Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton March 30, 2019

Variation in the acoustic correlates of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic: Gender and social class

  • Osama Omari EMAIL logo and Aziz Jaber
From the journal Folia Linguistica

Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of gender and social class on the acoustic correlates of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic. To achieve this goal, 40 participants were recorded reading a list of minimal pairs, and several acoustic measurements were taken, including VOT (voiceless stops), post-release duration (voiced stops), friction duration, vowel duration, and vowel formant frequencies (F1–F3) at onset and midpoint positions.

The results of the study reveal that significant gender and social class differences in emphasis production have different linguistic distributions. Gender differences were relevant at F1 and F2 at the onset and midpoint, whereas social class differences were evident at the onset position of F1 and F2, vowel duration, and the post-release duration of the voiced emphatic stop. Generally, male speakers produced stronger cues of emphasis, the non-prestigious form, than female speakers, as they made more F1 raising and F2 lowering in the emphatic environment. Strong emphasis cues were also favored by the lower-middle class speakers.

The results also showed that the effect of gender significantly intersects with that of social class. At F1(onset and midpoint), significant gender differences existed only within the upper-class group. At F2 midpoint, however, gender differences were evident only in the lower-middle class group.

Acknowledgements

This research project was partially funded by The Erasmus Mundus Hermes mobility program at the University of Genoa during June 2015. We are very grateful for the financial support by Hermes and the assistance of our colleagues at the Modern Languages & Cultures Department at the host institution. We would like to extend our gratitude to two anonymous reviewers for Folia Linguistica for their insightful comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. We are also grateful to Kathryn Pruitt, Arizona State University, for her comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We are grateful to our colleague, Dr Majdi Abudalbuh, who provided us with his expertise that greatly assisted in the research. We thank Dr Ryan LaBrozzi, Bridgewater State University, for his assistance in proofreading the manuscript. Thanks are also due to the audience of the 30th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics at Stony Brook, NY, for their supportive feedback. We would like to thank Mohammad Shatnawi and Ruba Rashid for their help in collecting the data of the study. We also thank our participants for their cooperation and patience.

References

Abdel-Jawad, Hassan. 1981. Lexical and phonological variation in spoken Arabic in Amman. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Abudalbuh, Mujdey. 2010. Effect of gender on the production of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic: A sociolinguistic study. Kansas, KS: University of Kansas MA thesis.10.17161/KWPL.1808.8096Search in Google Scholar

Abu-Haidar, Farida. 1989. Are Iraqi women more prestige conscious than men? Sex differentiation in Baghdadi Arabic. Language in Society 18(4). 471–482.10.1017/S0047404500013865Search in Google Scholar

Ahmad, A. 1979. A phonetic study of men and women’s speech with reference to emphasis in Cairene Arabic. Leeds: University of Leeds dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Al-Amadidhi, Darwish. 1985. Lexical and sociolinguistic variation in Qatari Arabic. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Alhammad, Reham. 2014. Emphasis spread in Najdi Arabic. Fresno, CA: California State University MA thesis.Search in Google Scholar

Al-Khairy, Mohamed. 2005. Acoustic characteristics of Arabic fricatives. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Al-Masri, Mohammad & Allard Jongman. 2004. Acoustic correlates of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic: Preliminary results. The Texas Linguistics Society (TLS) 2003. 96–106.Search in Google Scholar

Almbark, Rana. 2008. A sociolinguistic study of emphasis in Syrian Arabic. York: University of York MA thesis.Search in Google Scholar

Al-Shawashreh, Ekab. 2016. Aspects of grammatical variation in Jordanian Arabic. Ottawa: University of Ottawa dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Al-Wer, Enam. 1997. Arabic between reality and ideology. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 7(2). 251–265.10.1111/j.1473-4192.1997.tb00117.xSearch in Google Scholar

Alzoubi, Abdulaziz. 2017. The effect of social factors on emphatic-plain contrast in Jordanian: A sociophonetic study of Arabic in Amman City of Jordan. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Ash, Sharon. 2002. Social class. In J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill & Natalie Schilling (eds.), The handbook of language variation and change, 402–422. Malden, MA: Blackwell.10.1111/b.9781405116923.2003.00023.xSearch in Google Scholar

Assiri, Ahmad. 2014. Sociolinguistic variation in Rijaal Almaʕ, Saudi Arabia: A dialectological study. King Khalid University Journal for Humanities 23(2). 74–122.Search in Google Scholar

Bakir, Murtadha. 1986. Sex differences in the approximation to standard Arabic: A case study. Anthropological Linguistics 28(1). 3–9.Search in Google Scholar

Bassiouney, Reem. 2009. Arabic sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623730.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Bin-Muqbil, Musaed. 2006. Phonetics and phonological aspects of Arabic emphatics and gutturals. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Boersma, Paul & David Weenink. 2009. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/Search in Google Scholar

Chambers, J. K. 1992. Linguistic correlates of gender and sex. English World-Wide 13(2). 173–218.10.1075/eww.13.2.02chaSearch in Google Scholar

Cho, Taehong & Peter Ladefoged. 1999. Variation and universais in VOT: Evidence from eighteen languages. Journal of Phonetics 27(2). 207–229.10.1006/jpho.1999.0094Search in Google Scholar

