Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T22:31:00.470Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Not-so-strange bedfellows: Documentation, description, and sociolinguistics in Gaza

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2017

William M. Cotter
William M. Cotter*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
*
williamcotter@email.arizona.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Arabic is often investigated within dialectological frameworks that emerged in the 19th century, though that work now exists alongside decades of variationist sociolinguistic research. The latter method typically produces abundant data, recorded at very high quality, which lend themselves to being transcribed, described and preserved. This paper presents descriptive information on the Arabic dialect of Gaza City, based on recent sociolinguistic fieldwork conducted in the Gaza Strip with 39 speakers from the wider Gaza City community. These descriptive aspects of the dialect are presented as part of a broader discussion regarding the need for a more holistic integration of sociolinguistics and language description and documentation in work on understudied or endangered varieties of Arabic.

Résumé

La langue arabe est souvent étudiée au sein de cadres dialectologiques ayant émergé au 19e siècle, mais ce travail existe maintenant de compagnie avec quelques décennies de recherches en linguistique variationniste. Cette dernière méthode produit généralement des données abondantes, en enregistrements de très haute qualité, se prêtant bien à la transcription, à la description et à la conservation. Le présent article, qui fournit des informations descriptives sur le dialecte arabe de la ville de Gaza, se fonde sur un travail de terrain sociolinguistique mené récemment dans la bande de Gaza avec 39 locuteurs de la communauté de Gaza. Ces aspects descriptifs du dialecte sont présentés dans le cadre d'une discussion plus large sur la nécessité d'une intégration plus holistique de la sociolinguistique, ainsi que de la description et de la documentation linguistique, dans des recherches sur les variétés d'arabe peu étudiées ou menacées.

Keywords

GazadocumentationdescriptionArabicsociolinguisticsGazala documentationla descriptionl'arabela sociolinguistique
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 62 , Issue 4: Variation at the Crossroads: Advancing theory by integrating methods/La Variation: Faire progresser la théorie par l'intégration des méthodes , December 2017 , pp. 596 - 613
Copyright
© Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2017 

