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MODERN TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN THE ARAB WORLD

Olga Bernikova

Abstract

The present study describes the current state of the development of the Arabic language in the context of the explosion of the new multimedia and Internet technologies. Based on the data collected by the author in 2010-2013 during her field work in the UAE, Egypt and Tunisia, some significant changes in language over the last 15 years have been identified. The study has also analyzed the contents of Arabic electronic media and social networks. After describing the main stages of the historical development of the Arabic language, the author suggests that what we are witnessing now is – the “informational” stage in the language’s evolution. For the last decade, the application of the Arabic language electronic communication media as well as on the Internet and satellite television has exhibited two trends in opposite directions. On one hand, the availability of electronic means of communication and TV news channels has solidified the status of Modern Standard Arabic. On the other, the language used in sms-messages and social-media has contributed to the fixation of all aspects of oral communication in writing. The latter type of language, known as “E-Arabic”, has opened up a new field of linguistic research. E-Arabic mixes Modern Standard Arabic and dialects together from the linguistics point of view and in the field of its application. The results obtained in the course of the study are of interdisciplinary nature and can be used by both specialists in Arabic linguistics and sociologists. The description of some problems in the Arabic language formalization can help to develop linguistic software products for the Arabic language. Thus, the study fills in a number of gaps in sociolinguistics and in our understanding of some latest trends in the development of various registers of the Arabic language.

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