The Corpus Linguistics Analysis of loan Words in The Prisoner by Omer Shahid Hamid.

Abstract

The study addresses the use of Urdu loanwords in Omar Shahid Hamid’s novel The Prisoner by integrating corpus linguistics. Conducting a corpus-based analysis, it investigates the role of loanwords contributing to code-switching and multilingualism. Loanwords are manually categorized into four sections: religion/culture, greeting/respect, colloquialisms, and police/underworld. The study applied a mixed-method approach contains frequency counts, grammatical classification in the quantitative section and thematic interpretation and concordance analysis in the qualitative. Findings show that the most frequently used loanwords are Pakora, Orangi, and Naika, they function as Pakistani discourse and highlight socioeconomic division in local language. The novel concludes that Urdu words in Pakistani literature are not just borrowed but add depth to the meaning of the storyline and identity negotiation. The study fulfills a gap in corpus study by examining Urdu borrowed words critically written in the novel that embody bilingual innovation.