural studies and comparative/world literature. In this regards, our literary imagination, hybrid identities, syncretistic cultural experiences and composite self-images should all be accorded a due place. Therefore, all acts of translation should be underwritten not only by our collective affiliations but also by what Homi Bhabha calls our “shared historical traumas” (see Simon, 1996, 137).
Conclusion
Today when the questions of identity and voice are increasingly coming into play, we can no longer ignore the power politics of translation and its effects on the marginalized texts and communities. In this study, I have laid bare the deeper questions of ideology, power, manipulation and hegemony which invariably underpin the practice of translation. Instead of investigating the question of translation from purely semantic and syntactic perspectives, the practice of translation has to be judged from ideological and political viewpoints also in order to understand its nexus with power and control.
Moreover, ours is a world of terrorism, suicidal fury and genocidal conflicts verging on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Our technological prowess has added exponentially to our ability to kill. Never in human history was there a more crucial and more immediate need to understand the other cultures and civilizations as it is now. With the onslaught of a neo-imperial vernacular hatched by the Eurocentric corporate culture, a new challenge has been posed to the fate of less privileged languages during the practice of translation (Fisk, 2007, p. 678). In the view of this complexity of the situation what is really required is the
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greater and more empathic understanding of the source texts during their translation into the dominant European target texts. Cultural misapprehensions born of highly domesticated translations can lead to ethnocentric states of minds. Translation is the foremost means to initiate and sustain a dialogue between different cultures and nations.
Therefore, it is paramount to be aware of the ideological and political factors which can impact negatively upon our perception about other peoples and nations. It is time to re-assert and re-invent the autonomy and distinctiveness of the source texts and less privileged discourses. In this regard, Venuti’s technique of foreignization can go a long way to help us. The sources texts should no longer exist as mere raw material awaiting the miraculous prowess of a translator to turn into something real and finished. What has to be realized by the translators, theorists, scholars, researchers, diplomats and policy makers is the plain fact that every language stands for a culture and a historic tradition and when it constitutes a source text; its historico-cultural legacies must be recognized and honored. That is the only way to ensure a mutually respected co-existence in a world already rent with the linguistic and ethnic clashes.
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Asghar, J. (2014). An analytical study of domestication of V. G. Kiernan’s translation of Muhammad Iqbal’s poetry into English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad.
Bahri, D. (2003). Native intelligence: Aesthetics, politics, and postcolonial literature. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Baker, M. (2006). Translation, power and conflict. London: Routledge.
Bassnett, S. (2011). Reflections on translation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
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Boase-Beier, J. (2011). A critical introduction to translation studies. New York, NY: Continuum.
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Hatim, B. (1997). Communication across cultures: Translation theory and contrastive text linguistics. Exeter: Exeter University Press.
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Munday, J. (2013). Style and ideology in translation. New York, NY: Routledge.
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Saldanha, G., & O’Brien, S. (2013). Research methodologies in translation studies. New York, NY: Routledge.
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Simon, S. (1996). Gender in translation: Cultural identity and the politics of transmission. London: Routledge.
Spivak, G. C. (2000). Politics of translation. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies readers (pp. 397 - 412). London: Routledge.
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Venuti, L. (2013). Translation changes everything. New York, NY: Routledge.
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Relevance of Authentic Materials to the Attention Span of Adult Learners in English Language Classes in Pakistan
Muhammad Saboor Hussain Raja
Abstract
This article assesses the relation of authentic materials to the attention span of adult students in English language classes in Pakistan. It determines the advantages of authentic materials and points out what care and caution need to be taken while using them to obtain their maximum benefit. A literature review of the problem is presented first enumerating the advantages of authentic materials in an English language class, and then several strategies are suggested to get the best outcome from their use. Both qualitative and quantitative research tools have been administered in this research to get the relevant data. Since the problem of sustaining students’ attention in class especially in EFL classes has been the topic of concern, the qualitative tool helps find out that the right kind of authentic materials depending on various factors including the situation, the learners and the topic as well as the art of exploiting authentic materials in the class help extend students’ attention span and make teaching and learning successful. The quantitative tool helps in determining that use of authentic materials is not resisted by the learners, and teachers consider them a great help in making teaching/learning process a fun. This paper concludes that by incorporating authentic materials in English language teaching in Pakistan, a great many positive changes can be brought in the English language curricula being taught at all levels in Pakistan. It recommends the teachers, administrators, policy makers and syllabus designers to focus on sustaining learners’ attention with the best use of authentic materials to optimize their learning in an ESL class. This paper is a building block for future research on the issue of the use of authentic materials in English language classes. The culture of the college classroom, teaching and learning could be transformed towards betterment by funding the researchers to focus on this issue.
Keywords: authentic materials, adult learners, attention span, ELT
Introduction
English still has an important role in Pakistan, even though it is soon to be replaced by Urdu as the official language. All Pakistani interests across the world are addressed through this language. Moreover, it is the language of higher learning especially in the fields of medicine, science and technology. The researcher has noticed with concern that many of our
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 13 (II), December, 2015 ISSN 2222-5706
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students, even those with advanced degrees, are unable to tackle basic proficiency tests such as IELTS or TOEFL with confidence.
The main reason for this serious lack of target language proficiency could be that they are taught far-fetched fables, pastoral poetry and stories specially written in the context of History of Islam and Pakistan, but the functional aspect of the language is ignored. Structures of English are taught through the traditional Grammar Translation Method (GTM), (refer to Punjab Text Book Board Intermediate English Book 1 & 3). The point to be noted is that the policy makers in Pakistan still seem to think that the language will come by itself as a by-product of teaching literature.
Another dilemma of ELT in Pakistani context is the erroneous treatment of course books by most teachers. In the first place, even the courses do not, as such, provide the teacher any support. For instance, the Textbook of English for class XI, National Book Foundation (2004), has exercises at the end of every short story with total disregard to the content of the story and no co-relation with subsequent class activities. The first lesson carries exercises on Nouns, the second on the Present Perfect Tense, the third on the use of Adverbs and Present Perfect Tense and so on. This lack of logic in the teaching tools or aids and materials neutralizes whatever motivation the students might have had in the beginning. They are left with high affective filters even if they are pushed to sit in the class through institutional force and other factors. These typical examples are quite sufficient to make it clear why Pakistani learners knock at the doors of language centers and language universities. Enrollment in the courses of the National University of Modern Languages, for example, can run as high as two thousand adult learners annually.
The researcher has witnessed the phenomenon (not without agony) of how learners, mostly in Government institutions, sit with dull, blank faces and remain uninvolved in the teaching. The old-fashioned lecturing system has much to do with this. Students become passive and inattentive.
In an informal round of observations in colleges in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the researcher noted that many language teachers were not even using the blackboard or whiteboard, let alone advanced teaching aids. No authentic materials were in evidence to inculcate real language skills. With some in-depth discussion and intimate interaction, the researcher was able to form insights into the issue at hand. The variable discussed and explored here is the use of authentic material. An effort is made to explore what difference the use of authentic materials can make in arresting and extending the learners’ attention span.
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Review of Literature
Taking the term semantically at the outset, authentic simply means original, genuine, natural or not artificial. Though it also has a connotative meaning of authority but in ELT terminology an authentic text is the one whose primary intent is to communicate meaning from native speakers of the language (Swaffar, 1985). For the present study the same has been accepted.
Two elements mainly determine the authenticity of the teaching material. The first is the text, written, spoken or sound-recorded that comes from a native speaker of English for the listeners or readers. The second is the purpose of the text which means manipulation or exploitation of the material under the use that can help the learners to seek guidance for their immediate needs, not only in the classroom but also in real life situations for practical purposes. In a nutshell, both the content of the text as well as its purpose make it authentic (Purcell-Gates, 2003). In a language class, these two aspects are to be considered important while selecting materials for teaching.
Researchers define authentic materials in many ways. Peacock (1997) defines authentic materials as “(those) that are produced to fulfill some social purpose in a language community.” Widdowson (1990) contends that authentic material would be that which is designed for learners of English and used in the classroom in a way similar to the one it was designed for. Morrow (1977) asserts that an authentic text is a stretch of real language produced by real speakers or writers for real audiences, and designed to convey a real message of some sort. Spelleri (2002) contends that authentic materials refer to any items for the general community and not specifically for the ESL community. According to these definitions, news articles or radio/TV bulletins of the Pakistani media would not fall in this category. There is no certainty that what is being offered is close to the kind of speech or writing produced by native speakers.
