Tahir Saleem

University of Central Punjab · Department of English

This study investigates region-specific inflectional morpheme frequencies within the ICNALE Corpus, exploring significant global linguistic intricacies. Through a quantitative, corpus-based approach, it conducts a comprehensive contrastive analysis, leveraging the extensive accessibility of the online ICNALE. Despite inherent limitations in data co...

This study investigates gender-based phonological variations in the acoustic production of paired monophthongs among Pahari native speakers of Pakistani English (PakE). It addresses the research questions concerning how male and female speakers differ in the acoustic characteristics of English monophthongs within the PakE context. The study builds...

This research paper investigates the function of diminutive morphology in English and Urdu languages with a focus on production, similarities, and differences in inflectional bound morphemes in the noun and adjective categories, and studies the usage patterns and impacts of diminutive forms in Urdu and English on interpersonal communication. The re...

This is a cross-linguistic study conducted with Pakistani learners of English in the classroom setting. This study aimed to explore whether the UG Principles of WH-movement supported or restricted Urdu-speaking learners in forming direct WH-questions in English. For data collection, a sample of 260 students was selected using convenience sampling f...

This comparative study examines Pakistani English and UK English newspaper editorials regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The systemic functional linguistic (SFL) model of Halliday is used as a theoretical framework. From the SFL model, the transitivity analysis of ideational meta-function is studied, and newspaper editorials are used as research mate...

People usually express their feelings and emotions positively to others when they have happy occasions. However, the ways of expressing congratulation may vary because the expressive speech act “congratulations” is not the only way to express happiness and share others their happy news. The present study investigates the congratulation strategies o...

Interlanguage pragmatic studies have revealed that L2 speakers tend to transfer their L1 cultural and social rules into the target language, using improper linguistic behaviours that become a reason for pragmatic failure. The current study examines whether English-using Pakistanis transfer their L1 sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic resources to t...

Mayer-Scotten’s Matrix Language Frame model assumes that the grammar of the matrix language provides the grammatical frame of the sentence as a whole, while the grammar of the embedded language is used only in complex insertions to determine the structure of the inserted constituent. The current study endeavors to determine the syntactic dominance...

This study contributes to the existing literature on teaching ESL by investigating Pakistani learners’ responses to the apology speech acts. The study considered the two primary aspects of pragmatic competence: pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic. A multimethod data collection approach – a discourse completion task and a scaled-response questionnai...

The importance of transcultural pragmatics is not limited to the practice of structures and vocabulary in simple and complex exchanges. The basis for intercultural communicative competence is knowledge of transcultural pragmatics. Explicit pragmatic instruction in combination with intercultural communication training may lead to non-native English-...

This study investigates the production and perception of apology responses (ARs) of English-using Pakistanis (L2), British English speakers (Native speakers of the target language), and Pakistani Urdu speaker (L1) under the influence of social distance variables. For data collection, two instruments are used; a discourse completion test (DCT in Eng...

This exploration study has examined the effects of the Punjabi language and its sociocultural speech norms in the realization patterns of the speech act of requests by Punjabi ESLs. The data were collected by using the Discourse Completion Test (DCT), which was developed on the basis of the observational field notes. There were three groups of part...

This study examines sociocultural, pragmatic, and gender differences between native speakers of British English (BritE) and Pakistani English speakers (PakE) in expressing apology responses (ARs). Based on a discourse completion task (DCT) using data from 60 speakers of both cultures, the study focuses on the variations in the use of apology respon...

The study aims to trace the history of Tarawara community Tehsil Oghi, district Mansehra in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Tarawara. community with 500 speakers of a dying language resides on a remote hilltop village, Dana. Dana is one of the many villages located in Bandi Shungli. The study assumes that marginalization and subsequent loss of...

In Pragmatics, scholars have given special attention to study the influence of learners' culture and social rules in understanding and using target language pragmatics. For this purpose, speech acts have been studied quite widely. This study investigates the speech act of responding to apology in Pakistani English, British English, and Pakistani Ur...

The current study investigates grammatical and syntactical functions of auxiliaries in Urdu and English to draw certain distinctions regarding the behavior, syntactic representation, and semantic content auxiliaries add to the main verbs (Vs) through the X-bar theory as a theoretical framework within the minimalist program (MP). The data of...

The current research paper aims to analyze the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly. It attempts to explore the transitivity process in political speech. In this research, the Ideational meta-function of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is used as a theoretical framework. Transcripti...

This paper follows a phenomenology approach to investigate the influence of social stratification on Pakistani English speakers’ apology responses. Some researchers have played quite a significant role in advancing the field, but their data collection methods (discourse completion tests and role plays) have received much criticism. In order to addr...

Bilingualism has been a myth for linguists and language policy and planning professionals for decades. Current study observes morphological ability and bilingual profile of L1 and L2 of Pashto mother-tongue children. Bilingual profile of the participants measured through bilingual language profile (BLP) tool. Both L1 and L2 children were tested bef...

In recent years, the areas of intercultural pragmatics and transcultural pragmatics under the phenomenon of “interculturality” have been investigated by linguists and language scholars because interculturality has a deep-rooted connection with the language and second language teaching and learning. This data-oriented study follows a quantitative re...

The present study aims at establishing grammatical constraints on the borrowing of Ns and Vs in Urdu and English by adopting Noam Chomsky’s Methodological Naturalism within the field of generative grammar as the theoretical framework of the study. For this purpose, the corpus of Pure Urdu and Pure English sentences from textbooks and the Oxford Dic...

The current study investigates the impact of social power on the performance and perception of Pakistani English Speakers' use of apology responses. Two instruments, a discourse completion test (DCT, translated version for Pakistani Urdu speakers) and a scale response questionnaire (SRQ, both in Urdu and English), are used for data collection. The...

The use of the compliment strategies of Pakistani university students in Pakistan is investigated in the present study. The quantitative approach is used in this study. The sample of the study is selected using non-random, purposive and convenience sampling procedures. For data collection, Two Discourse Completion Tests (Urdu DCT and English DCT) w...

The present study aims at presenting a comparative study of Urdu and English in terms of Wh-movement in the light of the minimalist program (MP) as the theoretical framework of the study. For this purpose, Urdu and English data related to Wh-expressions is used. The empirical evaluation of data reveals that Wh-movement is mandatory in English while...

This paper investigates pragmatic transfer in Punjabi EFL learners’ realization of the speech act of congratulations. For this purpose, 120 participants were asked to take part in the study, who were divided into four groups having 30 participants in each group: 30 native English (NE) speakers, 30 Punjabi EFL learners of the elite class, 30 Punjabi...

The present study focuses on the investigation of congratulation strategies employed by Punjabi EFL learners as compared to British English speaker’s in the light of the taxonomy of congratulation speech acts proposed by Elwood (2004). There were 120 speakers who participated in this study distributed into four different groups: 30 British English...

Every human being is born with certain aspirations and desires. The glitter of worldly temptations blinds our eyes, and we ultimately flow along the currents, causing damage not only to our own self but also to the world around us. The novel Ashes, Wine, and Dust by Kanza Javed focuses on the notion that “We have come from dust and to dust, we shal...

Speech etiquette is an essential part of culture, behavior and human communication. Based upon a theoretical framework of politeness and face-threatening acts (FTAs), this study investigates cultural differences in apology responses (ARs) moderated by the threatened face type and the relationship between participants. A discourse completion test, c...