The Sociolinguistic Market Of Cairo

Gender, Class and Education

Niloofar Haeri, Haeri

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780710305039
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136162695
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1997. The field of Arabic sociolinguistics has made rapid strides since the appearance of the first correlation studies in the early 1980s. Up to that point, studies of non-standard Arabic had largely been confined to the field of dialectology, in which the researcher's frame erred on the historical or cultural. Dr. Haeri's work falls into the Labovian sociolinguistic paradigm, with the edition of the awareness of the local social backdrop in her linguistic investigations and how this needs to be integrated into any correlation work, and also being area of the general Arab sociolinguistic frame of reference of which the situation in Cairo forms a part.

Chapter One

Introduction

In a walk around the city of Cairo, through markets, cafés, offices, universities, and mosques, one hears many languages. The powerful recitation of the azaan in Classical Arabic offers respite for a few brief moments from the racket of street noises that Cairo is so famous for. Upper Egyptian dialects can be heard in the exchanges of buwwaabs sipping tea and chatting in front of the buildings they manage. Cairene Arabic, with or without resonances of the classical language, of English, Greek, or French, is the variegated media of countless others in their daily interactions. The sociolinguistics of the city of Cairo presents students of language use with an array of dazzling challenges.

The present investigation aims to bring together contributions from sociolinguistics, sociology of language, and studies of Arabic (socio)linguistics, including diglossia (Altoma 1969; Schmidt 1974; Abdel-Jawad 1981), in an attempt to meet some of these challenges. The extraordinary success of empirical sociolinguistics since the mid-1960s is partly due to the applicability of its methods in diverse speech communities. By 1982, variationist studies had already been carried out in New York, Norwich, Belfast, Montreal, Paris, Panama City, Bahia Blanca, Tehran, Cairo, Amman, Bahrain, Sidney, and other urban centers around the globe (Labov 1982). Through detailed and careful analyses, such studies document aspects of the interaction of language and social structure. Although their approach to social analysis is largely within a quantitative sociological framework (with important exceptions such as Milroy 1980; Milroy and Milroy 1992; Eckert 1989a, b), they have contributed greatly to the deciphering of one of the most difficult and enduring puzzles in linguistics—how and why do languages change? This question which has been at the center of sociolinguistic theory leads to, among other things, a search for social groups that initiate and advance change, and those that resist it. Hence when a new form enters a given language, it is crucial to locate both those groups that “choose” it over its competing older variant and propagate it, as well as those who continue to employ the older form. Often, what is older is also part of the sociolinguistic variety that the speech community recognizes as the “standard” and “correct” variety. Thus, the principal way in which sociolinguists characterize the linguistic behavior of social groups is on the basis of the relative frequency of older, newer, “standard” or “non-standard” forms in their speech.

I began the fieldwork for this study by exploring the role of gender in the use of classical and non-classical Arabic in Cairo. This angle proved to be a highly productive beginning for a number of reasons. A look at the role of gender in the variationist framework necessarily forces us to employ the construct of “standard” sociolinguistic varieties in order to determine and compare men’s and women’s relations to the standard variety. The generalization that is sought is whether it is men or women who are “innovators” of linguistic changes; or keepers of the standard forms. But since the construct of a standard variety is inseparable from power, some analysis of social class becomes critical. In turn, the question of class brings into focus the issue of social mobility, which puts education, or more specifically the role that knowledge of the “standard” language plays, in the spotlight. An investigation of the roles of gender, social class, and education in the sociolinguistic setting of Cairo thus constitutes a central aim of this study.

But there are inherent tensions in applying theories and methods developed for speech communities like New York, to those such as Cairo. The study of the vernacular occupies a privileged position in sociolinguistics. Labov has repeatedly spoken of the vernacular as the “most systematic data for linguistic analysis” (Labov 1984: 29), defining it not as “illiterate or lower class speech,” but as that most spontaneous style of each social group “relative to their careful and literary forms of speech” (Labov 1971: 112). Arabic linguistics, on the other hand, following a tradition that has historically privileged Classical Arabic as its legitimate focus, expresses ambivalence or strong disapproval towards the study of non-classical varieties.¹ Even sociolinguistic studies of Arabic, unperturbed by the “activism” inherent in the elevated status of the vernacular, have in practice defined for all “social groups” identical means of style shifting that are provided by “Standard Arabic”—that is, Classical Arabic.² Such a direct application of the variationist paradigm fails to illuminate specificities of Arabic speech communities that can serve to enhance it.