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

Abu Haidar, Farida. 1991. Christian Arabic of Baghdad (Semitica Viva – Band 7). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Alessa, Aziza. 2008. Najdi speakers in Hijaz: A sociolinguistic investigation of dialect contact in Jeddah . Doctoral dissertation, University of Essex.Google Scholar
Al-Qahtani, Khairiah. 2015. A sociolinguistic study of the Tihami Qahtani dialect in Asir, Southern Arabia . Doctoral dissertation, University of Essex.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam. 2007a. Jordanian Arabic (Amman). In Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 505–517. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam. 2007b. The formation of the dialect of Amman. In Arabic in the city: Issues in dialect contact and language variation, ed. Miller, Catherine, Al-Wer, Enam, Caubet, Dominique, and Watson, Janet C. E., 55–76. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam, and Al-Qahtani, Khairia. 2016. Lateral fricative ḍād in Tihāmat Qaḥtān: A quantitative sociolinguistic investigation. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics, ed. Davis, Stuart and Soltan, Usama, 151–169. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam, and de Jong, Rudolf E.. In press. Dialects of Arabic. In The Handbook of Dialectology, ed. Boberg, Charles, Nerbonne, John, and Dominic Watt, . Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam, and Herin, Bruno. 2011. The lifecycle of qaf in Jordan. Langage et société 138(4): 59–76.Google Scholar
Al-Wer, Enam, Horesh, Uri, Herin, Bruno, and Fanis, Maria. 2015. How Arabic regional features become sectarian features: Jordan as a case study. Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 62: 68–87.Google Scholar
Barnea, Aharon. 1973. Gaza Stadt. <http://www.semarch.uni-hd.de/> (accessed December 15, 2016)+(accessed+December+15,+2016)>Google Scholar
Bergsträßer, Gotthelf. 1915. Sprachatlas von Syrien und Palästina [Linguistic Atlas of Syria and Palestine]. Leipzig: Hinrichs.Google Scholar
Blanc, Haim. 1964. Communal dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Blanc, Haim. 1970. The Arabic dialect of the Negev Bedouins. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 4(7): 112–150.Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire, and Warner, Natasha. 2015. ‘Lone Wolves’ and collaboration: A reply to Crippen and Robinson (2013). Language Documentation and Conservation 9: 49–85.Google Scholar
Cadora, Frederic. J. 1992. Bedouin, village, and urban Arabic: An ecolinguistic study (Studies in Semitic languages and linguistics 18). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah, Frazer, Elizabeth, Harvey, Penelope, Rampton, M. B. H., and Richardson, Kay. 1992. Researching language: Issues of power and method. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Caton, Steven. 1991. “Peaks of Yemen, I Summon”: Poetry as a cultural practice in a north Yemeni tribe. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Charity-Hudley, Anne, and Mallinson, Christine. 2013. We do language: English language variation in the secondary English classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Chikovani, Guram. 2002. Central Asian Arabic dialects: Qashqa-Daria dialect (phonology, grammar, vocabulary). Tbilisi: Georgian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Chikovani, Guram. 2009. Bukhara dialect of Arabic Language. Tbilisi: Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies.Google Scholar
Cotter, William M. 2016a. A sociophonetic account of morphophonemic variation in Palestinian Arabic. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 26: 060001.Google Scholar
Cotter, William M. 2016b. One piece of the puzzle: Notes on the historic interdental fricatives /θ, ð, ðʕ/ in the Arabic dialect of Gaza City. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 16: 149–162.Google Scholar
Cotter, William M. 2016c. (q) as a sociolinguistic variable in the Arabic of Gaza City. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVIII. Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic linguistics, Gainesville, Florida, 2014, ed. Haddad, Youssef and Potsdam, Eric, 229–246. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cotter, William M., and Horesh, Uri. 2015. Social integration and dialect divergence in coastal Palestine. Journal of Sociolinguistics 19(4): 460–483.Google Scholar
Crippen, James, and Robinson, Laura. 2013. In defense of the Lone Wolf: Collaboration in language documentation. Language Documentation and Conservation 7: 123–125.Google Scholar
Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa. 2009. Research models, community engagement, and linguistic fieldwork: Reflections on working within Canadian Indigenous communities. Language Documentation and Conservation 3(1): 15–50.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4): 453–476.Google Scholar
Germanos, Marie-Aimée. 2011. Représentations linguistiques et contact dialectal: Remarques sur l’évolution de cinq variantes régionales à Beyrouth. Langage et société 138(4): 43–58.Google Scholar
Haeri, Niloofar. 1997. The sociolinguistic market of Cairo: Gender, class and education. New York: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Hachimi, Atiqa. 2007. Becoming Casablancan: Fessis in Casablanca as a case study. In Arabic in the city: Issues in dialect contact and language variation, ed. Miller, Catherine, Al-Wer, Enam, Caubet, Dominique, and Watson, Janet C. E., 97–122. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hachimi, Atiqa. 2012. The urban and the urbane: Identities, language ideologies, and Arabic dialects in Morocco. Language in Society 41: 321–341.Google Scholar
