Department of English
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://repository.cuilahore.edu.pk/handle/123456789/19
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Item Political Satire in Pakistani English Newspapers: ACorpus- BasedAnalysis of Humor and Criticism in Editorials (2020– 2024)(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Umaima Harmain Rao; CIIT/SP24-MEL-011/LHR; Dr. Umara Shaheen; LHR TP 10055This study examines the use of political satire and critical discourse in Pakistani English newspaper editorials through a qualitative corpus-based analysis grounded in Incongruity Theory and Gee's Discourse Analysis framework. The corpus consists of 300 editorials (152,815 words) from four leading newspapers: Dawn, The News International, The Express Tribune, and Pakistan Today. Concordance and collocational patterns of twelve high-frequency political keywords-government, state, military, court, election, corruption, political, Sharif, accountability, economy, power, and army-were studied for recurring satirical strategies. The study draws on Incongruity Theory of Humor (Kant; Morreall, 2009) and James Paul Gee’s Discourse Analysis Framework (Gee, 2011) to interpret how satire functions through rhetorical devices such as irony, sarcasm, parody, hyperbole, metaphor, and ridicule. Using concordance lines generated through AntConc, the analysis identifies recurring rhetorical strategies, including irony, exaggeration, metaphor, and evaluative framing, which expose contradictions within political and institutional practices. Gee's notions of situated meaning and Big "D" Discourse are applied to demonstrate how these lexical items acquire context-specific meanings and contribute to broader ideological narratives. At the situated level, institutions are depicted as coercive, inefficient, or selectively accountable, while political actors are constructed through shifting public personas and elite dominance. At the macro level, the editorials collectively reproduce a discourse of democratic fragility, civil-military imbalance, and public mistrust in governance structures. The findings suggest that political satire in Pakistani English editorials functions not merely as humor but as a critical discursive mechanism that challenges institutional authority and highlights systemic failures. By integrating corpus linguistics with discourse and humor theory, this study contributes to understanding how media discourse shapes public perceptions of power, legitimacy, and democratic practice in Pakistan.Item Enhancing ESL Students’ Speaking Fluency and Accuracy with AI-Integrated Learning: An Experimental Study(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Zainab Altaf; CIIT/SP24-MEL-012/LHR; Dr. Umara Shaheen; LHR TP 10056This study explores how integrating AI into learning can enhance English language skills among ESL learners, particularly in speaking. It examines the efficacy of various AI- powered tools that improve the speaking proficiency of ESL students at COMSATS University Lahore Campus. Based on the TPACK framework and Krashen’s Input and Affective Filter hypotheses, this study employs a single-group, mixed-methods embedded experimental design. An eight-week use of integrated AI-based technologies like ChatGPT, TalkPal AI, Speechace, and Smalltalk2Me was carried out at COMSATS. A total of seventeen undergraduate and postgraduate students took a speaking test based on IELTS speaking rubrics before and after the intervention and participated in structured interviews to gauge perceptions of the effectiveness of various AI-powered language learning tools in providing practice in English speaking. Results obviously indicate overall statistical gains in speaking. In particular, improvements are remarkable in areas of fluency, pronunciation, and grammatical accuracy. Qualitative semi-structured interviews revealed that motivation and confidence in practicing English were greater with immediate feedback, provided individually through AI-enabled tools in a low-stress practice environment. These are followed by concrete suggestions as to how language teachers, curriculum designers, and policymakers can apply intelligent technologies as part of planning higher education courses in languages, noticing an improvement in vocabulary learning and in learners' confidence, with a view toward greater access to language-practice opportunities in the general higher-education sphere.Item VISUALIZING MISOGYNY: A CORPUS ASSISTED MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS OF ONLINE ABUSE AND DENIGRATION(2025) Hira Fayyaz; FA23-REL-012; Dr. Umara Shaheen; LHR TP 9741Internet memes, as an increasingly prevalent medium of online communication, often carry hidden ideological content. This study investigates how misogynistic ideologies are encoded and disseminated through these memes, addressing a research gap across feminist media studies and computational discourse analysis by focusing on Reddit memes from Western and Pakistani social media contexts. Drawing on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) and intersectionality theory, the research employs a corpus-assisted multimodal discourse analysis framework to examine gendered content in memes. A dataset of roughly 1,800 memes is compiled and classified via optical character recognition (OCR) and large language models into thematic categories such as shaming, stereotyping, objectification, and violence. The methodology integrates natural language processing for textual analysis with LLM‘s vision capabilities for visual content analysis, thereby capturing both verbal and visual elements. Multimodal classification uncovers how humor and visual rhetoric mask misogynistic messages, facilitating their normalization. Key findings reveal that memes often leverage humor, irony, and culturally specific imagery to disguise abuse and ridicule, yet underlying themes of gendered denigration remain consistent across samples. Cross-cultural comparison identifies both global consistencies in sexist memes and local specificities shaped by cultural norms and x intersectional identities. By highlighting these patterns of encoded misogyny in everyday digital content, the study elucidates how online humor and imagery perpetuate sexist ideologies. This research contributes to feminist media studies, digital discourse analysis, and automated misogyny detection by illuminating covert mechanisms of online gendered abuse and proposing a methodology for analyzing multimodal hate content in digital media discourse.Item Stories to Solutions: A Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistic Analysis of Asian Media Discourse on Climate Change and Global Warming(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Hira Faheem; FA23-REL-011; Dr. Umara Shaheen; LHR TP 9740This study examines how climate change is framed in Asian English-language newspapers through a corpus-assisted ecolinguistic lens. It analyzes media discourse from 2015 to 2024, focusing dominant narratives and frames. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze patterns in media language. It focuses on identifying the linguistic choices and ecological stories that contribute to either constructive or destructive environmental narratives. Five key frames emerge from the data: the agency frame, crisis frames, green growth frame, governance frame, and war frame. These frames reflect underlying ideologies and shape how climate change is communicated across the region. Findings highlight how dominant ecological stories, such as Climate Change is War, Growth is Progress, and Technology Will Save Us, influence public understanding and policy discourse. This research contributes to interdisciplinary climate studies by showing how language can support more balanced, responsible, and ecologically sound communicatioItem Unveiling Gendered Perceptions of Leadership: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Academic Department Leaders' Narratives(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Farah Naseem; FA23-REL-007; Dr. Umara Shaheen; LHR TP 9737Gender differences in academic leadership in Pakistan are prevalent and are generally attributed to institutional biases and broader societal norms. While more women pursue higher education, they remain underrepresented in leadership positions. Besides women's professional advancement, this gender disparity also influences the narratives in academic leadership. It repeatedly reiterates conventional views that connect determination and power with masculinity (Ahmed, 2018; UNESCO, 2024). Several studies confirmed that gendered perspectives have a strong impact on the consideration of leadership attributes. Particularly, it happens in patriarchal academic settings (Khan, 2020; Malik, 2019).