Author: Uri Horesh
Date: 2014
Institution: University of Essex
Subject:
Linguistics
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Sociolinguistics
Abstract:This is a thesis in variationist sociolinguistics. It attempts to make a
contribution to the study of a dialect of Arabic—Palestinian Arabic—spoken
in a region where the population is gradually becoming engulfed in a
language, which was once quite similar to Arabic, namely Hebrew, but has
undergone drastic changes, particularly in its phonological structure, as a
result of contact with European languages.
Now, Modern Hebrew is acting as a colonizing language vis-à-vis Palestinian
Arabic, and in this study we are exploring the effects the contact between
the two languages on the phonology of Arabic in the town of Jaffa, where
Arabic-speaking Palestinians and Hebrew-speaking Israeli Jews reside,
perhaps not in harmony, but nonetheless in the same urban space.
Employing quantitative methods for one linguistic variable and a
sociohistorical analysis for another, we make the case that the two
variables observed in this study are but a fragment of the entire complex.
Examples from the data collected are provided and briefly analyzed, some of
which are from other domains of the language, and these will be further
explored at a later date.