Morphological Influence of Urdu and other Regional Languages on Pakistani English: A Linguistic Analysis of Contemporary Pakistani Fiction

Abstract

Looking at Pakistani English (PakE), this paper examines the morphological influence of Urdu and regional languages on PakE in contemporary Pakistani fiction. Based on texts of Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid and Kartography by Kamila Shamsie, the paper explores how linguistic operations like lexical borrowing, hybridization and reduplication contribute in configuring the morphological profile of PakE. A contextual reference to the World Englishes theory introduced by Kachru is used in this paper in examining how literary discourse reflects multilingualism and multiculturalism of Pakistan. The results show that Pakistani fiction mirrors and boosts local English features, promoting a constant process of borrowing between indigenous languages and English morphology. This study has implications for postcolonial Englishes in general and how they develop in long-term contact with indigenous linguistic systems and the creative role literature plays as one of the principal site for representing this kind of linguistic transgressions.