Folk Stories and Personal Narratives in Palestinian Spoken Arabic

By analysing the folk stories and personal narratives of a cross-section of Palestinians, Sirhan offers a detailed study of how content and sociolinguistic variables affect a narrator's language use and linguistic behaviour. This book will be of interest to anyone engaged with narrative discourse, gender discourse, Arabic studies and linguistics.

'This interesting and beautifully written book by Nadia Sirhan is based on field work in Palestine and Jordan among communities she knows well. It combines the presentation of dialect data, a study of the cultural background and the nature of the texts, and an examination of previous work on folk tales and the nature of the various themes that often occur in them. It will be of interest to Arabic dialectologists, literature specialists and anthropologists.' - Bruce Ingham, University of London, UK

'This book provides deep insight into the sociolinguistics of Palestinian Arabic. The documenting of folktales and narratives and the detailed discussion of these provide a picture of how language is used in these specific contexts set against the general linguistic map of Palestinian Arabic.' - Martin Orwin, Unviersity of London, UK

'[Sirhan's] detailed and careful analysis of the subtle language choices and shifts of register made by narrators illuminates a dimension often overlooked in the study of folktales.' - Oral History

Autorentext

Nadia R. Sirhan is a freelance Arabic translator and tutor. She completed her PhD in Arabic Linguistics in 2011 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, UK.

Inhalt

1. Introduction 2. The Oral-Written Divide 3. The Lore and Tales of the Folk 4. Narratives of Personal Experience 5. The Arabic Language 6. Cultural Characteristics of the texts 7. Linguistic features of the Oral Narratives 8. The Texts 9. Observations and Conclusions