Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Arabic Applied Linguistics
- Part II Arabic Variation and Sociolinguistics
- 7 Diglossia, Variation, and Structural Complexity
- 8 Sociolinguistic Variation and Variation in Sociolinguistics
- 9 What Is Formal Spoken Arabic?
- 10 Arabic Dialectology
- 11 Maltese
- Part III Theoretical and Descriptive Studies
- Part IV Arabic Computational and Corpus Linguistics
- Part V Arabic Linguistics and New Media Studies
- Part VI Arabic Linguistics in Literature and Translation
- Index
- References
9 - What Is Formal Spoken Arabic?
from Part II - Arabic Variation and Sociolinguistics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2021
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Arabic Applied Linguistics
- Part II Arabic Variation and Sociolinguistics
- 7 Diglossia, Variation, and Structural Complexity
- 8 Sociolinguistic Variation and Variation in Sociolinguistics
- 9 What Is Formal Spoken Arabic?
- 10 Arabic Dialectology
- 11 Maltese
- Part III Theoretical and Descriptive Studies
- Part IV Arabic Computational and Corpus Linguistics
- Part V Arabic Linguistics and New Media Studies
- Part VI Arabic Linguistics in Literature and Translation
- Index
- References
Summary
Gunvor Mejdell writes about the phenomenon variously referred to as formal spoken Arabic (FSA) or educated spoken Arabic (ESA), a more formal Arabic variant that is used on occasions that require a less intimate or less relaxed variant of spoken Arabic. FSA/ESA plays a flexible intermediate role between everyday vernacular and Modern Standard Arabic that allows for calibration to spontaneous but more formalized speech on public or official occasions. That such a form of spoken Arabic has arisen is not unusual but it complicates the traditional diglossia idea of high and low variants of Arabic which have specific, bounded domains of performance. The term lugha wusṭā ‘middle language’ is often used to refer to this variant of Arabic, as is the term lughat al-muthaqqafīn, ‘language of the cultured’. The middle language also relates to the idea of an Arabic koiné, a spoken variant originally identified and discussed by Charles Ferguson. It remains controversial because of its malleability and its own regional differences, and also because it functions as a bridge between regional written and spoken forms of Arabic. Mejdell discusses aspects of codeswitching, but notes that no stability exists in FSA/ESA even at the personal level.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics , pp. 199 - 213Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Abdel-Massih, E. T. (1975). A Sample Lexicon of Pan-Arabic. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Al-Boukry, H. (2016). Moroccan Darija’s Status in Pan-Arab Pop Culture. Student master term paper, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Alosh, M. (1997). Learner, Text and Context in Foreign Language Acquisition: An Arabic Perspective. Columbus, OH: Foreign Language Publications Office.Google Scholar
Altoma, S. J. (1970). Language education in Arab countries and the role of the academies. In Sebeok, T. A., ed., Current Trends in Linguistics 6. The Hague: Mouton, 690–720.Google Scholar
Badawi, E. M. (1973). Mustawayāt al-lugha al-muʿāṣira fī miṣr [Levels of contemporary language in Egypt]. Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif.Google Scholar
Badawi, E. M. (1985). Educated Spoken Arabic: A problem in teaching Arabic as a foreign language. In Jankowsky, K. R., ed., Scientific and Humanistic Dimensions of Language. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 15–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishai, W. B. (1966). Modern Inter-Arabic. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86, 319–23.Google Scholar
Blanc, H. (1960). Style variations in spoken Arabic: A sample of interdialectal educated conversation. In Ferguson, C. A., ed., Contributions to Arabic Linguistics. Middle Eastern Monograph Series III. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 79–161.Google Scholar
Boussofara-Omar, N. (2006a). Neither third language nor middle varieties but diglossic switching. Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik, 45, 55–80.Google Scholar
Boussofara-Omar, N. (2006b). Diglossia. In Versteegh, K. et al. eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. I, 629–37.Google Scholar
Caubet, D. (2017). Morocco: An informal passage to L=literacy in dārija (Moroccan Arabic). In Høigilt, J. and Mejdell, G., eds., The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World: Writing Change. Leiden: Brill (Open Access), 116–41.Google Scholar
Doss, M. (2004). Cultural dynamics and linguistic practice in contemporary Egypt. In Abdelrahim, A. et al., eds., Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt. Cairo Papers in Social Science 27, 1&2, 51–68.Google Scholar
Eid, M. (1982). The non-randomness of diglossic variation in Arabic. Glossa, 16(1), 54–84.Google Scholar
Eid, M. (1988). Principles for codeswitching between standard and Egyptian Arabic. Al-ʿArabiyya, 21, 51–79.Google Scholar
El-Hassan, S. A. (1978). Educated Spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant: A critical review of diglossia and related concepts. Archivum Linguisticum, 8, 112–32.Google Scholar
Ferghaly, A. (2005). A case for an inter-Arabic grammar. In Elgibali, A., ed., Investigating Arabic: Current Parameters in Analysis and Learning. Leiden: Brill, 29–49.Google Scholar
Hachimi, A. (2016). Moroccan artists ‘blacklisted’: Dialect loyalty and gendered national identity in an age of digital discourse. In Davies, S. and Soltan, U., eds., Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVII. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana, (2013). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 123–50.Google Scholar
