Hybridity and Linguistic Pluralism: A Pragmatic Analysis of University Academic Discourse

The language used in academic texts and pedagogy is referred as academic discourse. Being student and teacher, the researchers observed that mixing of home language with academic language was a common practice in many institutions. Some linguists appreciate it, while others resist it by claiming it detrimental to objectivity and neutrality. Chiang (2006) finds role of teacher’s discourse a determining factor in pedagogy. Current study was conducted to observe the phenomenon of hybridization in academic discourse and to assess it in the light of pragmatics. Pragmatic analysis is known as a useful method to infer covert and implicit meanings of language (Savignon, 2007) and the researchers deemed it appropriate for current research. The pragmatic analysis could provide a newer outlook on academic discourse. Data was collected through observation sheet from the classes. Questionnaire was also used to get relevant data from teachers. The findings revealed that teachers often relied on cultural and ideological underpinnings in their pedagogy. The individual conversational styles were also responsible for different mode of hybridization and subsequently reinforced diverse facet of discourse different in pragmatic nature. The data was first analyzed for hybridization followed by its pragmatic analysis. The study was important in the backdrop of one of many beliefs, that meaning never remains fixed and it resides in socio-cultural structures and lack of pragmatic knowledge among interlocutors impedes semantic proficiency. The study revealed utility of pragmatic competence in turning this mixing of discourses in a class into a continuum. It also found that knowledge of academic pragmatics could reinforce semantic proficiency.