AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT INTERDIALECTAL COMMUNICATION AND CODE SWITCHING IN PAN-ARAB REALITY TELEVISION THE CASE OF ARAB IDOL by GENEVIEVE MARIE HECKEL A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts to the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Beirut Beirut, Lebanon September 2014 _• .. • . _ . c . .". - '- ---- ._-._---- _. - -"-. -,- -._... "- - --- --"- -,"..:.., .. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT INTERDIALECTAL COMMUNICATION AND CODE SWITCHING IN PAN-ARAB REALITY TELEVISION THE CASE OF ARAB IDOL by GENEVIEVE MARIE HECKEL Dr. David Wilmsen, Associate Professor Advisor Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages Dr. Nabil Dajani, Professor Member of Committee Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies Dr. Micha rmy, Assistant Professor Member of Committee Department of English Date of thesis defense: September 12,2014 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT THESIS, DISSERTATION, PROJECT RELEASE FORM Student Name: ---Heckel._---- Genevieve----------' Marie ---­ Last First Middle • Master's Thesis o Master's Project o Doctoral Dissertation [K] I authorize the American University ofBeirut to: (a) reproduce hard or electronic copies ofmy thesis, dissertation, or project; (b) include such copies in the archives and digital repositories ofthe University; and (c) make freely available such copies to third parties for research or educational purposes. o I authorize the American University ofBeirut, three years after the date of submitting my thesis, dissertation, or project, to: (a) reproduce hard or electronic copies ofit; (b) include such copies in the archives and digital repositories ofthe University; and (c) make freely available such copies to third parties for research or educational purposes. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis committee, David Wilmsen, Nabil Dajani, and Michael Vermy, for supporting this endeavor and for offering their guidance. Of particular note is the enormous effort and dedication David Wilmsen supplied as the advisor for this thesis. We spent countless hours poring over the linguistic data, and his constant support and direction left a significant impact on this analysis and thesis. I am truly grateful for having David Wilmsen as not only an advisor, but also a mentor. I would also like to recognize Marité Labaki and Rima Kanawaty for the continual encouragement of my Arabic language studies at the American University of Beirut, both of whom repeatedly surpass their responsibilities as instructors and leave a lasting impression on their students. Further, I would like to express my gratitude for the professors who guided my interest in my Arabic language and sociolinguistics studies at the University of Virginia, respectively, Mohammed Sawaie and Luis Fernando Tejedo-Herrero. Of course I would be amiss by not recognizing the unending encouragement from my family and friends. Despite the distance, Fernando Herrera Araya, Isora Heckel, Jeffrey Heckel, and Valerie Heckel constantly have supported my studies in Lebanon, especially throughout the course of this thesis. From my home in Beirut, Shay Hasan, Kelly Merheb, Christina Merheb, and Azza El Masri withstood my continual watching of Arab Idol, mentioning of my thesis, and questioning of my linguistic data. I am truly grateful for their friendship and unyielding support. Further, I would like to recognize Vart Hovagimian, David Habib, Meer Rashid, Sakhr Munassar, Ihab Bennar, and Amani Allan for repeatedly offering their guidance and knowledge of the various Arabic and Kurdish dialects as well as the terminology of Arabic music. Finally, I would like to thank MBC Studios and everyone associated with the program Arab Idol. The technical and creative production teams do an outstanding job with this pan-Arab reality television program. And a special thanks to the hosts, judges, and contestants of Arab Idol for producing such interesting linguistic data used in this analysis. v AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Genevieve Marie Heckel for Master of Art Major: Middle Eastern Studies Title: Interdialectal Communication and Code Switching in pan-Arab Reality Television: The Case of Arab Idol This analysis explored interdialectal communication on the program Arab Idol, which created an exemplary opportunity for this field of study by bringing together hosts, judges, contestants, and a viewing audience spanning the entire Arabic-speaking world. In the course of the literature review, two main gaps became apparent. First, few studies have examined spontaneous alterations between Standard Arabic and Dialectal Arabic by individuals who are not trained specifically to use Standard Arabic. Second, there is an urgent need for interdialectal analyses in Arabic