Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T09:19:53.569Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping perceptions of linguistic variation in Qassim, Saudi Arabia, using GIS technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2020

Yousef Al-Rojaie
Yousef Al-Rojaie*
Affiliation:
Qassim University, Department of English & Translation, Buraydah, Qassim, Saudi Arabia
*
Author for correspondence: Yousef Al-Rojaie, Email: yrojaie@qu.edu.sa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study explores perceptions held by speakers of Qassimi Arabic (a variety of Najdi Arabic, spoken in central Saudi Arabia) about linguistic variation in their own dialect, and the sociocultural evaluations associated with their perceptions. Drawing on perceptual dialectology research methods, respondents completed the draw-a-map and labeling tasks. The maps were collected and then analyzed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping software to aggregate, query, and create a composite heat map. Findings indicate that Qassimi speakers perceive regional variation to be associated with urban centers, particularly Buraydah and Unayzah, which were identified as the most salient dialect areas. Analysis of the labeled maps generated six categories of evaluative comments: drawl, influences from other regional dialects, heavy accent, old vocabulary, fast, and affrication. These findings point to the need for further exploration of the underlying ideologies and social values that Arabic speakers have about their own dialects and other dialects in Arabic-speaking communities.

Keywords

perceptual dialectologyQassimi ArabicQassimSaudi ArabiaGISlanguage attitudes and ideologies
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistic Geography , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 9 - 30
Check for updates
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alahmadi, Sameeha. D. 2016. Insight into the attitudes of speakers of urban Meccan Hijazi Arabic towards their dialect. Advances in Language and Literary Studies 7. 249–256.Google Scholar
Al-Aruk, Badriyah. 2015. Lahjat al-Qaīm wa-ilatuhā bi-al-fuá [Qassimi Dialect and its relation to Classical Arabic fusha]. Buraydah, Saudi Arabia: Qassim Cultural Club in Buraydah.Google Scholar
Albirini, Abdulakfi. 2016. Modern Arabic sociolinguistics: Diglossia, variation, codeswitching, attitudes and identity. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Fuhaid, Ali. 2009. ‘Ayn ibn Fuhaid: Qā‘idat al-Asyāh [Ayn ibn Fuhayd: The Base of Al-Asyah]. Riyadh: Ministry of Culture & Information.Google Scholar
Al-Jumaah, Khalid. 2013. Min Maāhir Lahjat aī fī- al-Lahjah al-Qaīmīyah al-mu‘āirah [Some aspects of the Tai dialect in contemporary Qassimi dialect]. Journal of Arabic and Human Sciences 6. 743–835.Google Scholar
Al-Jumaah, Khalid. 2016a. Min Maāhir al-Lahjat al-Yamanīyah al-qadīmah fī- al-Lahjah al-Qaīmīyah al-mu‘āirah: dirāsah dalālīyah li-alfā tabda’bi-arfi al-bā wa-al-Rā wa-urūf ukhrá baynahumā [Some aspects of the Old Yemeni Arabic dialects in contemporary Qassimi dialect: A semantic study of lexical items starting by the letters b and r and other letters in between]. Journal of Arabic and Human Sciences 9. 507–591.Google Scholar
Al-Jumaah, Khalid. 2016b. Min Maāhir al-Lahjat al-Yamanīyah al-qadīmah fī- al-Lahjah al-Qaīmīyah al-mu‘āirah: dirāsah dalālīyah fī-al-mustawá al-dalālī min-khilāli mawādd mukhtalifah tabda’bi-arf al-shīn wa-al-nūn wa-urūf ukhrá baynahumā [Some aspects of the Old Yemeni Arabic dialects in contemporary Qassimi dialect: A study at the semantic level from different linguistic sources starting with the letters sh and n and other letters in between]. Journal of Arabic and Human Sciences 10. 733–800.Google Scholar
Al Jumaah, Khalid. 2017. Mu’jam al-Asmaa al-mu’annathah al-samā‘īyah fī al-Lahjah al-Qasīmīyah al-mu‘āsirah [Directory of oral feminine nouns in contemporary Qassimi dialect]. Buraydah, Saudi Arabia: Qassim Cultural Club in Buraydah.Google Scholar
Al-Miguishi, Ali. 1988. Al-Bakīrīyah [Al-Bukayriyah]. Riyadh: General Presidency of Youth Welfare.Google Scholar
Al-Mubarak, Faisal. 1999. Nomad settlements in Saudi Arabia: A cultural approach to understanding urbanization in developing countries. King Saud University Journal for Architecture and Planning 11. 21–44.Google Scholar
Al-Nifisah, Ahmad. 2006. al-Khabrā’ wa-Riyād al-Khabrā’ [Al-Khabra and Riyadh Al-Khabra]. Riyadh: n.p.Google Scholar
Alrumaih, Ahmad. 2002. Najdi Perceptions of Saudi Regional Speech. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University thesis.Google Scholar
Al-Rojaie, Yousef. 2013. Regional dialect leveling in Najdi Arabic: The case of the deaffrication of [k] in the Qaīmī dialect. Language Variation and Change 25. 43–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Salman, Muhammad. 1998. ’Unayzah [Unayzah]. Riyadh: General Presidency of Youth Welfare.Google Scholar
