Politics, Ideology and Print Media: A CDA of Newspapers’ Headlines

The present study critically decodes the headlines of Pakistani-English newspapers to locate linguistic spin employing different political ideologies in the desired manner by the controlling groups. The headlines which appeared in the daily ‘Dawn’ and ‘Nation’ newspapers during the year 2014 have been categorised into various themes such as theme of politics, nationalism, internationalism, terrorism, and economics but in the present study, the researchers have only focused on the headlines carrying the topic of politics. In this regard, two headlines from each newspaper about the theme of politics have been randomly selected and analysed by employing Dijk’s (2006) analytical framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Additionally, the existing model of Dijk has been amended in accordance with the nature of the existing data. Therefore, four headlines from each newspaper randomly selected carrying political themes have been analysed to explore how different discursive techniques employed in the coinage of newspaper headlines (mis)represent the same political event differently. The researchers have investigated the print media coverage of the same event in both the newspapers’ headlines to lay bare how different discursive techniques are employed to represent the same news item by different ideological groups to propagate desired political ideologies. The findings of the study highlight that different discursive moves are used by print media to represent the same event differently to propagate desired ideology. That is how print media discourses represent certain people belonging to in/out-groups

Representation of Man and Woman in the Selected Novels of Sidhwa and Singh: A Corpus Stylistic Analysis

The present study is a comparative stylistic analysis of two novels Train to Pakistan and The Ice Candy Man by Khuswant Singh (1956) and Bapsi Sidhwa (1988) respectively. The purpose of this study is to explore the depiction of Man and Woman in the selected texts to find out the similarities and differences through which these characters are represented. The study utilizes a mixed method approach which combines both qualitative and quantitative methods. The focus of the research is the analysis of adjectives that have been used with Man and Woman in both the texts. For this purpose, the study utilizes corpus linguistic tool AntConc (3.2.1) to carry out a stylistic analysis of the texts. A total number of 56 adjectives with a total frequency of 107 times were analyzed. The study has found that women are underrepresented in the selected texts as more adjectives are used to represent men. Moreover, both the male and female writers, mostly, portray men positively while women are portrayed negatively. It is expected that this study will open new doors for future researchers and teachers to explore and understand the language of literature from new perspectives

Evaluating Research Support Facilities to University Students during COVID-19

This study aimed to examine the research support and availability of print resources to university students during COVID-19 in Pakistan. Along with other pandemic related issues during the lockdown, university students faced study issues as all the teaching activities were shifted to online, and they faced unavailability of print resources. A quantitative study design was opted to conduct the study. A total of 2745 university students participated in the survey. This form was sent to 5950 students through their emails and WhatsApp groups. A well-structured questionnaire was constructed and pre-tested from 30 randomly selected students. The study findings showed that COVID-19 affected the educational institutions of several countries generally and Pakistan particularly. The university libraries were closed as lockdown and social distancing was implemented as per the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO). University students were restricted to their homes and were not allowed to visit the library. Therefore, they faced the non-accessibility of books, periodicals, manuscripts, and lack of research support facilities. This study concluded that university libraries were closed during the COVID-19 outbreak and the students faced a deficit of research support and non-availability of print resources in Pakistan. It is recommended that the university libraries should strengthen their digital resources to facilitate students in terms of research support facilities and availability of online books, manuscripts, and periodicals to tackle the issues of university students

The Syntax of Negation of Serial Verbs in Urdu

The focus of this study is to highlight the syntax of the negation marker in Urdu serial verbs. There are two types of serial verb constructions (SVCs) in Urdu. In SVC 1, negation marker either precedes both verbs or it comes in between SVC, whereas in SVC 2 single negation marker either comes in between SVC or double negation precedes both verbs in sequence. The insertion of single negation marker in SVC does not affect the agreement phenomenon in Urdu and it merely adds supplementary negation reading in the sentence. However, the double negation affects the agreement i.e. the basic construction of SVC-1 where the first verb remains frozen and the last verb shows agreement in terms of number, person, and gender but when double negation comes in SVC- 1 it converts the construction into SVC-2 where both verbs show agreement, and negation marker shows agreement in terms of aspect on first verb. Under the Minimalist Program, both negation markers originate under TP which is similar to Chomsky’s representation of negation in clause. First negation marker in double negation constituent takes the frozen verb as its compliment and becomes cause of its inflection, whereas the second negation marker is the specifier of the second verb which is similar to Bukhari’s analysi

