Role of Pakistani English Newspapers in Promoting Grammatical Deviations from Standard British Norms

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to find the impact of grammatical deviations from standard norms made by the newspaper
published in Pakistan. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to get demographic information of the participants and
a sample of 473 participants was selected through a stratified sampling which was followed by a written test that focused on the
grammatical deviations made by the newspapers. It was found that the participants who were used to reading Pakistani
newspapers reflected a number of the grammatical deviations which justify the claim that these newspapers are promoting a
specific variety. It was recommended that the deviations found in Pakistani variety of English which are systematic, may be
promoted. The media should play its part to minimize the intelligibility gap between the users of the two varieties and try to
establish the identity of Pakistani English as a distinct variety rather than a sub variety of sub-continent English.