Al-Shabaan, Ahmad M. 1992. Mintaqah Al-Khubūb fī al-Qasīm: dirāsah fī Jughrāfīyat al-‘umran al-rifī [Al-Khuboob area in Qassim: A study of rural settlement geography]. Riyadh: Imam University thesis.Google Scholar
Al-Suwaida, Abdulrahman Z. 2011. Al-Alf Sanah Al-ghāmiddah min Tārīkh Najd [The one thousand ambiguous years in the history of Najd]. Riyadh: Al-Suwaida Publishing Press.Google Scholar
Al-Ubaid, Abdullah Muhammad. 1988. al-Badāyi‘ [Al-Badayea]. Riyadh: General Presidency of Youth Welfare.Google Scholar
Al-Ubudi, Muhammad Nassir. 1979. al-Mu‘jam al-jughrāfī lil-bilād al-‘Arabīyah al-Sa‘ūdīyah: bilād al-Qasīm [Geographic Directory of Saudi Arabia: the Qassim Province]. Riyadh: Al-Yamāmah for Translation & Publishing.Google Scholar
Al-Washmi, Saleh. 1988. Al-Jiwaā’ [Al Jawa]. Riyadh: General Presidency of Youth Welfare.Google Scholar
Benson, Erica J. 2003. Folk linguistic perceptions and the mapping of dialect boundaries. American Speech 78. 307–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, Bermudez, Nancy, Fung, Victor, Edwards, Lisa & Vargas, Rosalva. 2007. Hella Nor Cal or totally So Cal? The perceptual dialectology of California. Journal of English Linguistics 35. 325–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, Bermudez, Nancy, Fung, Victor, Vargas, Rosalva & Edwards, Lisa. 2008. The normative North and the stigmatized South: Ideology and methodology in the perceptual dialectology of California. Journal of English Linguistics 36. 62–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Central Department of Statistics and Information (Saudi Arabia). 2010. Saudi Arabia population and housing census 2010. Riyadh: Central Department of Statistics and Information.Google Scholar
Cramer, Jennifer. 2010. The effect of borders on the linguistic production and perception of regional identity in Louisville, Kentucky. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dissertation. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (UMI No. 3455657) (22 July 2018).Google Scholar
Cukor-Avila, Patricia, Jeon, Lisa, Rector, Patricia C, Tiwari, Chetan & Shelton, Zak. 2012. “Texas – It’s like a whole nuther country”: Mapping Texans’ perceptions of dialect variation in the Lone Star state. Austin, TX: Texas Linguistics Forum.Google Scholar
Demirci, Mahide & Kleiner, Brian. 1998. Gender and Age-based Variation in the Perception of Turkish Dialects. Language Awareness 7. 206–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Dash, Linda & Tucker, G. Richard. 1975. Subjective reactions to various speech styles in Egypt. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 6. 33–54.Google Scholar
Evans, Betsy. 2011. Seattletonian to faux hick: Perceptions of English in Washington state, American Speech 86. 384–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Betsy. 2013. Seattle to Spokane: Mapping perceptions of English in Washington state. Journal of English Linguistics 41. 268–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feagin, Crawford. 2008. Just what is the Southern drawl? In Nunnally, Thomas, Brackner, Joey, Kimzey, Anne, and Boykin, Deborah (eds.), Tributaries 10: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association, 91–115. Montgomery, AL: The Alabama Folklife Association.Google Scholar
Garrett, Peter, Williams, Angie & Evans, Betsy. 2005. Accessing social meanings: Values of keywords, values in keywords. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 37(1). 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hachimi, Atiqa. 2012. The urban and the urbane: Identities, language ideologies, and Arabic dialects in Morocco. Language in Society 41. 321–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hachimi, Atiqa. 2013. The Maghreb-Mashreq language ideology and the politics of identity in a globalized Arab world. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17. 269–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hachimi, Atiqa. 2015. “Good Arabic, bad Arabic”: Mapping language ideologies in the Arabic-speaking world. Zeitschrift Für Arabische Linguistik 61. 35–70.Google Scholar
Haeri, Niloofar. 2000. Form and ideology: Arabic sociolinguistics and beyond. Annual Review of Anthropology 29. 61–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartley, Laura. 1999. A View from the West: Perceptions of U.S. dialects by Oregon residents. In Preston, D. R. (ed.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, vol. 1, 315–332. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbolich, James. 1979. Attitudes of Egyptians toward various Arabic vernaculars. Lingua 47. 301–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horesh, Uri & Cotter, William M.. 2016. Current research on linguistic variation in the Arabic-Speaking world. Language and Linguistics Compass 10. 370–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibrahim, Zeinab. 2000. Myths about Arabic revisited. Al-Arabiyya 33. 13–27.Google Scholar
