Muhammad Shaffaqat

This study investigates patterns, frequency rates and pragmatic functions of address terms in the Pakistani English (PakE) i.e. a non-native variety of English. The research follows a corpus-based approach to investigate address terms used in formal and informal contexts and institutional settings through its own self-compiled PakE texts database. It applies AntConc software to reveal prevalent address terms before conducting a semantic analysis and comparing their utilization patterns against British and American English language patterns. Sociolinguistic interviews extend the research findings with cultural appropriateness analysis and pragmatic motivation data. The users of PakE incorporate address forms derived from both indigenous cultural traditions and colonial influences, thereby reflecting the multilingualism and hierarchical social structures characteristic of Pakistani society. This study develops World Englishes and pragmatics knowledge bases while generating practical learning benefits for Pakistani English language teaching practices.

This research explores how gendered metaphors in media discourse play a role in the ideological construction of femininity and masculinity in BBC and Dawn News articles. Utilising corpus‑assisted critical discourse analysis (CACDA), the study integrates quantitative methods with qualitative interpretation to detect metaphorical patterns that reproduce and constitute gender ideologies. A balanced corpus of approximately 25,000–30,000 words was compiled and processed using AntConc software to extract concordance, and collocation data. Analysis shows that BBC articles construct men in terms of protection, provision, and moral virtue metaphors, which reinforce classic patriarchal masculinity. Women, on the other hand, are built up as transitory individuals between domesticity and career aspiration, habitually framed as relational threats to masculine identity. Dawn News, however, represents women metaphorically as marginal agents seeking access, power, and visibility, employing metaphors of space, recognition, and empowerment. These metaphors, although sometimes progressive, remain reflective of systemic power disparities. The research emphasises the media's double function in reproducing and subverting gender hierarchies, providing new insight into how linguistic choices influence public understanding of gender and power.

The present research explores the interaction of identity crises and lexical diversity in the poetry of Moniza Alvi, a British-Pakistani author whose poetry manoeuvres the intricacies of cultural displacement and gendered subjectivity. Concentrating on five poems Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan, An Unknown Girl, The Country at My Shoulder, The Wedding, and Mermaid the study uses a qualitative, postcolonial-stylistic approach based on close reading and theoretical observations drawn from Homi Bhabha's "third space," Lacanian psychoanalysis of language, and studies of diaspora. Two main aims inform the research: to examine how Alvi depicts disjointed selfhood and cultural dissonance via imagery, metaphor, and repetition; and to examine how lexical selection, code-switching, culturally specific lexis, and symbolic diction enunciate a hybrid diasporic identity. Findings reveal that Alvi’s recurring metaphors (e.g., fading henna, burdened homelands, and the trapped mermaid) and strategic use of Urdu-English vocabulary enact the emotional burden of exile, the impermanence of belonging, and the negotiation of gendered roles. The study concludes that Alvi’s poetic language does not simply depict cultural hybridity but enacts it, offering a nuanced portrayal of diasporic subjectivity in which language itself becomes a site of memory, resistance, and self-construction.