Publications

Publication details [#62151]

Isleem, Martin. 2016. Arabic-Hebrew codeswitching: the case of the Druze community in Israel. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 26 (2) : 228–244.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell

Annotation

The study is based on Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame model to explore codeswitching between Arabic and Hebrew, sharing significant morphological and syntactic structures. Especially, this study examines Druze online communication in the shape of face-to-face and written talkbacks found on local websites in Israel. The results show that Arabic sets the morphosyntactic frame of the mixed constituents, whereas Hebrew offers at least as many morphemes as does Arabic. This may denote that Myers-Scotton's model falls short in its sociolinguistic application to Arabic-Hebrew codeswitching. The sociolinguistic status of the second language, Hebrew, may be far greater than its syntactical status in the Druze sociolinguistic profile.