A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Grammatical Errors and Informal Syntax in Everyday Communication of ESL Speakers
Abstract
In Pakistan, English as a Second Language (ESL) serves as an official language in education, business, and digital communication, but speakers tend to make grammatical mistakes and use unofficial syntax with local language influences, such as the Urdu language. This paper explores these trends in daily communication including WhatsApp messages, social media posts, informal communication, and professional interactions using a sociolinguistic approach. Based on the error analysis by Corder (1967), interlanguage theory by Selinker (1972), and the World Englishes concept by Kachru (1985), the study has a mixed-methods explanatory sequential research design. An example of an ethnographically-informed and simulated corpus of 40 samples (written and spoken-like transcripts, which contain about 28,000 words) is used to describe a range of Pakistani ESL speakers of various age, gender, education, first language, and context. The leading sources of errors are detected by quantitative analysis: article omission/addition (22.2%), subject-verb agreement (17.1%), and inconsistent verbal tense/aspect (15.9%), which are mainly because of L1 transfer and overgeneralisation. Code-mixing and run-on sentences, which are less common in general (5.3% and 5.3% respectively), are more common in young, urban-digital users, are used to accomplish efficiency, solidarity, and cultural expression. Patterns are strongly related to sociolinguistic variables: younger speakers are more flexible in their adaptations and more educated ones correct themselves in the formal context. The degree of intelligibility is high among peers (mean 4.3/5) and lower when pertaining to professional settings (2.8/5), which is indicative of a conflict between local nativisation and global norms. The results fill a research gap in Pakistani ESL studies by concentrating on spontaneous everyday conversation as opposed to academics, which is presented as adaptive bilingual skills. It has been recommended that sociolinguistic awareness should be taught, that explanatory feedback should also be used, that authentic informal activities be used and that code-mixing should also be viewed as a resource that would promote the effective and confident use of the language.
Keywords: Error analysis, Pakistani ESL learners, grammatical errors, informal syntax, sociolinguistics, World Englishes, interlanguage, code-mixing, L1 transfer, everyday communication
