Phonological Variation in Hijazi and Cairene Arabic: The Case of the Uvular Stop /q/

Baraa A Rajab

doi:10.4236/ojml.2021.116068

Abstract

This small scale, qualitatively based, exploratory study aimed at exploring and analysing voice pattern production of eight participants (2 male and 6 female) by eliciting their voice patterns generated from reading forty-three words from a word list and also, from reading a short paragraph. Furthermore, the study aimed at exploring the phonological variation in the spoken Arabic of two regions: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Hijazi Arabic—HA) and Cairo, Egypt (Cairene Arabic—CA) and also, examines the role of age, sex, educational level and region on this variation. In particular, the study explored the correlation of voice patterns production as they relate to the non-linguistic factors such as age, gender and educational level. The analysis of the gathered qualitative data was carried out by transcribing the recorded data and coding each voice pattern in question. The results indicated that there is more variation in CA speakers than in HA speakers and also, there are some gender influences on phonological production.

Highlights

IntroductionMany studies have looked at phonological variation in such communities, but they are limited to certain regions such as Jordan (Al-Wer, 1991), Syria (Daher, 1997), Iraq (Bakir, 1986) and many more
Arabic speaking countries are known to be diglossic communities (Ferguson, 1959)
There have been a limited number of research studies which have focused on phonological variation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)

Summary

Introduction

Many studies have looked at phonological variation in such communities, but they are limited to certain regions such as Jordan (Al-Wer, 1991), Syria (Daher, 1997), Iraq (Bakir, 1986) and many more. The majority of these studies focus on one or two non-linguistic factors such as age and/or gender. This paper aims to focus on the phonological variation in the spoken Arabic of two regions: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Cairo, Egypt. Speakers tend to use the standard and/or dialectal forms in their speech.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion