Dr. Musarat Yasmin Alvi
Designation : Associate Professor
Specialization : English/ Applied Linguistics
Specialization : English/ Applied Linguistics
Email : [email protected]
Dr Musarat Yasmin earned her MA in Applied Linguistics from University of Reading, UK. She availed a pre-doc scholarship for San Jose State University, USA, and completed her PhD. She is currently working as Chairperson/Associate Professor at the Department of English, University of Gujrat, Pakistan. She has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed international journal papers with an h-index 16. Her research interests include ESP, TESOL, Education and technology and Discourse Analysis. She serves as Editor for Hayatian Journal of Linguistics and Literature and as reviewer Taylor and Francis, Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, Wiley and De Gruyter journals. Orcid.org/0000-0002/0571-7575
Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Gender
- PHD,The University of Ajk
- MA (UK), Other
- MA,The Islamia University of Bahawalpur
- BA,University of Punjab
- PALEEP scholarship Pre-Doc Scholarship
- SPELT Member
- Pak-US Alumni Network Member, Central Punjab Chapter
| Student Name | Degree | Title | Status / Completed Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aleena Rafique | MS | Between Fiction And Reality: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Child Abuse In Pakistani Tv Drama And Testimonies From Survivors Present research intends to explore the child sexual abuse in media and real life. It is a dismaying and serious issue in Pakistan because child abuse cases are increasing on daily basis. It leaves deleterious and damaging effects on the lives of survivors. Present study investigates the discursive strategies (textual or visual) employed to portray child abuse in Pakistani TV Drama and lived experiences of child abuse survivors and how this phenomenology provides insight into trauma. In order to gain insight into lived and portrayed traumatic experiences of child abuse survivors, “Trauma Theory” by Freud (1896) and Caruth (1995) is used as a theoretical framework. The sample includes Pakistani TV Drama “Udaari” and interviews of two child abuse survivors. The study follows a qualitative approach. The data is collected through recording and transcription of the clips relevant to the main victim of abuse in 25 episodes. So, for the convenience of the researcher, dialogues and pictures related to child sexual abuse have been selected for Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. Second set of data is collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. This data is analyzed through breaking the text into codes and themes. It is anticipated that the media represent the true portrayal of child sexual abuse and reflect the trauma in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and diversity of experiences. | 2024 |
| Rida Zainab | MS | Human Versus AI Generated Interpretations of Gender Roles: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Advert Visuals This qualitative study aims to examine the human and AI-generated interpretations of gender roles in advert visuals when analyzed through a multimodal critical discourse analysis framework. Secondly, the study also aims to identify how ChatGPT’s interpretation of these visuals aligns with or diverges from human perspective. The advertisements have been selected by using a non-probability purposive sampling technique. The data source is five different Pakistani private television drama channels advertisements i-e. Hum TV, GEO, ARY Digital, Express and Green and the unit of analysis is prime-time advertisements i.e., 8 pm- 9 pm. The second source of data is AI-generated analysis of the advertisements. The period for the collection of the data is 4 months. The advertisements that are on-air on all channels as well as televised repeatedly have been selected for analysis. The data analysis is carried out by applying Machin and Mayr (2012) multimodal analysis approach. The result of the study shows that the analysis indicates that human analysis is versatile because it uncovers hidden meanings with the help of practicality and background knowledge. Human analysis describes the ads concerning the traditional gender roles of both males and females in detail and highlights their dominant themes. The dominant themes of women identified by human analysis are woman as caregiver, woman as financially dependent and woman as household maintainer. The dominant themes of men are man as professional, man as provider and man as dependent on domestic chores. ChatGPT-4 analysis of advertisements also highlights the gender roles, but it has a shallow understanding of these roles as compared to humans. ChatGPT highlights only one dominant theme, woman as caregiver. Moreover, Humans and ChatGPT analyses diverge from each other. Human analysis offers the cultural context influenced by society. On the other hand, ChatGPT lacks cultural context, it explains specific details about the current situation, focusing on what is happening at the moment. | 2024 |
| Naveed Akram | Ph.D | REPORTING ON SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS Sexual violence is a serious social concern that affects not only the victims but also the people attached to them. Talking about sexual violence in Pakistan still happens to be what we call taboo and immoral. Media, being one of the most influential modes of communication among the masses, falls short of reflecting the true picture of reality and acts like a prism distorting “…the view of the world…” (Jewkes, 2015, P.45). Reporting on sexual violence has a whole range of associated repercussions that need serious examination. Working within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study discusses four cases of sexual violence as reported in four Pakistani English newspapers (Dawn, Nation, The News, Express Tribune) with the help of Transitivity analysis and Appraisal features from Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). These cases include Asma Aziz case of domestic abuse (2019), Lahore-Sialkot Motorway multiple perpetrators rape case (2020), Noor Mukadam case of intimate partner violence (2021) and Karachi train strangers rape case (2022). CDA helps us probe the discursive relationships among the perpetrators of sexual violence, the victims and the reporters that shape and are shaped by such reporting on sexual violence. Transitivity analysis involves the examination of the transitivity processes used in such reporting thereby evaluating ‘the Processes’, respective roles of the Participants and Circumstances and also the relationship among the reporters and the news readers. Sexual violence is rampant against people of all ages, genders and social statuses but the current study only includes a critical examination of reporting on sexual violence against women (SVAW). The study shows that the news reporting on such events of sexual abuse is made with the stereotypical mindset of the reporters towards sexual crimes and victims of such crimes which strengthens the traditional beliefs about the power relations between men and women. Although it is hard to combat sexual violence but effective news reporting on such incidents can create awareness among news readers and organized efforts at a larger scale and legislation can help us fight against sexual violence. The study may be helpful to future researchers working in the fields of CDA, SFL and media studies as it incorporates the usefulness of transitivity analysis for studying print media reportage. This may be helpful to the media persons reporting on sexual crimes. It could be taken as a yardstick for how the reporters can be considerate towards the victims of sexual abuse by doing objective reporting and showing empathy for the victims. Studying sexual violence against young children, and reporting on the prosecution of these sexual crimes could be some of the other vistas of research for future researchers. | 2024 |
| Sania Safdar | MS | Voices of Grief: Exploring Gender Dynamics through the Discourse of Death Wailing in Rural Pakistan Wailing is a display of grief over death of dear ones. The aim of the present study seeks to explore the discourse of death wailing in rural Pakistan, concerning how language is helpful to uncover the hidden meanings and identities employed by both genders. Sample for the study includes subjects of five deceased near ones. The data is gathered through observation and audio recordings which later transcribed foe analysis for the analysis through the lens of Butler’s gender performativity and through analytical frame work of Fairclough as the researcher’s main concern is to examine gender roles and expectations. Qualitative analysis of the observed wailing practices clearly asserts that there is a difference in the ways in which male and female grieve. Female’s grief performance is highly emotional and demonstrative, in contrast in most cases to male’s restraint in the display of emotions in their grief. These are not only wailing practices that create or perform individual grief but also acts that narrate the gender roles of the given society. The effects and influences of modernization on such traditions are also explored to show how the availability of education increased in changing the gendered expressions of the youth. Hence, the study connects the interpretations and explanations of the localized wailing practices with those existing at the global cultural level to demonstrate that gendered wailing is a globally universal phenomenon while underlining the culturally specific practices of Pakistani rural communities. This work is an initiative in the study of gender issues and cultural anthropology. | 2024 |
| Walees Fatima | MS | ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING IN PAKISTAN: HARNESSING CHATGPT FOR ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING This study examines the validity of ChatGPT, an AI tool, in strengthening argumentative writing skills among SSC students in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education in Pakistan. The focus of the current study is to examine the impact of ChatGPT on argumentative writing skills of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students in Pakistan as EFL learners, to know to what extent SSC students exhibit improvements in key components of argumentative writing, as assessed through pre-and post-tests and to describe some specific types of errors do SSC students in Pakistani context. A three-month course is decided for essay writing. A pre-test of argumentative essays is held. Afterward, the students are involved with the use of ChatGPT for learning, then a post-test is conducted to assess their improvement in writing. A comparison of both pre-test and post-test data is operated. The analysis of collected data is carried out through a model of key components of argumentative writing by Toulmin (1958) and error analysis proposed by Ellis (2002). The outcomes show that the students became able to use ChatGPT to improve their argumentative writing. A comparison of the pre-test with the post-test shows that before the use of ChatGPT, students committed many errors without using ChatGPT, however, after utilizing ChatGPT their writings are improved. | 2024 |
| Muhammad Kamran Sufi | Ph.D | ISLAMOPHOBIC DISCOURSE OF THE SELECTED POLITICAL HEADS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS This research presents a critical analysis of Islamophobic discourse manipulated by the selected political heads: Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump. It is explored how they demonize Islam and Muslims in their interviews and speeches. Through linguistic hegemony, orientalists developed a false picture of Islam and Muslims, and the selected contemporary political heads have followed the same steps. They present Islam aggressive, violent, threatening, irrational, primitive, gendered and resultantly un-adjustable with other cultures. Portrayal of such picture of Islam consequences with discrimination of Muslims and hostility of Islam by anti-Muslims. The previous studies have explored that in Muslim minority countries, discourse against Muslims and Islam develops anti-Muslim feelings among non-Muslims and as a