Routledge Arabic Linguistics Series – serie

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. This corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behaviour, and provides explanations for these patterns. Adopting a descriptive framework, the study addresses two main issues with regard to the discursive behaviour of idioms: the discursive functions that they perform and the ways in which they contribute to the cohesion of their texts. Examining primary data with regard to the semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties of Arabic idioms, the author touches on the ubiquity of these expressions in language use, the wide range of functions they perform in discourse, the problems they often cause in domains such as foreign language learning and translation, and their typical divergence from the normal rules of grammar and semantic compositionality.Providing explanations for major linguistic phenomena, this analysis will be accessible to linguists, translators, lexicographers, translation software developers, and language teachers as well as learners.

This book deals with two different pragmatic approaches to textual communication: (i) the mainstream approach followed by the 'Ash'ari s, Hanafi s and Mu'tazili s, (ii) the salafite approach followed mainly by the Hanbali s, defended and elaborated by Ibn Taymiyyah. One of the primary aims of the book is to explore and formulate several Muslim legal theorists' pragmatic theories, communicative principles and linguistic views, construct them in the form of models and set them within a general uniform framework. Another aim is to reveal a corpus of information and data which, though highly relevant to modern pragmatics, is still unknown. This study, which can be seen as an extensive introduction to 'medieval Islamic pragmatics', is the first attempt to examine the approaches followed by the Salafi s or the mainstream from a pragmatic viewpoint. There has been no attempt to explain the principles and the strategies utilised by the medieval Sunni Muslim legal theorists in their account of how communication works and how successful interpretation is achieved. Of course, a lot of work has been done on different Islamic sects and their different positions over the interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah, but these studies fall short of delving into the underlying communicative principles that motivate their differences over interpretation. The author's formulation of the Muslim legal theorists' views is enhanced by setting up a reliable theoretical foundation and by delving into their underlying philosophical principles. This involves relating the legal theorists' insights into interpretation and communication to their relevant ontological, epistemological and theological outlooks, and comparing these insights with their modern pragmatic counterparts.

This is a comprehensive study of the Jewish and Muslim dialect networks of Morocco in its traditional boundaries, covering twenty-two Muslim and some thirty Jewish dialects of Moroccan Arabic.

This book contains 17 studies by leading international scholars working on a wide range of topics in Arabic socio-linguistics, divided into four parts. The studies in Part 1 address questions of national language planning in a diglossic situation, with a particular focus on North Africa. Part 2 explores the relationship of identity and language choice in different Arabic-speaking communities living both within and outside the Arab World. Part 3 examines language choice in such diverse contexts as popular preaching, humour and Arab women's writing. Part 4 contains 5 papers in which variation, code-switching and generational language shift in the Arabic-language diaspora in Europe and the USA are the focus. The collection as a whole provides wide-ranging introduction to key areas of current research, which will be of interest to the general sociolinguist as well as the Arabic language specialist.

Islamism in Egypt is more diversified in terms of its sociology and ideology than is usually assumed. Through linguistic analysis of Islamist rhetoric, this book sheds light upon attitudes towards other Muslims, religious authority and secular society.Examining the rhetoric of three central Islamist figures in Egypt today - Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Amr Khalid and Muhammad Imara - the author investigates the connection between Islamist rhetoric and the social and political structures of the Islamic field in Egypt. Highlighting the diversity of Islamist rhetoric, the author argues that differences of form disclose sociological and ideological tensions. Grounded in Systemic Functional Grammar, the book explores three linguistic areas in detail: pronoun use, mood choices and configurations of processes and participants. The author explores how the writers relate to their readers and how they construe concepts that are central in the current Islamic revival, such as ‘Islamic thought’, ‘Muslims’, and ‘the West’.Introducing an alternative divide in Egyptian public debate - between text cultures rather than ideologies - this book approaches the topic of Islamism from a unique analytical perspective, offering an important addition to the existing literature in the areas of Middle Eastern society and politics, Arabic language and religious studies.

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. This corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behaviour, and provides explanations for these patterns. Adopting a descriptive framework, the study addresses two main issues with regard to the discursive behaviour of idioms: the discursive functions that they perform and the ways in which they contribute to the cohesion of their texts. Examining primary data with regard to the semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties of Arabic idioms, the author touches on the ubiquity of these expressions in language use, the wide range of functions they perform in discourse, the problems they often cause in domains such as foreign language learning and translation, and their typical divergence from the normal rules of grammar and semantic compositionality.Providing explanations for major linguistic phenomena, this analysis will be accessible to linguists, translators, lexicographers, translation software developers, and language teachers as well as learners.

Filling a gap in the literature currently available on the topic, this edited collection is the first examination of the interplay between urbanization, language variation and language change in fifteen major Arab cities. The Arab world presents very different types and degrees of urbanization, from well established old capital-cities such as Cairo to new emerging capital-cities such as Amman or Nouakchott, these in turn embedded in different types of national construction. It is these urban settings which raise questions concerning the dynamics of homogenization/differentiation and the processes of standardization due to the coexistence of competing linguistic models. Topics investigated include: History of settlementThe linguistic impact of migrationThe emergence of new urban vernacularsDialect convergence and divergenceCode-switching, youth language and new urban cultureArabic in the DiasporaArabic among non-Arab groups.Containing a broad selection of case studies from across the Arab world and featuring contributions from leading urban sociolinguistics and dialectologists, this book presents a fresh approach to our understanding of the interaction between language, society and space. As such, the book will appeal to the linguist as well as to the social scientist in general.

Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb is a corpus-based study that unveils the morpho-syntax and the semantics of the Arabic verb. Approaches to verbal grammatical categories - the constituents of verbal systems - often rely on either semantic-pragmatic or syntactic analyses. This research bridges the gap between these two distinct approaches through a detailed analysis of Taxis, Aspect, Tense and Modality in Standard Arabic. This is accomplished by showing, firstly, some basic theoretical concerns shared by both schools of thought, and, secondly, the extent to which semantic structures and invariant meanings mirror syntactic representations.Maher Bahloul’s findings also indicate that the basic constituents of the verbal system in Arabic, namely the Perfect and the Imperfect, are systematically differentiated through their invariant semantic features in a markedness relation. Finally, this study suggests that the syntactic derivation of verbal and nominal clauses are sensitive to whether or not verbal categories are specified for their feature values, providing therefore a principled explanation to a long-standing debate.This reader friendly book will appeal to both specialists and students of Arabic linguistics, language and syntax.

Filling a gap in the literature currently available on the topic, this edited collection is the first examination of the interplay between urbanization, language variation and language change in fifteen major Arab cities. The Arab world presents very different types and degrees of urbanization, from well established old capital-cities such as Cairo to new emerging capital-cities such as Amman or Nouakchott, these in turn embedded in different types of national construction. It is these urban settings which raise questions concerning the dynamics of homogenization/differentiation and the processes of standardization due to the coexistence of competing linguistic models. Topics investigated include: History of settlementThe linguistic impact of migrationThe emergence of new urban vernacularsDialect convergence and divergenceCode-switching, youth language and new urban cultureArabic in the DiasporaArabic among non-Arab groups.Containing a broad selection of case studies from across the Arab world and featuring contributions from leading urban sociolinguistics and dialectologists, this book presents a fresh approach to our understanding of the interaction between language, society and space. As such, the book will appeal to the linguist as well as to the social scientist in general.

This book explores speakers’ intentions, and the structural and pragmatic resources they employ, in spoken Arabic – which is different in many essential respects from literary Arabic. Based on new empirical findings from across the Arabic world this book elucidates the many ways in which context and the goals and intentions of the speaker inform and constrain linguistic structure in spoken Arabic.This is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of information structure in spoken Arabic, which is based on language as it is actually used, not on normatively-given grammar. Written by leading experts in Arabic linguistics, the studies evaluate the ways in which relevant parts of a message in spoken Arabic are encoded, highlighted or obscured. It covers a broad range of issues from across the Arabic-speaking world, including the discourse-sensitive properties of word order variation, the use of intonation for information focussing, the differential role of native Arabic and second languages to encode information in a codeswitching context, and the need for cultural contextualization to understand the role of "disinformation" structure. The studies combine a strong empirical basis with methodological and theoretical issues drawn from a number of different perspectives including pragmatic theory, language contact, instrumental prosodic analysis and (de-)grammaticalization theory. The introductory chapter embeds the project within the deeper Arabic grammatical tradition, as elaborated by the eleventh century grammarian Abdul Qahir al-Jurjani. This book provides an invaluable comprehensive introduction to an important, yet understudied, component of spoken Arabic.

Offering insight into linguistic practices resulting from different kinds of Palestinian-Israeli contact, this book examines a specific conceptualisation of the link between the political and economic contexts and human practices, or between structure and agency, termed "articulation". The contexts of the military occupation, a shared consumer market, controlled cheap labour migration, and the provision of social services, supply the setting for power relations between Israelis and Palestinians which give rise to a variety of linguistic practices. Among these practices is the borrowing of Hebrew words and phrases for use in Palestinians’ Arabic speech. Hebrew borrowings can demarcate in-groups, signal aspirations to a modern lifestyle, and give a political edge to humour. Nancy Hawker’s explanation for these practices moves away from the notions of conflict and national identity and gives prominence to Palestinian and Israeli ideologies that inform the conceptual experience of Palestinians. Addressing an understudied linguistic situation, Palestinian-Israeli Contact and Linguistic Practices brings us documentation and analysis of recent casework, firmly anchored in empirical results from fieldwork in three refugee camps in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Combining sociolinguistics with politics, economics, sociology and philosophy this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Linguistics and Political Theory.

