THE MORPHOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH DISCOURSE MARKERS IN PASHTU SPEECH IN PAKISTAN.

Abstract

English, the language of education, government, power, judiciary, military and media etc.; in Pakistan (Rahman, 1992), has crucial influence on Pashtu language. Pashtu speakers these days use hybrid Pashtu embedded with English morphological characters. While speaking Pashtu, the English expressions like yea, hmm, and exactly etc., are frequently used as discourse markers. ‘Discourse markers’ (DMs) are often called ‘Pragmatic Markers’ (Fraser, 2005). These are a class of morphological expressions found almost in every language. The study has examined the use of English discourse markers in Pashtu speech by identifying the morphological patterns of the use of English expressions; used as discourse markers in Pashtu speech, analyzed the functions of English expressions as discourse markers, and illustrated the influence of English discourse markers on Pashtu speech. By using Mixed Methods research, data for the research was collected from several Pakistani Pashtu television programs and day to day conversation via ‘Non-Participant Observation’ (Kothari, 2004), and analyzed according to the analytical framework of ‘Discourse Markers’ by Fung and Carter (2007). The study is significant in exemplifying the morphological patterns of English discourse markers in Pashtu communicative events.