The Use of Hybrid Terms and Expressions in Colloquial Arabic among Jordanian College Students: A Sociolinguistic Study

Samia Jaran and Fawwaz Al-Haq

English Language Teaching, 2015, vol. 8, issue 12, 86

Abstract: Languages tend to be modified to accommodate for the speakers needs, such as, discussing or dealing with certain topics and domains. An example, university students, in Jordan, modify their own language, being colloquial Arabic, with terms and expressions from the English language in order to interact and adapt to everyday college life. Due to this, college students have fabricated new hybrid terms and expressions; a mixture of English and colloquial Arabic words merged together to make one. This study attempts to explain the attitudes towards these terms and expressions and to what extent they are used amongst the students at Yarmouk University, during Arabic discourse. This was achieved by means of questionnaires and interview. The findings revealed that these colloquial hybrid terms and expressions are highly used by all college students. Results also show that the use of colloquial hybrid terms and expressions is tightly related to social factors, like, age and gender. Thus, these terms and expressions are used mostly by students aged between 18 and 20 years of age. Moreover, these terms and expressions are used more by females than males.

Date: 2015
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