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Sociolinguistic Studies: Insights from Arabic
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Sociolinguistic Studies: Insights from Arabic

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2024) | Viewed by 3299

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Dris Soulaimani

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages, College of Arts and Letters, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-7727, USA
Interests: Arabic sociolinguistics; Arabic pedagogy; discourse analysis; language ideologies; language and embodiment
Dr. Brahim Chakrani

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University, Wells Hall B-331, 619 Red Cedar Road, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Interests: Arabic sociolinguistics; discourse analysis; linguistic anthropology; second language acquisition and learning; heritage language acquisition and learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue on Arabic Sociolinguistic Studies. Our goal is to publish state-of-the-art original studies that provide invaluable insights into the connectedness between language as a social entity and speakers of this language. Different groups relate to language and its features on the basis of various factors including culture, identity, and politics, among other social values (Coupland 2007, Sebba 2007). The study of language as a social phenomenon has been the focus of many linguistic studies (Labov 1972), ranging from the relationship of the socialization process of language users within the cultural norms of particular societies (Ochs 2003) to the role of language as a discursive means of constructing and shaping life experiences in the social world (Georgakopoulou 2011). As such, language is treated as a social and interactive field, lodged within larger contexts (Goodwin 2000, Soulaimani and Chakrani 2023).

This Special Issue welcomes studies that contribute to the understanding of the language situation in Arabic-speaking societies, within frameworks that include but are not limited to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, language attitudes, language policy, and language contact. The studies may include qualitative or quantitative research. We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Selected manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

References:

Coupland, N. (2007). Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2011. “Narrative.” In Discursive pragmatics, ed. Jan Zienkowski, Jan- Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren, 190–207. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(10), 1489-1522.

Labov, W. (1972). The transformation of experience in narrative syntax. In: W. Labov (Ed.), Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular (pp. 354–396). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Sebba, M. (2007). Spelling and society: The culture and politics of orthography around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Soulaimani, D. and Chakrani, B. (2023). Deconstructing verbal and nonverbal accommodation in Arabiccross-dialectal communication. International Journal of Bilingualism. (forthcoming)

Dr. Dris Soulaimani
Dr. Brahim Chakrani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Arabic sociolinguistics
  • language ideologies and language attitudes
  • discourse analysis and conversational analysis
  • diglossia and multilingualism
  • standard language and dialects

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

32 pages, 3294 KiB  
Article
Children’s Multilectal Repertoires: Diglossic Style-Shifting by Palestinian Children and Adolescents in Syria
by Ourooba Shetewi, Karen P. Corrigan and Ghada Khattab
Languages 2024, 9(11), 341; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9110341 - 30 Oct 2024
Viewed by 968
Abstract
Arabic diglossia, whereby Standard Arabic (SA) exists alongside numerous vernaculars, often leads to diglossic style-shifting, based on context or topic changes and marked in the vernacular by shifting to standard linguistic features. While this phenomenon has been widely studied in the speech of [...] Read more.
Arabic diglossia, whereby Standard Arabic (SA) exists alongside numerous vernaculars, often leads to diglossic style-shifting, based on context or topic changes and marked in the vernacular by shifting to standard linguistic features. While this phenomenon has been widely studied in the speech of educated adults, research on diglossic style-shifting by children and adolescents has been rather limited. This paper investigates how it operates amongst 3–17-year-olds from a Bedouin speech community of Palestinian refugees in Syria. It examines context effects on realizations of the variables (θ) and (ð), which overlap with local realizations and (q), which has a standard realization ([q]) that is independent of dialectal variation in the community. Participants were recorded during sociolinguistic interviews and a picture-naming task, the latter being expected to evoke a school setting and prompt the use of more standard realizations, signaling diglossic style-shifting in their speech. Style-shifting was influenced by age, context, and the linguistic variables under examination. While picture-naming prompted greater use of standard realizations of all variables, shifting to [q] also appeared during the interview in lexical borrowings from SA, revealing topic effects on diglossic style-shifting. Children aged 6–14 exhibited more style-shifting in picture-naming, likely reflecting the central role of school in their lives, while the speech of 15–17-year-olds contained more lexical borrowing with [q]. This likely reflects their larger linguistic repertoires and longer exposure to SA than their younger peers. These findings indicate that SA plays a key role in participants’ linguistic practices and reflect their awareness of how to employ it appropriately in their speech. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociolinguistic Studies: Insights from Arabic)
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16 pages, 3949 KiB  
Article
A Horn of Pepper or a Head of Onion: An Analysis of Semantic Variation of Classifiers in Jordanian Spoken Arabic from a Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach
by Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh, Aseel Zibin and Lama Ahmed Khalifah
Languages 2024, 9(8), 270; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9080270 - 1 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1651
Abstract
This study examines the semantic variation in fruit and vegetable classifier usage in Amman, Jordan, employing a cognitive sociolinguistic approach. The semantic variation revolves around using idiomatic classifiers, such as raːs basˤal (“head of onion”), in contrast to neutral classifiers, i.e., ħabbet basˤal [...] Read more.
This study examines the semantic variation in fruit and vegetable classifier usage in Amman, Jordan, employing a cognitive sociolinguistic approach. The semantic variation revolves around using idiomatic classifiers, such as raːs basˤal (“head of onion”), in contrast to neutral classifiers, i.e., ħabbet basˤal (“a piece of onion”) or numerals, such as basˤalteːn (“two onions”). This study focuses on classifiers used with fruits and vegetables, which are particularly relevant due to their physical shapes often prompting metaphorical classifiers and their tendency to take Arabic collective forms that are grammatically singular but semantically plural, complicating the issue of counting and potentially leading to the innovation of novel classifiers. The sample comprised 50 individuals from Amman, stratified based on their gender, age, and education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal a statistically significant inclination among older, male, and less formally educated speakers towards favoring idiomatic classifiers over the neutral options. This preference suggests that the choice between idiomatic and neutral classifiers may be influenced by social factors. We categorized the metaphors underlying the idiomatic classifiers as entrenched, conventionalized, and transparent, based on Müller (2009). The context of conventional metaphors demonstrates that the source domains of these metaphors could be active for a speaker at a specific moment but may not be active for another speaker at another moment, proposing that metaphoricity is not only a property of a linguistic item but also the cognitive achievement of a certain speaker. The preference for idiomatic classifiers, we argue, may be associated with notions of lower refinement, traditionalism, or reduced prestige. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociolinguistic Studies: Insights from Arabic)
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