Abstract

AbstractGiven its abundance of dialects, varieties, styles, and registers, Arabic lends itself easily to the study of language variation and change. It is spoken by some 300 million people in an area spanning roughly from northwest Africa to the Persian Gulf. Traditional Arabic dialectology has dealt predominantly with geographical variation. However, in recent years, more nuanced studies of inter‐ and intra‐speaker variation have seen the light of day. In some respects, Arabic sociolinguistics is still lagging behind the field compared to variationist studies in English and other Western languages. On the other hand, the insight presented in studies of Arabic can and should be considered in the course of shaping a crosslinguistic sociolinguistic theory. Variationist studies of Arabic‐speaking speech communities began almost two decades after Labov's pioneering studies of American English and have flourished following the turn of the 21st century. These studies have sparked debates between more quantitatively inclined sociolinguists and those who value qualitative analysis. In reality, virtually no sociolinguistic study of Arabic that includes statistical modeling is free of qualitative insights. They are also not flawless and not always cutting edge methodologically or theoretically, but the field is moving in a positive direction, which will likely lead to the recognition of its significance to sociolinguistics at large.

Highlights

  • The Foundations of Arabic SociolinguisticsBeginning in earnest at the end of the 19th century, the emergence of the English dialectological tradition formed the backbone of contemporary sociolinguistic research

  • Especially the early work that focused on describing language variation and change in English-speaking communities, can be seen as an organic product of this dialectological tradition

  • The history of Arabic dialectology goes almost as far back as its English counterpart (e.g., Bergsträßer 1915), it could be argued that Arabic sociolinguistics has grown less naturally out of its own dialectological tradition

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Summary

Introduction

Beginning in earnest at the end of the 19th century, the emergence of the English dialectological tradition formed the backbone of contemporary sociolinguistic research. In the mid part of the 20th century, dialectological work began to take on a more socially informed f lavor, culminating in the early work of scholars like Labov (1966) and Trudgill (1974), forming the early generation of sociolinguists that lay the foundation of the field. Scholars like Niloofar Haeri (1996) and Hassan Abdel Jawad (1981, 1987) were both students of William Labov and Gillian Sankoff, while Enam Al-Wer (1991, 2007) was a student of Peter Trudgill. That these early scholars began from the starting point of the general study of sociolinguistics may have played a role in creating a situation we see today, with Arabic dialectology and sociolinguistics existing side by side

From Dialectology to Sociolinguistics in Arabic Research
State of the Field
Language Variation and Change in the Arabic-speaking World Moving Forward
Findings
Conclusions
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