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The present volume provides an overview of current trends in the study of language contact involving Arabic. By drawing on the social factors that have converged to create different contact situations, it explores both contact-induced change in Arabic and language change through contact with Arabic. The volume brings together leading scholars who address a variety of topics related to contact-induced change, the emergence of contact languages, codeswitching, as well as language ideologies in contact situations. It offers insights from different theoretical approaches in connection with research fields such as descriptive and historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and language acquisition. It provides the general linguistic public with an updated, cutting edge overview and appreciation of themes and problems in Arabic linguistics and sociolinguists alike.

In the Arab world, the comprehension gap between Colloquial and Standard Arabic has been recognized as a major force behind illiteracy and its endless negative repercussions. One adverse impact of this comprehension gap manifests itself in the courtroom. Courtroom translation in the Arab world (i.e. consecutive interpreting/reporting from Colloquial into Standard Arabic) occurs systematically and is the only means of documenting courtroom proceedings. Despite its functional importance in the light of language manoeuvrability and translation accuracy, the legal implications of the Colloquial—Standard Arabic proximity in the context of linguistic rights have not been theoretically nor empirically researched. Accordingly, this paper introduces the dynamics of language use in a hierarchical judicial system in one Arab country, Lebanon. This paper is a theoretical first brick in the wall of linguistic rights in the Lebanese courtroom, where — in the absence of a jury system — linguistic discretion in the legal decision-making process rests upon the bench judge. In addition, this paper highlights the vulnerability of illiterate people vis-à-vis the use of Standard Arabic in legal settings at the expense of their preferred first or only language, Lebanese Colloquial.

This article concentrates on the author's efforts to produce the first translation of Mark Twain's 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn into colloquial Arabic, and briefly reviews a few other major translations of Twain's masterpiece into Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic. The article reflects on this ongoing translation project attempting to present Twain's book in a vernacular Arabic dialect spoken in Damascus and the countryside surrounding the Syrian capital. It highlights and explains the rationale and inspiration behind this unique translation project as well as the reasons behind the selection and employment of this specific regional Damascene dialect. The article also discusses and exemplifies how all previous Arabic translations of Twain's novel used Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic and were affected by a motley assortment of cultural, political and religious factors that resulted in abridgement, adaptation, and censorship. These previous translations partially failed to capture the freshness of Huck Finn's casual voice, childish tone, and cluttered storytelling, along with the perceptiveness and seriousness of Twain's authorial intention, themes and comedy.

Reflects on the latest trends in the study of Arabic sociolinguistics New to this edition:A new chapter on Arabic critical sociolinguistics: the critical analysis of the field of sociolinguistics itself and its scholarly practicesExplains new theories such as language as a social construct, the relation between language and identity, stance, indexicality and translanguaging, with examples from areas not covered in the first editionDiscusses the political changes in the Arab world since 2011 and their impact on languageConsiders the role of new media in modifying theories and providing different kind of data for sociolinguistsThe second edition of Arabic Sociolinguistics offers an extended commentary on the important findings of new critical approaches to language and society in Arab-speaking countries. Following a recent wave of political upheavals in the Middle East, the book engages with latest academic works that relate language to power and conflict in the Arab world. In addition to thoroughly updated accounts of diglossia, code-switching, gender, language policy and language variation in the region, Reem Bassiouney discusses the most important recent development in the field - critical sociolinguistics - in a new dedicated chapter that challenges the tendency of applying Western linguistic methods and terms to superdiverse communities. By covering the key developments of linguistic theories and contexts with up-to-date examples to help explain the phenomena under discussion, this is the most comprehensive book on Arabic sociolinguistics today.Please note that Arabic Sociolinguistics is co-published by Georgetown University Press in the USA. If you in this area and are looking to buy a copy, or request a review or inspection copy, please direct orders and queries directly to them."