Language, Politics and Society in the Middle East: Essays in Honour of Yasir Suleiman
Yonatan Mendel and Abeer AlNajjar
Abstract
This book aims to shed light on core questions relating to language and society, language and conflict, and language and politics, in relation to a changing Middle East. While the book focuses on Arabic, it goes way beyond a purely linguistic analysis by bringing to the fore a set of pressing questions about the relationship between Arabic and society. For example, it touches on the development of language policy via an examination of administrative mandates (top-down) in contrast to grassroots initiatives (bottom-up); the deeper layers of the linguistic landscape that highlight the connection ... More
This book aims to shed light on core questions relating to language and society, language and conflict, and language and politics, in relation to a changing Middle East. While the book focuses on Arabic, it goes way beyond a purely linguistic analysis by bringing to the fore a set of pressing questions about the relationship between Arabic and society. For example, it touches on the development of language policy via an examination of administrative mandates (top-down) in contrast to grassroots initiatives (bottom-up); the deeper layers of the linguistic landscape that highlight the connection between politics, conflict, identity, road signs and street names; Arabic studies and Arabic identity and the myriad ways countries deal simultaneously with globalisation while also seeking to strengthen local and national identity, and more.
Keywords:
language,
Middle East,
language policy,
Arabic language,
sociology of language,
Arab world,
Palestine/Israel,
language education,
Modern Standard Arabic,
colloquial Arabic,
language and conflict
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781474421539 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: September 2018 |
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421539.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Yonatan Mendel, editor
University of Cambridge
Abeer AlNajjar, author
London School of Economics
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