Supporting the sociolinguistic repertoire of emergent diglossic speakers: multidialectal practices of L2 Arabic learners

ABSTRACT

This study examines the multidialectal (i.e. diglossic) practices in the sociolinguistic repertoire of speech productions of 28 L2 Arabic learners who went through training using the integrated approach to learn two varieties of Arabic at the same time: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Arabic. Specifically, the study investigated learners’ ability to draw on their sociolinguistic repertoire to prepare and perform end-of-semester presentations (where MSA is the main expected variety) and informal skits (where Levantine Arabic is the expected variety). The findings show participants’ awareness of sociolinguistic expectations and their ability to employ their sociolinguistic inventory to meet those expectations, making predominant use of MSA in the formal presentations and of Levantine Arabic in the informal skits. The benefits of integrated training were manifested in multidialectal lexis distribution, multidialectal features, and multidialectal repair practices. Participants’ awareness and ability to utilise multidialectal resources were apparent in their greater use of MSA lexis, conjunctions and syntactic and morphosyntactic features in the presentations in contrast to the skits. Learners also demonstrated their ability to engage in multidialectal repair practices, a finding that illuminated the regulatory control of their rich productive repertoire in the assigned contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Multidialectal practices
• L2 sociolinguistic repertoire
• L2 Arabic
• the integrated approach
• L2 pragmatic development

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by a generous award from the Hellman Fellows Program and by the assistance of Arabic Studies Department and the Dean of the Faculty Office at Williams College and the Middle Eastern Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Our sincerest thanks go to Na'ama Pat-El, Olla Al Shalchi, Cheng-Wei Lin, Ghada Hossein, Jennifer McGinty, and the research participants for making data collection possible. We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on this manuscript, Editor Jean-Marc Dewaele for insights and guidance throughout the review process, and editorial assistants Rizah Lilang and Sadat Ahmed for assistance with the manuscript.

Declaration of interest statement

No conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The programme introduced learners to MSA and one specified variety of CA (Levantine, Egyptian, or Moroccan) since the start of first-year Learners could continue with the same variety throughout their Arabic studies or switch to a different one.

2 The present progressive is typically expressed in MSA through the use the simple present tense alongside lexical features (e.g., alʔaan, now; fii haaðihi al-ʔayyaam, these days).

3 byitfarraj also involves the CA present-tense aspectual marker b-. This marker is typically used in several colloquial Arabic varieties to denote present tense habitual actions and could be dropped or used following the use of ʕam in Levantine Arabic.

4 haay can also be used to refer to a plural noun in Levantine Arabic.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Hellman Fellows Program.