A Corpus-Based Study of Lexico-Grammatical Variation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Enacted Laws

Abstract

In this study, lexico-grammatical variations in a corpus of enacted laws in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were investigated using the Multidimensional Analysis framework introduced by Biber in his work "Variation across Speech and Writing." The research was conducted over a sample of fourteen categories, comprising seventy enacted laws, including university, finance, ad hoc, benefit and allowance, court, fund, health, land and property, law, loan, statutory bodies, revenue and tax, women, and repeal acts. Using the multidimensional analysis framework, legal texts of these categories of enacted laws were analyzed through six dimensions of linguistic variance. This study highlighted the differences in lexical and grammatical structures embedded within the province's enacted laws. The analysis showed that these fourteen categories significantly differed from one another along all six dimensions of the 1988 model of variation. The study also found that the textual dimensions of these categories are non-narrative, persuasive, situation-independent, abstract, and informative; these variations were not random but rather influenced by a variety of factors, such as context, goal, register, and audience. The findings of this study provide important information about the linguistic variation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's enactment discourse and aid in the development of a corpus-focused approach to the analysis of legal language. The findings of this study can aid in the improvement of communication among Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's linguists and legal professionals. It will enhance their ability to communicate and comprehend the usage of language elements in the legal register, or legislated laws. Depending on their requirements and areas of interest, future researchers may decide to focus on one or more dimensions.

Keywords: Lexico-grammatical variation, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's enacted laws, multidimensional analysis.