Shaping and Reshaping of English in Pakistan: A Multidimensional Analysis of Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing the language of Pakistani English newspaper editorials (PPEs) over a period of 70 years (1947-2016). It also attempted to draw an internal comparison between the sub-registers of PPEs exploring internal linguistic variations between Eds and Op-eds during these years. A Corpus of Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials (CorPENE) was compiled and analyzed using Biber’s (2006) Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) model. The study investigated the statistically significant linguistic variation between the three selected phases of PPEs and their sub-categories. The study explored four new dimensions of linguistic variation. From the results, it is evident that the language of the editorials became more opinionated over the years but at the same time it showed less argumentative, abstract and explicit discourse. The language of Op-eds became more opinionated, abstract and explicit, while it is less
narrative with the passage of time. Overall, newspaper editorials (Eds) have become more opinionated and less narrative, abstract and explicit than Op-eds during the years. Towards the ends of the phases, the informational trend has largely disappeared in the language of Pakistani press editorials and Op-eds.