A sociolinguistic study of Jizani Arabic in Najdi-dominant contexts: language attitudes and dialect practices in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This thesis examines language attitudes and linguistic behaviour among Jizani women living in Najdi-dominant contexts in Saudi Arabia. Situated within Arabic sociolinguistics, the study examines how speakers evaluate, interpret, and enact Jizani Arabic and Najdi Arabic in everyday interaction. It addresses a significant gap in existing research by integrating attitudinal, ideological, and behavioural dimensions within a single sociolinguistic framework. To date, few studies in Arabic sociolinguistics have examined how evaluative orientations, language ideologies, and real-time linguistic practices intersect within contexts of sustained intra-national dialect contact.
Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the study combines matched-guise evaluations, semi-structured interviews, and naturalistic conversational data. The matched-guise test captures implicit evaluations of Jizani Arabic and Najdi Arabic along dimensions of status and solidarity, while interviews explore speakers’ metalinguistic reflections, experiences, and ideological interpretations of dialect use. Naturalistic conversational data enable an analysis of patterns and frequencies of Jizani and Najdi feature use, alongside an examination of the interactional and social factors that shape variant choice. This interactional perspective captures how linguistic choices emerge moment by moment in response to interlocutors, topics, and social positioning.
The findings reveal a clear prestige hierarchy in which Najdi Arabic is associated with education and institutional authority, while Jizani Arabic is linked to warmth, intimacy, and regional belonging, but also to lower social status. Crucially, the study demonstrates that dialect behaviour cannot be explained as a linear shift towards a prestigious variety; rather, it is shaped by interactional context, topic, family socialisation, and broader ideological pressures. These findings illuminate how regional hierarchies and sociopolitical change shape everyday communication practices in contemporary Saudi society.
By foregrounding the voices and experiences of Jizani women, this thesis advances research on dialect contact, language attitudes, and linguistic inequality in Arabic-speaking societies. It shows how prestige, stigma, and identity are dynamically negotiated through everyday interaction, offering a socially embedded account of variation in a context of regional hierarchy and social change.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Samah Mushabbab M Alsufyani: orcid.org/0009-0004-5546-4117

ORCID for Jaine Beswick: orcid.org/0000-0002-1866-939X

ORCID for Laura Dominguez: orcid.org/0000-0003-2701-2469

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