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Minia Arabic Converging towards Cairene Arabic Stress

Minia Arabic Converging towards Cairene Arabic Stress. Saudi Sadiq The University of York ss1272@york.ac.uk PARLAY (Postgraduate Academic Researchers in Linguistics At York ) September 6 th , 2013. Parlay 2013. Outline Background Present study Definition of the variable

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Minia Arabic Converging towards Cairene Arabic Stress

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  1. Minia Arabic Converging towards Cairene Arabic Stress Saudi Sadiq The University of York ss1272@york.ac.uk PARLAY (Postgraduate Academic Researchers in Linguistics At York) September 6th, 2013

  2. Parlay 2013 Outline • Background • Present study • Definition of the variable • Data collection procedures & sample • Results and discussion • References 1

  3. Parlay 2013 Standard and non-standard: Contact and impact • The effect of a standard dialect on other dialects has been shown in many dialect-contact studies (Al-Rojaie, 2013; Britain, 2005; Gibson, 2002; Hilton, 2010; Kerswill, 2001). • Linguistically, this is the outcome of contact between the standard dialect and the non-standard dialects through diffusion, levelling, convergence, etc. 2

  4. Parlay 2013 Standard and non-standard: Contact and impact (contd.) • Socially, it is a result of urbanization, mobility, migration (Kerswill, 2006) and spread of education, mass media and social media in which the standard dialect is commonly the main means. • All of these factors lead to diffusion of the standard dialect with its prestige in a hierarchical way from a “large city to city, to large town, to town, village and country” (Britain, 2002, p. 623). 3

  5. Parlay 2013 Prestige, diffusion and convergence • In western sociolinguistics, a standard dialect is prestigious. No difference between standard and prestige (Trudgill, 1972). • In Arabic sociolinguistics, however, standard and prestige are not the same (Ibrahim, 1986). The standard is either Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, both of which are written and not used as mother tongues. • A prestigious variety is usually the dialect of the capital. 4

  6. Parlay2013 Prestige, diffusion and convergence (contd.) • Because the capital dialect is the main means in media and arts, used by the upper-middle class, it acquires prestige, diffuses and speakers of other less-prestigious dialects converge to/imitate it. • This convergence is mainly due to contact between speakers of the prestigious dialect and the less-prestigious dialects. 5

  7. Parlay 2013 Present study Minia Arabic Converging towards Cairene Arabic Stress Cairo Minia North of Egypt 250 km south of Cairo Metropolitan capital Small city Population: 16 million 4.8 million and about and 8 million commuters 100.000 commuters More than 12 universities 1 university 6

  8. Parlay 2013 7

  9. Parlay 2013 Cairo Railway Station Minia Railway Station

  10. Parlay 2013 Cairene Arabic (CA) A highly prestigious variety in Egypt and the Arab world Used by celebrities, politicians and high society in Egypt Used in all types of Egyptian media Considered the Egyptian regional standard variety It diffuses outside Cairo, in all regions 8

  11. Parlay 2013 Minia Arabic (MA) MA is the dialect of Minia Being in the middle of Egypt, MA receives effects from the north (Cairo) and south (other Upper Egyptian dialects) MA is the only Egyptian variety that has two distinct sub-varieties (North Minia Arabic and South Minia Arabic) (Woidich, 1996) So, it is full of many variants and chosen for investigation 9

  12. Parlay 2013 Presentstudy aims • Investigating how CA is diffusing and affecting other Egyptian varieties. • As a case study, how CA is affecting MA • In particular, investigating how CA stress is diffusing and affecting MA and how MA speakers accommodate to it. 1 0

  13. Parlay 2013 Present study hypotheses 11

  14. Parlay 2013 Introducing Variables under Study: Syllable weights in Arabic 12

  15. Parlay 2013 Definition of the variables studied • Focus on how MA speakers avoid their dialect stress and converge to CA stress • CA and MA share similarities in stress placement rules except in 1. HLL (CVC.CV.CV) words which are most frequent in both CA and MA. While in CA, the penult is stressed (a), the antepenult is stressed in MA (b). • CA: [madˈrasa] ‘school’ • MA: [ˈmadrasa] ‘school’ 13

  16. Parlay 2013 Definition of the variables studied (contd. 2) 2. LLLL (CV.CV.CV.CV) words which are not so frequent but act as markers. In CA, stress is placed on the penult syllable (a). In MA, stress is placed on the preantepenult (first) syllable (b). • CA: [dˁɑrɑˈbɪtʊ] ‘she hit him’ • MA: [ˈdˁɑrɑbɪtʊ] ‘she hit him’ Focus will be on HLL and LLLL words. 14

  17. Parlay 2013 Data Collection Methods A. Careful Speech Style: • Picture questionnaires: suitable for people who cannot read or write, direct and does not make the participant read (reading in Arabic is not done in colloquial) 2. Closed questions: when it was difficult to use a picture (what do you say when blablabla?) B. Casual Speech Style: 1. Open interviews: (How do you spend your weekend?) 15

  18. Parlay 2013 DataCollected • Approximately, 36 hrs. of recordings were obtained from 63 participants. • Tokens obtained: 2839 tokens • Mean: 45 tokens • HLL syllable: 98.8%tokens • LLLL syllable: 0.7% 16

  19. Parlay 2013 Sample • 34 males and 29 females (Gender) • 29 villagers, 27 urbanites and 7 born in villages and migrated to town (Residence type) • 34 (18-30 years old), 19 (31-45 years old) and 10 (above 45): Age (3 age groups representative of the population pyramid) • 14 postgraduates, 33 university graduates and students, 12 high school graduates, 2 basic education graduates and 2 non-educated (Education). 17

  20. Parlay 2013 Sample (contd. 1) Residence Gender 18

  21. Parlay 2013 Sample (contd. 2) Egyptian Population Age (CAPMAS, 2013) Age mean (33 years) 19

  22. Parlay 2013 Sample (contd. 3) Education 20

  23. Parlay 2013 Sample (contd. 4): Social network index Designed to measure the effect of CA on MA speakers and how this leads to their convergence to CA stress • Occupation and contact (1-4) • Work/study place (1-4) • Nature of contact with people in Minia (1-4) • Visits of MA speakers to Cairo (1-4) • Having relatives, friends and/or colleagues from or in Cairo (1-4) • Age-specific contact (1-4) High score = loose network Low score = dense network 21

  24. Parlay 2013 Data Collection Considerations • The researcher has had deep contact with most participants (relatives, friends, classmates, workmates and neighbours). • Picture questionnaires and closed questions were the same with all participants. • Open interviews dealt with personal topics (favorite dishes, watching TV, etc.) and avoided formal topics (political, religious, etc.) as this might have led participants to use Educated Spoken Arabic. 22

  25. Parlay 2013 Results 23

  26. Parlay 2013 Results by Statistical Tests Results were analyzed by Linear Regression Model in SPSS Using the enter method, a significant model emerged F5,2833=575.946, p< 0.0005. Adjusted R square = .503 Significant variables are shown below: Predictor Variable Beta p gender .116 p < 0.0005 age .043 p =.005 social network .393 p < 0.0005 education -.437 p < 0.0005 residence .044 p= .001 24

  27. Parlay 2013 Education and Gender: R2 = 0.367 25

  28. Parlay 2013 Network score and Gender: R2 = 0.353

  29. Parlay 2013 Education and Social Network: R2 = 0.353 26

  30. Parlay 2013 Discussion Hypotheses revisited 27

  31. Parlay 2013 Hypotheses validated Gender: right hypothesis though the gap between males and females is not that big. 28

  32. Parlay 2013 29 Hypotheses validated (contd. 1) Education: right as hypothesized. There is clear evidence that the higher education, the more convergence.