Hallberg, A. (2016). Case Endings in Spoken Standard Arabic. (Studia Orientalia Lundensia. Nova Series.) Lund: Lund University Press. lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/8524489.Google Scholar
Harrell, R. (1960). A linguistic analysis of Egyptian Radio Arabic. In Ferguson, C. A., ed., Contributions to Arabic Linguistics, Harvard Middle Eastern monographs 3, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 3–77.Google Scholar
Holes, C. (1995). Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions and Varieties. London: Longman. [New edition, Georgetown University Press (2004).]Google Scholar
Høigilt, J. (2017). Dialect with an attitude: Language and criticism in new Egyptian print media. In Høigilt, J. and Mejdell, G., eds., The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World: Writing Change. Leiden: Brill (Open Access), 166–89.Google Scholar
Høigilt, J. and Mejdell, G. (eds.) (2017). The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World: Writing Change. Leiden/Boston: Brill (Open Access).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibrahim, M. H. (1986). Standard and prestige language: A problem in Arabic sociolinguistics. Anthropological Linguistics, 28(1), 115–26.Google Scholar
Lecerf, J. (1932–34). Littérature dialectale et Renaissance arabe moderne. Paris: Bulletin de l´Institut Français de Damas.Google Scholar
Mazraani, N. (1997). Aspects of Language Variation in Arabic Political Speech-Making. Surrey, UK: Curzon.Google Scholar
Mehall, D. (1999). The Verb Morphology of Unscripted Oral Media Arabic. PhD dissertation, Georgetown University. (Thesis # 7597 at UMI Dissertation Services.)Google Scholar
Meiseles, G. (1980). Educated Spoken Arabic and the Arabic language continuum. Archivum Linguisticum, XI(2), 118–43.Google Scholar
Mejdell, G. (2006). Mixed Styles in Spoken Arabic in Egypt. Somewhere between Order and Chaos. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mejdell, G. (2011). Lugha wusṭā. In Lutz, E. and de Jon, R., eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Online edition.Google Scholar
Mejdell, G. (2011–2012), Diglossia, code switching, style variation, and congruence. Notions for analyzing mixed Arabic. Al-ʿArabiyya, 44/45, 29–39.Google Scholar
Miller, C. (2007). Arabic urban vernaculars. Development and change. In Miller, C., Al-Wer, E., Caubet, D., and Watson, J. C. E., eds., Arabic in the City. Issues in Dialect Contact and Language Variation. London: Routledge, 1–31.Google Scholar
Miller, C. (2017). Contemporary dārija writings in Morocco. In Høigilt, J. and Mejdell, G., eds., The Politics of Written Language in the Arab World. Writing Change, Leiden: Brill (Open Access), 90–115.Google Scholar
Mitchell, T. F. (1975). Some preliminary observations on the Arabic koine. British Society for Middle East Studies Bulletin, 2(2), 70–86.Google Scholar
Mitchell, T. F. (1978). Educated Spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant, with special reference to participle and tense. Journal of Linguistics, 14(2), 227–58 .Google Scholar
Mitchell, T. F. (1986). What is educated spoken Arabic? International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 61, 7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, T. F. and El-Hassan, S. A. (1994). Modality, Mood and Aspect in Spoken Arabic – with Special Reference to Egypt and the Levant. London: Keagan Paul International.Google Scholar
Muysken, P. (2000). Bilingual Speech: A Typology of Code-Mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Palva, H. (1969). Notes on Classicization in modern colloquial Arabic. Studia Orientalia, XL:3, Helsinki.Google Scholar
Palva, H. (1982). Patterns of koineization in modern colloquial Arabic. Acta Orientalia, 43, 13–32.Google Scholar
Parkinson, D. (2003). Verbal features in oral fuṣḥā in Cairo. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 163, 126–66.Google Scholar
Pepe, T. (2014). Blogging from Egypt: Digital Literature, 2005–2016. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Petersen, J. (1988). Word-internal code-switching constraints in a bilingual child’s grammar. Linguistics, 26, 479–93.Google Scholar
Ryding, K. C. (1990). Formal Spoken Arabic: Basic Course. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Ryding, K. C. (2006). Educated Arabic. In Versteegh, K et al., eds., Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. I. Leiden: Brill, 666–71.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. W. (1974). Sociostylistic Variation in Spoken Egyptian Arabic: A Re-examination of the Concept of Diglossia. PhD thesis, Brown University.Google Scholar
Schulz, D. E. (1981). Diglossia and Variation in Formal Spoken Arabic in Egypt. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin at Madison.Google Scholar
Skogseth, G. (2000). Egyptian Radio Arabic: A Phonological Analysis of the Language in EBA News Broadcasts. Master’s thesis, Oslo: Department of East European and Oriental Studies, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Taha, Z. A. (2007). Educated Spoken Arabic: How could it help in redefining the ACTFL guidelines? Al-ʿArabiyya, 41/42, 104–14.Google Scholar
Walters, K. (2003). Fergie’s prescience: The changing nature of diglossia in Tunisia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 163, 77–109.Google Scholar
Youssi, A. (1983). La triglossie dans la typologie linguistique. La Linguistique, 19(2), 71–83.Google Scholar
Youssi, A. (1995). The Moroccan triglossia: Facts and implications. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 112, 29–44.Google Scholar