Henkin, Roni. 2010. Negev Arabic: Dialectal, sociolinguistic and stylistic variation. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Herin, Bruno. 2012. The Domari Language of Aleppo (Syria). Linguistic Discovery 10(2): 1–52.Google Scholar
Herin, Bruno. 2014. The northern dialects of Domari. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 164(2): 407–450.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H. 2002. “Expert rhetorics” in advocacy for endangered languages: Who is listening, and what do they hear? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 12(2): 119–133.Google Scholar
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1998. Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36(1): 161–195.Google Scholar
Holes, Clive. 1987. Language variation and change in a modernising Arab state: The case of Bahrain. New York: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Holes, Clive, and Abu Athera, Said Salman. 2009. Poetry and politics in contemporary Bedouin society. Reading: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Horesh, Uri. 2000. Toward a phonemic and phonetic assessment of Jaffa Arabic: Is it a typical urban Palestinian dialect? In Proceedings of the Third International Conference of AIDA: Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe. Paris, France, ed. Mifsud, Manwel, 15–20. Malta: Salesian Press.Google Scholar
Ingham, Bruce. 2003. Language survival in isolation: The Arabic dialect of Afghanistan. In Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe AIDA 5th Conference Proceedings, ed. Ferrando, Ignacio and Sandoval, Juan José, 21–37. Universidad de Cádiz: Servicio de Publicaciones.Google Scholar
Ismail, Hanadi. 2008. Suburbia and the inner-city: Patterns of linguistic variation and change in Damascus . Doctoral dissertation, University of Essex.Google Scholar
De Jong, Rudolf E. 2000. A grammar of the Bedouin dialects of the northern Sinai littoral: Bridging the linguistic gap between the eastern and western Arab world. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
De Jong, Rudolf E. 2011. Gahawa Syndrome. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 151–153. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19: 273–309.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2010. Unendangered dialect, endangered people: The case of African American Vernacular English. Transforming Anthropology 18(1): 15–27.Google Scholar
Lucas, Christopher. 2010. Negative -š in Palestinian (and Cairene) Arabic: Present and possible past. Brill's Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 2(1): 165–201.Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron. 2012. A Grammar of Domari. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam, and Stanford, James N.. 2015. “Tings change, all tings change”: The changing face of sociolinguistics with a global perspective. In Globalizing sociolingustics: Challenging and expanding theory, ed. Smackman, Dick and Heinrich, Patrick, 1–15. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Naïm, Samia. 2007. Beirut Arabic. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 274–286. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Rice, Keren. 2006. Ethical issues in linguistic fieldwork: An overview. Journal of Academic Ethics 4(1): 123–155.Google Scholar
Rosenhouse, Judith. 2007. Jerusalem Arabic. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 481–493. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Sa'di, Ahmad H., and Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2007. Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Salonen, Erkki. 1979. Zum arabischen Dialekt von Gaza, Teil I [On the Arabic dialect of Gaza, vol 1]. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Salonen, Erkki. 1980. Zum arabischen Dialekt von Gaza, Teil II [On the Arabic dialect of Gaza, vol 2]. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Seeger, Ulrich. 2013. Zum Verhältnis der zentralasiatischen arabischen Dialekte [On the relationship between the central Asian Arabic dialects]. In Nicht nur mit Engelszungen. Beiträge zur semitischen Dialektologie. Festschrift für Werner Arnold zum 60. Geburtstag [Not only with angels’ tongues: Contributions to Semitic dialectology in honour of Werner Arnold on the occasion of his 60th birthday], ed. Kuty, Renaud, Seeger, Ulrich and Talay, Shabo, 313–322. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Shahin, Kimary. 2007. Palestinian Arabic. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 526–538. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Shawarbah, Musa. 2012. A grammar of Negev Arabic: Comparative studies, texts and glossary in the Bedouin dialect of the ʻAzāzmih Tribe. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Stanford, James N. 2016. A call for more diverse sources of data: Variationist approaches in non-English contexts. Journal of Sociolinguistics 20(4): 525–541.Google Scholar
Stewart, Frank H. 1991. Notes on the arrival of the Bedouin tribes in Sinai. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 34(1): 97–110.Google Scholar
Stoecker, Randy. 1999. Are academics irrelevant? Roles for scholars in participatory research. American Behavioral Scientist 42(5): 840–854.Google Scholar
Versteegh, Kees. 1997. The Arabic Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Woidich, Manfred. 2007. Cairo Arabic. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. Versteegh, Kees, 323–333. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 1993. Ethical considerations in language awareness programs. Issues in Applied Linguistics 4(2): 225–255.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, and Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 1997. Hoi toide on the outer banks: The story of the Ocracoke brogue. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar