Arabic Sociolinguistics

The second edition of Arabic Sociolinguistics offers an extended commentary on the important findings of new critical approaches to language and society in Arab-speaking countries. Following a recent wave of political upheavals in the Middle East, the book engages with latest academic works that relate language to power and conflict in the Arab world. In addition to thoroughly updated accounts of diglossia, code-switching, gender, language policy and language variation in the region, Reem Bassiouney discusses the most important recent development in the field – critical sociolinguistics – in a new dedicated chapter that challenges the tendency of applying Western linguistic methods and terms to superdiverse communities. By covering the key developments of linguistic theories and contexts with up-to-date examples to help explain the phenomena under discussion, this is the most comprehensive book on Arabic sociolinguistics today.