Arabic between reality and ideology

Al‐Wer, Enam

doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.1997.tb00117.x

Cited by 64 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…However, as we have noted above, the [ʔ] variant of (Q) represents a supralocal variant and female speakers show a clear tendency to opt for these variants across the Levant (Al‐Wer , ). In another analogy to the South African sociolinguistic situation – this time from the post‐Apartheid era – Mesthrie (: 28) refers to the linguistic ‘acculturation to the White norm’ for the English vowel in goose .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…It has been documented in the Arabic of Nablus in Palestine (Abd El‐Jawad ), Amman in Jordan (Abd El‐Jawad ; Al‐Wer ), and the Egyptian capital of Cairo (Haeri ), as well as others. In the Levant, [ʔ] represents a supralocal variant of (Q) (Al‐Wer ) and prior work on this variable has shown that female speakers tend to opt for these supralocal variants in their speech, while male speakers opt for more localized variants (see Milroy et al. for a parallel case in northeast England).…”

Section: The Uvular Stop (Q)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social integration and dialect divergence in coastal Palestine

Cotter

Horesh

2015

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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OverviewThe sociolinguistics of Arabic varieties is much more complex than the conventional nomenclature of Arabic dialects may lead the non-specialist to believe. One hears or reads of linguistic entities such as "Egyptian Arabic," "Syrian Arabic," "Moroccan Arabic," which imply that each of these is a singular, cohesive unit, which one can describe, study, and become proficient in. Furthermore, these nation-state-based labels create the illusion that today's political borders, many of which are artificial colonial or post-colonial creations of the early-to-mid 20th century, are able not only to each contain a single dialect of Arabic, but also delimit the beginnings and endings of dialect areas, as if political events are the sole factors in the formation of isoglosses.Compare Arabic to another well-studied language, e.g., English, and it becomes clear.While in some instances it may be useful to distinguish "British English" from "American English" from "Canadian English" and so forth, the multitude of sociolinguistic studies now at our disposal from each of these countries demonstrates just how limited these taxonomies are.Add to that regional, social, interpersonal and intrapersonal variation, and -most importantly to the case we shall be presenting henceforth: migration, isolation, and dialect contact -and it will become clear that in Arabic, as in other languages, a fine-tuning of our understanding and definition of dialect boundaries is in order.The current study concerns a Palestinian speech community. This community can, actually, be viewed as two communities which have split from one another as a result of ethnic cleansing and displacement and subsequent immersion in a third community. More specifically, the city of Jaffa, on the Mediterranean coast of central Palestine, which had been a thriving Page 1 of 42For review only. Confidential. Should not be cited. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Being a refugee in Gaza carries some degree of social markedness, as well as the refugee status that most speakers are afforded by the United Nations. Part of this social markedness has to do with dialect differences. The traditional dialect of Jaffa differs from that of Gaza in a number of interesting ways. This is one prime example of two dialects, both urban, both Palestinian, both coastal-Mediterranean -three features which are known in Arabic dialectology to indicate convergence of dialectal features -which have nonetheless diverging features, as we will demonstrate below. Journal of SociolinguisticsOur analysis provides an examination of the linguistic outcomes of politically induced and maintained dialect contact in one of the world's most volatile areas. At the same time, we suggest that a sociolinguistic variable of high social salience in the Arabic speaking world is being re-contextualized as an identity marker in...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: The Uvular Stop (Q)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social integration and dialect divergence in coastal Palestine

Cotter

Horesh

2015

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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“…On the basis of her data from Cairo, Niloofar Haeri (1987) also refuted the claim that gender-differentiated patterns in spoken Arabic were anomalous in any way. I have argued (Al-Wer 1997;2013) that while Standard Arabic clearly has a function in Arabic-speaking societies, as the norm used in formal written and spoken domains, and it undoubtedly also has a psychological claim on native speakers of Arabic, it does not play a role nor does it have a normative effect on the structure of variation in spoken Arabic in the core domains of phonology, morphology, and syntax (nor on the direction of language change in the vernacular). 11 Its involvement in studies of variation in spoken Arabic seems to be based on ideological considerations rather than on empirical data.…”

Section: Variation In Vernacular Arabic and Gender Differentiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa

Al‐Wer¹

2014

The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality

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“…It has been suggested that historical factors have played a large part in the current linguistic situation of the Arabic-speaking world. Al-Wer (1997) argues that when the Arab Islamic Empire began to weaken in the sixteenth century and the Ottoman Turkish rule expanded over the Arabic-speaking provinces, considerable pressure was placed on the Arabic language. Turkish replaced Arabic in state administration and was even adopted by Arab officials.…”

Section: Historical Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Resurfacing of Arabic Qaf [q] in the Speech of Young Ammani Females: A Sociolinguistic Study

Al-Hawamdeh

Hamdan

2017

SSRN Journal

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The main objective of this study is to explore the factors that affect the absence of the glottal stop [ʔ] and as a result, the resurfacing of the standard Arabic Qaf variable [q], in certain lexical items of young Ammani females who associate themselves with the Jordanian Arabic madani ('urban') dialect of which [ʔ] is a predominant feature. In particular, the study explores why this absence occurs from the perspectives of the speakers themselves in relation to their own language choices. Empirical data are collected through the use of a closed questionnaire and a focus group discussion. The findings reveal that one of the major factors for the resurfacing of [q] is related to the influence of family dialect and social networks and not because the target words are of a religious or formal origin, as once they might have been attested in the speech of older generations.

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Arabic between reality and ideology

Cited by 64 publications

References 5 publications

Social integration and dialect divergence in coastal Palestine

Social integration and dialect divergence in coastal Palestine

Language and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa

The Resurfacing of Arabic Qaf [q] in the Speech of Young Ammani Females: A Sociolinguistic Study

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