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Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context

Received: 21 December 2017     Accepted: 2 January 2018     Published: 22 March 2018
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Abstract

Within a rural-urban contact context, the present paper investigates linguistic accommodation of rural speakers (originally from Beni Snous valley, south-west of Tlemcen-Algeria) being in frequent and regular contact with urban speakers in the neighbouring city of Tlemcen. Gender marker is the selected linguistic variable which is used to address a female person. This variable has a reduced form [-i] and a neutralised form ∅ in the speech of Tlemcen speakers. However, Beni Bahdel speakers tend to diphthongise it by adding the suffixes [-ij] and [-ej]. Thus, the aim is to examine whether these rural commuters to the city of Tlemcen have accommodated their speech to the input variant forms [-i] and gender neutralisation ∅ or they still maintain their native variant form. By means of quantitative and qualitative methods, data analysis has revealed that linguistic accommodation has been attested in the speech of these speakers. Some social factors dictate the accommodative behaviour of these rural speakers to urban speech, as women are likely to maintain their native speech while men are prone to accommodate their speech. Such linguistic behaviour is reinforced by social-psychological factors towards both their native speech and urban speech.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 5, Issue 3-1)

This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Arabic Sociolinguistics

DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18
Page(s) 58-66
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2018. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Linguistic Accommodation/Non-Accommodation, Diphthongisation, Urban/Rural Speech, Attitudes

References
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[7] BRITAIN, D. (2010) Contact and Dialectology. In HICKEY, M. (ed), the Handbook of Language Contact. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
[8] CHAMBERS, J. K (1995) Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and its Social Significance. Oxford: Blackwell.
[9] DENDANE, Z. (2007) Sociolinguistic Variation and Attitudes towards Language Behaviour in an Algerian Context: The Case of Tlemcen Arabic. (Doctoral thesis). University of Essenia, Oran.
[10] DENDANE, Z. (2013) The Stigmatisation of the Glottal Stop in Tlemcen Speech Community: An Indicator of Dialect Shift. International Journal of Linguistics and Literature (IJLL). Volume 2, Issue 3.
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[17] JAHR, E. H (1998) Sociolinguistics in Historical Language Contact: the Scandinavian Languages and Low German during the Hanseatic Period. In JAHR, E. H. (ed), Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics. Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
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  • APA Style

    Fatma Kherbache. (2018). Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5(3-1), 58-66. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18

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    ACS Style

    Fatma Kherbache. Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2018, 5(3-1), 58-66. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18

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    AMA Style

    Fatma Kherbache. Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context. Int J Lang Linguist. 2018;5(3-1):58-66. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18,
      author = {Fatma Kherbache},
      title = {Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {5},
      number = {3-1},
      pages = {58-66},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.s.2017050301.18},
      abstract = {Within a rural-urban contact context, the present paper investigates linguistic accommodation of rural speakers (originally from Beni Snous valley, south-west of Tlemcen-Algeria) being in frequent and regular contact with urban speakers in the neighbouring city of Tlemcen. Gender marker is the selected linguistic variable which is used to address a female person. This variable has a reduced form [-i] and a neutralised form ∅ in the speech of Tlemcen speakers. However, Beni Bahdel speakers tend to diphthongise it by adding the suffixes [-ij] and [-ej]. Thus, the aim is to examine whether these rural commuters to the city of Tlemcen have accommodated their speech to the input variant forms [-i] and gender neutralisation ∅ or they still maintain their native variant form. By means of quantitative and qualitative methods, data analysis has revealed that linguistic accommodation has been attested in the speech of these speakers. Some social factors dictate the accommodative behaviour of these rural speakers to urban speech, as women are likely to maintain their native speech while men are prone to accommodate their speech. Such linguistic behaviour is reinforced by social-psychological factors towards both their native speech and urban speech.},
     year = {2018}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Beni Snous Speakers’ Linguistic Accommodation in an Urban Contact Context
    AU  - Fatma Kherbache
    Y1  - 2018/03/22
    PY  - 2018
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18
    T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
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    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.s.2017050301.18
    AB  - Within a rural-urban contact context, the present paper investigates linguistic accommodation of rural speakers (originally from Beni Snous valley, south-west of Tlemcen-Algeria) being in frequent and regular contact with urban speakers in the neighbouring city of Tlemcen. Gender marker is the selected linguistic variable which is used to address a female person. This variable has a reduced form [-i] and a neutralised form ∅ in the speech of Tlemcen speakers. However, Beni Bahdel speakers tend to diphthongise it by adding the suffixes [-ij] and [-ej]. Thus, the aim is to examine whether these rural commuters to the city of Tlemcen have accommodated their speech to the input variant forms [-i] and gender neutralisation ∅ or they still maintain their native variant form. By means of quantitative and qualitative methods, data analysis has revealed that linguistic accommodation has been attested in the speech of these speakers. Some social factors dictate the accommodative behaviour of these rural speakers to urban speech, as women are likely to maintain their native speech while men are prone to accommodate their speech. Such linguistic behaviour is reinforced by social-psychological factors towards both their native speech and urban speech.
    VL  - 5
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Author Information
  • Department of English, Tlemcen University, Tlemcen, Algeria

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