Abstract
Languages are more than a tool for communication; they carry the histories, cultures, traditions, and experiences of people who speak them. They represent collections of shared cultural values and customs that uniquely identify speakers in a social setting and, as a result, make it for them to be recognized hence giving them a sense of belonging; that is, identity. Although numerous studies have been conducted to explore the relationship between language and social identities, a few of them have explored how Iraqi Arabic has been chosen as a significant identity marker across genders. The study is an attempt to answer the question of how language choice serves as an identity marker for male and female speakers of Iraqi Arabic. It evaluates the relationship between language choice and identity from a philosophical perspective. Hence, it investigates language choice and identity at AL-Nasiriya Speech Community in relation to the use of the word cha. The study is based on the assumption that both genders, with a high level of education, have access to the Modern Standard Arabic, which is expected to be their educated variety of language. Therefore, 240 male and female university lecturers are randomly selected from the University of Thi Qar to participate in this study. Following Labov’s empirical work (1966), the rapid, anonymous observation technique is used for collecting data. The results of the study identified a strong correlation between language choice, identity and gender. They are the educated women in Nasiriya who use more of the stigmatized word cha in their speech than men do. The study concludes that female speakers have a strong connection with identity more than that of being prestigious or of high social status since cha serves as an identity marker.
Highlights
Language and identity are not new concepts in sociolinguistic studies
Based on findings gathered by previous sociolinguistic studies conducted by Robin Lakoff, Murtadha Bakir, and Deborah Cameron, language serves as an identity marker that helps audiences identify regions and societies where speakers come from
They provide the knowledge foundation needed to establish the relationship between language and identity and assess how social factors impact language use across different language segments
Summary
Language and identity are not new concepts in sociolinguistic studies. Over the years, numerous studies have been conducted to establish the relationship between language use and identity. Findings from a study conducted by Ahmed (2017) on the pragmatics of apology speech act behaviour in Iraqi Arabic showed that the selection of apology strategies is highly influenced by the nature of Iraqi culture and socio-religious conceptualization of apology This aligned with views made by Hofstede in the cultural theory arguing that norms adopted by a particular society greatly influence values and social behaviours that individuals living in such a society adapt and how they can establish effective cross-cultural communications (Ahmed, 2017). According to a study conducted by Albanon (2017) on gender and tag questions usage in the Iraqi Arabic dialect, the collected findings indicated that men use tag questions more than women. The same informants were visited for the second time to ask them direct questions about the use of cha in their speech and what it means for them
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