Karachi weds Lahore
The performance of ethnolinguistic identities in Pakistani TV comedy
This paper investigates the mixing of Urdu and Punjabi language elements in a comic television serial – Larka Karachi Ka Kuri Lahore Di – that aired during the month of Ramzan (Urdu for Ramadan) in 2012. The serial features exaggerated depictions of a Punjabi Lahori family and a muhajir (Urdu-speaking) Karachiite family. Of particular interest is the way marked phonological features and lexical items are deployed to highlight panjabiyat (‘Punjabi-ness’). This study explores relationships between the humorous performance of language mixing and language ideologies in Pakistan. Even in places where panjabiyat is strongly emphasized, the lexico-grammatical choices made by the characters still render the language maximally understandable to an Urdu-speaking (rather than Punjabi-speaking) audience. Using theories of ‘mixed language,’ this study seeks to address the importance and implications of these ways of performing ethnolinguistic identity.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction & background
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 3.Language mixing in LK3LD
- 4.Mixed languages and linguistic hegemony
- 5.Conclusions
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References (21)
References
Agha, Asif. 2005. “Voice, footing, enregisterment”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1): 38–59. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Agha, Asif. 2004. “Registers of Language”. In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Alessandro Duranti (ed.), 23–45. New York and Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ali, Kamran Asdar. 2004. Pulp Fictions: Reading Pakistani Domesticity. Social Text 781: 123–145. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bakker, Peter. 2003. “Mixed languages as autonomous systems.” In The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical Advances, Yaron Matras and Peter Bakker (eds.), 107–150. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hill, Jane H. 1993. “Hasta La Vista, Baby: Anglo Spanish in the American Southwest”. Critique of Anthropology 13(2): 145–176. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hill, Jane H. 1998. Language, Race, and White Public Space. American Anthropologist 100(3): 680–698. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mansoor, Sabiha. 1993. Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan: A Sociolinguistic Study. Lahore: Vanguard.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Matras, Yaron. 2003. “Mixed languages: Re-examining the structural prototype.” InThe Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical Advances, Yaron Matras and Peter Bakker (eds.), 151–176. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mir, Farina. 2010. The social space of language: vernacular culture in British colonial Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ochs, Elinor. 1992. “Indexing Gender”. In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin (eds.), 335–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Popp, Richard K. 2006. Mass Media and the Linguistic Marketplace: Media, Language, and Distinction. Journal of Communication Inquiry 30(1): 5–20. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rahman, Tariq. 1996. Language and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rahman, Tariq. 2002. Language, Ideology and Power, Language Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India. Karachi: Oxford University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rahman, Tariq. 2004. Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shackle, Christopher. 1970. Punjabi in Lahore. Modern Asian Studies 4(3): 239–267. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Silverstein, Michael. 1976. “Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description.” In Meaning in Anthropology, Keith Basso and Henry Selby (eds.), 11–55. Sante Fe, N.M.: School of American Research.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vasudevan, Ravi. 1995. Addressing the spectator of a ‘third world’ national cinema: the Bombay ‘social’ film of the 1940s and 1950s. Screen 36(4): 305–324. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Winford, Donald. 2003. An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Chocano, Rodrigo
2022.
Outsourcing the nation? Musical collaboration, nation building and neo-liberal logics in Coke Studio Pakistan.
Indian Theatre Journal 6:1
► pp. 77 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.