The clash of two approaches—one exalting the “vernacular” and the other the “classical”—is fertile ground for asking a number of important questions: Are “standard” varieties socio-historical formations closely associated with the native speech of a group of powerful speakers within the speech community, or desired norms that are privileged largely through textual authority without reflecting the habitual and daily speech of any particular group? Is there only one “standard” per speech community? Is the use of “standard” varieties always interpretable as constitutive of “conservative” linguistic behavior; and how do we evaluate the use of institutionally sanctioned “standards” in contrast to those that are covertly sanctioned? Are both “conservative”? Are “standard” varieties of diverse speech communities directly comparable to each other as socio-historical entities? Do they play similar roles in the attainment of social mobility everywhere and for all segments of the society? These and similar questions are pursued in the present study through a framework that treats means of style-shifting and social dialect differentiation in broader terms, taking into account not only resources that originate from Classical Arabic, but also those that are created as a result of the dynamics of Cairene Arabic.

If some of the weaknesses of sociolinguistic theory are due to the specificities of speech communities different from those for which it was developed, others are of a more fundamental nature. The treatment of the social meaning of linguistic forms and hence that of their transition and evaluation is a general problem. Since the 1980s one of the major controversies in sociolinguistics has been the “paradoxical” linguistic behavior of women—their simultaneous “conservativeness” in situations of stable variability, and their “innovativeness” in cases where there is a change in progress. But a “paradox” can exist only if we assume that the social meanings of all variable forms are directly comparable to each other theoretically, and from the point of view of the speakers who use them. While the social meanings of older and well-established forms may be crucially captured in labels such as “standard” and “conservative,” those of new forms often escape the theory’s minimalist paradigm of “non-standard” and “innovative”—exhibiting a range of uses and users in a larger social field. Hence, methodologically as well, empirical sociolinguistics is ill-equipped to explore such meanings. In addition, sociolinguistic theory does not adequately address the problem of speakers’ characterizations of their own linguistic behavior, in particular where self-description and actual practice do not match. In order to understand more fully the causes of linguistic change, some attention must be paid to the relation between behavior and ideology. A fuller discussion of this problem is undertaken in Chapter 5.

Moving on from an appraisal of the variationist paradigm to that of “diglossia” as a model for the classification and description of Arabic speech communities, a few points need to be discussed. Diglossia as introduced and applied to Arabic speech communities by Marçais (1930) and Ferguson (1959, 1991) focused attention on the co-existence of Classical and non-classical Arabic. This was and continues to be necessary for the understanding and analysis of numerous sociolinguistic phenomena. However, a glance at the vast literature on Arabic diglossia that has appeared to date (Hudson 1992; Fernández 1993) shows three fundamental shortcomings. One is that “diglossia” has come to be used for the most part as a convenient short-hand in lieu of empirically grounded sociolinguistic and ethnographic research. Secondly, it has been extended to cover any “functionally differentiated language varieties of whatever kind” (Fishman 1972: 92). Thus, for some, it came to mean in essence any setting in which there is functional differentiation of language use. On the one hand, it is difficult to conceive of any sociolinguistic setting in which such a situation would not obtain. On the other, the concept of functional differentiation encourages ahistorical accounts in which the domains of appropriate varieties never seem to change, merge, or disappear. Finally, contrary to the interpretation of some scholars, Ferguson’s original model is not one of “actual language use” but rather of overarching societal norms (Caton 1991: 145). Indeed, the merit of the model resides in calling attention to such norms and to the ways in which the superposed variety is acquired. Caton argues that Ferguson’s description is a more adequate model of the “metapragmatic” norms or “cultural generalizations” that speakers share, rather than one of constraints on actual language use. In part, this may explain why some scholars found the dichotomous nature of the model inadequate. Since my central focus in this study is on stylistic variation, the model is relevant to the degree that it helps a historical understanding of the use of linguistic forms that originate from the classical language. I will use the term where it is more convenient than other lengthy labels. However, I have found the theories and methods of the variationist paradigm, with the reservations that were already articulated, better developed for an understanding of stylistic variation in Cairo.

I will analyze some aspects of the roles of education and social class by way of developments in the sociology of language and social reproduction theory using the construct of a “linguistic market” (Bourdieu 1977, 1982, 1991; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). The concept of the linguistic market is meant to explain the source, maintenance, values, and reproduction of a “standard” linguistic variety. It goes some way in helping us understand the language situation in Egypt. However, where such a construct assumes the existence of a unified or “integrated” linguistic market in which all institutions produce and reproduce the same values for one “standard” variety, it seems to ignore the impact of the global economy on countries like Egypt. The linguistic market in Egypt is not so fully integrated due in part to the fact that the public educational system alone does not create linguistic value.

The analytic challenges of Egypt’s sociolinguistic setting would require us to combine the methods of sociolinguistics with those of anthropology and history to look at the impact of political and economic systems and ideologies, religion, education, and the roles of colonialism and imperialism during any given historical period. The theoretical and methodological demands of such an investigation would go beyond what the variationist model, adopted and adapted in this study, has to offer. The present book is intended as a beginning, a first installment in a holistic line of inquiry into the dynamics of Egypt’s linguistic repertoire.

