Transfiguration of Language Death in Iraqi – Karbala Dialect: A Sociolinguistic Study

Abstract

The present paper represents an attempt to shed some light upon the phenomenon of language death in Iraqi dialect in relation to the social factors of age, gender and region. For this purpose, 400 informants (200 males and 200 females) have been approached so as to elicit relevant data. They are subdivided according to age group, gender as well as region. The sample used in this investigation is native speakers of Iraqi Arabic. The model is used according to Trudgill (1974). It could be said that the age of the speaker is a social factor with which linguistic variables have been found to correlate very closely. The normal pattern of style and age differentiation occurs when the youngest and the oldest represent the highest scores. When they become older, they will be more influenced by the values of the society. So, they will be affected by their social networks. Thus, they are linguistically more influenced by the standard language. On the other hand, older and retired people are away from the standard forms due to the effect of their peer group. Again, their social networks are narrower than that of the middle aged groups.There is another social pressure on women to acquire correct linguistic norms. Men tend to be favorably disposed to low status speech forms than women. This is may be because of the connotations of 'toughness' and 'masculinity' associated with working class language, so it could be said that woman don't use the dying word.