Grammatical features of Pakistani English: A Corpus Analysis of Pakistani English Newspapers and Magazines

The paper presents a corpus analysis conducted on the written corpus of Pakistani English. The corpus, created by the authors, is derived from the most widely circulated English newspapers and magazines in Pakistan. The analysis employs Sketch Engine and utilizes two models, namely Galloway and Rose (2015) and Jenkins (2009), to identify the distinctive grammatical features of Pakistani English in the corpus. The selection criteria for examining grammatical features are also grounded in these two models. The study focuses on the analysis of specific grammatical aspects, including (i) the use of adverbs, (ii) the use of the definite article, (iii) plurality, (iv) the use of yes/no questions, and (v) reduplication. The findings reveal that Pakistani English exhibits variations in the placement of adverbs and the usage of the definite article 'the'. Plurality is a prevalent feature, with writers often treating uncountable nouns as countable in their compositions. However, the data does not indicate any deviations regarding two features: yes/no questions and reduplication. Despite being a less recognized variety of English, primarily due to the limited documentation of its features, this paper contributes to the establishment of Pakistani English as a recognized linguistic variety.