SOUTH ASIAN VOICES IN ENGLISH: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN PAKISTANI AND INDIAN ENGLISH NOVELS

Abstract

The research investigates lexico-grammatical differences between Pakistani and Indian English fiction. The research analyses Pakistani and Indian English fiction through Biber’s (1991) Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) framework. The different English varieties use distinct approaches to storytelling and follow different linguistic patterns. The present research employed a balanced corpus of 150 fiction samples, comprising 75 samples from Pakistan and 75 from India. The data processing utilised the Multidimensional Analysis Tagger (MAT). Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS. The research employed descriptive statistics together with factor analysis. The research examined five distinct dimensions: involved versus informational discourse, narrative vs. non-narrative, explicit vs. situation-dependent, persuasive versus non-persuasive, and abstract versus personal discourse. The analysis reveals that Pakistani literary works, along with Indian narratives, share a prominent structural framework that incorporates informational discourse elements, reflecting a preference for informational over involved discourse. Indian texts depend on situational context rather than explicit statements.

Additionally, the persuasive elements in Pakistani writing appear slightly more frequent than in Indian writing, which uses a more formal approach. Both countries favour personal and context-specific over abstract, impersonal discourse. The research reveals significant statistical differences between the two countries.