Language variation in Gulf Pidgin Arabic

Abstract

The paper is a report of an investigation of factors influencing variation among expat speakers of Gulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA). Evidence from GPA indicates that the morpho-syntactic features of the pidgin speakers’ L1 have a very low impact on their choice of its variants. A significant relation between the subjects’ L1 and their GPA speech was only found in one feature, conjunction, out of six morho-syntactic features. Comparison between newcomers and long-term residents in the Gulf reveals that GPA speakers shift towards Gulf Arabic, the lexifier language in one feature only (conjunction). In the rest of the features, they either fossilise or shift towards a GPA norm.

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