Arabic Sociolinguistics

by Reem Bassiouney

The first introduction to the field of Arabic sociolinguistics, this book discusses major trends in research on diglossia, code-switching, gendered discourse, language variation and change, and language policies in relation to Arabic. In doing so, it introduces and evaluates the various theoretical approaches, and illustrates the usefulness and the limitations of these approaches with empirical data. The book shows how sociolinguistic theories can be applied to Arabic and, conversely, what the study of Arabic can contribute to our understanding of the function of language in society. Key features: *Introduces current theories and methods of sociolinguistics, with a special focus on Arabic *Topics include: language variation and change, gender, religion and politics *Aimed at students and scholars of Arabic with an interest in linguistics and students and scholars of linguistics with an interest in Arabic

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Academic

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2009

About the author

Reem Bassiouney (Arabic: ريم بسيوني), is a renowned Egyptian author and Professor of Applied Linguistics at the American University in Cairo. The first Egyptian woman to earn a PhD in Linguistics from Oxford University, she is a leading authority in Arabic sociolinguistics. As a celebrated novelist, she has won several prestigious awards, including the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (2024) for Al-Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy, the Naguib Mahfouz Award (2020) for her bestseller Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy, and the National Prize for Excellence in Literature (2022). Her work, which bridges academic expertise and historical fiction, has been widely translated and recognized globally.

Reviews

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book, I suggest to read to it to anyone interested in the field of Arabic Sociolinguistics, but not only. While reading it you will not only learn theoretical aspects on Arabic Sociolinguistics, but you will also have the great oportunity to understand more on Arabic culture and society. The book is complete and deep, I have truly learnt a lot from it and at the same time I have enjoyed a lot the reading

[Drew Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely dense and academic… but it’s a textbook so that’s to be expected.

I was really impressed with how the author gave such a comprehensive view of modern day Arabic Sociolinguistics without requiring too much prior knowledge in the field. As someone who has spent time in the field, I found the book a helpful refresher for many concepts that I was rusty on in Sociolinguistics more broadly as well.

I found her assessment of the current state of diglossic communities across the Arab world in contrast to examples in other languages especially insightful.

[Nouran Soliman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Very rich
I want to give this a 7✨ stars

[JC Sevart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pretty interesting and thorough breakdown on the social politics in and around the Arabic language; I studied sociolinguistics in school and it felt like a return for me which I appreciated.

[Lobna · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Interesting :)

[Mostapha Oumarouche · Rating 3 out of 5]

im providing my researh on the linguistic structure of Morocco