Application of Multi-Dimensional Analysis Approach to Investigate Linguistic Variation Across Political Press Reportage In Pakistani and British Print Media

Abstract

Multi-Dimensional Analysis is the approach which provides a comprehensive description of the patterns of register variation to identify underlying linguistic parameters of variations, expressed as “dimensions”. It also specifies the similarities and differences among registers based on these dimensions. This research work focuses on investigating the variations in linguistic characteristics of the corpora collected from Pakistani and British press media based on the subcategory of international political press reportage. The objective of the study is to work out the deviation of the English Language characteristic between Pakistani English and the standard British one. Pakistani English with its distinct registers is different from British English and there is not any single particular factor or parameter of linguistic variation that differentiates these two varieties based on their registers. The current study focused on distinguished linguistic identity of Pakistani international political news press reportage register by observing the co-occurring linguistic features and their functional variation in Pakistani and British print media by applying the Douglas Biber’s register variation model, Multidimensional Analysis (MDA). This research was conducted to mark register variation by developing special purpose Corpora of Pakistani International Political News Reportage and British International Political News Reportage. It also aimed at determining the unique individual identity of Pakistani English as exhibited in its different registers that distinguish it from the British English with its registers. Based on representative Corpus of Pakistani and British International Political Press Reportage sub register, the present study reveals the significant statistical linguistic differences on Biber’s five textual dimensions. Pakistan International News press reportage register showed higher frequency of attributive adjectives, prepositions and nouns on dimension one being more informational, more narrative than British IN PR on dimension two, more explicit on dimension three, on dimension four least argumentative language and higher use of covert expressions of persuasion than British IN PR and finally on dimension five, less abstract than British IN PR. This study is among the few studies in the domain of register exploration of Pakistani print media by constructing special purpose corpora of International Political News Pres Reportage of Pakistani print media and special purpose corpora of International Political News press reportage of British Print Media.