Abstract
Both Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, and English the official language are
widely used for spoken and written communication in different contexts in Pakistan.
In education; however, a linguistic divide is evident in the two-stream system of
education - mainly referred to as Urdu medium and English medium - according
to the dominant language of instruction in an institutional setting. Urdu medium
schools are normally the state schools providing free education to the poorer
communities while the English medium schools are private fee-paying schools
for the economically well-off sections of society. This disparity in the educational
system has loaded the labels English medium and Urdu medium with a range of
meanings that constitute self and other’s perceptions of identity, in addition to
signaling linguistic capital, particularly in terms of proficiency in English. This
paper reports findings of a small-scale qualitative study undertaken to understand
how students at a higher education public-sector institution in Pakistan experience
and construct their own and others’ identities in relation to their previous and
current educational and social experiences of language learning and use. Insights
gained from this study further our understanding of how linguistic inequalities can
be sanctioned by the state’s language policy and related practices.
Fauzia Shamim, Uzma Rashid. (2019) The English/Urdu-Medium Divide in Pakistan: Consequences for Learner Identity and Future Life Chances, Journal of Education and Educational Development, Volume 6, 6.1.
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