MULTIMODAL DISCOURSES IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT: ANALYZING IMAGES AND LANGUAGE ON BILLBOARDS IN SIALKOT THROUGH THE LENS OF WORLD ENGLISHES

Abstract

The paper examines the commercial billboard multimodal in Sialkot, Pakistan, and how English and Urdu may relate with graphics to compose the meaning of regional advertisements. Located in the framework of the World Englishes (WE) paradigm and operating within the framework of the three concentric circles model proposed by Kachru, the current study will fill a serious gap in the literature about the manifestation of the English varieties in multimodal communicative practices. Through the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA), the analysis will point to unique tendencies of linguistic adaptation, such as transliteration, phonological transfer, and strategic code-switching strategies that work in harmony with the visual semiotic means. The results prove that the English language situation of the Sialkot business environment is subject to systematic localization processes, creating hybrid forms of communication that disclose the global linguistic capital and the local cultural authenticity that can be referred to as the process of local identity construction. The study disputes prescriptive theories of English language norms, recording how Pakistani English, as a variety specified in billboard advertising, displays regulated structural changes and not failed deviations of Inner Circle forms. Based on theoretical discussions on the legitimacy and standardization of languages, the study provides an account of the dynamic processes of negotiation between standardization and local innovativeness in the cases of the Outer Circle. The findings have significant implications for the study of World Englishes in the way they widen theoretical perspectives of monomodal analysis to include multimodal communicative practices, through empirical records to sociolinguistic theory of language contact and language hybridization, and to applied linguistic pedagogy in offering evidence based on the means of recognizing and legitimizing non-native varieties in an education setting.