Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
World Englishes
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract
© 2020 The Authors. World Englishes published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd For Emirati millennials, multilingualism is both typical and expected. Although Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the official language of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Emiratis mainly use Khaleeji (Gulf Arabic) dialects at home. English is the lingua franca and common medium of instruction with approximately 100 other languages also being spoken in the nation. While top-down language policies overtly favor English and MSA, which appear on signage, in educational contexts, and online as two ‘pure’ languages placed side-by-side, language ‘on the ground’ is considerably more complex than as ‘planned’. This paper explores the language ideologies and language use of 100 Emirati university students through mixed-method questionnaires and classroom observations recorded in researcher journals. Analysis of the data revealed creative translanguaging practices. It is argued that such grassroots hybridity could act as a counter-discourse to rigid ‘English only’ expectations in English-medium universities and policies advocating ‘pure and separate’ language use.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Disciplines
Education
Scopus ID
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Hopkyns, Sarah; Zoghbor, Wafa; and Hassall, Peter John, "The use of English and linguistic hybridity among Emirati millennials" (2020). All Works. 3627.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/3627
Indexed in Scopus
yes
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Hybrid: This publication is openly available in a subscription-based journal/series