Evaluating Pakistani English: A Matched-Guise Study of Employer and University Educator Attitudes in Peshawar

Abstract

This study investigates attitudes towards Pakistani English (PakE) among two pivotal gatekeeping communities in Peshawar: private sector employers and university educators. Employing a matched-guise technique with a 2 × 2 factorial design (accent × role), the research recorded six bilingual speakers producing identical content in PakE and British English. One hundred participants (fifty employers, fifty educators) evaluated speakers on status and solidarity dimensions using a semantic differential scale. Preliminary protocol analysis indicates that educators demonstrate greater acceptance of indigenised phonological features, whereas employers ascribe higher competence ratings to British-accented speech. The findings illuminate how linguistic hierarchies reproduce socioeconomic stratification in Pakistan’s postcolonial context. This research addresses a critical gap in empirical PakE attitude studies, offering implications for language policy, higher education curricula, and employability discourses. Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of Peshawar’s Institutional Review Board.

Keywords: Pakistani English, matched-guise study, language attitudes, Peshawar, employer perceptions, university educators