result, Muslims are put on the back foot and made silenced. However, the reaction of Muslims on negative discourse against Islam and Muslims in Muslim majority countries can be different according to their socio-political national context. The study of reaction of Muslim majority country against Islamophobic discourse is under research area in academic research. This research also analyses critically the kind of response and resistance as counter discourse of a political head of Muslim majority country Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Pakistan is an ideological state created on the name of Islam. For Muslims in Pakistan, national identity is actually Muslim identity. All types of discourse against Islam and Muslims are felt deeply on all levels: individual, social, political, and national. The researcher carries out the critical study of Islamophobic discourse as well as counter discourse against Islamophobia under socio-cognitive framework presented by Van Dijk. Linguistic analysis of the selected discourses has been done under Halliday’s systemic functional grammar approach. By analysing Islamophobic discourse and in response counter discourse, the researcher finds out that Islamophobic discourse can disturb harmony among religions and international relations, and can cause instability, uncertainty and lack of peace in the world. It is recommended that instead of using negative words against Islam and Muslims, there should be projection of human rights for everyone for the broader prospects of peace in the world. | 2024 |
| DILDAR AHMED | MS | Epistimicity in the Legal Discourse: A Forensic Linguistic Analysis of Depositions in Anti-terrorism Court Epistemicity is the justification of the proposition, and its subcategory the evidentiality is a linguistics feature that indicates the source of information and epistemic modality shows (un)certainty of the proposition uttered by a speaker. This study tries to discover the epistemic position and roles through evidential resources of court inquiry in terrorism cases. The researcher has used corpus of testimonies submitted before the Anti-terrorist court Gujranwala by witnesses of cases of terrorism and cross-examined by lawyers. For the corpus analysis, the Antconc 3.5.9.0 is used to identify and quantify the related linguistic items. The study has used the framework of Juana I. Marin Arrese (2011), who classified Epistemicity into three categories: 1- Epistemic Modality which indicates the three levels of (un)certainty (necessity, probability, and possibility), 2- Evidentiality which indicates the source of information, (truth-factual validity, experiential, cognitive and communicative) 3- Subjectivity which expresses the responsibility of information whether personal or shared (Subjective explicit, intersubjective explicit, subjective implicit, intersubjective opaque). Marín Arrese (2007, p. 144) measures the level of reliability in the inferential utterances of a speaker by using Palmer’s semantic model of modality (2001). The study interprets the merits and demerits of the usage of certain types of evidential markers that denote the specific epistemic position and role of a speaker in legal settings. The expert witnesses have an independent epistemic position in the court. Since it is the court that needs expert witnesses to interpret the evidence for it, the expert witnesses use significant cognitive and communicative evidential markers, as they provide objective scientific information for which they use modality markers for already established knowledge. The public witnesses, on the other hand, use communicative evidential markers as they being investigative officers have interrogated other witnesses during the investigation. Their role, therefore, is accumulative and objective as they explain and interpret the SOPs. The private witnesses use more experiential evidential markers as they are more certain as eyewitnesses and have incorporative pragmatic role. They also use necessity markers more than the other two categories of witnesses. The use of communicative evidential markers suggests accumulative epistemic role to the private witnesses. They own the responsibility of the information more than the other two categories of witnesses. It is, therefore, concluded that the expert witnesses have interpretive epistemic, public witnesses have accumulative and private witnesses have incorporative and accumulative role in the anti-terrorism court depositions. | 2024 |
| Shiza Asif | MS | Analyzing Environmental Discourse in EFL Textbooks: An Ecolinguistics study Deterioration of environment is the greatest threat humanity is facing in twenty-first century; therefore, environmental sustainability is essential for the existence of all life forms on earth. Teachers and textbooks play a very significant role to shape and enhance students’ ecological consciousness of global problems related to environment. It is challenging to combat drastically escalating global climate crisis without the ecologically concerned citizens. The present study aims to explore the linguistic and visual patterns used to describe natural and environmental content in EFL textbooks and it also compares the environmental discourse in EFL textbooks of school education. The EFL textbooks (n=10, from primary to secondary level of Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board) are analyzed by employing Stibbe’s Ecolinguistics model of cognitive linguistic tools and social semiotics of Kress and Leeuwen. The qualitative analysis highlights the linguistic strategies applied in textbooks for the depiction of nature, relationship between human and non-human components of environment, and global environmental issues. There is absence of beneficial discourse, mostly EFL textbooks contain ambivalent discourses. The findings of the research also indicated a gradual decrease in the representation of beneficial environmental discourse from primary to secondary level. In visuals, mainly the aesthetic and sensorial aspects of nature are foregrounded; however, environmental problems are also presented in relevant units. In order to enhance the ecological consciousness of students, curriculum designers need to improve the content of textbooks and provide them with information according to their educational level, it will consequently lead towards the conservation of environment. | 2023 |
