Language Ideologies and Saudi Society: Understanding the Notion of Diglossia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Discussing the role of Spoken varieties within Saudi society exposes a point of tension between those who view these varieties as a threat to Fus‛ħa Arabic and those who value them for their close association with local traditions and culture. The absence of a clear understanding of the concept of diglossia among the general public is at the core of this issue. Thus, one can see that although the use of Spoken varieties is expanding rapidly through new mediums such as “Shilat” (folkloric singing) and “Alqanawat Ash-Shaʕbeyah” (TV channels focusing on folklore), the linguistic campaigns that criticize these varieties remain as strong as ever. In this context, this paper aims to explore the discrepancy between linguistic ideologies within society and the reality of language use on the ground. The data used in this study were collected from questionnaires disseminated among Saudi speakers from both sexes and different age groups. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the data reveal a number of directions and views that are prevalent within Saudi society regarding the H/L dichotomy. There seems to be a wide consensus about accepting Spoken varieties as a normal component of the linguistic repertoire of speakers, provided that such varieties are used in their predetermined domains. In contrast, any signs of infringement on the functions reserved for Fus‛ħa Arabic are always condemned and denounced. These infringements include the nonstandard use of language in any written form, such as the use of local varieties on internet forums, newspapers, and magazines or on information websites, like Wikipedia. This paper also examines the participants’ views on using Spoken Arabic on social media platforms, and their attitudes towards the influx of recent English borrowings into Spoken Arabic.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.030 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".