Hebrew borrowings in the Arabic speech of Palestinians in three refugee camps in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories

Abstract: This thesis on Hebrew borrowings in Palestinian Arabic provides detailed casework from an understudied linguistic situation. It is firmly anchored in empirical results from fieldwork in three refugee camps in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The results are presented and analysed with reference to speech's immediate interpersonal surroundings and the wider social, political and economic situation. Several aspects of the political economy of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are seen to affect borrowing from Hebrew: firstly, the formation of a Palestinian economy dependent on the capitalist Israeli core, a dependency exacerbated in the refugee camps by the refugees 'sudden loss of their traditional livelihood in the peasant economy of pre-1948 Palestine; secondly, the existence at present of a customs union between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories which opens the Palestinian consumer marker to Israeli goods; thirdly, the provision of some state services to Palestinian holders of Jerusalem residency cards; and fourthly, the functioning of the military occupation which imposes closures and other military restrictions on Palestinians. This context provides the setting for power relations between Israelis and Palestinians which give rise to a variety of practices of borrowing, including the use of Hebrew to demarcate in-groups, signal aspirations to a modern lifestyle, and give a political edge to humour. On the basis of this analysis, an explanatory model is proposed that seeks a non-deterministic link, termed "articulation'; between the structure of the context and the speakers' agency manifested in the linguistic practice. This explanatory model moves away from the notions of conflict and national identity often submitted as explanations in sociolinguistics of the Middle East, but rather gives prominence to Palestinian and Israeli ideologies that inform the conceptual experience of Palestinians. These ideologies are Identified as Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian pragmatism, Israeli securitism and Israeli consumerism. The analysis is sensitive to gendered patterns of behaviour as well as inter- generational differences.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo