Abstract
Language-mixing is a consequent phenomenon of language contact and its occurrence in written discourse manifests
the deep-rooted role it has acquired in the linguistic scenario of multilingual countries. Language-mixing is
considered “a sociolinguistic phenomenon” whose “social and linguistic characteristics” are linked together (Rasul,
2006, p.11). There is a need to see the occurrence of language-mixing in written, non-fictional writings, such as
newspapers as they are read not only by educated community of the society but for the less educated and uneducated
people; they are an important source of information. The present study investigated attitude of Urdu newspaper
readers towards language-mixing in Urdu newspapers. The objective of the study was to investigate Urdu newspaper
readers’ attitude towards language mixing in Pakistani Urdu newspapers. The study aimed to explore the attitude of
the readers towards language-mixing (in the form of code-mixing and borrowing) in Urdu newspapers. This research
is limited to the sample of Urdu newspaper readers to some groups, namely teachers, students and general readers of
Urdu newspapers readers belonging to different professions. The population for investigating the attitude of the
readers towards language-mixing was the readers of Urdu newspapers. The sampling technique was purposive. The
sample for this qualitative study included three groups or strata-teachers, students and general reader of newspapers.
The general readers of Urdu newspapers belonged to different professions and had different educational background.
The researcher designed the questionnaire and a few items were adapted from Bi (2011). It took data from 150
respondents-50 teachers, 50 students and 50 general readers of Urdu newspapers. The pilot study was conducted
before conducting the main study. The findings of the data showed that students, teachers and general readers hold
mix attitude towards such mixing. Some of the respondents accepted English words as an inevitable trend, while some
were of the view that the excessive use of English words destroys the structure and lexicon of Urdu. The study can be
beneficial for applied linguists, socio-linguists and policy makers to determine the impact of English on the status of
Urdu. It is significant to see how English has become a part of everyday language; its use in published corpus, such
as newspapers, and its acceptance by people.
Huma Akhter, Asmara Shafqat, Muhammad Fareed. (2019) AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTITUDE OF URDU NEWSPAPER READERS TOWARDS LANGUAGE CODE-MIXING IN PAKISTANI URDU NEWSPAPERS, Journal of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Research, Volume 8, Issue 1.
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