Abstract

This research delves into the analysis of online discussions surrounding the dubbing of Disney movies into two Arabic varieties: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA). The objective is to uncover the language ideologies and attitudes taken by Disney fans online. Dubbing Disney movies into these two varieties has sparked numerous debates on social media, particularly on Facebook. The study employed stance-taking to analyze the metalinguistic comments made by Facebook users about the use of these two Arabic varieties in the context of Disney. A Verbal Guise Technique (VGT) experiment was conducted on Disney excerpts to complement the results. The findings provided valuable insights into how Arab social media users’ stances are influenced by their ideologies and attitudes. Lastly, the VGT experiment provided another perspective on how Arabs evaluate MSA and ECA in the context of Disney movies and how they express their indirect language attitudes. The findings showed the differences in language attitudes between Maghreb, Mashreq, and Arab Peninsula countries. Mashreq and Peninsula countries revealed closer language attitudes than those of the Maghreb countries. Moreover, the ECA competes with MSA in prestige and pleasantness. MSA is seen as the thread that connects the Arab World and is adulated for its connection with the Arab heritage, religion, and education. However, it is less favored for its rigidity, unintelligibility, and unnaturalness. Finally, ECA is favored for its simplicity, humor, closeness, familiarity, intimacy, naturalness, and entertainment.

School

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department

Applied Linguistics Department

Degree Name

MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Graduation Date

Spring 2-23-2024

Submission Date

1-15-2024

First Advisor

Prof. Reem Bassiouney

Committee Member 1

Dr. Nihal Nagi

Committee Member 2

Dr. Nadia Shalaby

Extent

159p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

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