Corpus-Based Analysis of Career Services Language in the UK and Pakistani University Websites

Abstract

This study investigates the language of career services webpages in the top seven UK and the top seven PK (Pakistani) QS-ranked universities. Career services webpages of universities address career-related issues of students and serve as a remedy to the social problem of unemployment. These platforms train their students according to the requirements of employers by strengthening them with employability skills. Therefore, this research aims to highlight the notion of ‘career’ and ‘job’ in career services webpages of the UK and PK universities. The methodology used is corpus-based critical discourse analysis and the data is analyzed with Antconc 3.5.8 version. The sample size consisting of 353473 words of PK corpus and 323234 words of UK corpus is selected by using the judgmental sampling technique and the corpus is built by using Sketch Engine. The results show the inclination of PK universities towards the ‘academic career’ of their students because whenever they talk about the career and jobs of students, they show their concern about not having third division or D grade in their academic career to get a degree. This preference of PK universities is promoting rot culture of defining capabilities of students through their degrees that needs to be addressed. Whereas, UK universities show their concern about the skills and employability of their students by providing them knowledgeable and conceptual tasks to get an ideal job. The analysis concludes that the language of both UK and PK universities put emphasis on career development and employability skills, but their approach seems to be different in making their graduates employable. The findings of this research can be beneficial in creating awareness among students and academicians regarding the outcomes of language that is used by university websites and its influence on their professional choices.