| Sidra Amin | MS | An Ecolinguistic Analysis of Environmental Discourse on Twitter In the recent few decades, the topic of environmental change has gained considerable popularity on social media. The present study explores the environmental discourse on social media posts on Twitter. The study intends to do an eco-critical analysis of the textual and visual elements of the Twitter messages in the three climate change organizations namely UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Environment Program (UNEP), and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and analyzes how the stories on climate change have been enacted. The data for this study comprises 150 posts collected through a purposive sampling technique. To analyze the data, Stibbe’s model of cognitive linguistic tools (2015) and Kress & Leeuwen’s social semiotics model (2006) is adopted. The linguistic features of the textual data have been analyzed by using Stibbe’s model and for visual analysis, the study has taken insight from Kress & Leeuwen’s model. Stibbe’s model of linguistic tools comprises eight different forms of ecological stories. The interpretation of the messages through this model helps to decipher the ecological stories embedded within the discourse on climate change and shows whether the discourse is beneficial, ambivalent, or destructive. The findings of the study reveal that the discourse is largely beneficial and that environmental changes are the reason behind many other problems such as deforestation, migration, and gender-based violence. The study contributes to creating awareness of climate change and calls for the implementation of climate action plans to reduce the risks of climate change and to achieve sustainable development goals in this decade. | 2023 |
| Rahat Bashir | Ph.D | Power of Pandemic Narratives: A Critical Study of Pakistani and Western Print Media Over the past years, natural catastrophes have been recurring on the Earth and impacting the inhabitants in multiple ways, with far-reaching, socio-economic, political, and psychological effects on humans’ beliefs and ideologies. The current study is a multimodal critical discourse analysis that is used to explore the newspapers’ strategies to report covid-19 reports in two different countries; Pakistan and America to influence and delineate public ideology. It examines how social realities are contrived by the newspapers visually and textually. The objectives of the dissertation are to investigate how covid-19 has been visually represented and which transitivity processes are used by the newspapers to get the desired meanings, identities, and ideologies. The study has employed the theoretical underpinnings of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1967, 2014) and its transitivity kit has been specifically utilized to analyze the textual data, while for the visual analysis, Kress and Van Leeuwen Visual Grammar (2021) has been used. It discusses how nationalism is maintained and othering is adapted and self-imposed in the newspaper discourse. It is a mix-method, comparative study, in which the data has been analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Three months’ data has been taken from the two mainstream newspapers in Pakistan and America for the answers to meet the research objectives. The visual results reveal that Pakistan has been shown as a reckless and uncivilized nation, that does not follow the protocols of the pandemic, as the nation has different inherited issues of hunger, fear and unemployment, and project the Global North by strengthening the Orientalist approach, while the USA has portrayed its citizen abiding by all the rules and regulations, with the slightest fear of hunger and economic depression. The virus has been symbolized with death in visuals but surprisingly people are also represented carefree, doing all rituals of normal life. Moreover, other countries are portrayed in anxiety, fear, and loneliness and inflicted with hunger and economic depression. The textual data shows that both newspapers have used all the transitivity processes with almost same frequencies and similar priorities, yet the underlying meanings are constructed differently. The Pakistani newspapers have used them to invoke sympathy, and brotherhood, and explain the government’s tangible actions to curb not only the virus but also to take care of the economic depression. They accepted their dependency on the developing states, while American newspapers used them as a national war to develop nationalism and unity to defeat the rivals, first by not taking it seriously and later by defeating it through vaccine development, which created confusion among the public due to government’s oscillating statements. The study contributes greatly to an understanding of the linguistic and visual behavior of newspapers of different nations that experience different social and economic challenges. It also fills a gap in semiotics concerning empirical studies that focus on the interaction between verbal texts and visuals in depictions of natural disasters in both developing and developed nations. | 2022 |
