Politics and Sociolinguistic Reflexes: Palestinian Border Villages (Studies in Bilingualism)

This sociolinguistic study describes and analyzes an Israeli Palestinian border village in the Little Triangle and another village artificially divided between Israel and the West Bank, tracing the political transformations that they have undergone, and the accompanying social and cultural changes. These political, social and cultural forces have resulted in distinctive sociolinguistic patterns. The primary explanation offered for the persisting linguistic frontier found in rural Palestinian communities is the continuing social, political, economic and cultural differences between Palestinian villages in Israel, and Palestinian villages in the West Bank. In the geopolitical and economic history of the villages, these distinctions have been maintained by the dissimilar treatment received by the two communities and their inhabitants under Israeli government policy. Exacerbated by the Palestinian Intifada, the relations of the Palestinian divided communities to each other and to the rest of the world have produced noticeable differences in economic, educational and cultural development. The sociolinguistic facts revealed in the language situation in the villages are study shown to be correlated with political and demographic differences. Annotation This sociolinguistic study describes and analyzes an Israeli Palestinian border village in the Little Triangle and another village artificially divided between Israel and the West Bank, tracing the political transformations that they have undergone, and the accompanying social and cultural changes. These political, social and cultural forces have resulted in distinctive sociolinguistic patterns. The primary explanation offered for the persisting linguistic frontier found in rural Palestinian communities is the continuing social, political, economic and cultural differences between Palestinian villages in Israel, and Palestinian villages in the West Bank. In the geopolitical and economic history of the villages, these distinctions have been maintained by the dissimilar treatment received by the two communities and their inhabitants under Israeli government policy. Exacerbated by the Palestinian Intifada, the relations of the Palestinian divided communities to each other and to the rest of the world have produced noticeable differences in economic, educational and cultural development. The sociolinguistic facts revealed in the language situation in the villages are study shown to be correlated with political and demographic differences POLITICS AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC REFLEXES 1 Editorial page 2 Title page 3 LCC data 4 Table of Contents 5 Dedication 11 Preface 13 List of Tables 15 List of Figures and Maps 17 CHAPTER 1. Politics and Sociolinguistic reflexes 21 CHAPTER 2. Political Changes and Socio-demographic Reflections 43 CHAPTER 3. Networks of Contact and Communication 57 CHAPTER 4. Political Economy 73 CHAPTER 5. Education as an Agent of Change 87 CHAPTER 6. Politics: The Palestinian Intifada 97 CHAPTER 7. The Language Situation 109 CHAPTER 8. Exploratory Studies of Natural Speech 125 CHAPTER 9. Phonological and Morphological Variation 141 CHAPTER 10. Lexical Variation: Integration and Diffusion Studies 169 CHAPTER 11. Language Attitudes 187 CHAPTER 12. Speech Accommodation and Variation 199 CHAPTER 13. Demography, Identity and Language: Tying the Links 215 CHAPTER 14. Epilogue 225 Bibliography 237 Appendices 255 Glossary 267 Index of Subjects 275 SiBil 19 This study describes and analyzes the political transformations that two Israeli-Palestinian border villages have undergone, with accompanying social and cultural changes. It argues that these political, social and cultural forces have resulted in distinctive sociolinguistic patterns.