Language repertoires and attitudes of students in the United Arab Emirates

阿拉伯联合酋长国学生的语言能力和态度

• 批准号: 418465998
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jakob Leimgruber
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (IAA)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/418465998?language=en
• 关键词: Language; repertoires; attitudes; students; United

The following proposal investigates the multilingual repertoires and language attitudes of individuals living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a constitutional federation of seven sovereign emirates. The sociolinguistic status quo of the UAE is largely uncharted territory and so far, little sociolinguistic research has been done in that area. All previously conducted sociolinguistic studies have focused either on the language use of specific genders or on language preferences of particular professionals. Besides, the majority of these studies have centered on Emirati nationals to the neglect of the language practices of the majority non-citizen population of the UAE. Although a few studies have attempted to describe the features of English as spoken in the UAE, there remains a shortage of studies on the current linguistic ecology to investigate the ongoing usages of and attitudes towards not only Arabic (the official language) and English (the de facto lingua franca), but also all languages used by different communities in the UAE. Accordingly, most previous studies call for a much more comprehensive enquiry to better understand the linguistic situation in the UAE and more specifically the Sharjah/Dubai area. The purpose of this project is to provide a first documentation of the sociolinguistic profile of the greater Sharjah/Dubai area, a globalized conurbation populated largely by highly transient migrants. For a representative sample of the UAE, we draw our data from the student population of the American University of Sharjah (AUS) which is made up of students from diverse language and ethnic backgrounds and therefore, offers a suitable setting to study the use and attitudes towards different languages and English as a global language. The study aims to answer (i) what the language repertoires of students at AUS are, and (ii) to what extent the usage of English or the attitudes towards English and other languages present in this area differ from the situation that we find in other global English-speaking cities (e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong). The data will be elicited with the help of a comprehensive online questionnaire along with a semi-structured interview. Our study will offer important insights into the multilingual texture of the current student generation in the UAE, which also provides crucial information for language policy makers within the university as well as in the UAE. Given that the language constellations and developments in the United Arab Emirates differ from other English-using globalized cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, we expect the language repertoires, usage and attitudes of our participants to be significantly different and more complex. Hence, our study will offer exemplification for the current discussion of new models of World Englishes, especially concerning English use in second and/or foreign language contexts.

以下建议调查生活在阿拉伯联合酋长国（阿联酋）的个人的多语言剧目和语言态度，阿联酋是七个主权国家的宪法联邦。阿拉伯联合酋长国的社会语言学现状在很大程度上是未知的领域，到目前为止，在这方面几乎没有社会语言学研究。以往所有的社会语言学研究都集中在特定性别的语言使用或特定专业人士的语言偏好。此外，大多数这些研究都集中在阿联酋国民，忽视了阿联酋大多数非公民人口的语言实践。虽然有一些研究试图描述在阿联酋说英语的特点，但仍然缺乏对当前语言生态的研究，以调查不仅阿拉伯语（官方语言）和英语（事实上的通用语弗兰卡）的持续使用和态度，而且阿联酋不同社区使用的所有语言。因此，大多数以前的研究需要更全面的调查，以更好地了解阿联酋的语言状况，更具体地说，沙迦/迪拜地区。该项目的目的是提供大沙迦/迪拜地区的社会语言概况的第一份文件，这是一个主要由高度流动的移民居住的全球化大都市。对于阿联酋的代表性样本，我们从沙迦美国大学（AUS）的学生群体中提取数据，该大学由来自不同语言和种族背景的学生组成，因此，提供了一个合适的环境来研究不同语言和英语作为全球语言的使用和态度。这项研究的目的是回答（i）学生在澳大利亚的语言剧目是什么，以及（ii）英语的使用或对英语和其他语言的态度在多大程度上存在于这个地区的情况下，我们发现在其他全球英语城市（如新加坡，香港）不同。这些数据将通过一份全面的在线问卷沿着半结构化访谈来收集。我们的研究将为阿联酋当前学生一代的多语言结构提供重要见解，这也为大学和阿联酋的语言政策制定者提供了重要信息。鉴于阿拉伯联合酋长国的语言群和发展与其他使用英语的全球化城市（如新加坡和香港）不同，我们预计参与者的语言库，用法和态度将显着不同，更复杂。因此，我们的研究将提供例证，为当前的讨论新模式的世界英语，特别是关于英语使用在第二和/或外语语境。