Overview of the Sociolinguistic Setting: Ways of Co-Existence

It is useful to consider briefly how Classical Arabic continued its presence in the daily lives of different kinds of speakers during the centuries following the Islamic conquest of Egypt. To my knowledge, there are no detailed and comprehensive studies of the language habits of Egyptians (or other Arabs) for any given historical period. That is, there are no published social histories of Classical and non-classical Arabic varieties.³ Considering the contact of those that can be considered members of a reading-writing elite with the classical language, in particular after the establishment of such important centers of learning as the Al-Azhar in Cairo, we know that the language of texts they read, wrote, and analyzed was Classical Arabic. Classical Arabic, throughout the centuries following the emergence and spread of Islam, served as a lingua franca connecting Muslim scholars around the globe. For the majority outside of the reading-writing elite, it is more difficult to ascertain the ways in which the classical language continued its presence in their lives. But we may infer that before the spread of mass education, their contact with Classical Arabic was through recitations of daily prayers, reading, hearing or memorizing parts of the Quran, and listening to sermons or political speeches.⁴

The gradual development of mass education beginning with Muhammad Ali’s military schools, brought Classical Arabic more forcefully to the domain of public education (Heyworth-Dunn 1939; Hourani 1991a; Vatikiotis 1991). The process through which Classical Arabic was finally declared as the official language of Egypt and the many debates surrounding the “language question” that various individuals and groups engaged in during different periods would require a separate study (see Chejne 1969; Gershoni and Jankowski 1986). But this brief historical discussion helps to contextualize the linguistic influences of Classical Arabic on present-day non-classical varieties. One example of this influence, which has attracted much attention, is dealt with in Chapter 4 where the “re-appearance” of the Classical Arabic sound “qaf” is considered in detail.

At present, Classical Arabic as the official language of the country, is the medium of education at all levels in the public state schools where the majority of Egyptians acquire their education. Basic literacy skills such as reading and writing are taught in Classical Arabic. The classical language dominates all official domains including most published material such as newspapers, magazines, journals, books of non-fiction, as well as fiction. The use of Classical Arabic in most written domains, includes instructions of use on commercial products such as fire extinguishers, nose sprays, insect repellents and so on.

Egyptian Arabic, on the other hand, is the mother tongue of elite and non-elite Egyptians. It is the language of daily life and interactions, not only within the home and among intimates, but also in institutions and between strangers. As long as interactions are oral and face to face, Egyptian Arabic dominates. Egyptian Arabic has been the vehicle of epic poems, folklore, plays, proverbs, and songs. In the print media, there are publications in Egyptian Arabic. These include satirical newspapers and weeklies, poetry, and plays (Booth 1992). Comic strips are published both in Classical and Egyptian Arabic (Douglas and Malti-Douglas 1994); translation of comic strips such as Tintin (Belgian French in the original) are in Classical Arabic. The dialect of the capital, Cairo, has much national and regional prestige. At the moment, almost all films are produced using Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptian film industry is quite prolific and since the 1930s has exported hundreds of films to other parts of the Arab world. Most television productions are also in Egyptian Arabic. These include soap operas, films made for television, children’s programs, the announcement of programs by mostly female announcers, farmers’ programs, documentaries, and so on. The one program that is entirely in Classical Arabic is the news, usually with two announcers, a woman and a man, or less frequently, two men. There are at times, issue-centered programs in which several experts debate a particular issue or topic. Here, participants sometimes attempt to speak in the classical language. But even in this context where the topic of discussion is “formal,” the matrix language remains Egyptian Arabic, at times with lexical borrowings, and less frequently with brief switches to what the speaker believes is Classical Arabic. A brief observation regarding television commercials should be mentioned here. I did not undertake their detailed study in terms of language use, but in general, commercials for high technology, expensive products such as personal computers, involved the booming voice of a man who praised the product in some version of Classical Arabic, and who never appeared on the screen. On the other hand, for more common and less expensive products such as cookies, soft drinks, baby diapers and so on, either a man or woman was shown describing the product or singing a jingle in Egyptian Arabic. Thus, on television as well, it is the latter that is employed in the majority of programs.

With this brief sketch of the co-existence of Classical and Egyptian Arabic, we are now in a position to pose questions regarding conceptualizations of stylistic variation in Arabic-speaking speech communities. Again, the role of gender in the differentiation of stylistic resources exposes ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Editor’s Note
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Notes on Transcription
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Methodology
• Chapter 3 Palatalization: A Non-classical Stylistic Resource of Cairene Arabic
• Chapter 4 The Re-appearance of a Classical Sound: The Qaf
• Chapter 5 Searching for Explanations: Gender, Class, and Education
• Chapter 6 Language Attitudes and Ideologies
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Bibliography
• Index
• Glossary of Technical Terms