Power of Linguistic Privilege: Critical Discourse Analysis of the Narratives of Pakistani Immigrant Students in American Schools

This paper highlights the struggle that Pakistani immigrant students make during the process of learning English as a second language and the ways in which lack of proficiency in English complicates the process of learning and even hinders their academic growth. The major focus is on immigrant students at the beginning level of English language learning who come from less commonly known cultures and with their first language less commonly taught in USA. Discourse analysis of the narratives of three Pakistani immigrant students is presented and discussed in the context of language, identity and power relation.