| Muhammad Safdar | Ph.D | Performativity of Gender Identity Through Mobility By Muslim Women: A Critical Study of Pakistani Fiction In English Muslim women in Pakistan have long been viewed by the restrictive binaristic ideologies of secular feminism and traditional religio-cultural concepts defining their subjectivity. They have simply been treated as homogeneous passive recipients of either of the dualistic discourses which are, in fact, limited in their workability and acceptability in the contemporary Pakistan that is conservative as well as globalizing. The rapidly increasing mobility of women has empowered them to challenge the dualistic gender subjectivity which is imposed on them. Their mobility, as alternative source of agency, has enabled them to performatively negotiate wider social space for them. They collaborate with, contest and negotiate their subject from a distinguished position which is interstitial/third-space. Pakistani fiction in English abounds with the life experiences of its female characters as performatively transcending the dualistic closure into a third space which is complex rather than simple, and agentive rather than passive. However, there is a paucity of feminist literary critique of Pakistani fiction in English from the perspective of performativity and third-space to study mobility as enabling agency to reconstruct Muslim women’s subjectivity and its implications in the form of cultural re-standardization. This thesis, therefore, from Pakistani English fiction, examines how mobility-shaped interstitial agency of Muslim women has enabled them to negotiate and modify their traditional religio-culturally rooted gender subjectivity and also resist the universalist sweeping secular feminist concepts in relation to wifehood, motherhood and embodying modesty. It also examines how this brewing structural transformation has brought the local and the global cultures closer and introduced other, incommensurable cultural temporalities. The thesis argues that mobile Muslim women become agentive in the formation of their subjectivity instead of remaining, in their mind and body, as a passive space for the dichotomous contesting discourses. It argues that mobility-enabled Muslim women are complex in their gender subjectivity and cannot be bound within the simple and linear categorical constructs of the secular and the religious. From the theoretical perspective of mobility-shaped agentive performativity which creates third-space, this thesis feministically interprets selected female characters in Broken Verses (2005) and Salt and Saffron (2000) by Kamila Shamsie and Moth Smoke (2000) and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013) by Mohsin Hamid. The characters are situated in their wider cultural and political historical specificity to understand the reflection of real life experiences as represented by them. The fictive female characters, in their life experiences and external and internal conflicts, represent the ideological contradictions and struggles that real Muslim women in Pakistan have been undergoing, creating space for debate regarding their rights. The selected female characters, with diverse mobilities, are variously negotiative, resistive and subversive as embedded in their contexts. As an analytical technique, this thesis focuses on the type, purpose, means and place of mobility of the female characters and their ensuing behavior and lifestyle. It also employs the technique of examining the characters’ intergenerational and intra-generational differences in their mobility-related agency and its cultural impact. By underlining problematic practicality of secular feminist autonomy and limited agency of religio-cutlural subjectivity of Muslim women in Pakistan, it foregrounds that the women involved in this structural shift are neither ideologically oriented in the secular feminist discourse nor in the traditional religio-cultural sensibility; rather, they, being pragmatic and practical in their approach, transcend the ideological dualistic closure and are inclusive and dynamic in their subjectivity which is empowering for them. | 2022 |
| Isra Irshad | Ph.D | Translating Feminist Identities: A Critical Study Of The English Translations of Urdu Novel Aangan by Mastoor Translation is not a passive transformation from one language to another, but a form of rewriting affected by a translator’s ideology, identity, and culture. This translated activity involves ideologically preoccupied reflections, and reflects the translator’s perspectival positions. It implicates that ideological positions like gender, religious, or political positions affect the activity. Keeping in view this backdrop, this study aims to understand the dynamics of the construction of the feminist positions, and demystify the discursive constructed images of marginalized women in the web of English translated discourse of the Urdu novel. For this purpose, the sample consists of Urdu novel, Mastoor’s Aangan and its two English translated versions by eastern (Hussain) and western (Rockwell) translators. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis provides this study with a research framework. This model is taken due to its inclusiveness and systemicity. The study, taking into account the multifarious nature of the study, draws upon discourse theories, translation theory, and feminist translation theory for the critical progression of the data selected. Linguistic information based on feminist issues is extracted from the prepared parallel corpus of the translated novels by employing a Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK). The results show that in the Rockwell’s translation, mostly the discursive processes of classification scheme, overwording, rewording, repetition, backgrounding, foregrounding, intensified discursive choices, generalization, and neutralization; and translation strategies of sense for sense, literal translation, modulation, neutralization, emphasis change, transposition, and idiomatic translation, and feminist translation strategies of hijacking, and supplementing are found employed. Whereas, in the Hussain’s translated text, mostly the discursive processes of ideologically contested words, overwording, rewording, classification scheme, nominalization, backgrounding, foregrounding, generalization, intensified discursive choices, argumentation, and rhetorical questions are used. In addition, she has employed the translation strategies of sense for sense, literal translation, emphasis change, omission, idiomatic translation, addition, explicitness, modulation, transposition; and feminist translation strategy of supplementing. The research reveals that, in most of the cases, both translators, by drawing upon their perspectival positions, maintain the feminist images constructed in the ST, but in some cases manipulate those images. Their feminist tone is visible in the main text and paratexts of the translated texts. Rockwell’s paratext indicates her feminist position more vividly than that of Hussain. It implicates that the concept of feminism in Western thought influences her position while translating a text from the Eastern culture. Rockwell, on the one hand, magnifies the marginalized identities of women presented as harassed, silly, uneducated women in the original and to a lesser extent, the identities of the women presented as suppressed and shameless women in the original, but keeps the image of the ill-mannered woman as a victim in TT1. However, Hussain magnifies the marginalized identities of the women presented as shameless, suppressed and ill-mannered in the original, while maintaining the identities of the silly and uneducated women as victims, as in the original, but mitigated somewhat the image of the harassed woman in TT2. | 2021 |
