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The proliferation of politically motivated hate speech towards rival politicians has been rapidly increasing in Pakistan. However, the literature on political hate speech and its association with extreme ideologies is under‐theorized in the Pakistani context. We have utilized van Dijk's manipulative discourse and Walther's social approval theory to structure political hate speech and its consequences. The data was based on two Pakistani mainstream politicians' public speeches and partisans' comments available on YouTube. Findings reveal that politicians commonly exploit discursive categories, such as name‐calling, offensive metaphors and sarcasm, in their hate speech to dehumanize, ridicule and threaten their rivals. Their hateful slurs showcase extreme ideologies, such as polarization, intolerance, threat and violence. They use the hateful epithets to manipulate partisans, to sell fear of being betrayed and enslaved to the military and foreign powers, and to obtain, in exchange, audience and consent. The study theorizes that Pakistani mainstream politicians deliberately sensationalize hatred in their public speeches to harangue their rivals and foment extreme ideologies for the purpose of increasing their audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the media outlets, the newspapers were an important source of information about the COVID-19 lockdown; however, the language chosen to see the pandemic world cascaded surreal psychological feelings. Fewer scholarly studies are available which have investigated the role of language during the pandemic and its implications. This study explores primarily the pandemic language and its contribution to the discourse of fear and anti-Chinese sentiments. Data was collected from English newspaper articles and university students‘ responses to the questionnaires. The discursive themes were assessed, evaluated, and described by codifying the qualitative data. These themes were further analyzed and correlated through quantitative data to seek the goodness-of-fit. Findings revealed that the language used to report the infection perpetuated fear, Sinophobia, and certain psychological ripples. The study posits that linguists must come forward and work with journalists to introduce the language to control fear and encourage empathy and pluralism during the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study grows out of the absence of literature on an in‐depth understanding of dissertation‐writing challenges, facilitating strategies, and causes to develop a more profound understanding of Pakistani doctoral students. This is primarily qualitative research. One of the largest private universities was selected as a case to collect the data. The data were based on 12 Pakistani doctoral dissertations, 49 evaluation reports from 13 countries, mainly from the state‐run universities, and a survey questionnaire responded to by 12 PhD graduates. The data were codified for commonly emerging categories and themes based on the methodological approach of Clarke and Braun (2017). The data revealed that the doctoral students faced challenges concerning mechanics of writing, developing an argument in a coherent whole, and structural organization of the dissertation. The examiners recommended the doctoral students to copyedit/proofread the dissertation to overcome mechanics of writing problems, build the argument logically, use formal language, write transition sentences to knit the texts coherently, embed citations to support the claims, and uniform the structure of the dissertation. Five causes of writing difficulties emerged from the survey questions. Despite a mismatch between the academic resources and research support provided to Pakistani doctoral students, their research work is deemed par with foreign universities, which encourage native‐like English. It is hoped that this study will help doctoral students improve their dissertation‐writing quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the management of power by doctors in medical consultations. The power is defined here as a dialogic, egalitarian, and patient-centered. Study Design: Qualitative study. Place and Duration of Study: Out-patient departments of Mayo Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, from Nov 2019 for two weeks. Methodology: The data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations from outpatient departments of Mayo Hospital. Bourdieu's Social Practice Theory and Fairclough’s theory of Power and Language were used as a theoretical framework in the community of practice, for the interpretation of the qualitative data sets. Results: The interpretations of relational power by doctors and patients surface three themes: Power, Power and Solidarity, and Solidarity. Although power-sharing is the modern rhetoric, it is hardly conceptualized in the selected hospital. Conclusion: With a proliferation of patient-centered approach of the medical profession, power-sharing with patients might perpetuate dissatisfaction among the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores cyberbullying prevalence, causes, reasons, and preventive measures from the perspective of victims and bystanders. The data were gathered from 329 male and female students of different age groups through an open-ended questionnaire and cyberbullying confession pages. Constructivist thematic framework was applied to look for commonly emerging patterns in the data. The study revealed that the likelihood to become a victim to cyberbullying decreased with an increase in age. However, there was no association between gender and cyberbullying. The study showed that various linguistic resources were exploited by the aggressors to victimize the participants. However, being sophomoric users of social media sites and having offline disputes were the core reasons of cyberbullying among a majority of victims. The participants valued the support of parents and friends, and showed faith in the preventive measures taken by educational institutes and Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan against cyberbullying assaults. Findings from this study contribute to the research on cyberbullying, which is still in its infancy in Pakistan and may help in formulating cyberbullying prevention program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective was to identify the barriers between doctors, nurses and patients that they perceive while communicating with each other in outdoor departments of army and public healthcare hospitals, Lahore, Pakistan. Study Design: Exploratory and descriptive. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) and Jinnah Hospital Lahore, Pakistan, for a period of 3 weeks. Material and Methods: Semi-structured interviews of doctors, patients and nurses (2 each, one male and one female in each category) were conducted and analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Snow ball sampling technique was used to recruit the participants from various socio-economic strata, experience and age. Results: The study reveals linguistic, cultural, behavioral and management barriers in doctor nurse patient communication from the perceptions of the participants. In addition to this, lack of training of medical professionals inhibits the interpersonal communication between them and patients. Conclusion: The results suggest that the quality of healthcare can be improved by introducing interventions in doctor nurse patient communication. The hospitals should introduce communication skills training programme in medical practices, with a focus on the linguistic and cultural diversity prevailing in the country and how to improve management skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study proposes a linguistic habitat that may evoke people's first language (L1) to support a better understanding of current environmental catastrophes and address one pathway to support solution finding. A purposive participant sample consisted of 25 undergraduate students majoring in linguistics was selected to provide input regarding how their first language (Balochi, Balti, Pashto, Punjabi, and Sindhi) might approach ecological problems and consider its role in promoting ecosolidarity. While considering the epistemological perspectives offered by ecolinguistics, the qualitative data were analyzed to determine linguistic resources (words and structures) employed by the participants to describe aspects of the environmental crisis. As an element of the analysis, findings were also explored through quantitative percentages of representation. Findings revealed that while describing the natural environment in Urdu and English, the two official, and dominant languages of Pakistan, the participants often borrowed words and used structures that did not connect directly to first language terminology. This situation not only may result in misunderstandings and misinterpretation of subsequent actions for change, but it also suggests that multiple world voices as native speaker tongues may not have played an integral role in messaging to a broad population of speakers across Pakistan. The study suggests that purposeful, ecological language planning and the application of ecological content to local languages should be part of the ecological dialogue because they have the potential to promote deeper understanding at individual and collective societal levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Identify to the explores: the main causes of verbal abuse of patients by nurses and nurses by patients and to steps needed to promote positive nurse-patient interaction at hospitals. Study Design: A qualitative study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the University of Health Sciences, Lahore for a period of one week, in Aug 2017. Material and Method: A sample of six senior nurses pursuing Master degree in Health Sciences was selected to address the research questions. In addition to this, a sample comprising six patients and faculty members was taken to counter check the narratives told by the senior nurses. Results: The study revealed that verbal abuses by nurses and/or patients are situational and fragmented. Lack of time and space, lack of resources and lack of training were the predisposing factors leading up to the verbal abuse of patients by nurses. Conclusion: The study recommends introducing professional training program of nurses in communication skills for nurse-patient conflict resolution. Moreover, the State must provide an environment complete with resources that can be conducive for an efficient health care delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores: (a) how Urdu/English bilinguals flag-up social identities and power relations in the digital discourse, and (b) whether or not bilingualism favours mixing and/or diffusing local identity in the global discourse. The data were sampled from 200 Bachelor of Science students (who had Urdu as their primary language of communication and English as one of the academic languages or the most prestigious second language) of 5 universities situated in Lahore, Pakistan. The data were delimited to their Facebook conversations ‘on the wall’. The analysis procedure was based on theSociocultural Communication Approachto unpack selective discursive practices responsible for linguistic choices by Urdu/English bilinguals in the digital discourse. In addition to English–Urdu code-switching as an identity marker, they use a range of linguistic features covering linguistic reduction, neologism and paralinguistic features to reflect solidarity, power and gender within their speech community. The study further anticipates that prevalence of certain linguistic forms among the participants depends on their position in the social systems. It is hoped that the patterns found in this study regarding how Urdu/English bilinguals identify themselves in the digital discourse will continue to be relevant in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urdu and English have been in contact for about four centuries but their virtual contact has raised a fresh question regarding the impact of English on the Urdu language. Based on the ethical framework suggested by Mann and Stewart (2000, pp. 40-47) data was sampled from 200 BS students (who had both the Urdu and English as national languages) of five universities situated in Lahore, Pakistan. Moreover, the data was delimited to their Facebook conversations 'on the wall'.The analysis procedure was conceived from theoretical works of British linguists for text analysis as specified by Stubb (1996, pp. 22-50). The study reveals a fair number of English words that has been pouring into the system of Urdu language with ever increasing gravity since the proliferation of Computer-Mediated-Communication. Including socio-political factor, linguistic and psycholinguistic reasons may not be over-looked whilst studying code-mixing/borrowing as a regular phenomenon.The study suggests taking rather a cautious stance in the context of e-discourse while extrapolating features regarding contact languages that we have been debating over the years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]