Davis, Stuart. 1995. Emphasis spread in Arabic and grounded phonology. Linguistic Inquiry 26(3). 465–498.Search in Google Scholar

Eckert, Penny. 1998. Gender and sociolinguistic variation. In Jennifer Coates (ed.), Language and gender: A reader, 64–75. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Ferguson, Charles. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15(2). 325–340.10.1080/00437956.1959.11659702Search in Google Scholar

Habib, Rania. 2010. Towards determining social class in Arabic-speaking communities and implications for linguistic variation. Sociolinguistic Studies 4(1). 175–200.10.1558/sols.v4i1.175Search in Google Scholar

Haeri, Niloofar. 1991. Sociolinguistic variation in Cairene Arabic: Palatalization and the qaf in the speech of men and women. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Holmes, Janet. 1995. Two for /t/: Flapping and glottal stops in New Zealand English. Te Reo 38. 53–72.Search in Google Scholar

Ibrahim, Muhammad. 1986. Standard and prestige language: A problem in Arabic sociolinguistics. Anthropological Linguistics 28(1). 115–126.Search in Google Scholar

Jongman, Allard, Wendy Herd, Mohammad Al-Masri, Joan Sereno & Sonja Combest. 2011. Acoustics and perception of emphasis in urban Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Phonetics 39(1). 85–95.10.1016/j.wocn.2010.11.007Search in Google Scholar

Kendall, Tyler & Erik R. Thomas. 2010. Vowels: Vowel manipulation, normalization, and plotting in r, r package, version 1.1. http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/tools/norm/.Search in Google Scholar

Kent, Raymond & Charles Read. 1992. The acoustic analysis of speech. California: Singular Publishing Group.Search in Google Scholar

Khan, Mary. 1975. Arabic emphasis: The evidence for cultural determinants of phonetic sex-typing. Phonetica 38. 38–50.10.1159/000259648Search in Google Scholar

Khattab, Ghada, Feda Al-Tamimi & Barry Heselwood. 2006. Acoustic and auditory differences in the /t/–/ṭ/opposition in male and female speakers of Jordanian Arabic. In Sami Boudelaa (ed.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XVI, 131–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.266.09khaSearch in Google Scholar

Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Lehn, Walter. 1963. Emphasis in Cairo Arabic. Language 39(1). 29–39.10.2307/410760Search in Google Scholar

McCarthy, John. 1994. The phonetics and phonology of Semitic pharyngeals. In Patricia Keating (ed.), Phonological structure and phonetic form, 191–234. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511659461.012Search in Google Scholar

Milroy, James, Lesley Milroy, Sue Hartley & David Walshaw. 1994. Glottal stop and Tyneside glottalization: Competing patterns of variation and change in British English. Language Variation and Change 6. 327–357.10.1017/S095439450000171XSearch in Google Scholar

Nearey, M. Terrance. 1977. Phonetic feature system for vowels. Edmonton: University of Alberta dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Obrecht, Dean. 1968. Effects of the second formant on the perception of velarization consonants in Arabic. Paris: Mouton.10.1515/9783111357393Search in Google Scholar

Omari, Osama & Gerard van Herk. 2016. A sociophonetic study of interdental variation in Jordanian Arabic. The Jordanian Journal of Modern Languages and Literature 8(2). 1–21.Search in Google Scholar

Owens, Jonathan. 2001. Arabic sociolinguistics. Arabica 48. 419–469.10.1163/157005801323163816Search in Google Scholar

Poplack, Shana & Douglas Walker. 1986. Going through (L) in Canadian French. In David Sankoff (ed.), Diversity and diachrony, 173–198. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.53.17popSearch in Google Scholar

Royal, Anne. 1985. Male/female pharyngealization patterns in Cairo Arabic: A sociolinguistic study of two neighborhoods. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Trudgill, Peter. 1974. The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Trudgill, Peter. 1986. Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Wahba, Kassem. 1993. Linguistics variation in Alexandrian Arabic: The features of emphasis. Alexandria: Alexandria University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Watson, Janet. 1999. The directionality of emphasis spread in Arabic. Linguistic Inquiry 30. 289–300.10.1162/002438999554066Search in Google Scholar

Yeou, Mohamed. 1995. Trading relations between cues for the pharyngealized/non pharyngealized contrast. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) 13. 464–467. Stockholm.Search in Google Scholar

Zawaydeh, Bushra. 1999. The phonetics and phonology of gutturals in Arabic. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Appendix: List of stimuli

Arabic wordEnglish glossArabic wordEnglish gloss
tiibnon-wordtˁiib‘perfume’
tuub‘repent’tˁuub‘blocks’
taab‘repented’tˁaab‘he recovered’
siib‘leave’sˁiib‘touch’
suubnon-wordsˁuubnon-word
saab‘left’sˁaab‘he touched’
ðiib‘wolf’ðˁiibnon-word
ðuub‘you melt’ðˁuubnon-word
ðaab‘melted’ðˁaabnon-word
diibnon-worddˁiibnon-word
duubnon-worddˁuubnon-word
daabnon-worddˁaabnon-word
Accepted: 2018-04-30
Published Online: 2019-03-30
Published in Print: 2019-04-26

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 29.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/flin-2019-2007/html
Scroll to top button