| Madeeha Nageen | MS | The Construction of War Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Indo-Pak Post-Pulwama Rhetoric Language plays a crucial role at the times of conflict. Political Actors control the minds of people and prepare them for the destructive repercussions of war employing different discursive and linguistic strategies which are also the embodiment of certain ideologies. This research has investigated the linguistic and discursive patterns in Indian and Pakistani state Actors which they have employed to construct polarized identities of self and other as well as to legitimize the decision of no/action in the wake of Pulwama attack 2019. Four speeches of Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers: Imran Khan and Narendra Modi, and four press conferences by the military representatives of the two states have been analyzed by using Halliday’s (2014) Systemic Functional Linguistics and Reyes’ (2011) strategies of legitimization as framework. Transitivity system of SFL has been employed mainly as an analytical tool. Transitivity analysis shows that four types of processes; Material, Verbal, Mental, and Relational have been used by Indian and Pakistani state Actors to represent self and other. The analysis has revealed that India has presented the dichotomy of self and other more rigorously as compared to Pakistan. Pakistan has also created this dichotomy of self and other but with an attempt to not widen the already existing gap between the two countries. The analysis of employed legitimization strategies reveals the existence of all the five strategies in Pakistan’s discourse whereas India employed four strategies. Indian discourse is more focused on emotions whereas Pakistan’s discourse is based on rational decision making and futuristic approach employing the strategy of Hypothetical Future which is lacking in Indian discourse. The study has also established that politicians make use of emotional strategy overtly whereas military Actors either do not apply it at all or apply it covertly. The results show that military use altruism as the main legitimization device as it is the only commonly employed strategy by Indian and Pakistani military. | 2020 |
| Sana Qadir | MS | Pakistani EFL Learners’ Attitude Towards Developing Self-Regulated Learning Through Self, Peer, and Teacher’s Assessment Self-regulation has been established in the literature as a process that makes learners motivated for learning, well prepared for their activities and enables them to monitor their learning tasks independently. Whereas, assessment is believed as a systematic way of collecting and analyzing data for the sake of improvement in learners’ academic gains. The present study explored the role of three types of assessment, namely self-assessment (SA), peer-assessment (PA) and teacher-assessment (TA) in English language learning of Pakistani learners, and to find out the attitude of the learners towards the most suitable type of assessment for the development of self-regulated learning (SRL) features among learners. The study is quantitative and experimental, so the data for the study were collected from a sample of 99 students of the Department of Linguistics and English Literature, Government Postgraduate College, Mirpur Azad Kashmir through questionnaires and pre and post-tests. The analysis of the gathered data was done through SPSS 16.0. The findings of the study show that the PA technique proved to be the most suitable technique for English language learning. The learners’ perception also showed that they found the PA technique the most suitable and useful in fostering self-regulation among them. Moreover, the learners of SA and PA groups perceived that the SA and the PA, respectively, helped in enhancing their self-monitoring skills, whereas the learners from the TA group believed that their confidence level was more improved as compared to other SRL features. This study will bring more enlightenment about the effective use of assessment techniques to improve learners SRL abilities. It will also work as a foundation for more research on exploring the relation of SRL features with curriculum and teaching pedagogies. | 2020 |
| Amir Hamza | MS | Flipped Classroom Strategy and Writing Skills: A Case of UoG Under-graduate Students In the last five decades, flipped classroom (FC) learning strategy has become a focal point of attention for academics who are interested in exploring the teaching-learning paradigm. The FC aims at engaging the students by providing relevant material before the classroom via social media. This study investigated the significance and the impact of FC strategy on the students’ writing skills and their perceptions towards FC approach. The sample of the study consisted of (54) first-year ESL undergraduate students at the University of Gujrat. The total sample was divided into two different groups: treatment group (N=27) and control group (N=27). This mixed-methods study used pre and post-tests and focused group discussion as an instrument for data collection. The results observed a statistical significant difference between treatment group (9.28 mean score) and control group (7.50 mean score) performance. The FC strategy helped them to improve their writing skills in the posttest. The students’ perceptions are also parallel to their performance as they showed a positive attitude towards FC strategy to enhance writing skills. This study implies that FC teaching strategy should be implemented in the educational context. | 2020 |