Ingham, Bruce. 1994. Najdi Arabic: Central Arabian. London Oriental and African Language Library, I. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inoue, Fumio. 1996. Subjective dialect division in Great Britain. American Speech 71. 142–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeon, Lisa. 2013. Drawing boundaries and revealing language attitudes: Mapping perceptions of dialects in Korea. Denton, TX: University of North Texas thesis. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global (UMI No. 1524973) (26 September 2016).Google Scholar
Kuiper, Lawrence. 2005. Perception is reality: Parisian and Provencal perceptions of regional varieties of French. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9. 28–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Llamas, Carmen. 2007. “A place between places”: Language and identities in a border town. Language in Society 3. 579–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, James & Milroy, Lesley. 1985. Linguistic change, social network, and speaker innovation. Journal of Linguistics 21. 339–384CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Lesley & Milroy, James. 1992. Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model. Language in Society 21. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, Christopher. 2007. Northern English dialects: A perceptual approach. Sheffield, England: University of Sheffield dissertation. Retrieved from http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1203/2/Montgomery,_C.pdf (30 September 2016).Google Scholar
Montgomery, Christopher & Stoeckle, Phillip. 2013. Geographic information systems and perceptual dialectology: A method for processing draw-a-map data. Journal of Linguistic Geography 1. 52–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murad, Mohammed. K. 2007. Language attitudes of Iraqi native speakers of Arabic: A sociolinguistic investigation. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas thesis. Retrieved from https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/13689/Murad_Iraqi_Arabic.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (24 September 2016).Google Scholar
Long, Danial. 1999. Geographical perceptions of Japanese dialect regions. In Preston, Dennis (ed.), Handbook of perceptual dialectology, 177–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 2018. Bedouin. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/bedouin (15 January 2018)Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. 1986. Five visions of America. Language in Society 15. 221–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. & Howe, George M. 1987. Computerized studies of mental dialect maps. In Denning, Keith M, Inkelas, Sharon, McNair-Knox, Faye C & Rickford, John R (eds.), Variation in Language: NWAV-XV at Stanford, Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation, 361–378. Stanford, CA: Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. 1989. Perceptual dialectology: Nonlinguists’ views of areal linguistics. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. 1993. The uses of folk linguistics. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 3. 181–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis. R. 1996. Where the worst English is spoken. In Schneider, Edgar W (ed.), Focus on the USA, Varieties of English Around the World, 16, 297–360. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. (Ed.). 1999. Handbook of perceptual dialectology, vol. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis R. 2017. Perceptual dialectology. In Boberg, Charles, Nerbonne, John, and Watt, Dominic (eds.), Handbook of dialectology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shmueli, Deborah F. & Khamaisi, Rassem. 2015. Israel’s invisible Negev Bedouin: Issues in land and spatial planning. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spolsky, Bernard, Tushyeh, Hanna, Amara, Muhammad & de Bot, Kees. 1998. Language in Bethlehem: The sociolinguistic transformation of a Palestinian town. The Final Scientific Report of Project No. 94-11-1 Sponsored by the Netherlands-Israel Development Research Program (NIRP). Language Policy Research Center, Bar-Ilan University.Google Scholar
Theodoropoulou, Irene & Tyler, Joseph. 2014. Perceptual dialectology of the Arab world. Al-Arabiyya 47. 21–39.Google Scholar
Walters, Keith. 2006. Language attitudes. In Versteegh, Kees, Eid, Mushira, Elgibali, Alaa, Woidich, Manfred & Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. II, 650–664. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yan, Qingyang. 2015. The perceptual categorization of Enshi Mandarin regional varieties. Journal of Linguistic Geography 3. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar