Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted Discourse-pragmatic variation and change in Najdi Arabic(University of York, 2024-04) Almossa, Amereh Ibrahim; Childs, Claire; Llamas, CarmenThis thesis is a sociolinguistic examination of the variation and change in the use of discourse-pragmatic features in Najdi Arabic (NA), spoken in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. It investigates three discourse-pragmatic variables: (i) MA: 2ADRI: (‘I don’t know’), presenting three variants: ma: 2adri:, ma: dri:, and madri:; (ii) TAYYIB (‘well, okay’), with two variants: Tayyib and Tab; and (iii) intensifiers, such as marrah, jiddan (‘very’), wallah (‘very, indeed’), and Sidg (‘really’). Quantitative variationist approach and qualitative methods are employed to examine the discourse-pragmatic functions of MA: 2ADRI: and TAYYIB, how linguistic and social variables impact variability, and whether lexical variation in the use of intensifiers is influenced by internal and external factors. Additionally, the research evaluates how grammaticalisation contributes to the variation and change of these discourse-pragmatic features. Self-recorded spontaneous conversations collected from 60 speakers, stratified across age (young, adult, and older-adult) and gender (females versus males) were analysed for the study. The analysis demonstrates that MA: 2ADRI: and TAYYIB perform extensive discourse-pragmatic functions, which are highly implicated in their form variation. It emerged that the choice of the variant of the variables is strongly conditioned by the speakers’ age and gender. The variation in intensifiers is constrained significantly by social factors and partially by linguistic factors. Changes in apparent time are attested by the rise of madri:, Tab, marrah, and Sidg, and the decrease of ma: 2adri:, ma: dri:, Tayyib, and wallah. Generally, younger speakers, primarily females, lead these changes. The findings suggest the variables have undergone semantic-pragmatic changes attributable to grammaticalisation processes. The developments of MA: 2ADRI: and TAYYIB exhibit further indications of grammaticalisation, including decategorialisation and phonological reduction.33 0Item Restricted An Acoustic and Perceptual Study of Interconsonantal Short Vowel Deletion in First Syllables of Najdi Arabic(University of Reading, 2024-07-26) Alsabhan, Rana; Setter, JaneThe process of short vowel deletion in open syllables word initially is attested in many Arabic dialects, such as Moroccan Arabic (Shaw et al., 2009), Omani Arabic (Al-Balushi, 2016), Jordanian Arabic (Bani-Yasin & Owens, 1987), San’ani Arabic (Watson, 2002), and Najdi Arabic (Ingham, 1994). The constraints that have been discussed so far which account for this deletion are attributed to stress (Bobaker, 2019; Watson, 2011) and syllable structure (Broselow, 2018; Kiparsky, 2003). It is widely agreed that short vowels are deleted in unstressed open syllables where the deletion does not result in a sequence of more than two consonants (Bani-Yasin & Owens, 1987). Few studies, if any, have examined the impact of the phonological features of the neighbouring consonants on this deletion. This thesis aimed to fill up this knowledge gap by exploring the effect of the phonological features on the deletion of short vowels in first syllables in Najdi Arabic from production and perception perspectives. Forty-five Najdi Arabic native speakers (31 females, 14 males) were recruited to do three production tasks: diapix, reading, and shadowing tasks to elicit various phonetic data that reflected different speech styles. The production data was acoustically analysed to confirm the deletion process. In addition, sixty-five Najdi Arabic native listeners (38 females, 27 males) were recruited to conduct an AX discrimination task, whereby listeners were asked to perceptually discriminate between two versions of the same word; one version with a vowel-presence and another with a vowel-absence. Both production and perception datasets were statistically analysed using mixed-effects logistic regression models to examine the effects of the phonological contexts on the deletion process. Results of the production data showed that male speakers significantly deleted first-syllable vowels more than female speakers and vowels were more likely to be deleted following a dorsal obstruent than a coronal one. The result of the perception experiment revealed that listeners’ perception was affected by three phonological factors. Listeners were more likely to detect vowel deletion following a dorsal obstruent more than those following a coronal one. Listeners were more likely to perceive vowel deletion in a front-to-back order more than those in a back-to front order. Lastly, front vowel deletion was more likely to be perceived than back vowel deletion. The manner of articulation of the obstruents did not play a role in the production tasks nor the perception task, short vowels were deleted in first syllables, regardless of the sonority value. These findings add to the phonological knowledge and