There are many other issues regarding the nature or use of authentic materials. First, the tension between native and non-native is less severe now than it used to be, as the World Wide Web is an immense library of authentic materials for the language learning classroom. Of course, all the material available on the www is not necessarily uploaded by native English speakers. However, most of it lies within acceptable limits. Second, it is not clear whether we are dealing with authenticity of task, or authenticity of situation (Taylor, 1994). The question of bringing in something authentic in the class raises doubts in teachers’ minds whether
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the classroom itself is unauthentic. Breen (1985) talks of four types of authenticities:
1. Authenticity of the text which may be used as an input data for our learners
2. Authenticity of the learners’ own interpretation of such text 3. Authenticity of the task conducive to language 4. Authenticity of the actual social situation of the language classroom
Breen includes almost everything in the term, but Taylor (1994) points out that authenticity is a relative term and its different aspects can be found in different degrees. Widdowson (1979) clarifies the ambiguity to some extent by saying that authenticity is not a quality residing in instances of language, but a quality which is bestowed upon them and is a created response of the receiver. Authenticity is to be realized in the act of interpretation. Theorists seem generally convinced that texts may be undisputedly authentic if they are written or spoken by native English speakers even if not for the purpose of language teaching.
Third, many theorists doubt the use of the material in language classroom in a way that makes it artificial or unauthentic. Taylor’s (1994) arguments help to resolve this uncertainty. He discards the view that the classroom is an artificial place that affects the authenticity of the material used. A classroom is a place where authentic materials are used for authentic or real purposes in life. Taylor also suggests that learners are somewhat like theater-goers who willingly suspend their disbelief (Coleridge, Biographia Literaria) and learn practical lessons of life from the plays they watch. Learners can similarly create an aura of authenticity for themselves in the classroom; they know the difference between learning a language and using it.
Finally, it is not what kind of text we have that matters but how we use it. It is the purpose that determines the authenticity of the text. For example, letter writing is a typical activity in a language classroom. However, if a letter produced by this exercise is not post-able (to coin a term); the activity falls short of the ideal of authenticity. Learners should not only be told the techniques and methods of skills or sub skills of language to be learnt or used, they should be invited to understand both the underlying logic of the activity on one hand, and its real functions on the other. Only then an activity of this nature can be termed authentic in the sense that Gates et al. (2003) have defined. Nevertheless, if an actual restaurant menu is brought in the class and learners are asked to select food items within a specific amount, both the menu as well as the subsequent activity may be considered authentic; if the second condition
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of applicability in real-life situations beyond the classroom is addressed, the activity comes into the category of authentic teaching.
The use of authentic materials for learning is not something conceived by language teachers only. It has some grounding in well-conceived theories dating back to Descartes with his “I think, therefore I am” stance. Cognitivists tell us that it is the mind of the learner that possesses and processes everything. Recent studies have revealed that knowledge and learning are closely linked with context. Wilson (1993) contends that authentic activity involves situations in which actual cognitive processes are generated, rather than simulations of the kind employed in schools. Perhaps that is one reason for the rise of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Authentic materials offer learners opportunities to create and recreate their own curricula under the supervision of the teacher.
There may be diverse purposes for language teaching in the minds of teachers, course devisers and policy-makers of pre-school, school and other forms of formal and professional educational systems. But, regardless of policy, two main purposes tend to motivate the average adult when she or he comes to the English class. The first is to learn English for immediate and real needs (these may vary from person to person), and the second is to adapt to a new community, which could be because he or she works in a multi-national set-up, or has migrated to an English-speaking country. Spelleri (2002) is right in saying that it is impossible to separate linguistic needs from the learner’s survival needs. Language is a tool, not an end in itself. Authentic material is useful because it goes beyond matters of structure and vocabulary to the provision of working implements for real life situations.
Authentic materials dispel the impression from the mind of the adult learner that s/he is in the class to read a particular text. On the basis of his practical experience with the classes of English language learners of Mexican immigrants, Delgado-Gaitan (1987) shares his view that generally adult learners, when given a text book to read, presume that they are supposed to do academic reading. Therefore, a new trend of giving more value to the reader is emerging; text is less significant than the immediate needs of the reader or the adult learner. Thus, any understandable text, written or spoken, that may interest the learners in the class and that can help with practical needs, is authentic. In this regard, Ashley Hasting and Brendra Murphy (2002) contend that most of the materials that ordinary people seek for entertainment and enlightenment are authentic. Such material is also useful in stretching the attention span of the learners because it is interesting. A movie, documentary, dialogue, TV talk, news bulletin, comic, magazine, editor’s column, restaurant menu or instruction
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manual could thus be included in the category. With this in view, we can say that almost every book lying on the shelves of our library is authentic in its own right. However, the right of the learner is the real test and determinant of authenticity.
The use of authentic materials enlivens the classroom. Language teachers can bring to the classroom a variety of interests. Teachers are also educators, so education and general development are part of their responsibilities (Sanderson, 1999). Not only are the changing trends of life reflected through authentic materials, but language change is also reflected in the materials. Learners and teachers can keep abreast of those changes.
It is pertinent here to discuss Literature as a source of authentic materials, because the main content of English language teaching in Pakistan is taken from literature. Mostly adults in Pakistan do not come to the class to experience the subtleties of charged language or refined styles of language. Their primary concern is to develop communication skills that can serve them in life beyond the classroom. They may come to attend English language class, for instance, to be able to respond to the complaints, feedback letters and other missives issued by their children’s teachers and school administration or to be able to look for better jobs, draft good employment letters or master interview skills, but not to acquire a fastidious taste for poetry or fiction. Selections must be made carefully with practical end purposes in mind.
Media can help in teaching language skills. Language proficiency implies integration of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. According to one estimate (Burely, 1995) we spend more than 40 per cent of our time in listening, about 35 per cent in speaking, nineteen per cent in reading and only about five per cent in writing. Pakistani students do a lot of listening—our authoritarian classroom attitudes do not encourage participation, so they are expected to sit still and listen to the teacher talking for long stretches of time. However, their competence in this skill usually remains poor, partly because they are not really listening (at least, not attentively) and partly because the models of English presented in the average classroom are sub-standard, exhibiting marked interference from the first language in delivery and structure. Students fail to achieve good bands in IELTS, for instance, because of inadequate exposure to authentic listening texts. It is observed that many (if not all) Pakistani immigrants in the UK learn listening skills in a few months of exposure to native speech. For our English language class, BBC World, VOA, CNN, etc. are some useful and easily accessible sources. Learners may be advised to practice listening through these media beyond the classroom. Compared to what students get in ordinary schools, the functional courses offered by the National
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University of Modern Languages, Islamabad are more effective in inculcating authentic listening skills by including authentic materials such as cassette recordings/CDs of What to Say, Getting on in English, Choosing Your English and Going to Work in English Language Teaching.
The textbooks prescribed by planners in boards and universities in Pakistan are not revised for years, whereas world trends and supporting data keep on changing day by day. A book being taught at the Intermediate level in Pakistan contains facts and figures in two essays, “Hunger and Population Explosion” by Anna Mackenzie and “China’s Way to Progress” by Galeazzo Santini, that were valid in 1973 at the time of the first edition. They are still being taught in a drastically changed world. This kind of material creates barriers in learning and makes the classroom dull or even embarrassing, thus exacerbating negative affective factors.
Authentic materials help developing an understanding of life and culture thereby preparing students to have a practical approach to life. Maria Spelleri (2002) opines that with the help of authentic materials, three things are embedded, namely, language learning, cultural insight and practical application. She is also of the view that it enriches the learners’ understanding and is useful for them in real life. In Pakistan, for example, there is the undesirable practice of teaching letter-writing with fictitious names of persons and places, like city ABC and person XYZ. This erroneous and unauthentic way of teaching can result in ridiculous incidents when learners are seen using unconsciously the same thing in their practical life. Chrissa Ahstrom (2003) shares her experience of teaching maps and directions in the class in their original shape. She narrates that once her students, Mexicans, were asked to draw directions to their homes, and the whole class practically used one learner’s work when she invited the class over for dinner.
Many other practical advantages of the use of authentic materials in the class have been noticed and observed in recent times. One language leaner expressed her views after completing a literacy course that a newspaper had been a horrible pile of papers before but turned to be an object full of interest (LPALS study program, Purcell-Gates, 2003). The discerning teacher is guided by learners as well as situations: given a chance, the most desirable content finds its own level in the class, and the most desirable results are produced through this contextualized approach in teaching. The use of authentic materials promotes openness, liberty and the spirit of democracy where all voices are duly heard. Prescribed books are formal in tone and hardly carry day to day scenes of the cities and streets. Authentic materials keep the teachers and the learners in touch with changing trends of life. Latest editions of newspapers, or radio and TV programs keep the interest alive and the motivational level of adult
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learners high. Without the relevance factor, the attention span of students is likely to be short. Contrived material or dead information cannot be expected to hold their attention for a pedagogically productive length of time.