| Tehreem Rauf | MS | Socio-cultural Impact on Wedding Invitations: A Comparative Analysis of British and Pakistani Cards’ Wedding invitations are constructed to invite guests to attend the wedding ceremony of two people i.e., groom and bride. It contains vital information regarding inviter’s names, date, venue, wedding program, name of the groom and bride. The wedding invitation is an interesting genre which belongs to homely discourse. The present research has been conducted on the wedding invitation genre of Pakistan and Britain to investigate the socio-cultural impact on the wedding invitations of two different cultures. The purpose of this research is to investigate the generic sequence, linguistic features, paralinguistic features and socio-cultural influence on British and Pakistani wedding invitations. The data have been collected from the different cities of Pakistan of seven different languages namely: English, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Saraiki, Sindhi, Balochi and four countries of Britain namely: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through friends and acquaintances. The sample included in this research is wedding invitations of Pakistan and Britain. The sample has been selected for the present research through convenience sampling. Two methods are used for data analysis in this research which are Bhatia’s (1993) genre analysis and Fairclough’s (1989) critical discourse analysis. The findings of this research have revealed the interesting results about the Pakistani and British wedding invitations. Pakistani wedding invitations follow the generic sequence of 8 moves namely: opening, recognizing the inviters or celebrating families, recognizing the invitees, wedding couple’s names, situating the wedding program, recognizing the organizers and optional components, 4 optional and 4 obligatory. Whereas, British wedding invitations follow the generic sequence of 6 moves namely: inviting the guests to attend the wedding ceremony, recognizing the wedding couple, situating the wedding program, recognizing the wedding reception, informing to attend wedding ceremony and notification, 3 optional and 3 obligatory. Besides it, the salient paralinguistic and linguistic features have also been highlighted in this research which exposed the socio-cultural factors of religiosity, parental influence, gender discrimination and socio-economic status which influence wedding invitation genre construction in Pakistan and Britain. Hence, this research has exposed the significant results about generic, sequence, paralinguistic features, linguistic features and sociocultural influence at a territorial level, national level and international level. | 2019 |
| Nazish Banaras | MS | Impact of Autonomy Supportive Learning on Oral Proficiency: A case study of ESL learners at University of Gujrat’ Testing of autonomy-supportive learning (ASL) and investigating the development of oral proficiency at University of Gujrat was a new study. It was designed to check the effectiveness of ASL based on self-determination theory. A sample of 44 learners of BS-first semester at the University of Gujrat was taken through purposive sampling. The sample was divided into two groups: the control group and the treatment or experimental group. The experimental group was given treatment during a span of the whole semester. Meanwhile, the control group learned through the conventional way. A pre and post-test was conducted to check the effectiveness of the treatment. Data were gathered through the “Preliminary English Test (PET)”. It was comprised of four components: “grammar and vocabulary, discourse management, pronunciation and interactive communication”. Data were analyzed by following the PET original scoring scale arranged by British Council. After that, a sample of five volunteer students was selected for a semi-structured interview to explore the factors that are problematic for oral proficiency and learner perception about ASL. It was concluded that hesitation, negative responses, lack of exposure, the traditional role of teacher, lack of topical knowledge, lack of interest, lack of confidence and individual difference are the factors affecting on oral proficiency. While learning via ASL showed a greater increase in results than the learners of the conventional group. On the other hand, learners also showed an inclination towards the ASL in comparison to the traditional learning system. | 2019 |
- Member, Advanced Studies and Research Board
- Member, Board of Faculty
- Editor, Hayatian Journal of Linguistics and Literature
- Chairperson, Department of English
- Member Board of Studies
- Warden, Female Faculty Hostels
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1. Akram, N. & Yasmin, M. “Media portrayal of sexual violence in Pakistan: A critical discourse analysis of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway incident” Womens Studies International Forum, September 2024 DOI:
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2. Qadir, S. & Yasmin, M. “Analysing the Effectiveness of Self, Peer, and Teacher’s Assessment in Developing Self-Regulated Learning among EFL Learners” Bulletin of Education and Research , June 2024 DOI:
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3. Bashir, R. & Yasmin, M. “Civilized Global North versus rebellious Global South: a socio-semiotic analysis of media visual discourse” Semiotica , January 2024 DOI:
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4. Yasmin, M. & Sidra “Framing Vulnerability: An Ecolinguistic Analysis of Gender and Climate Change Discourse” Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, January 2024 DOI:
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5. Saleem, A. & Yasmin, M. “Celebratory expressions and linguistic diversity: investigating congratulation patterns among Pakistani Facebook users commenting in English and Urdu” Cogent Arts and Humanities, January 2024 DOI:
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6. Yasmin, M. “(De-)Legitimizing War: A linguistic analysis of Indian and Pakistani civil and military conflict discourses” Critical Military Studies, January 2024 DOI:
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7. Irshad, I. & Yasmin, M. “Translating harassment: cross cultural reconstruction of the feminist identity in translated fiction” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, November 2023 DOI:
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8. Safdar, M. & Yasmin, M. “Love and Marriage: Reimagining Muslim female subjectivity in Kamila Shamsie’s Salt and saffron” Cultural Dynamics , June 2023 DOI:
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9. Akram, N. & Yasmin, M. “Sexual violence against women: Global interventions and an evidence from Pakistan” Womens Studies International Forum, February 2023 DOI:
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10. Safdar, M., & Yasmin, M “Repositioning Sexuality of Spatially Mobile Muslim Women in Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses” National Identities , December 2022 DOI:
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11. Sufi, M. K. & Yasmin, M. “Racialization of Public Discourse: Portrayal of Islam and Muslims” Heliyon , December 2022 DOI:
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12. Irshad, I. & Yasmin, M. “Translating Eloped Women: A Critical Analysis of the Selected English Translations of Urdu Novel Aangan by Mastoor” Asia Pacific Translation And Intercultural Studies, November 2022 DOI:
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13. Irshad, I. & Yasmin, M. “Feminism and literary translation: A systematic review” Heliyon , March 2022 DOI:
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14. Yasmin, M. “Online chemical engineering education during COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned from Pakistan” Education for Chemical Engineers, February 2022 DOI:
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15. Safdar, M. Yasmin, M. “Muslim Female Subjectivity in Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: Disrupting the Binary of the Religious and the Secular in Pakistan.” Journal Of Gender Studies, February 2022 DOI:
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16. Saleem, T., Yasmin, M. & Saleem, A. “Linguistic politeness of Pakistani English and British English speakers: Culture and gender perspectives” Cogent Arts and Humanities, November 2021 DOI:
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17. Safdar, M. Yasmin, M. “Redefining Pakistani Muslim wifehood in Hamid’s and Shamsie’s fiction” Cogent Arts and Humanities, November 2021 DOI:
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18. Yasmin, M. “Asymmetrical gendered crime reporting and its influence on readers: A case study of Pakistani English newspapers” Heliyon , August 2021 DOI:
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19. Yasmin, M. & Yasmeen, A. “Viability of Outcome-Based Education in Pakistani English as Second Language Learners of Chemical Engineering” Education for Chemical Engineers, May 2021 DOI:
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20. Safdar, M. Yasmin, M. “COVID-19: A Threat to Educated Muslim Women’s Negotiated Identity in Pakistan” Gender Work And Organization, April 2020 DOI:
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21. Nooruddin, Yasmin, M. “Integrating Information and Communication Technologies in English for Specific Purposes” Journal of Language and Education , December 2019 DOI:
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22. Yasmin, M., Masso, I. C., Bukhari, N. H. & Aboubakar, M. “Thespians in print: Gender portrayal in Pakistani English print media” Cogent Arts and Humanities, September 2019 DOI:
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23. Naseem, F. Yasmin, M. “From Acceptance to Contribution: The role of ICNA in the integration of transnational immigrants in Canada” Ieee Access, July 2019 DOI:
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24. Yasmin, M., Naseem, F. & Sohail, A. “Religious and Socio-cultural Influences on the Pakistani Wedding Invitation” Open Linguistics, July 2019 DOI:
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25. Yasmin, M., & Naseem, F “Collaborative Learning and Learner Autonomy: Beliefs, Practices and Prospects in Pakistani Engineering Universities” Ieee Access, June 2019 DOI:
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26. Yasmin, M., Naseem, F. & Masso, I. C. “Teacher-directed learning to self-directed learning transition barriers in Pakistan” Studies In Educational Evaluation, February 2019 DOI:
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27. Yasmin, M. & Sohail, A “Learner Autonomy: Pakistani English Teachers’ Beliefs” Bulletin of Education and Research , August 2018 DOI:
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28. Yasmin, M. & Sohail, A. “Socio-cultural Barriers in Promoting Learner Autonomy in Pakistani Universities: English Teachers’ Be” Cogent Education , July 2018 DOI:
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29. Yasmin, M. Naseem, F & Raza, M. H. “Creative Marginalization of Gender: A discourse analysis of advertisements in Pakistani newspapers” Creativity Studies, July 2018 DOI:
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30. Yasmin, M. & Sohail, A. “A Creative Alliance between Learner Autonomy and English Language Learning: Pakistani University Teachers’ Beliefs” Creativity Studies, March 2018 DOI:
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31. Yasmin, M., Sohail, A. Sarkar, M. & Hafeez, R. “Creative Methods in Transforming Education Using Human Resources” Creativity Studies, December 2017 DOI:
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32. Yasmin, M., Sarkar, M. & Sohail, A. “Exploring English Language Needs of Hotel Industry in Pakistan: An Evaluation of Existing Teaching Material” Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, November 2016 DOI:
- Designed English curriculum for IHRM ( New Products Developed )