Dialectal preferences: a mixed methods study of ESL students’ attitudes towards Englishes in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

The global spread of English has induced an unrivaled growth of local varities of English. The study aimed to explore Pakistani university students’ attitudes toward the Pakisani, British, and American varieties of English concurrently. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design was used. Initially, 100 university students were recruited for data collection in the first quantitative phase. The researchers employed a verbal guise test/survey for the phase. The phase was followed by 8 semi-structured interviews in the later qualitative part. The interview participants were sampled purposively from the first phase to ensure maximum variation. The quantitative results displayed that the participants had positive attitude toward the British English, moderate attitudes toward the Pakistani English, and negative attitudes toward the American English. However, the qualitative findings revealed that some of the participants had highly positive attitudes toward Pakistani English. The study recommends the development of a comprehesive sociolinguistic framework to promote the pluralistic model of world Englishes.

KEYWORDS:

• World Englishes
• sociolinguistics
• attitudinal study
• Pakistan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.