Diglossia: A Mixed-Mode Survey Analysis on the Use of Formal and Informal Speech among Sorani Kurdish Speakers

Authors

  • Minwas Jamal Rasheed Independent Researcher, Erbil, Iraq

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v8i3p249

Keywords:

Diglossia, High Variety, Low Variety, Kurdish Language, Sorani Kurdish, Kurdi Peti, Mixed-Mode Survey

Abstract

The article covers both the original and expanded definitions of diglossia. The main point of discussion is the concept itself including its features and several examples paired with a relevant survey conducted to determine the existence of diglossia among Sorani Kurdish speakers in Erbil. The survey has investigated the occurrence of diglossia in terms of the use of high and low variety of Sorani Kurdish based on different social situations. The article concludes that Sorani Kurdish speakers use formal Sorani for formal settings and informal Sorani for informal situations.

References

Abdullah, J. (1980). Some aspects of language purism among Kurdish speakers (Doctoral dissertation, University of York, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom). Imaging Services North database.

Amin, W. (1979). Aspects of the verbal construction in Kurdish. (M.A.), London University.

Ball, M. J. (2005). Clinical sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Bassiouney, R. (2020). Arabic sociolinguistics: Topics in diglossia, gender, identity, and politics (2nd ed.). United Kingdom: Georgetown University Press.

Bell, A. (2013). The guidebook to sociolinguistics. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Biber, D., & Finegan, E. (1994). Sociolinguistic perspectives on register (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics). New York: Oxford University Press.

Britannica, E. (2016). Kurdish language. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica website: https://britannica.com/topic/Kurdish-language

Coulmas, F. (1998). The handbook of sociolinguistics. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Dorian, N. C. (2002). Diglossia and the simplification of linguistic space. Internatioal Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2002(157), 63-69. doi: 10.1515/ijsl.2002.042

Ferguson, A. C. (1959). Diglossia. Word, 15, 2, 325-340. doi: 10.1080/00437956.1959.11659702

Gvozdanović, J., Árokay, J., & Miyajima, D. (2014). Divided languages? Diglossia, translation and the rise of modernity in Japan, China, and the Slavic World. New York: Springer.

Hamad, A. (2014). Diglossia in Arabic: The beginning and the end. Islamic Studies, 31(3), 339-353.

Hassani, H. (1998). A method for proper noun extraction in Kurdish. Natural Language Processing (19).

Holmes, J. (2012). An introduction to sociolinguistics (4th ed.). Harlow: Pearson.

Hornberger, N., & Lee McKay, S. (2010). Sociolinguistics and language education (New Perspectives on Language and Education). United Kingdom: St Nicholas House

Llamas, C., Mullany, L., & Stockwell, P. (2007). The routledge companion to sociolinguistics. New York: Routledge.

Malmasi, S. (2016). Subdialectal differences of Sorani. Proceeding of the Third Workshop on NLP for Similar Languages, Varieties and Dialects, 89-96.

McDowall, D. (2004). A modern history of the Kurds: Third Edition (3rd ed.). London: I. B. Tauris.

Mesthrie, R. (2001). Concise encyclopedia of sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Muheddin, J. (2017). The British administration of south Kurdistan and local responses, 1918-1932 (Doctoral dissertation), University of Leicester, Leicester. Retrieved from https://kurdipedia.org/files/books/2019/228076.PDF?ver=131929223666548424

Office, F. S. (2019). Languages. Retrieved from https://bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/languages-religions/languages.html

Organizations, U. N. P. (2014). Kurdistan: Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

Payne, L. (2008). The Difference Between Code-Switching and Diglossia. Retrieved from https://walkinthewords.blogspot.com/2008/08/difference-between-code-switching-and.html#:~:text=The%20term%20code%2Dswitching%20is,people%20speak%20in%20different%20situations.&text=The%20subtle%20difference%20between%20code,as%20a%20more%20subconscious%20change.

Porter, E. S. (2000). Diglossia and Other topics in New Testament linguistics. Sheffield: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.

Romaine, S. (2001). Language in society: An introduction to sociolinguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saville-Troike, M. (2002). The ethnography of communication: An introduction (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Sayahi, L. (2014). Diglossia and language contact: Language variation and change in North Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Simanjuntak, F. M., Pujiono, M., & Haidir, H. (2019). Diglossia: Phenomenon and language theory. European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics Studies, 3(2), 60. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3365366

Snow, D. (2013). Revisiting Ferguson’s defining cases of diglossia. Journal of Multilingual and Multilingual Development, 34(1), 61-67.

Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy (Key Topics in Sociolinguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stepkowska, A. (2012). Diglossia: A critical overview of the Swiss example. University of Social Sciences, Warsaw.

Taucher, W., Vogl, M., & Webinger, P. (2015). The Kurds: History, religion, language, politics. Vienna: Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Thompson, I. (2016). Kurdish. Retrieved from About World Languages website: https://aboutworldlanguages.com/kurdish

Vali, A. (2011). Kurds and the state in Iran: The making of Kurdish identity. New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd.

Versteegh, K. (1997). The Arabic language. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2014). An introduction to sociolinguistics. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Watch, H. R. (2009). Repression of Kurdish political and cultural rights in Syria.

Yule, G. (Ed.). (2010). The study of language (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Downloads

Published

26.10.2021

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Rasheed, M. J. (2021). Diglossia: A Mixed-Mode Survey Analysis on the Use of Formal and Informal Speech among Sorani Kurdish Speakers. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 8(3), 249-268. https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v8i3p249

Similar Articles

1-10 of 432

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.