A Sociolinguistic Study of Code Choice among Saudis on Twitter by Saeed Ali Al Alaslaa A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in The University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Mohammad T. Alhawary, Chair Associate Professor Abdulkafi Albirini, Utah State University Professor Marlyse N. Baptista Professor Emeritus Raji M. Rammuny Saeed A. Al Alaslaa
[email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0527-2334 © Saeed A. Al Alaslaa 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENT First and foremost, all praise is to the Almighty God for His grace and blessings throughout my entire life. Second, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to my dissertation committee members for their constructive feedback and the time they dedicated to reading and offering suggestions on the writing of my dissertation. In addition, I want to convey my endless thanks to my advisor, Professor Mohammad Alhawary, who has expanded my knowledge of Arabic linguistics on both levels, theoretical and applied. The Arabic theoretical linguistics classes that I have taken with him were immensely beneficial, including Arabic syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology, historical linguistics, and dialectology. From the applied linguistics perspective, I really benefited from the courses he taught me, such as Arabic second language acquisition, Arabic teaching methodology, as well as the independent classes through which my research topic and interests have evolved and thrived. I am indebted to him for his outstanding direction, guidance, support, patience, and generosity with his time and advice. I hold in the highest esteem everything he has done for me.