Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted Perception of Regional Spoken Arabic by Native Speakers(George Mason University, 2024-05) Alotaibi, Amal; Lukyanenko, CynthiaThis dissertation examines native speakers’ word recognition of, differentiation between, and social attitudes toward varieties of Arabic. It is a particularly interesting test case because of the Arabic unique regional variation situation and the available literature lacks data on how Arabic speakers perceive different accents, with a particular emphasis on their connections to the speakers' sociological and regional backgrounds. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to discover how native speakers perceive various Arabic speech varieties and test the accent familiarity effect to determine the effects of dialectal variation and language experience on speech perception. Specifically, whether the availability of information regarding the speakers' accent in the speech signal would influence the recognition of spoken words and sentences. To do this, I examine how two groups of native Arabic speakers; Najdi Arabic (NA) and Saudi Southern Arabic (SA), perceive and adapt to three different regional accents; NA, SA (‘own’ or ‘nearby’ accent), and Egyptian Arabic (EA) (‘distant’ accent). I conducted three perception studies to explore NA and SA speakers’ processing of regional Arabic varieties. In the first experiment, I examined participants' ability to recognize speech stimuli in their ‘own’, a ‘nearby’, or a ‘distant’ variety. NA and SA participants were asked to make a lexical decision (‘word’ or ‘nonword’) on target items placed at the end of sentences spoken by NA speaker, SA speaker, and EA speaker. Results show that participants were good at recognizing ‘words’ from ‘nonwords’ with an accuracy level of (93.3%). Moreover, ‘nonword’ trials have slightly slower reaction times compared to the ‘word’ trial type, especially for the ‘distant’ accent since it is not that familiar to them. Similarly, SA participants’ performance in ‘nonword’ trials shows slower reaction times as compared to the performance of NA participants. This demonstrates how regional accents can affect word recognition and that responding to a ‘distant’ variety requires more time and effort from the listeners. In the second experiment, I examined participants' ability to distinguish between the different regional accents. Another set of NA and SA participants performed a discrimination task where they were asked to determine whether two different talkers were from the ‘same’ region or ‘different’ regions. Results from this study show that all participants had relatively similar reaction times. In terms of trial types, responses from 'different' trials had faster reaction times, particularly those with 'distant' dialect (where EA is one of the combinations of the two audio samples). In the third experiment, I examined participants' attitudes, social representations, and social judgments toward the same regional accents, NA, SA, and EA. A new group of NA and SA participants were asked to rate nine audio samples spoken by three NA speakers, three SA speakers, and three EA speakers on social and personal traits, including accentedness, on a 6-point rating scale. Results from this social judgment task reveal that participants from both groups were lenient with speakers who speak their ‘own’ variety, especially in accentedness ratings. The statistical analyses also reveal significant main effects of participant accent and talker accent across multiple characteristics. Taken together, the findings of these three studies have shed light on the effects of familiarity with the own Arabic variety (familiar accent), nearby Arabic variety (less familiar accent), and distant Arabic variety (unfamiliar accent) on accents’ perception and recognition. In particular, the present research provides us with a better understanding of how native Arabic speakers generally handle the linguistic variation they encounter in speech in their daily life, recognize regional accented words, distinguish between regional accents, and express their own social views and accent ratings toward these various regional accents that are either ‘own’, ‘nearby’, or ‘distant’ accent to the participants. It will contribute to our comprehension of how accent perception works in general, how native Arabic speakers recognize regionally accented words and nonwords, discriminate between different regional accents, and evaluate the sociological background of regionally accented talkers.20 0Item Restricted Attitudes toward Arabic-English Code Switching in Saudi Society(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-11-16) Aldosari, Tareq; Dyer, DonaldThis study is designed to explore the attitudes of Saudi students at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University toward code switching between colloquial Arabic and English and toward borrowing from the English language in Saudi society, considering two significant variables: major studied and gender. The study utilized two tools: a) questionnaires that the participants fill out after listening to recordings demonstrating code switching, borrowing and Arabic-only and b) interviews that were conducted to explore further the participants’ attitudes and the reasons behind them. Both tools considered three dimensions: superiority, attractiveness, and dynamism of the speakers. One hundred twenty questionnaires were distributed to the participants who were divided into four groups based on their majors (English language, Arabic language, Islamic Studies, and Business Management), 30 for each group to compare the four groups’ attitudes. Then, the participants were divided into two groups, sixty male and sixty female participants, to analyze the gender differences. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS and two-way ANOVA. Twenty-four participants were interviewed: six participants for each major group, three female and three male interviewees. A thematic presentation approach was used to discuss the qualitative outcomes of the interviews. In general, the English language and management groups rated the code switching speakers higher than the other speakers. However, most groups feel that the code-switching speaker is superior to the other speakers. The qualitative result shows that the quality of education and the comfortable social class are the reason for their feelings of the code switchers’ superiority. The interviews show that national identity is behind the negative attitudes of the Arabic language and Islamic studies group toward the attractiveness and the dynamism of the code-switching speaker. Although the rate of the borrowing speaker varied between the four groups, the interviews show borrowing is a normal linguistic phenomenon in their society. The quantitative data show no significant differences between the two genders, while the interviews also revealed a difference in how each gender group expresses their attitude.67 0Item Restricted A Sociolinguistic Study of Language Attitudes Towards the Elawi Dialect in AlUla in Saudi Arabia(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-11-16) Albalawi, Arwa; Bailey, GeorgeThis study investigates language attitudes towards the Elawi dialect, which is a local variety spoken in AlUla in Saudi Arabia. The Elawi dialect provides an apposite context for sociolinguistic studies due to its rich linguistic variability, particularly from a lexical perspective. The study aims to explore how the Elawi dialect speakers evaluate the local variant of the second-person feminine singular object/possessive pronoun [-ʃ] and the local variants of the “hurry”, “what”, and “why” variables. In addition, the current study investigates whether female and male, younger and older Elawi dialect speakers differ in their perceptions of the local variants and supra-local variants. To achieve this aim, quantitative and qualitative data were collected using a matched-guise perception experiment, a self-report task, and open-ended questions. The results of this investigation showed that all speakers of the Elawi dialect – female and male, younger and older – perceived the local variants as less prestigious compared to the supra-local variants, contrary to what was expected. It was hypothesised that only female and younger subjects would perceive the supra-local variants positively, whereas male and older subjects would perceive the local variants positively. The hypotheses were inferred mainly from production studies because exploring Saudi dialects from a perceptual perspective has received little attention compared to the production field. It has been suggested that not all patterns observed in production studies seem to be reflected in perception findings. The results also revealed what seems to be a shared consensus among the Elawi dialect speakers on awareness of the Elawi dialect features and the indexical meanings that they associate with these features, suggesting their salience. In general, the present investigation has implications for understanding several theoretical concepts, including implicit and explicit attitudes, indexicality, and salience.15 0Item Restricted Saudi Parents’ Attitudes And Ideologies Towards The Teaching Of English As A Foreign Language To First Grade Students(2025-06-29) Alzuhairy, Uthman; Wright, LynThe Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia has recently updated the foreign language education policy (FLEP) lowering EFL exposure to first grade students. Such FLEP involves multiple stakeholders including school officials, teachers, and parents. The present study explores Saudi parents’ and children’s attitudes and ideologies towards the new state policy. Knowing parents expectations and attitudes could diminish the challenges that could arise along way and ultimately assist in the success of FLEP. A mixed method approach was embraced as 113 parents responded to a questionnaire and 6 participants volunteered to be part of semi-structured interviews. Only parents who had first grade children were eligible for the study. The questionnaire included twelve items that falls under five categories. Multiple tests and analysis were employed including factor analysis was repeated measure ANOVA. The semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom and were transcribed and verified by participants. An inductive thematic analysis were used to elicit parents attitudes and insight towards the FLEP. The quantitative results revealed three emerging factors 1) teaching quality, 2) language ideologies and identities, 3) usefulness of English and indicated a significant difference among participants’ responses across the three factors. Results showed that Saudi parents mostly hold positive attitudes towards the recent initiated policy. The qualitative thematic data analysis revealed five emerging themes. The findings mostly aligned with quantitative results and thoroughly explained parents beliefs towards the recent FLEP. This study adds to theexisting body of research on FLEP and advance it by offering evidence of the significant role of parents’ beliefs and attitudes as considering them could raise the potential of having effective and successful FLEP.48 0