linguistics literature. The theoretical framework for this analysis was Giles’ Accommodation Theory, which states that speakers will converge or diverge their speech patterns to narrow or widen the social distance between the interlocutors. Two research questions guided this examination of interdialectal communication: first, what are the normal speech patterns of the judges and the hosts, and second, when do speakers either converge to or diverge from their interlocutors? To answer the former, I randomly selected longer stretches of speech from the portion of the episodes during which the hosts asked the judges questions. For the latter, I transcribed and analyzed the feedback segment for a selected group of finalists from both seasons. The transcribed data consisted of 123 comment sections, amounting to more than 9.5 hours of recordings. This analysis resulted in five main findings: a strong tendency for speakers to maintain their native dialect during interdialectal communication; convergence toward their interlocutors through a variety of methods, including by switching dialects; certain dialects have connotations, such as Egyptian Arabic denoting comedy and Lebanese Arabic expressing pampering; Standard Arabic was not used to increase understanding in interdialectal communication, but instead was a tool for divergence; and Arab Idol celebrated the diversity and multiplicity of the Arabic-speaking world through embracing the various dialects in both speech and song. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………. v ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………….. vii LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………… xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ………………………………………. xii TRANSCRIPTION GUIDE …………………………………………. xiii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION …………………………………………….. 1 A. Notions of Interdialectal Communication and pan-Arab Identity… 2 B. The Gap…………………………………………………………... 8 C. Overview of Chapters…………………………………………….. 9 II. REALITY TELEVISION IN THE ARABIC- SPEAKING WORLD…………………………………………. 12 A. History of Reality Television in the Arabic-Speaking World……. 12 B. Reality Television as an Idiom of Contention……………………. 25 C. In Depth: Arab Idol……………………………………………….. 34 1. Cast of Characters……………………………………….. 34 2. From Auditions to Idol…………………………………... 36 3. Audience…………………………………………………. 46 4. The Second Season: Bigger and Better………………….. 48 III. LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………….. 52 vii A. Diglossia and the Continuum……………………………………… 52 B. Code Switching in the Arabic-Speaking World…………………… 55 1. Gumperz and Conversational Code Switching…………... 55 2. Code Switching Studies from the Maghreb……………… 58 3. Code Switching Studies from Egypt…………………….. 63 4. Code Switching in Political Speeches and Beyond……… 68 C. Additional Code Switching Literature…………………………….. 74 D. Levelling and Interdialectal Communication in the Arabic- Speaking World……………………………………………………. 80 1. Levelling Within a Country……………………………… 81 2. Interdialectal Communication……………………………. 86 3. Regional Dialects………………………………………… 90 E. Filling the Gap……………………………………………………... 92 IV. METHODOLOGY…………………………………………....... 94 A. Theoretical Framework…………………………………………….. 94 B. Research Questions…………………………………………………. 97 C. Methodology……………………………………………………….. 99 D. Data Description…………………………………………………..... 104 1. Data………………………………………………………. 104 2. Setting……………………………………………………. 104 3. Participants………………………………………………. 105 V. ANALYSIS……………………………………………………...... 108 A. Maintenance……………………………………………………….. 108 B. Convergence……………………………………………………….. 112 1. Checking for Understanding……………………………... 112 2. Assigning Nicknames……………………………………. 113 3. Little Effort Convergence………………………………... 114 4. Switching Dialects Amongst the Hosts and Judges…….... 117 a. Switching to Lebanese Arabic………………….... 117 b. Switching to Egyptian Arabic……………………. 120 c. Switching to Gulf Arabic: A Heart Breaker……... 124 viii 5. Switching Dialects with the Contestants…………………. 127 a. Switching into Syro-Lebanese Arabic…………… 127 b. Switching into Egyptian Arabic………………….. 130 c. Switching into Mesopotamia Arabic…………….. 138 d. Converging when Criticizing…………………….. 139 6. Contestants Switching Dialects with the Judges…………. 139 7. Using Connotations Associated with a Dialect………….. 141 a. Egyptian Arabic: Comedic………………………. 142 b. Lebanese Arabic: Pampering…………………….. 143 8. Switching Languages…………………………………….. 146 a. Arabic…………………………………………….. 146 b. Kurdish…………………………………………... 147 c. International Languages: English and French…… 151 9. Mocking………………………………………………….. 154 10. Over-Accommodation……………………………………. 157 C. In-Group Moments………………………………………………… 158 1. Gulfi Moments…………………………………………… 158 2. Masri Moments………………………………………….. 163 3. Kurdish Moment…………………………………………. 166 D. Divergence…………………………………………………………