Linguistics and Literature Review

Cultural Cultural Perception of Animals through Idioms: A Comparative Study of Sindhi and English IdiomsRepresentation through Animal Idioms: A Comparative Study of Sindhi and English Idioms

2026-01-12T05:36:25+05:00

Idioms are an important part of any language and they are a very prominent source of understanding the culture of a language due to their rich cultural content and character. Despite the potential role of idioms to be a great source of insight into a culture, the cross-cultural exploration of Sindhi and English language, through idioms, is an under-researched area. This research is an attempt to explore the similarities and differences regarding the perception of animals in the above-mentioned cultures through the idioms with animal imagery. For this purpose, the data was collected from three books of idioms for each language and the technique employed to collect the data was that of purposive sampling. The analysis of data was guided by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory or CMT presented by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) in their seminal work “Metaphors We Live by”. The findings of the research show that the idioms of Sindhi language demonstrate a more negative perception of animals than the idioms of English language. In addition to that, it was observed that English and Sindhi idioms have similarities as well as differences when it comes to the perception and representation of animals. Hopefully, this research will prove to be helpful in clarifying the confusions faced by the native Sindhi speakers who are actively engaged in learning English as their second language.

Ecofeminist Resistance and the Post-colonial Realities in Against the Loveless World (2020)

2026-02-23T08:50:17+05:00

More recent literature on the conflict in Palestine has focused on historical and political injustice. The structural violence, the people of Palestine have encountered from Israel’s regime, arguably a Zionist ideology has been condemned by a sizeable section of the international community. However, the literature mostly by exiled Palestinian writers carries on the flame of resistance. Historically, women are the worst victims of warfare, however, postmodernity envisages the non-human agency of nature as an equal victim of war. Therefore, ecofeminism sees women and nature as joint victims of war and violence. Susan Abulhawa is an American-Palestinian author and activist whose fictional accounts of the torture and daily violence Palestinian women face bring a fresh insight not only into Israel’s brutalization of human rights but into the impunity they enjoy having political franchises in the Western political corridors. Abulhawa’s novels Mornings in Jenin (2006), The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015), and Against the Loveless World (2020), document the horrors of Israel’s colonial project and its aftermaths for women and Nature. I argue that both women and Nature are uprooted. Therefore, the theory of ecofeminism aligns with my line of argument. Notably, ecofeminism is a sub-branch of feminism, originally coined by a French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne who contends that patriarchal society maltreats both women and nature. The aggressor is masculine may it be a war machine or an ideology. By implication, in the fictional narratives, the victim is female deriving her resistance from nature’s resilience against hegemonic masculinity and the resultant man-made destruction of vegetative life. Therefore, Abulhawa’s novels encompass feminist resistance as a version of ecological resistance- a literary trope. In the present thesis, this survivalist behavior of mythical Mother Earth and the woman as a natural and biological nurturer in Palestine-occupied territory under Israel’s colonial gaze is investigated through the lens of Ecofeminism, a combination of Ecocriticism and Feminism.

Linguistic Perspective of Pakistani Street Vendors’ Communication: An Ethnopragmatics Approach

2026-02-23T08:26:20+05:00

Since that century, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the twists and turns of meaning-making in different languages and cultures. The purpose of this study is to determine how Pakistani street vendors use language and communication strategies to negotiate meaning and to understand the adaptation of ways of communication by street vendors toward different customers. Based on the Ethnopragmatics approach by Goddard (2006), the researcher investigates the communication of Pakistani street vendors as a sample using the observation method of research. The findings show that street vendors make communication happen by using the strategies of cultural script, semantic primes, pragmatic particles, and linguistic evidence like turn-taking, overlapping, and more. The analysis provides a deeper understanding of cross-cultural communication and sheds light on how vendors negotiate meaning and achieve their goals by conveying meaning effectively to different audiences. The research contributes to the field of Anthropological Linguistics and also offers valuable insights for future researchers, in the context of less-explored areas such as the linguistic perspective of street vendors' communication.

Feudal Exploitation in Southern Punjab: Stylistic Analysis of the Short Story in Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009) by Daniyal Mueenuddin

2026-04-20T12:59:07+05:00

This research carries a stylistic analysis of the title short story in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Mueenuddin, 2009) through Leech and Short's (2007) model. Stylistics is a critical practice that analyses literary texts by using the methods and findings of the science of linguistics. The collection of eight stories by Daniyal Mueenuddin is widely acclaimed for depicting feudal traditions in southern Punjab. The interconnected stories portray exploitation, corruption of landlords and caving for money of the working class in feudalism. Vivid description of feudalism reflects a wide breach between the two classes. K. K. Harouni, an old retired civil servant and feudal lord, is an embodiment of an entitled man manipulating working-class women. This narrative reflects moral corruption and crooked methods of the working class to woo the landlord to gain financial benefits. This stylistic model is divided into four categories: lexical, grammatical, figures of speech, and context and cohesion. This study applied three categories: lexical, figures of speech, and cohesion and context to evaluate interconnected yet overlapping themes of feudalism and domestic exploitation. The data analysis shows that specific language tools have been applied in the text to transmit gender exploitation by the feudal landlord and corruption of the servant class. A valuable amount of hard data e.g. abundant presentation of feudal system related vocabulary, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and other language tools minutely reveals the latent aspects of feudalism. Despite the feudal lord’s manipulation of the working class, the death of Harouni also shows their economic and financial insecurity. This study significantly will help to broaden the horizon of literary stylistics in recapitulating feudal system-related themes backed with hard data.

Chaos Isn’t a Pit, Chaos is a Ladder”: A Metamodernist Reading of Game of Thrones

2026-04-28T15:09:42+05:00

Game of Thrones continues to be a global pop-cultural phenomenon even after its grand finale in 2019, and there has been a plethora of discussion regarding its chaotic and unpredictable narrative. However, its closure (or the lack thereof) is the most contested topic to date, which is why this article focuses on some of the most prominent story arcs that have been criticized for not ending according to the audience’s expectations. The current study is a textual-semiotic analysis that intends to give a more academic perspective to this discussion, where characters and storylines are discussed from a metamodernist perspective in order to provide an explanation based on philosophical underpinnings rather than merely pointing out the discrepancies when it comes to the closure of the show. The study aims to highlight the instances where the narrative of the chosen text operates through modern and postmodern tendencies without being tied down to either of the two opposing categories. Moreover, the idea of chaos from a metamodernist perspective is also employed to further investigate the inherent unpredictability of the text. The study concludes that the apparently chaotic and confounding closure of the chosen text is not necessarily a failure on the part of the writers, but rather a deliberate attempt to create a metamodern cultural artifact that exists in an a-topic metaxis, a space without boundaries that celebrates flux and chaos, which is, in itself, a reflection of our current socio-cultural ethos.