A phonetic case study of a bidialectal speaker of Lebanese and Palestinian ArabicNiamh E. Kelly

American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Structural and Developmental Aspects of Bidialectalism

The Arctic University of Norway

Tromsø, Norway

October 25, 2017

nk114[at]aub[dot]edu[dot]lb

Introduction• Levantine Arabic

A subfamily within the Arabic language group

• Lebanese and Palestinian Arabic

Both members of Levantine subfamily, along with Syrian and Jordanian

Introduction• Highly mutually intelligible

• Phonological differences

Imala: “the change of a long aa to an ee-like value in the context of an /i/ in a preceding or following syllable” (Owens, 2006: p.2)

Characteristic of the Lebanese accent (Levin, 2011)

Descriptions of imala in many varieties of Arabic (e.g., Shalabi, 1957; Shaaban, 1977; Naim, 2011; Shahin, 2011; Habib, 2012; Wehbe, 2017)

No acoustic analysis

• Some lexical differences

[farfaˈħini] (PA) ~ [ˈbaʔli] (LA) (type of wild plant)

Background• Linguistic situation in Lebanon

Many trilinguals: Arabic, French, English (depending on education)

Regional variation in Arabic throughout the country

E.g., [q] as [ʔ]

Intersects with region, religion, age

• Palestinian refugees & sociolinguistic situation:

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon since 1947/48

Settled in Palestinian communities

Reports of exclusion:

• “Palestinians in Lebanon were systematically denied access to state education” and became “stateless” and sometimes “statuslesspersons” (Brynen 1990: 25, as cited in Hennessey (2011)).

Background• Palestinians are motivated to adapt to the Lebanese accent when

with Lebanese people, despite having grown up and often still living in Palestinian communities (Fityan, 1981; Hanafi, 2009; Sayigh, 1979 Traboulsi, 2007).

• Palestinian accent: covert prestige (Labov 1994a,b) – social network and support systems

• Leads to a population of bidialectal speakers, especially among the younger generation who are more integrated with Lebanese communities.

Current Study• Case study of one bidialectal male speaker, aged 33, who grew up in

a Palestinian community in the city of Saida (Sidon) but went to university and works in the broader Lebanese community

Pilot study, hoped to be basis for larger project

• Codeswitches automatically (unconsciously) but can produce both dialects on command (highly aware of dialect differences – typical of this population)

• Advantage of controlling the variable of speaker

Current Study• Current study focuses on cognates (lexical differences not examined)

• In order to examine phonetic differences in accent

No phonetic analysis of imala has been conducted before

• “Within the Levantine dialect continuum, Lebanese Arabic typically demonstrates the most fronted and raised variants of the phoneme. The dialect around Damascus, for example, has a much lower and further back pronunciation, while the Palestinian variant commonly lies somewhere between the two” (Hennessey, 2011, p.58-59)

So in Lebanese the /a/ is generally raised to /e/ whereas in Palestinian it becomes something closer to /æ/

Research Question

• What are the phonetic differences in vowels when produced in the Palestinian accent vs the Lebanese accent? Are these differences

measurable?

Methodology• Recordings were obtained of the speaker producing the target words

3 times, in isolation, first as if he were speaking to a Lebanese person and then to a Palestinian person.

• Tokens (Hennessey, 2011)

• Measurements were taken of F1 and F2 at vowel midpoint

[ʃeːɾaʕ / ʃæːɾaʕ] street [ʃeːf / ʃæːf] he saw

[teːli / tæːli] next [deːfi / dæːfi] warm

[ʒeːmʕa / ʒæːmʕa] university [meːʃi / mæːʃi] walking

[kəzzeːb / kəzzæːb] liar [sneːn / snæːn] teeth

[seːdɪs / sæːdɪs] sixth [beːɾɪk / bæːɾɪk] he blessed

[beːs / bæːs] he kissed [mfeːɾɪʔ / mfæːɾɪʔ] leaving

Results: auditory

Results: auditory

Results: auditory

Results: averages

Token F1 Lebanese F1 Palestinian

[ʃeːɾaʕ / ʃæːɾaʕ] street 469 620

[teːli / tæːli] next 408 551

[ʒeːmʕa / ʒæːmʕa] university 464 583

[kəzzeːb / kəzzæːb] liar 454 567

[seːdɪs / sæːdɪs] sixth 464 637

[beːs / bæːs] he kissed 399 590

[deːfi / dæːfi] warm 374 534

[ʃeːf / ʃæːf] he saw 456 600

[meːʃi / mæːʃi] walking 352 594

[sneːn / snæːn] teeth 381 486

[beːɾɪk / bæːɾɪk] he blessed 444 612

[mfeːɾɪʔ / mfæːɾɪʔ] leaving 477 624

Results: averages

Token F2 Lebanese F2 Palestinian

[ʃeːɾaʕ / ʃæːɾaʕ] street 1702 1567

[teːli / tæːli] next 1909 1647

[ʒeːmʕa / ʒæːmʕa] university 1795 1505

[kəzzeːb / kəzzæːb] liar 1620 1455

[seːdɪs / sæːdɪs] sixth 1758 1539

[beːs / bæːs] he kissed 1804 1252

[deːfi / dæːfi] warm 1898 1584

[ʃeːf / ʃæːf] he saw 1707 1419

[meːʃi / mæːʃi] walking 1967 1604

[sneːn / snæːn] teeth 1535 1437

[beːɾɪk / bæːɾɪk] he blessed 1660 1065

[mfeːɾɪʔ / mfæːɾɪʔ] leaving 1544 1322

Results: descriptive

Results: descriptive

Results: descriptive

Results: statistical• Linear regression test:

IV: Dialect

DV: F1, F2

Random factor: Word

To filter out effect of surrounding consonants and focus only on overall dialect patterns

• F1:

• F2:

• Palestinian has a significantly higher F1 (lower vowel) and lower F2 (backer vowel) than Lebanese

Coef. SE t p

Intercept 432.9 11.7 37.1

Discussion & Implications• This vowel difference between the dialects is measurable

• Supports phonological descriptions

• The speaker can distinctly switch between dialects

• New phonetic research on bidialectalism

Conclusions & Next StepsFurther questions:

• Analysis of codeswitching in natural speech

• Expansion: more speakers, more tokens, control for surrounding sounds

• Examination of more phonetic characteristics

• Longterm bidialectal situation: does this lead to the dialects converging or influencing each other? (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988)

• Perception experiment to see what characteristics (if any) of the Palestinian accent can be detected by a Lebanese speaker when the Lebanese accent is being used

• Other suggestions?

Thank you!Takk!ُشكرا ً!

References• Fischer, W. & Jastrow, O. 1980. Handbuch der Arabischen Dialekte. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

• Fityan, Ahmed. 1981. Subdialects in Contact in Palestinian Arabic in Baalbeck al-Jalil Camp. MA thesis. American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

• Habib, R. (2012). Imala and rounding in a rural Syrian variety: Morphophonological and lexical conditioning. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 57(1), 51–75.

• Hanafi, Sari. 2009. “Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Laboratory of Indocile Identity Formation”. In: Citizenships and Identities: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Khalidi (ed.), Institute of Palestine Studies.

• Labov, William. 1994a. Principles of Linguistic Change Vol. 1: Internal Factors. Blackwell.

• Labov, William. 1994b. Principles of Linguistic Change Vol. 2: Social Factors. Blackwell.

• Levin, A. 2011. ‘Imala. In Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, Versteegh, K., Eid, M, Elgibali, A., Woidich, M. & Zabroski, A. (eds.) pp. 311-315. Leiden: Brill.

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• Owens, J. (2006). A linguistic history of Arabic. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.

• Sayigh, Rosemary. 1979. The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries. Zed Books.

• Shaaban, K. (1977). The phonology of Omani Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin, United States.

• Shahin, K. (2011). Palestinian Arabic. In Versteegh, K., Eid, M, Elgibali, A., Woidich, M.& Zabroski, A. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (Vol 3. pp. 226-538). Leiden: Brill.

• Shalabi, A. (1957). Fi ʾæd-diræsǣt ʾæl -qorʾǣniyya wæl -lughawiyya (Published thesis). Egypt: Maktabat Nahḍat Masor.

• Thomason, S.G. & T. Kaufman (1988) Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Traboulsi, Fawwaz. 2007. A History of Modern Lebanon. Pluto Press.

• Wehbe, Reem. (2017). Raising of [ae] and [ae:] in the Lebanese variety of Mahrouna, Tyre: Phonological, morphological, and lexical conditioning. MA thesis. American University of Beirut, Lebanon.