  33. Parlay 2013 Hypotheses validated (contd. 2) Social network: right as hypothesized. There is clear evidence that the higher network score (loose network), the more convergence. 30

  34. Parlay 2013 Discussion: Gender Gender has been shown as a very significant factor in language change, and it is so here, though it is still less significant than education and social network. Why significant? Young females in Egypt are more anxious to get married and this requires prestige in appearance as well as in language. Young females are more anxious to have white-collar jobs (banking, teaching) and this requires prestige too. 31

  35. Parlay 2013 Discussion: Gender(contd. 1) With middle-aged and old females, being a mother is very important. Mothers are responsible for raising children and guiding children starts from language guidance. Ex: Do not say [ħanak] (MA). Say [bʊʔ] (CA). (mouth). Even if not a young girl or a mother, a female in Egypt is usually a symbol of ‘being different from a male’ and this leads to adopting a different way of speaking (including convergence to CA, the prestigious dialect). 32

  36. Parlay 2013 Discussion: Education and social network (contd. 2) Education and social network are shown as the most significant factors behind convergence to CA stress. Why? In fact, education and social network can never be separated in Egypt. Commenting on education in the Arab world and its role in building loose social networks, Enam Al-Wer (1997) says, 33

  37. Parlay 2013 Discussion: Education and social network (contd. 4) So what? Education involves spatial mobility: going to school and university Education involves distorting the dense network and making it loose Education also involves social mobility: being educated in Egypt is still an advantage in itself and an aspect of social status Thus, high education and a loose network are the most significant factors behind convergence to CA stress. 34

  38. Parlay 2013 What next? This study is the first to examine stress convergence in Arabic sociolinguistics, but it is not enough to prove MA convergence to CA in general. Other variables should be examined to offer a broader picture of MA convergence to CA, including stigmatized, salient sounds (consonants and vowels). 35

  39. Parlay 2013 REFERENCES Al-Wer, E. (1997) Arabic between reality and ideology. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7 (2), 251–65. Al-Rojaie, Y. (2013). Regional dialect leveling in Najdi Arabic: The case of the deaffrication of [k] in the Qaṣīmī dialect. Language Variation and Change, 25(01), 43-63. Britain, D. (2002). Space and spatial diffusion. In P. Trudgill, J. K. Chambers & N. Schilling-Estes (Eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (pp. 603-637). Oxford: Blackwell Britain, D. (2005). Innovation diffusion:‘‘EstuaryEnglish’’and local dialect differentiation: The survival of Fenland Englishes. Linguistics, 43(5), 995-1022. CAPMAS. (2013). Egypt in figures 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2013 from Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics: http://www.capmas.gov.eg/pdf/EgyptInFigure/EgyptinFigures/Tables/English/pop/population/index.html Gibson, M. (2002). Dialect levelling in Tunisian Arabic: Towards a new spoken standard. In A. Rouchdy (Ed.), Language Contact and Language Conflict in Arabic: Variations on a Sociolinguistic Theme (pp. 24-40). London: Routledge. Hilton, N. H. (2010). Regional dialect levelling and language standards: Changes in the Hønefoss dialect. (Unpublished PhD Thesis), The University of York. Ibrahim, M. H. (1986). Standard and prestige language: A problem in Arabic sociolinguistics. Anthropological linguistics, 28(1), 115-126. Kerswill, P. (2001). Mobility, meritocracy and dialect levelling: The fading (and phasing) out of Received Pronunciation. In P. Rajamäe & K. Vogelberg (Eds.), British studies in the new millennium: The challenge of the grassroots (pp. 45-58). Tartu: University of Tartu. Kerswill, P. (2006). Migration and language. In U. Ammon, K. J. Mattheier & P. Trudgill (Eds.), Sociolinguistics/Soziolinguistik: An international handbook of the science of language and society (2 ed., Vol. 3, pp. 1-27). Berlin: De Gruyter. Trudgill, P. (1972). Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. Language in society, 1(2), 179-195. Woidich, M. (1996). Rural dialects of Egyptian Arabic. Egypte/Monde Arabe, 27, 325-354. 36

  40. Parlay 2013 Thank You Questions????? 37

  41. Parlay 2013 So many Thank are due to Participants, Paul Kerswill, Sam Hellmuth, MartonSoskuthy, Adel El-Sherif and Basma El-Mahallawi 38

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