It is tempting to select materials that are learner-contextualized, but some risk is involved. One cannot form many judgements about English language learners from the level assessment test or short interview given prior to their placement in a program. The more you get involved with your learners, the more you realize their contextual needs. It demands a lot of patience to understand the context of each learner. The difficulties are exacerbated in dealing female learners in co-education classes in a Muslim society where females have their peculiar socio-psychological problems. Most Pakistani adult learners lack speaking skills and find it difficult to explain what is going on in their minds. However, L1 may be used for this purpose, provided the teacher knows the same language. If we develop a culture in the class that promotes learners’ interest, it may turn out to be an additional burden for the teacher. The planning of the teacher and the learners may go in opposite directions. For instance, very often one comes in the class with enough tools, plans and materials ready for a whole teaching session, but the learners wish to talk about hot issues. This is a common experience in Pakistani adult classes where an unstable political scene often stimulates learners more than other practical skills. On such occasions, teachers need to be vigilant and imaginative to exploit the situation in a tactful manner, but the end product is rewarding. Student participation is enhanced, attention is maintained and motivation tends to remain high.
Human interests are also diversified and unlimited in number. A teacher may think that filling in a passport application form is a valuable skill to practice in the class, but there may be some learners in the same class who know that they will never need a passport. In their research study, Erik Jacobson and his associate researchers opine that transferring skills, however, between contexts is extremely difficult and rarely accomplished by learners to the degree often assumed by the educators (NCSALL, 1995).
The level of difficulty of the text is also a barrier. It needs to be explained and simplified during the prior brainstorming talk so that the learners may not lose all interest in the text. Purcell-Gates (2003) opines that the level of difficulty of the text is not only a problem for the learners but, at times, the teachers also find themselves struggling with the materials. She has also advised teachers to take into account what she calls the instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative
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and informational needs. Coming up to this standard is, of course, a great challenge for an English language teacher.
It is true that English language teachers, rather all teachers, must work hard to produce desirable results but the teaching strategy involving the use of authentic materials does, in fact, put pressure on the teacher. Selecting, grading, streamlining and operating authentic materials in the class are not as simple they seem to be at first thought.
Methodology
In order to analyze the role of authentic materials in arresting the attention span of English language learners, the researcher used the following questionnaire combining the quantitative tool viz., survey items 1 & 2 and qualitative tool viz., Interview Questions 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Quantitative Tool Survey Items
I. Using authentic materials in your English language class is resisted by the learners as they think that it is not important from examination point of view and it delays completing the course.
II. Without the use of authentic materials in the language classroom, teaching/learning starts getting dull and boring and learners’ attention span breaks time and again as a result the teacher has to exert more energy to keep the learner focused.
Qualitative Tool Interview Questions
I. How can authentic materials used in the classrooms stretch the attention span of the learners and make learning experience more interesting and lower their affective filter?
II. Do you agree that without the use of authentic materials in the language classroom, teaching/learning starts getting dull and boring and learners’ attention span breaks time and again as a result the teacher has to exert more energy to keep the learners focused?
III. How can authentic materials keep the learners involved and motivated in the learning process?
IV. Do you agree that using authentic materials in your English language class is resisted by the learners as they think that it is not important from examination point of view and it delays covering up the course?
Quantitative Tool
In order to get the quantitative data on the research question “How can authentic materials used in classrooms stretch the attention span of the learners and make learning experience more interesting and
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lower their affective filter?” Survey items 1 (Using authentic materials in your English language class is resisted by the learners as they think that it is not important from examination point of view and it delays completing the course.) & 2 (Without the use of authentic materials in the language classroom, teaching/learning starts getting dull and boring and learners’ attention span breaks time and again as a result the teacher has to exert more energy to keep the learner focused.) were designed to determine the side effects of the use of authentic materials and the harms of not using them while imparting the language skills in the learners. The responses of the target population viz., the teachers determined the effectiveness of such teaching tools which supposedly engage the learners and make them participative and involved in the class activities. The possible side effects of using authentic materials mentioned were that using them in your English language class was resisted by the learners as they thought that they were not important from examination point of view and they delayed completing the course. The possible disadvantage of not using authentic materials in the class discussed in survey item 2 was that without the use of authentic materials in the language classroom, teaching/learning would start getting dull and boring and learners’ attention span would break time and again as a result the teacher would have to exert more energy to keep the learner focused.
The scale used for these survey items was five point Likert scale. The results on these survey items were analyzed with the help of bar charts. Chi-square test was applied to them all in order to find the association or independence of the attributes since the survey was given to the teachers teaching English as language and those involved in teaching English as subject.
Sampling for Research Survey
For collection of the data based on the statements mentioned above, the survey was distributed to 200 teachers in the following fashion:
Table 1: Sampling of Teachers from Universities
Language Teachers No of Respondents
National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad 80
International Islamic University, Islamabad 10
Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad 10
Total 100
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Table 2: Sampling of Teachers from Government Colleges
Subject Teachers No of Respondent
Islamabad Model College for Boys, H-8, Islamabad 12
Islamabad Model College for Boys, H-9, Islamabad 12
Islamabad Model College for Boys, F-10/4, Islamabad 6
Islamabad Model College for Boys, G-6/3, Islamabad 9
Islamabad Model College for Boys, F-8/4, Islamabad 10
Islamabad Model College for Boys, G-10/4, Islamabad 9
Islamabad Model College for Boys, I-10/1, Islamabad 9
Government Degree College, Satellite, Rawalpindi 9
Government Gordon College, Rawalpindi 14
Government Asghar Mall College, Rawalpindi 10
Total 100
Quantitative Data Analysis
Use of authentic materials in relation to adult learners’ attention span in English language class creates many crucial and critical questions. The concern in this research article is to verify whether there are any risks or advantages involved especially from psychological perspective in the use of authentic materials in English language classroom. However, the reaction and response of the adults who are exposed to the authentic materials for the first time in their education is also important since in most of the cases, the adult learners have earlier been tuned and trained in a completely different manner. Therefore, there is a dire need of reflection upon the use or lack of authentic materials in Pakistani curricula of English in general but the classroom tactics in dealing with the authentic materials in the adult English language classroom in particular. It is hoped that this portion of the research paper will be of help for the fellow researchers, the classroom practitioners, the course designers and the policy makers alike.
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Figure 1: Distribution of Teachers' Responses to Statement 1
Since the calculated value of chi-square = 8.72 (see appendix) is more than the critical value of 5.991, the null hypothesis H0 is rejected. It means that the teachers teaching English as language and the teachers teaching English as subject have different opinion about the proposition.
Using authentic materials is always useful as it makes the linguistic inputs more comprehensible. This proposition was put in the survey item-1 due to the hypothesized apprehension that our exam system makes the teachers work on the textual contents only from examination point of view. It does not allow them to use authentic materials in their language class as learners resist it declaring it unimportant from examination point of view. Some teachers also think that it delays completion of the course.
However, if the authentic materials are used to supplement the course and text book and move around the learners’ needs to direct the language proficiency enhancement and language skills development, they are neither resisted by the teachers nor by the learners. The survey results clearly point out the accuracy of this analysis as 15% language teachers and 6% subject teachers strongly disagreed, 66% language teachers and 56% subject teachers disagreed with the proposition.
The difference in the opinions of language teachers and the subject teachers is mainly due to the majority of subject teachers showing uncertainty. If the number of agreeing and disagreeing respondents is focused, it becomes clear that there is not much difference in the opinions of language teachers and subject teachers. On both sides, the agreeing respondents are more in number. Thus we can conclude that majority of
0
20
40
60
80
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Uncertain Agree Strongly Agree
15%
66%
2%
15%
2% 6%
56%
4%
32%
2%
No
. of
Re
spo
nd
en
ts
Responses
Statement 1: Using authentic materials in your English language class is resisted by the students as they think that it is not important from examination point of view and it delays completion of the course.
Teachers Teaching English as Language
Teachers Teaching English as Subject
62
the teachers (may they be teaching English as language or as subject) think that the use of authentic materials is resisted by the learners as they find them of no use for their exams. This leads to another conclusion that the teachers are aware of Pakistani learners’ psyche that they all the time keep thinking about their exams and do not concentrate on their studies in the class as a means to develop them communicatively and linguistically. Rather passing in exams and getting good grades is their only desire.
Here we come to realize the need to change the overall psyche of the whole society. It needs to be reformed to the direction of accepting education as a means of developing some skills in the learners, and not a petty means of getting a piece of paper (degree) to get the job/appreciation from the people around. The society is to be revolutionized so that the individuals are able to appreciate the competence reflected in the everyday performance and not in the degrees only. At the same time, there is a need to change the syllabus taught and assessment system practiced as well. Only in this way, the adult learners will appreciate and get motivated to make the best use of the aids and authentic materials in making themselves linguistically competent. Linguistic inputs provided to them in the class will also become more comprehensible since their attention span will be properly arrested.
Figure 2: Distribution of Teachers' Responses to Item-2
Since the calculated value of = 9.86 (refer to appendix) is more than the critical value of 5.991, the null hypothesis H0 is rejected. It means that the teachers teaching English as language and the teachers teaching English as subject have different opinion about the proposition.
0
10
20
30
40
50
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Uncertain Agree Strongly Agree
3%
27%
2%
47%
21%
4%
24%
14%
50%
8%
No
. o
f R
esp
on
de
nts
Responses
Statement 2: Without the use of authentic materials in the language classroom, teaching/learning starts getting dull and boring and learners' attention span breaks time and again as a result the teacher has to exert more energy to keep the learners focused.
Teachers Teaching English as Language
Teachers Teaching English as Subject
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Teaching aids like authentic materials in the language class make the teaching job easy, systemic and impressive, and also keep the learners focused, involved and motivated. The proposition was designed with the hypothesis in opposition to the teachers who take authentic materials as attention-diverting agents rather than facilitating tools. Such teachers take themselves as the most important authentic materials. What is hypothesized then is that without the use of authentic materials, teaching/learning starts getting dull and boring and learners’ attention span breaks time and again. As a result, the teacher has to exert more energy to keep the learners focused.
3% of language teachers, 4% of subject teachers strongly disagreed, 27% language teachers and 24% subject teachers disagreed. It does indicate that mere authentic materials are not enough. They are not enough if the teachers are not trained to make effective and productive use of them. These sections of the teachers need to be given in-service training. Same goes with 2% uncertain language teachers and 14% uncertain subject teachers. Apart from these responses, a teeming majority of teachers from both sides have accepted the proposition and have shown like mindedness.
Qualitative Data Analysis
The following is the gist of discussions based on interviewees’ responses to the four interview questionnaire items mentioned in the methodology part. Ten teachers were interviewed, five teaching English as language and five teaching English as subject. The language teachers were taken from National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad and subject teachers were taken from Federal Government colleges.
Authentic materials and modern teaching aids have always been considered helping tools especially in language classes. These, in fact are the sources of stretching adult learners’ attention span. Besides bringing an element of newness and freshness to arouse students’ interest, authentic materials, realia and other teaching aids also bring the learners in close contact with the language as it is used in real life. In this way, these materials not only bring fun in the class but also make the learners learn by doing. The teachers’ job also becomes easier as a result. Ms. A.H. says, “Nowadays as teachers we are trying to apply as many modern teaching techniques as possible and even we are surprised at the positive outcome at times.” Mr. Z.B. is of the view, “Authentic materials enhance the practicality aspect or utility aspect of learning.” Mr. A.H. says, “The audio visual aids bring a lot of fun and life to your class . . . the students are involved and they learn by doing things. They actually use language in a constructive way.”
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No educational system can be perfect. Every educational institution needs to revise and update its syllabus and policies on regular basis. Realizing that there are some deficiencies in the syllabus of an ongoing course, the teacher finds it his/her responsibility to make up for this through some technique or strategy. Authentic materials seem to offer a great help in this regard. Ms. S.J. comments, “Our syllabus in colleges is not perfect. A lot of things are out-dated and boring. Some parts are very difficult for the students . . . realia, extra materials and authentic materials prove to be a blessing for teachers in such situations. They help teachers make difficult things easier . . . and boring parts interesting.” Mr. A.H. says, “If students are bored in class or the drop-rate gets higher, people blame the teacher, whereas actually the problem lies with the syllabus. Our textbooks are not up to date . . . the teacher can try to make these dull and boring parts interesting by using the available sources only . . . Authentic materials are very important in helping teachers in such situations.”
The most widely used lecture method makes the students passive and dull. When students find the teacher using the authentic materials making them interact with the real world text, the passivity seems to fade away gradually. Mr. A. H. is of the view, “Language is related to . . . the real world. If the teacher uses such things (authentic materials, realia and modern teaching aids) that create real contact of the students with the real world . . . They have good effect on the learning and make learning interesting and attractive. Actually, seeing is believing.” Ms. S.J. says, “The modern teaching aids develop interest in the environment of the class . . . the proper and suitable use and application of the authentic materials, realia and teaching aids are essential for teachers. If these are used only to attract the students’ attention in the class and they do not serve the purpose of teaching/learning, their usage is not appropriate.” Moreover, merely having the equipment in the class may help in attracting students’ attention initially. However, when the students find that these have little bearing on their learning, they get distracted and lose interest.
The authentic materials should be used with the primary purpose of making learning effective and successful. The teaching should not depend entirely on it. Instead, they should be used to facilitate teaching and learning. In this way, the general complaint made against their use in the class that they are not important from the examination point of view, would die its death. Ms. A.S.H. says, “If you use authentic materials in a proper way . . . that actually reinforces the learning of the students.” Ms. A.S. says, “. . . if we are doing some audios and visuals, we definitely need to use the proper equipments.” Mr. A.H. says, “It totally depends on how the teacher uses it (authentic material, realia, etc.) and that how the
65
students react to it . . . The teacher has to supervise everything in a careful manner. Only then these extra materials would have their desired impact.” Thus the teacher needs to be very vigilant.
These materials have double significance when English is taught and assessed as a language since they help the students to improve their skills. Ms. S.J. says, “Students should be made to realize that their assessment system or their examination system is going to be language-based and not that they have to cram things from their books.” When learners tune into area of language skills, they realize the importance of authentic materials. Once this belief is established among all the stakeholders involved in the target learning/teaching that the objective of the whole process is teaching and assessing language skills, resistance to the use of authentic materials will fade away. Teachers and adult learners will no more be syllabus slaves, and affective barriers will be acceptably low.
Conclusion
In general, the authentic materials have been considered a great help in stretching the attention span of the learners. If authentic materials are used to supplement the course and text book and designed to address learners’ needs, it is likely to be accepted by both teachers and students more readily. There is a need of annual review of the existing syllabus of all levels and grades by a team of experts who should make the syllabus connected with the authentic materials, if not entirely subservient to them. The most optimistic support, in this regard, comes from the element of cyber technology which is gradually replacing the prescribed curricula/textbooks.
The prescribed syllabus in Punjab and Federal Government Colleges has generally been found deficient in a number of areas. The fundamental mistake that our course devisers usually commit is incorporating the content in the syllabus not written or spoken by the native English speakers. This deficiency results in poor exposure of our learners to the real challenges of the global and pluralistic world. Resultantly, even in the classroom, they fall into complete hibernation and lose the required attention span. The material presented and methods of teaching adopted also do not bring any satisfaction or sense of achievement in them.
The teachers involved in this research find extra material, authentic materials and realia always useful in language classes as they reduce the affective filter and make the linguistic inputs more comprehensible. They also find teaching aids like audio visual aids effective in making the teaching job easy and systematic, and also in keeping the
66
learners involved and motivated. But for some teachers, these are attention diverting agents rather than facilitating tools.
However, the advantages of using authentic materials are numerous just like their numerous sources. The greatest advantage of the use of authentic materials is its direct applicability in the lives of the learners. It has been witnessed that the drop-out rate in the adult ESL class, where authentic materials approach is skillfully applied, tends to be low. Once the learners are enrolled after careful assessment of their previous level of skill in the target language and their immediate needs are addressed by proper exploitation of carefully selected and operated authentic materials, there is a reduced incidence of students dropping the course without completion. The main reason for this is that the use of authentic materials makes them more involved and their attention span remains considerably extended. The use of authentic materials makes the learners realize that the class work is not a burden but a worthwhile task that is closely linked with everyday affairs of their lives. As a result their learning zeal remains alive, their morale high and the attention span stretched.
Computer software and the Internet are the best sources of authentic materials provided that they reach the learners after being filtered by professional and experienced teachers. These, then become authentic almost in every meaning and manifestation of the term. Internet is easily accessible to the adult learners. It is rather closer to them when they are away from the classroom environment. It has taken guise of the best friend during the hours of isolation. Introduction of authentic materials through internet in Pakistani classroom of adults should not be blocked because our adults are no longer strangers to the cyber world whether they live in urban, semi-urban or rural areas.
The Internet makes the work of the learner as well as the teacher easier. A great variety of material on the net really arrests the attention span of the learners and removes almost all the psychological barriers in the way of learning. Exposure to the Internet is a good activity as it is an application of communication skills. Adults do not need their teachers’ or neighbors’ help doing things like searching for jobs or seeking admissions to colleges and universities. Even forms are filled in, there and then, and tests and interviews also conducted on the web. This is how we can address some of the main objectives of adult learners who come to learn English language for practical purposes in their present lives and future growth.
To sum up, the planned and professional use of authentic materials in our classrooms with the primary objective of keeping the
67
learners’ attention span stretched is the need of the hour. The future direction of this desirable and somewhat practicable and productive methodology seems to be very bright. Moreover, dynamic trends in teaching and learner-centrism are also there to welcome the use of authentic materials.
Recommendations
1. Using material and literature from the real world plays an important role in keeping the learners attentive and involved. Adult language learners naturally find these real world contacts more interesting and stimulating than edited and controlled learner world exposure. The use of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, movies, radio or TV is an easy way to bring the real world into the classroom to increase their interest. They also provide a chance to expose the learner to the cultural aspects of the language.
2. Using audio visual aids while using authentic materials in the class comes in handy in arresting the attention of the learners and in drawing them into a given activity. In particular, while giving instructions for activities or presenting new linguistic inputs, devices such as the OHP or multimedia, laptop, whiteboard, smart board etc., or simply the white (or black) board should be used for reinforcement. Authentic materials given should be first filtered by the professional and experienced teachers. These should embed language learning, cultural insight and practical application.
3. Introducing authentic materials is often hard in the class but majority of the teachers have agreed that with their use, teaching/learning process becomes a fun and the learners remain interested, attentive, participative and focused. If such a class gets a bit noisy, educational administration should appreciate it instead of condemning the teacher. The teachers and administrators should take the classroom as a workshop where the learners learn to do by doing, and acquire the language skills for success in practical life.
4. Using more than one way to pass on instructions related to language activities or to new language inputs for the learners is highly recommended. Use of diversified means opens diversified channels of putting the inputs into the brains of the learners and as a result has a positive impact on the attention span of the learners. The teachers teach to address the immediate needs of the learners. Therefore, they should use the text, written, spoken and recorded by a native speaker of English to develop reading and listening skills of the learners.
5. Teaching English as a language and not as a subject of mathematics, physics or chemistry is also a key recommendation. The purposeful use of authentic materials can be a big help in this regard.
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6. Involving situation and context in the use of authentic materials ignite the cognitive process in the learners for real language learning. Here, the teachers should not be unmindful of the learners’ linguistic needs which generally initiate from their social survival needs. They should give more value to the learners and less to the text to gain authenticity of purpose. The learners’ resistance to the use of authentic materials especially in the subject teachers’ class should be handled professionally, democratically and patiently. The judicious, selective and planned use of L1 should be allowed to arrest the attention span of the learners while using authentic materials.
7. Revising the text books used for English teaching periodically for the sake of authenticity is the last but not the least important recommendation. The teachers should be trained to use authentic materials with the primary intent of communicative competence development of the learners on the model of native speakers of the language. They may be given special incentives and rewards on using authentic materials in order to motivate them further to carry on the tough tasks of selecting, grading, streamlining and operating the authentic materials in the class.
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References
Breen, M. P. (1985). Authenticity in the language classroom. Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 60-70.
Burley, A. (1995). Listening: The forgotten skill. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Gaitan, C. D. (1987). Mexican adult literacy: New directions for immigrants. In S. Radencich (Ed.), Becoming literate in English as a second language (pp. 9-32). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Hasting, A. A. (2002). Thoughts on the use of authentic materials. Retrieved from http://www.focalskills.info/articles/authentic.html
Jacobson, E., Degener, S., & Purcell-Gates,V. (2003). Creating authentic materials and activities for the adult literacy classroom: A handbook for practitioners. Cambridge, MA: NCSALL.
Littlewood, W. (1992). Oral Communication: A Methodological Framework. Oxford: Blackwell.
Meloni, C. (1998). The Internet in the classroom: A valuable tool & resource for ESL/EFL teachers. Retrieved from http://www.aguadillaenglish.net/TEED_readings/internet%20in%20the%20classroom.pdf
Morrow, K. (1977). Authentic texts and ESP. In S. Holden (Ed.), English for Specific Purposes (pp. 13-16). London: Modern English Publications.
Peacock, M. (1997). The effect of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners. English Language Teaching Journal, 51(2), 144-156.
Rivers, W. M. (1978). A practical guide to the teaching of English as a second language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Sanderson, P. (1999). Using newspapers in the classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spelleri, M. (March-April 2002). From lessons to life: Authentic materials bridge the gap. ESL Magazine, 5(2), 16-18.
Swaffar, J. (1985). Reading authentic texts in a foreign language: A cognitive model. The Modern Language Journal, 6(1), 16-34.
Taylor, D. (1994). Inauthentic authenticity or authentic inauthenticity? TESL-EJ, 1(2), A-1.
Widdowson, H. G. (1979). Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Widdowson, H. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxfrod University Press.
Wilson, A. (1993). The promise of situated cognition. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1993(57), 71-79.
Appendix
Chi Square Tests for Quantitative Data Analysis
Chi-square test for the independence or association between the attributes for statement 1
We write the hypotheses as following:
1. Ho= There is independence between language teachers and subject teachers and their responses towards the statement.
H1= There is association between language teachers and subject teachers and their responses towards the statement.
2. Level of significance α is given , α = 0.05 3. Test: Statistics used is x
2 where
Computation: The given table of observed frequency is written as:
Table 3: Chi-Square Test for Teachers' Responses to Statement 1
A1 A2 Total
B1+B2 15+66=81 6+56= 62 B1+B2= 143
B3 2 4 B3= 6
B4 +B5 15+2=17 32+2=34 B4+B5= 51
Total A1=100 A2=100 n=200
The corresponding expected frequencies are as follows:
A1 A2 Total
B1+B2
=
=71.5
=
= 71.5 (B1+B2)=
143
B3
=
= 3
=
= 3 (B3)= 6
B4+B5
=
= 25.5
=
= 25.5 (B4+B5)= 51
Total (A1)= 100 (A2)=100 n=200
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The necessary columns are as follows:
fo fe fo - fe
81
2
17
62
4
34
71.5
3
25.5
71.5
3
25.5
9.5
-1
-8.5
-9.5
1
8.5
90.25
1
72.25
90.25
1
72.25
1.26
0.3
2.8
1.26
0.3
2.8
= 8.72
4. Critical region: = 5.991
5. Conclusion: Since the calculated value of = 8.72 is more than the critical value of 5.991, the null hypothesis H0 is rejected.
Chi-square test for the independence or association between the attributes for statement 2
We write the hypotheses as below:
1. Ho= there is independence between language teachers and subject teachers and their responses towards the statement.
H1= there is association between language teachers and subject teachers and their responses towards the statement.
2. Level of significance α is given , α = 0.05 3. Test: statistics used is x
2 where
Computation: The given table of observed frequency is written as:
Table 4: Chi-Square Test for Teachers' Responses to Statement 2
A1 A2 Total
B1+B2 3+27=30 4+24=28 B1+B2= 58
B3 2 14 B3= 16
B4 +B5 47+21=68 50=8=58 B4+B5= 126
Total A1=100 A2=100 n=200
The corresponding expected frequencies are as follows:
72
A1 A2 Total
B1+B2
=
= 29
=
= 29
(B1+B2)= 58
B3
=
= 8
=
= 8 (B3)=16
B4+B5
=
= 63
=
= 63 (B4+B5)=126
Total (A1)= 100 (A2)=100 n=200
The necessary columns are as follows:
fo fe fo - fe
30
2
68
28
14
58
29
8
63
29
8
63
1
-6
5
-1
6
-5
1
36
25
1
36
25
0.03
4.5
0.4
0.03
4.5
0.4
= 9.86
4. Critical region: = 5.991
5. Conclusion: Since the calculated value of = 9.86 is more than the
critical value of 5.991, the null hypothesis H0 is rejected
73
The Linguistic Representation of Gender Identities in Pakhtu Proverbs
Qaisar Khan (Main Author)
Nighat Sultana (Co-Author)
Arab Naz (Co-Author)
Abstract
As an important marker in a human society, language performs a variety of functions. It serves the role of a primary vehicle for transmitting cultural norms, values and expectations from one generation to the other. It, therefore, emerges pivotal in connecting the past and the present and also determines the future trends. This research paper argues that language reflects as well as preserves, propagates and perpetuates gendered culture. Analyzing the language used in Pakhtu proverbs, the paper explores the significant role of language in the formation and construction of gender identity in cultural setup. The study is based on the qualitative analysis of 3000 collated folk proverbs from archived (and/or) published collections and their authors’ interpretations. The collections primarily relate to Pakhtun social setup in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They share the code of Pakhtunwali with Pakhtuns living in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan and on the other side of the border towards Afghanistan. The findings of the study therefore equally apply to them. The study contends that the proverbs adhere to the tenants of Pakhtunwali and reinforce patriarchal social structure. The gendered linguistic expressions also serve as a means to preserve the age-old gender inequalities, which in turn are manipulated and exploited to erect social structure marked by gender imbalance. The language of proverbs advocates masculinity and male domination in decision-making process, division of labor, domestic and public sphere.