This book explores speakers’ intentions, and the structural and pragmatic resources they employ, in spoken Arabic – which is different in many essential respects from literary Arabic. Based on new empirical findings from across the Arabic world this book elucidates the many ways in which context and the goals and intentions of the speaker inform and constrain linguistic structure in spoken Arabic.This is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of information structure in spoken Arabic, which is based on language as it is actually used, not on normatively-given grammar. Written by leading experts in Arabic linguistics, the studies evaluate the ways in which relevant parts of a message in spoken Arabic are encoded, highlighted or obscured. It covers a broad range of issues from across the Arabic-speaking world, including the discourse-sensitive properties of word order variation, the use of intonation for information focussing, the differential role of native Arabic and second languages to encode information in a codeswitching context, and the need for cultural contextualization to understand the role of "disinformation" structure. The studies combine a strong empirical basis with methodological and theoretical issues drawn from a number of different perspectives including pragmatic theory, language contact, instrumental prosodic analysis and (de-)grammaticalization theory. The introductory chapter embeds the project within the deeper Arabic grammatical tradition, as elaborated by the eleventh century grammarian Abdul Qahir al-Jurjani. This book provides an invaluable comprehensive introduction to an important, yet understudied, component of spoken Arabic.

Islamism in Egypt is more diversified in terms of its sociology and ideology than is usually assumed. Through linguistic analysis of Islamist rhetoric, this book sheds light upon attitudes towards other Muslims, religious authority and secular society.Examining the rhetoric of three central Islamist figures in Egypt today - Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Amr Khalid and Muhammad Imara - the author investigates the connection between Islamist rhetoric and the social and political structures of the Islamic field in Egypt. Highlighting the diversity of Islamist rhetoric, the author argues that differences of form disclose sociological and ideological tensions. Grounded in Systemic Functional Grammar, the book explores three linguistic areas in detail: pronoun use, mood choices and configurations of processes and participants. The author explores how the writers relate to their readers and how they construe concepts that are central in the current Islamic revival, such as ‘Islamic thought’, ‘Muslims’, and ‘the West’.Introducing an alternative divide in Egyptian public debate - between text cultures rather than ideologies - this book approaches the topic of Islamism from a unique analytical perspective, offering an important addition to the existing literature in the areas of Middle Eastern society and politics, Arabic language and religious studies.

This book deals with two different pragmatic approaches to textual communication: (i) the mainstream approach followed by the 'Ash'ari s, Hanafi s and Mu'tazili s, (ii) the salafite approach followed mainly by the Hanbali s, defended and elaborated by Ibn Taymiyyah. One of the primary aims of the book is to explore and formulate several Muslim legal theorists' pragmatic theories, communicative principles and linguistic views, construct them in the form of models and set them within a general uniform framework. Another aim is to reveal a corpus of information and data which, though highly relevant to modern pragmatics, is still unknown. This study, which can be seen as an extensive introduction to 'medieval Islamic pragmatics', is the first attempt to examine the approaches followed by the Salafi s or the mainstream from a pragmatic viewpoint. There has been no attempt to explain the principles and the strategies utilised by the medieval Sunni Muslim legal theorists in their account of how communication works and how successful interpretation is achieved. Of course, a lot of work has been done on different Islamic sects and their different positions over the interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah, but these studies fall short of delving into the underlying communicative principles that motivate their differences over interpretation. The author's formulation of the Muslim legal theorists' views is enhanced by setting up a reliable theoretical foundation and by delving into their underlying philosophical principles. This involves relating the legal theorists' insights into interpretation and communication to their relevant ontological, epistemological and theological outlooks, and comparing these insights with their modern pragmatic counterparts.

This book contains 17 studies by leading international scholars working on a wide range of topics in Arabic socio-linguistics, divided into four parts. The studies in Part 1 address questions of national language planning in a diglossic situation, with a particular focus on North Africa. Part 2 explores the relationship of identity and language choice in different Arabic-speaking communities living both within and outside the Arab World. Part 3 examines language choice in such diverse contexts as popular preaching, humour and Arab women's writing. Part 4 contains 5 papers in which variation, code-switching and generational language shift in the Arabic-language diaspora in Europe and the USA are the focus. The collection as a whole provides wide-ranging introduction to key areas of current research, which will be of interest to the general sociolinguist as well as the Arabic language specialist.

This is a comprehensive study of the Jewish and Muslim dialect networks of Morocco in its traditional boundaries, covering twenty-two Muslim and some thirty Jewish dialects of Moroccan Arabic.

Offering insight into linguistic practices resulting from different kinds of Palestinian-Israeli contact, this book examines a specific conceptualisation of the link between the political and economic contexts and human practices, or between structure and agency, termed "articulation". The contexts of the military occupation, a shared consumer market, controlled cheap labour migration, and the provision of social services, supply the setting for power relations between Israelis and Palestinians which give rise to a variety of linguistic practices. Among these practices is the borrowing of Hebrew words and phrases for use in Palestinians’ Arabic speech. Hebrew borrowings can demarcate in-groups, signal aspirations to a modern lifestyle, and give a political edge to humour. Nancy Hawker’s explanation for these practices moves away from the notions of conflict and national identity and gives prominence to Palestinian and Israeli ideologies that inform the conceptual experience of Palestinians. Addressing an understudied linguistic situation, Palestinian-Israeli Contact and Linguistic Practices brings us documentation and analysis of recent casework, firmly anchored in empirical results from fieldwork in three refugee camps in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Combining sociolinguistics with politics, economics, sociology and philosophy this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Linguistics and Political Theory.