Logical Connectors in Newspapers: A Comparative Study of Pakistani And British Columns

The present study is an attempt to explore and compare the patterns and frequencies of usage of logical connectors in Pakistani and British English newspapers. Logical connectors are important tools that make the written and spoken discourse rationally more connected and cohesive.  Non-native speakers of English often confuse spoken mode with written communication and certain expressions that are suitable for spoken are transformed and applied in written discourse. It results in a combination of such propositions that are semantically and logically less related to each other. Present study aims to study whether the same trend exist in the Pakistani English and British newspapers. Pakistani English and British newspapers columns were studied from June to July 2016. Antconc software has been used to compare and contrast the use of logical connectors in both corpora. The results of the present study revealed that there is a significant difference in the use of connectors in both corpora. Pakistani column writers use more logical connectors as compared to the British. This overuse of logical connectors suggests the influence of Urdu, Pakistani writers tend to use certain expressions that the native would simply avoid in columns writing

Moral Literacy and Islamic Values among Students at Tertiary Level

The present study has been designed to analyses moral literacy and Islamic values among students in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan. Moral literacy and Islamic values are taught in all educational institutions in Pakistan directly and indirectly. A sample of 1512 university students of the BS program (4 Years) has been selected through a proportionate random sampling technique from two faculties of the University of Gujrat i.e. Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Social Sciences. A cross-sectional survey has been conducted using a structured questionnaire from the students. Pilot testing has been conducted on 30 randomly selected students to proceed to the final data collection. The study findings show that moral literacy and social justice have a favorable effect on the teaching of Islamic values to students at the tertiary level of education. It is worth stating that the study also shows a similar nature of results in favour of forgiveness and kindness to predict Islamic values. It is believed that faith plays an important role in the promotion of social justice, forgiveness, kindness, humanity respect, sincerity, and moral literacy in Pakistan

Patriarchy and counter discourses: a critique of female subordination in dangarembga's nervous conditions

The present study is a critique of an African English novel Nervous Conditions to explore how the writer speaks back to the patriarchal oppression. For this purpose, the researchers intend to explore the patterns of female subordination in African patriarchal society and the ways with which women resist this oppressive system as embedded in Nervous Conditions. The study utilizes Walby's (1990) concept of 'private patriarchy' from his theory of patriarchy. Radical feminism as a feminist perspective of patriarchy provided the theoretical background to carry out this study. Grounded in qualitative research design, the present study utilizes qualitative textual analysis to identify the meaningful patterns working to highlight and challenge patriarchal oppression in the text. The results of the study indicate that the text under study highlights the subordination of African women through seven patterns where they are shown to be a victim of discrimination in the familial domain regarding food distribution, the burden of household work, educational opportunities, daily living conditions, child gender preference, and in freedom of mobility and freedom of opinion/decision. Moreover, the reaction of the women towards this subordination is identified concerning three different aspects where women escape, get entrapped or rebel against this patriarchal system. The study has found Nervous Conditions a challenging narrative that questions the unjust female subordination in a patriarchal society. The researchers conclude the study by substantiating Dangarembga's stance that this game of entrapment, rebellion and escape is disastrous for the females and humanity as a whole

Finite element simulation of magnetohydrodynamic convective nanofluid slip flow in porous media with nonlinear radiation

A numerical investigation of two dimensional steady state laminar boundary layer flow of a viscous electrically-conducting nanofluid in the vicinity of a stretching ∕ shrinking porous flat plate located in a Darcian porous medium is performed. The nonlinear Rosseland radiation effect is taken into account. Velocity slip and thermal slip at the boundary as well as the newly developed zero mass flux boundary conditions are also implemented to achieve physically applicable results. The governing transport equations are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using appropriate similarity transformations and these are then solved numerically using a variational finite element method (FEM). The influence of the governing parameters (Darcy number, magnetic field, velocity and thermal slip, temperature ratio, transpiration, Brownian motion, thermophoresis, Lewis number and Reynolds number) on the dimensionless velocity, temperature, nanoparticle volume fraction as well as on the skin friction, the heat transfer rates and the mass transfer rates are examined and illustrated in detail. The FEM code is validated with earlier studies for non-magnetic non-slip flow demonstrating close correlation. The present study is relevant to high-temperature nano-materials processing operations