Keywords: language, gender identity, folk proverbs, Pakhtunwali
Introduction
Pakhtu proverbs constitute an important part of the corpus of Pakhtun folklore. Proverbs popularly known as mataluna (plural of Matal) are highly valued for expression of Pakhtun identity and are “prized pearls of wisdom” to guide them throughout their lives (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. ii). The social traditions of Pakhtuns are enshrined in Pakhtunwali- the code of honor that defines what it means to be Pakhtun (Duncan, 1990; Hawkins, 2009; Johnson & Mason, 2008) while to Nawaz Tair (1987) Pakhtunwali still survives as it is preserved in proverbs. Pakhtu proverbs
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 13 (II), December, 2015 ISSN 2222-5706
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dominate life affairs as they are believed to be a rich, authentic and eternal fountain of wisdom and faith of Pakhtuns (Enevoldsen, 2004). On the basis of this belief, they are learnt painstakingly and contextualized during conversation situations to add to the validity, credibility and acceptability of a point of view.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa spreads over an area of 74,521 sq km and has a population of over 22 million. Majority of them are Pakhtuns (also called Pashtuns, Pathans) speaking Pakhtu (also called Pashto, Pashtu) language. Other languages include Khowar, Hindko, Kohistani, Shina, Torwali, Kashmiri, Kalasha and Kaghani are also spoken. A considerable number of Afghan refugees are also scattered in refugee camps in different parts of the province. Formerly, the province was called North West Frontier Province (N-W.F.P.) but through 18th amendment in Federal Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 2010, it was renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Khyber represents historic Khyber Pass near Peshawar toward Afghanistan while Pakhtunkhwa implies near the Pakhtuns, is representative of the majority Pakhtun population of the province (Khan & Sultana, 2012; Khan, Sultana, Bughio & Naz, 2014).
As said above, Pakhtu is spoken in majority of the province with the visible presence of Hindko speakers in Hazara, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Haripur, Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar. For all practical purposes, Pakhtu remains the major source of communication in the province. Urdu is also used for official purposes in government offices and courts. Incidence of the use of Urdu is also found in larger business centers like Peshawar, Mardan and Nowshera due to people coming from other provinces of the country. Afghan refugees who have settled in the province after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s are predominantly Afghan Pakhtuns thus speaking Pakhtu and sharing cultural norms and values and the code of Pakhtunwali.
In the subsequent discussion, a theoretical overview of the relationship between gender and proverbs is presented which introduces Pakhtu proverbs, their historical background and their currency and relevancy in Pakhtun interaction pattern with particular reference to the relative position of men and women as two representative but segregated segments of Pakhtun culture. It also highlights the significance of their contextual analysis to see as to how the content and themes contained in proverbs are perceived and understood particularly among Pakhtuns. Next are discussed gender modeling, gender segregation, gendered power structure and gender socialization in proverbs followed by a comprehensive conclusion.
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Gender Identity and Proverbs
In most of the world’s cultures, proverbs are part and parcel of everyday life that are spoken trippingly and understood immediately (Tair & Edwards, 1982). A proverb is a short but famous sentence which describes either truth or instruction. Commenting on the popularity and utility of a proverb, Shinwari (1999) says that it is that talk or sentence, which comes out extemporarily from the mouth of an experienced elder or scholar on witnessing a story, an event or incident. This sentence proves so meaningful and effective that other people also use it on similar occasions and thus it gradually becomes popular. He further adds that a proverb survives the ravages of time but its narrator and background are forgotten. Thus, today there are proverbs but their background events and stories are not known. In addition, the wisdom contained in Pakhtu classical poetry has also acquired the status of proverbs (Enevoldsen, 2004). Proverbs are the “molecules” of popular literature with particular reference to Pakhtuns as they express their cultural identity (Tair & Edwards, 1982, p. i).
Research studies including Akbar S. Ahmed (1980), Salma Shaheen (1984), Jens Enevoldsen (2004) and Tair and Edwards (2006) reveal that proverbs are the outcome of long historic customs, social practices and traditions. In the Pakhtun social setup, the practice of gathering together to a common place mostly hujra (guest house) or mosque to share and discuss social issues and problems, events and happenings can be said to be a major contributor to the enrichment of the corpus of Pakhtu proverbs. Culturally, Pakhtuns believe in sharing and caring and such occasions are marked by the presence of men of all ages, outpouring words containing wisdom, which have evolved into proverbs by virtue of repeated use over a longer period of time.
From semantic point of view, Tair and Edwards (2006) argue that the meaning contained in proverbs is so compressed and complex in relation to metaphor that it necessitates more social knowledge to properly understand and appreciate them. They further add that proverbs remain more or less meaningless apart from context. Similarly, they are of the view that proverbs are not “folkloric relics, verbal decorations, or collector’s items” but the reflection, expression, or embodiment of cultural values, thinking and social labeling. In addition, they “can be used to propose a course of action, affect a change of attitude, or provoke a change in perspective. Proverbs are rhetorical tools to accomplish social or personal ends” (pp. ii-iii).
Among Pakhtuns, proverbs are alive and play significant role in their speech both formal and informal. They are abundantly found in oral culture and also in books, newspapers and literary dramas, novels and
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short stories. Similarly, conversation situations both inside and outside the home contain frequent recourse to proverbs. They may be employed as penetrating weapons of verbal combat in heated arguments in conflict situations whether political, social or domestic. To Tair and Edwards (2006) Pakhtu proverbs embody the overall image of Pakhtun life and their world serving as prisms that “enable us to see and understand a colorful spectrum of images, beliefs, values, behaviors and customs” of Pakhtuns (p. ii).
Highlighting the significance of a proverb, Katozai states (2005) that it serves as a guiding principle of human life from which one gets instruction and guidance in every aspect of life, every occasion and every time. Mostly, proverbs depict and reflect the life style of a nation or residents of a particular locality’s ethnic or language group because their background contains much history, true events and instruction. In this context, Tair and Edwards (2006) observe that meaning contained in a proverb is linked to a worldview and way of life that give us an insight into aspects of culture including values, ethics, religious concepts, attitudes and gender relations. With particular reference to Pakhtun society, they argue that nothing is beyond the province of proverbs: they serve as a moral guide and resource in the affairs of routine life as they contain lessons about faith, honor, human nature, friends, enemies, power and revenge. They further add that “proverbs are not only a window into their world; they are windows that enable us to look out from their vantage point, and see the world through Pashtun eyes” (p. iv). Based on the findings of this research study, both from the literature reviewed and field observations, proverbs guide, teach, reinforce and perpetuate Pakhtun customs and traditions.
Method and Material
The present study is based on the qualitative analysis of Pakhtu folk proverbs through assembling or collating texts, by a review of archived and published materials and their authors’ interpretations. The locale of the study is the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (former N-W.F.P) in Pakistan which borders Afghanistan to its West. The residents of the province are predominantly Pakhtuns whose life is steered by the age-old code of honor called Pakhtunwali (Rahman, 1995).
The study is based on 3000 proverbs assembled, however, the approach is selective and confined to only the analysis of those representative proverbs which relate to the representation of gender identities in the context of the local culture. An emphasis on the language of these proverbs is also undertaken to appreciate the cultural construction of words and labels among Pakhtuns.
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The assembled data indicates that mostly men have authored the books about proverbs. The main reason of it is the lack of access to education among Pakhtun women and their confinement to their homes only (Khan & Sultana, 2012). This may be a pertinent debating point to explore gender bias in these proverbs which future research studies may undertake. However, two works by a female author, Salma Shaheen (1984 & 1988-9), a renowned educationist associated with University of Peshawar were consulted but her collection of proverbs was found similar to the rest with particular reference to gender identities and representation. Furthermore, the anthologies do not actually report from field observation of any single instance of the performance of a proverb causing someone to choose to behave in a certain way. Rhetorically, they do admonish people to choose certain styles of action, and warn against others, but without the observation of actual pragmatic effects of speech events (where a received proverb leads to behavior), we can only say that they are designed rhetorically to dictate and evaluate action, in uncertain relationship to actual actions performed.
The study employs the perspectives of Social Learning Theory and Cognitive Development Theory that emphasize the crucial role of communication in the inculcation of masculinity and femininity (Wood, 2007) while dealing the text of proverbs as discourses in a Foucauldian sense, enunciated in critical Post-Structuralist Perspective to mean “ways of constituting knowledge, together with social practices, forms of subjectivity, and power relations” (Durrani, 2008, p. 599; see also Weedon, 1997, p. 105).
Results and Discussion
To start with, the pattern of gender modeling followed in anthologized Pakhtu proverbs is markedly masculine in intent and content. Display of courage, power and energy are masculine while patience, perseverance and submissiveness are presented as female virtues. In cultural context, men are associated with the outside world while female must remain in the confines of the four walls of home. As referred to earlier, proverbs encompass the whole of Pakhtun life and their language and therefore rich in instructional material to guide gender development within the context of Pakhtunwali. In the next part, we draw a sketch of gender modeling as enunciated in the corpus of Pakhtu proverbs.
Masculine and Feminine Models
Pakhtu proverbs express male ideology (Tair & Edwards, 2006) and project masculine models exuding strength, power and energy. They are symbols of bravery and courage. They are portrayed as relentless warriors as a proverb says that A single son of Pakhtun is also an army (Lashkari,
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2005, p. 67). In another place it is said that A brave son is known by the way he weeps in his cradle (Lashkari, 2005, p. 70). The existence and survival of a male child is exalted and his death or an injury is considered as an unbearable loss to the family (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 280) whereas the presence or absence of a daughter is more or less insignificant (Tair, 1980, p. 66). So much so the birth of a female child is met with tears and goes uncelebrated (Ahmed, 2004; Grima, 1992).
More importantly, there is a tendency toward a negative or hateful portrayal of women in Pakhtu proverbs (Tair & Edwards, 2006). Instead of modeling women to be more progressive and participative in social life, these proverbs restrict, confine and seclude them. The seclusion or purdah is institutionalized as a means to gender segregation which is integral to the concept of Pakhtunwali (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Khan, Sultana, Bughio & Naz, 2014). Female fate is best illustrated in the proverb, For a woman either the home or the grave (Lashkari, 2005, p. 52; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 227). In other words, she can either survive at home or embrace death to leave her home (Shaheen, 1988-9). Such proverbs tend to teach, educate and socialize women according to the principles of Pakhtunwali. They are consistently taught to behave in a socially acceptable manner. This whole process of schooling and guiding women subjugate them to the dictates of patriarchal social structure. They are idealized when they worry only about their skills at homemaking and not to worry about the rest of world: When Tora (name of a lady) puts the cooking pot on the hearth, she puts all her worries under her feet (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 168). They are socialized to step into the shoes of their mothers as a proverb puts it: When the daughter proves that she is well behaved she steps into the shoes of her mother (p. 325). Warning messages for women to behave themselves frequently occur in these proverbs. They are projected as weak, frail and having little wit in comparison to men (Katozai, 2005). In this regard, a famous proverb is that Had women no noses, they would have fed on filth (Lashkari, 2009, p. 85; Tair, 1980, pp. 45-53). Such belittling representations of women in the social setup render them secondary and force them to look for male support in order to thrive socially. In the same way, the fate of wives is no less pathetic. The proverbs incite women to carry out the wishes of their husbands (Tair, 1980, p. 77) otherwise they shall be considered at par with enemies posing a threat to the stability of family structure (Lashkari, 2005, p. 42).
On another level, in the proverbs generally, the word woman carries negative connotations and is used in a belittling and derogatory manner (Tair, 1980, pp. 45-53). William Fry (1972) notes the same with regard to sexual jokes and states that there also a woman “is represented as naive or simply stupid, easily outmaneuvered by the male, who gets
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what he wants without cost” (p. 139). Further, negative personality traits like suspicion, weakness or lack of power and energy are associated with feminine gender. The display of such traits by men, are also termed womanish in a negative sense and such men are rebuked for their unmanly behavior (see also Stockard & Johnson, 1980, p. 6). Instances of such expressions in Pakhtu proverbs may include: You became Hindu in Ramadan (Islamic holy month of fasting), A woman in harvest time (Lashkari, 2005, p. 25), and Woman was born on the day of suspicion (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 299). The proverbs A brave man’s kick will force him to sit like a woman (p. 159) and The earning of a woman is as worthless as the load carried by a she donkey (Tair, 1980, p. 53) are also significant in this regard. In these proverbs, personality attributes associated with womenfolk are conventionally termed as negative or vile, carrying social and cultural disapproval.
Thus, there is a marked difference in the representation of masculine and feminine models in Pakhtu proverbs. They project a gender segregated social structure where men remain at the helm of affairs with women idealized in domestic domain.
Comparative Presentation of Masculine and Feminine Models
A famous Pakhtu proverb says: When the brother becomes a man of prowess, his sister basks under his protection (Lashkari, 2005, p. 76; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 337). It serves a sour commentary on the relative status and position of both genders in Pakhtun social fabric. It renders men powerful, strong and entrusted with the cultural responsibility of controlling and safeguarding the supposedly sans strength womenfolk. This dependency of women upon men ranges from the affairs of homemaking to the wider socio-economic sphere.
Pakhtu proverbs adhere to male ideology in that the world is viewed from men’s perspective. Here, women are projected as additional, secondary and supportive in their social roles. The analysis of proverbs reveals that finding a woman for marriage is of less significance as long as a man has money and wealth: When there is money, the woman will come even from Kalabat (name of a far off village) (Shinwari, 1999, p. 21; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 167). Involvement in meaningless quarrels and fights is attributed to women with particular reference to polygamous situations (Enevoldsen, 2004, p. 10; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 182). Further, they are portrayed as extravagant in spending the hard-earned money of their men. A proverb puts it, The khan is angry, his wife is happy (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 218). It implies that men are constantly troubled by the lavish spending of their wives. They do not realize the pain of earning. In comparison, husbands are exalted to zenith height and women are
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admonished to give them respect and regard to the extent of worship: “Khawand” (husband) is a name for God (Tair, 1980, p. 79; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 221). Similarly, those men who remain cooperative and supportive to their women are ridiculed as submissive and hen-pecked: Although his wife ground the flour, the dust lies on his neck (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 287).
Regarding women’s secondary but supportive role, instances from Pakhtu proverbs show that men are compared to mountains and kings while women are termed as their pillars and viziers respectively (Lashkari, 2005, p. 84). For instance, the proverb A woman cannot replace a man no matter how good she is (Lashkari, 2005, p. 88, Tair, 1982, p. 63) stipulates the inherent superiority of men over women. In Pakhtun families, women are mostly secondary in decision-making processes pertaining to homemaking and mate selection and if ever a woman is found at the helm of the affairs, this too is attributed to male patronization: If the mother dominates, it is because of the father, who patronizes her (Lashkari, 2005, p. 6; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 29).
At another level, bravery in men is reciprocated by beauty in women. The former must take pride in their weapons while the latter must remain satisfied with their jewellery: A malak (honorable man) needs sword a woman needs a house (Tair, 1982, p. 62). Women must always be on guard and must safeguard their beauty otherwise the proverb, Oh brother the infidel! Oh shameless sister (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 349) becomes relevant to such situations where a brother must, in order to save his family’s honor; prove severe upon his sister. It is interesting to note that a brother is to guard her before marriage while this responsibility shifts to her husband after marriage. The expression, Oh, shameless sister (be-sharme khori) is used to scold an immodest, shameless, or brazen woman, that is, one who fails to exhibit modesty in her dress, public behavior and demeanor, for example, not covering her head or face properly, wearing tight clothes, walking ahead of her husband, talking openly with men (ibid.). In other words, a Pakhtun woman leaving the confines of her home without purdah or veil is considered violation of her beauty and honor (Khan, 2008, p. 102).
In short, the proverbs teach relative superiority of men over women. A woman a supposed to stay at home and support her man in his responsibilities in the public domain. She is also expected to behave herself and not to create any untoward situation for her brother, husband or father. She is expected to follow men’s decisions and to remain obedient. Men, on the other hand, are projected as decision makers and to look after the needs of female family members. They are also expected to
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monitor women and to decide their futures according to the code of honor- Pakhtunwali.
Gender Segregation and Gendered Power Structure in Proverbs
Pakhtu proverbs are coined and repeated historically with a view to order and direct the coming generations to regulate their society. In the context of gender, proverbs advocate gender segregation as the distinctive mark of Pakhtun society. The proverbs propagate guidelines as to how the two genders are to act and operate in life, erecting gender hierarchies comparable with the spirit and aspirations of Pakhtun ideals of Pakhtunwali. They identify masculine and feminine spheres of activity and draw a clear line between the two. For instance, a famous proverb, It is better for a woman to suffer the shaving of her head than to be cast out of the home by her husband (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 293) clarifies the point. It is explicit in statement of gendered social expectations. It is also a clear display of patriarchy and the subservience of women. The power structure in Pakhtun society in general and the family in particular is gendered where women are belittled for their Long hair, little wit (Katozai, 2005, p. 388).
Pakhtu proverbs describe women mostly in the domestic sphere. They are expected to observe purdah (female seclusion and veiling) and hold themselves back from public appearances (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 349). They are also expected to invest and spend the earning of their husbands frugally, to limit their wants and be more tidy and clean with their household work: I know a slut (untidy and dirty) who keeps more leaven than necessary, but does not clean the pot with residue on the edges (p. 127). Women are therefore expected to worry only about their homes (Shaheen, 1988-9, p. 56) and leave the outside world to men who would earn and feed them as the proverbs state: Man is mountain, woman is his support; Man is king, woman is his vizier; Man earns, woman spends (Lashkari, 2005, p. 84; Tair, 1980, 62). In the same way, daughters are idealized in their roles of emulating their mothers and sons their fathers as stipulated in Like mother, like daughter and Like father, like son (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 208).
