In the Arab world, English is having substantial effects on the region's educational systems, language policies and patterns of language use (Nunan, 2003; Bolton, 2008; Kirkpatrick, 2008). Having realized the importance of English in all domains of life, Arab countries have encouraged the acquisition of English by their people. Most Arab countries have introduced English as a main subject in the school curriculum. In most government and private sectors, most business organizations ask for proof of English proficiency before hiring people for employment.
The influx of English borrowed items into Kuwait has recently considerably increased, driven by both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors, mainly through new electronic media, and direct contact with the donor language. Kuwaitis, especially, the new generation heavily make use of English loanwords in mobile devices applications such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and others. It is significant to note that a recipient language (in this case Kuwaiti Arabic, KA henceforth) discloses different morphological and phonological features that affect English loanwords. 400 hundred tweets tweeted by young Kuwaitis were captured and then, qualitatively analysed. This paper investigates the morphological adaptation of English loanwords as used by Kuwaitis in twitter. Results indicate that Kuwaitis heavily use and adapt English loanwords morphologically in twitter and in everyday speech. Significant educational implications were collected as well through interviewing 50 students.
Language attitudes cover a wide variety of emphases, and the reasons for studying language attitudes attract sociolinguists. Language attitudes may well tackle issues extend to all sociolinguistic and social psychological phenomena, such as how we locate ourselves socially and how we relate to other individuals and groups. They may also shape our behaviors and experiences. This study investigates Kuwaitis' Attitudes towards vehicles' stickers in Kuwait. Data were collected from responses to 17 items -questionnaire and 1 open-ended question aimed at investigating Kuwaitis' attitudes towards the content (political, religious, aesthetic, etc. and the shape (size, color, etc.) of vehicles' stickers. Findings were analyzed statistically. Means, Standard deviations, T-tests, and ANOVA were utilized. Results show that Kuwaitis, in general expressed negative attitudes towards both the content and the shape of the stickers. The open-ended question data provided inclusive data as to the reasons behind such a negative attitude.
In light of sociolinguist phonological change, the following study investigates the shift of [ʧ] to [k] sound in the speech of Kuwaitis and argues against the Bedouin/ Sedentary distinction. The main hypothesis is twofold: first the shift seems to be driven not by the differences between the sedentary and Bedouin varieties, but by the widespread of the English language as a prestige form and by the recent change of Kuwaitis’ lifestyle; second, the shift is not totally in the direction of [k], but rather in the direction of a lexical replacement by either English loanwords, classical Arabic, or other Arab dialects. To test this hypothesis, 130 informants were informally interviewed. 503 tokens were collected and were examined across gender, age, level of education. Their speech was phonetically transcribed and accordingly was quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Results indicate that the [ʧ] variant is undergoing change and that the social parameters and the significant social changes, that Kuwait has undergone recently, have triggered this linguistic shift.
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