LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES AND GENDER SCHEMAS IN PAKISTANI FICTION: A CORPUS BASED STUDY OF DIEXIS
Keywords:
Gendered Power, Linguistic Strategies, Narrative Voice, Corpus Linguistics, Gender Schema Theory, Pakistani Anglophone FictionAbstract
The study examines, the nexus of the interdependence among linguistic devices, narrative voice and restructuring gendered authority in contemporary Pakistani Anglophone literature. The study focuses on the role of language as a place of negotiation where gender norms are reinforced and undermined using the gender schema theory and critical discourse analysis. The Study followed a corpus-based approach to analyse diexes, and narrative techniques that either uphold or defy the traditional gender stereotypes. The patterns of repeated language have been identified using corpus methods. The interpretation of these patterns is rooted in social and ideological structures. The findings contribute to the existing discourse about gender, language and power by showing the interaction of linguistic form and narrative function to produce elaborate images of identity, resistance and transformation in Pakistani fiction. Finally, this study foregrounds the dynamics of linguistic mechanisms in the elaboration of the changing gender discourses in postcolonial literary and cultural contexts of Pakistani literature.
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