With regard to gendered power structure, women are at the mercy of their men. For instance, a proverb states, A good wife leads her life according to the wishes of her husband (Lashkari, 2005, p. 7). They must cater to the expectations of their husbands in order to enjoy comparative leverage in domestic issues like decision-making. More importantly, respect for men is absolute and there is no option available to the contrary, A husband, good or bad but the wife must respect him (p. 110). In this connection, Tair and Edwards (2006) note that Pakhtu
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proverbs advocate decency, patience and goodwill of the husband as starting points for women to have a prosperous domestic life: When a woman understands her husband, shall have ordered life at home (p. 29; see also Lashkari, 2005, p. 41).
In short, the power structure is strictly gendered in the corpus of Pakhtu proverbs. Men are at the helm of affairs while women are to obey and follow their decision as integral to rules of business and survival in the society.
Gender Socialization in Proverbs
Pakhtu proverbs remain crucial for their role in gender socialization. Their language is steeped in instructional phrasing, the repetitive nature of which makes it a potent source of socialization in society. As mentioned earlier, the world of proverbs encompasses almost all aspects of the culture including gendered social patterns. From proverbs, one can construct the image of an ideal Pakhtun social setup with regard to gender. The language is ripe with meaning and is manipulated to erect particular gender norms. They attempt to draw and paint the best and the ideal in person, gender and situation. They also delineate the worst and the most hateful. In relation to gender, women are defined in their limited sphere of activity, desirable looks and with reference to their relations with men. By contrast, the latter’s identity, as revealed in these proverbs, is progressive and liberal. A brief sketch of the gender socialization pattern in proverbs is presented as follows.
Pakhtu proverbs, with particular reference to marital relationship, socialize women to respect and follow the wishes of their husbands (Lashkari, 2005, p. 110; Tair, 1980, p. 77; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 221). They are taught that It is better for a woman to suffer the shaving of her head than to be cast out of the home by her husband (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 293). They are also instructed to content themselves with the confines of home as their only abode till death (Ahmed, 1976, p. 47; Tair, 1982, p. 63; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 227). It is only then that they shall deserve their place both at home and in society. By doing so, they shall also become a reason for the honor of their men: White turbans (symbol of honor) are given to the men by the women (Lashkari, 2005, p. 65; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 291, 299). In other words, men deserve respect if they own well-behaved women as sisters, daughters or wives. In comparison, men are socialized to be on guard and not to refer to their wives in crucial decisions: If you care about wife, she will turn you mad (Lashkari, 2005, p. 43; Tair, 1982, p. 222). They are also informed about the insurmountable difficulties which they may encounter in feeding and clothing women: Feeding a wife is like feeding an elephant (Tair, 1982, p. 63).
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Several instructional content in Pakhtu proverbs also relate to purdah (seclusion or veiling) - an effective technique to segregate gender: A woman who does not observe purdah is like food without salt (Lashkari, 2005, p. 127). Honor in Pakhtun society is associated with women and men are advised to guard their honor to earn respect for family (Lashkari, 2005, p. 20; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 327). Similarly, both women and men are idealized to emulate their own sex as When the daughter proves that she is well behaved she steps into the shoes of her mother (Tair, 1982, p. 126; Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 325). In the same way, women are instructed only to worry about their household duties particularly cooking (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 168) while men are asked to earn and feed their families (Lashkari, 2005, p. 84). In context of gender socialization, it is observed that such instructional content has contributed to passivity among women in Pakhtun society. Girls, from a very tender age, attempt to emulate the role of their mothers. This has resulted in stagnation in the society with reference to the contribution of women in the progress of society.
Conclusion
Textual analysis shows how the language of proverbs is assertive in the formation of gender identity. It exalts men and defines their social presence as indispensible to the societal structure and stability. They are exalted for their masculine traits and attributes; performing acts of heroism and bravery; showing initiative and agency. Terms associated with ideal masculinity like a brave son; iron-like; behaving like men; a brave man’s kick; a man of prowess; don’t run away from the battlefield; gun; Pakhtu (code of honor) and turban (sign of honor) are frequently found in proverbs. On the other hand, the survival of women is subject to the goodwill of men and they must therefore obey them without protest. Further, she is idealized when she follows the culturally prescribed feminine dress pattern; to observe purdah (seclusion/veil); to content herself with the confines of her home; to submit to the will of male family members and to segregate herself from the public domain. The language of proverbs is ripe with key words and expressions particular to women like home or grave; purdah (dress or veil or seclusion); ill-bred; oh shameless sister; jewellery; and suspicion that highlight their social standing and position relative to men.
Pakhtun society adheres to the social structure portrayed and projected in proverbs. Consequently, the society is marked by gender disparity and unequal distribution of power. It affords maximum capacity to absorb its male members: “Khawand” (husband) is a name for God (Tair & Edwards, 2006, p. 221) but has lesser capacity to accommodate female members.
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In a comparative presentation of men and women in proverbs, the society is divided on gender basis where men are projected at the helm of affairs while women are strictly defined and projected in a limited sphere of activity, that is, domestic domain. Pakhtu proverbs speak for gender segregation as enunciated in Pakhtunwali. This is achieved mainly by restricting and confining women to domestic sphere mainly by the social norm of purdah for them. The power structure is also gendered with virtually negligible space allocated for women. Pakhtu proverbs play significant role is gender socialization in the context of Pakhtun society. They describe various roles and events and also divide and segregate them on clearly defined gender lines. Men are socialized to be brave and bold while women are taught to support and assist them. Authority and decision-making power must rest with men while women must improvise to find ways and means to add to the comfort of their men at homes.
To sum up, it is important to mention that there are other genres in Pakhtu, such as landay (also called tappa, which is folk song type comprising of two lines), a genre much performed and perpetuated by women, that carry very different portraits of women and also, especially, some critical perspectives on Pakhtun/Pashtun/Pathan men (Khan, Bughio & Naz, 2011). This necessarily points to the fact that no single genre tells the whole story of a community’s social structure and values. Proverb, then, is one kind of rhetorical genre and there are others representing other equally indigenous viewpoints on social values and human character types. Proverbs are main source of expression of Pakhtunwali and contribute in a major way to its constitution alongside other genres however.
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Relevance, accuracy, and authenticity are some of the most important benchmarks that any research aims to attain from its conception to actualization. Setting of criteria and meeting those criteria are not simply demands enforced externally from the broader research paradigms, but are essentially imposed by a self disciplined inquisitive mind of a researcher. In adherence to set standards and pursuit of these principles, the researcher progresses from greater rigidity of fixed patterns to more flexible patterns, from standard and well established norms to nurturing a new spirit, and from a harder strife of discerning the verity of ideas/argumentation to a satisfying resolution of conflicting arguments. The process is not so linear and clearly well defined as it appears to be. There are pitfalls and concealed ambiguities which bear enough potential to divert the focus of entire research process. The focused and committed researcher, however, is able to knit together apparently heterogeneous theoretical trends into a uniquely unified whole to provide solid theoretical grounding to her/his research. With greater intellectual and analytical zest, s/he moves on to designing a framework which leads to the achievement of set objectives.
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry (ISSN 2222-5706) is a biannual peer-reviewed journal dedicated to promote publication of quality research papers by inviting scholarly papers written in both empirical and philosophic-theoretical traditions. It encourages committed scholars to put forth their efforts in bringing theory and empirical findings as well as differing approaches to a fruitful dialogue. Researches highlighting emerging trends and maintaining relevancy, accuracy, and authenticity in their fields are highly appreciated.
As per the NUML JCI Publishing policies, papers that have been in conference proceedings or published elsewhere are not accepted. In case a paper is based on a dissertation, the contributor must provide all relevant details against which the submission maybe validated. NUML JCI publishes papers related to the areas of Language, Literature, Linguistics and Education. The journal also accepts Book Reviews in the specified areas. Kindly make your submissions at [email protected] or contact:
Dr. Farheen Ahmed Hashmi Editor, NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry, Room No. 4, Ghazali Block Extension, National University of Modern Languages, H-9, Islamabad, Pakistan Phone: +92-51-9265100 Ext 214
91
NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry
Quality Enhancement Cell National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad
Email: [email protected]
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CONTENTS ISSN 2222-5706
Research Papers
Sajid Ahmad & Muhammad Asim Mahmood
Comparing Explicit Features of Pakistani Press Reportage with
British Press Reportage: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis
Jamil Asghar
The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation-Ideology
Nexus
Muhammad Saboor Hussain Raja
Relevance of Authentic Materials to the Attention Span of Adult
Learners in English Language Classes in Pakistan
Qaisar Khan, Nighat Sultana & Arab Naz
The Linguistic Representation of Gender Identities in Pakhtu
Proverbs
Editorial Office
Quality Enhancement Cell,
Ghazali Block Extention, National University of Modern Languages
Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9265100 Ext 214
NUML JCI is indexed & abstracted by Proquest & Ebscohost
Subscription Rates (per issue)
Pakistan: Biannual: PKR 500/-
Overseas: Biannual: US$ 30
