On the Way to Understand the Pan-Arab Voice

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary results of a PhD dissertation that investigates the linguistic features accessible to and employed by Arabs in their cross-country communication in a pan-Arab globalized TV setting, relating the indexicalities of these features to identity and ideology. The framework that guides the study is polylingualism in superdiverse communities. The scope of this paper focuses on the use of features of national dialects, the interlocutors’ dialects, and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The results show that Arabs dominantly use distinctive features of their national dialects. Using features from MSA or the interlocutor’s dialect, in most cases, is not to ensure clarity of communication. The use of these features serves functions such as creating a funny atmosphere and embracing everybody into the big sphere of Arabism and Arabness within. Results also show that in a globalized TV setting, Arabs tend to avoid getting into circumstances of incomprehensibility and project a sense of celebration of their superdiversity within an Arab world that is perceived as one.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 5 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.