understanding of the process of short vowel deletion in initial syllables in Najdi Arabic.23 0Item Restricted A Sociolinguistic Study of Subject-Verb Word Order Variation in Najdi Arabic(2023-05-04) Alharbi, Talal Mutlaq S.; Schilling, NatalieThis dissertation employs variationist and discourse analytic approaches to examine subject-verb word order variation in the Najdi Arabic dialect, spoken in the north of Saudi Arabia, which can be realized as either VS(O) or SV(O). The aims of this dissertation are to explore the linguistic and social conditioning of subject-verb word order in the Najdi dialect and to provide viable interpretations for the observed patterns. Drawing on a corpus of 20 sociolinguistic interviews with locals from the city of Arar, the speech community under examination, this dissertation demonstrates that subject-verb word order is linguistically and socially conditioned in Najdi Arabic, illuminating similar patterns to those found in the relevant literature on other Arabic varieties (Al-Shawashreh, 2016; Owens et al., 2013; Owens et al., 2009). Utilizing a multivariate analysis of the interview data, I find that these two word orders hold different pragmatic meanings: VS mainly constitutes presentation, while SV mainly indexes available referentiality. The social findings indicate that age is the main predictor, with younger participants using SV more than their older counterparts, who use VS at a higher rate. Explanations of the social patterns often present challenges in the context of syntactic variation, since syntactic variables may carry referential and pragmatic meanings in addition to associations with social group membership. Therefore, I explore such patterns by applying discourse analytic approaches, specifically the approach pioneered by Gumperz (1982) known as interactional sociolinguistics, employing stance (Ochs, 1993), positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990), and framing (Tannen, 1993a) and considering the local context of the interaction and the larger cultural norms of the speech community. Findings from the discourse analysis show that the different age groups frame the situated context of the sociolinguistic interview differently, with older participants framing it as a formal event where they are expected to provide information, and younger participants framing it as a casual conversation where they are building interpersonal connections with the interviewer, thus resulting in a difference in interactional styles and meaningfully impacting usage patterns of the two word orders. By highlighting the age-specific framing patterns, I argue that the higher use of SV in the speech of the younger participants reflects the variant’s interpersonal functions (e.g., communicating attitudes), while the higher use of VS in the speech of the older participants is connected to the variant’s function of communicating new information. This dissertation furthers our understanding of subject-verb word order variation in Arabic, which has received minimal attention in variationist literature. In addition, this study tackles the well-documented challenge of interpreting the social conditioning of syntactic variation by highlighting the utility of exploring variable phenomena, especially at the level of syntax, through a variety of analytic lenses.107 0Item Restricted Loanword Adaptation in Najdi Arabic(2023) Alhomidan, Majid Suliman; Wiltshire, CarolineThe interest in studying loanword adaptation has been accompanied by a long- standing debate on how to approach such phenomena. Various phonological and phonetic approaches have been proposed to account for such phenomena (Paradis & LaCharité 1997; Uffmann 2001; Steriade 2001; Peperkamp & Dupoux 2003; Silverman 1992, and Yip 1993), among others. Therefore, the goal of this study is to contribute generally to the field of loanword phonology and to the phonology of the Najdi Arabic dialect in particular. The study investigates the adaptations of English consonantal and syllabic structures into Najdi Arabic. Moreover, it examines whether the adaptations employed by Najdi speakers are phonologically or phonetically grounded. Therefore, 1,234 tokens were elicited from 12 Najdi participants divided in two groups: 6 monolingual and 6 bilingual Najdi speakers. Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004) is implemented as an analytical tool in this study. The primary results of this dissertation show that no deletion is applied in Najdi Arabic consonantal adaptation since four English consonants are adapted by substituting them with native Najdi consonants and two English consonants are imported. With respect to syllabic adaptation, the results reveal that NA speakers adapted illicit clusters by epenthesis, i.e., inserting a vowel to break up clusters and without any instance of deletion. Both consonantal and syllabic adaptations in NA show that they are phonologically guided. In conclusion, this study favors the phonological approach (Paradis & LaCharité 1997) over the phonetic approach (Peperkamp & Dupoux 2003).17 0