"A funky language for teenzz to use": Representing gulf arabic in instant messaging

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Publication Date

1-1-2003

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) users writing in Arabic often represent Arabic in 'ASCII-ized' form, using the Latin alphabet rather than the Arabic alphabet normally used in other contexts (Warschauer, El Said, & Zohry, 2002). Analyzing ASCII-ized Arabic (AA) can give insights into ways in which CMC is shaped by linguistic, technological and social factors. This paper presents a study of AA as used among female university students in the United Arab Emirates, drawing on data from a small corpus of instant messenger (IM) conversations, and from an e-mail survey of users' experience with this form of writing. The AA in the conversations was found to show influences from computer character sets, from different varieties of spoken Arabic, from Arabic script, from English orthography and from other latinized forms of Arabic used in contexts which pre-date CMC. Users have developed creative (but variable) solutions to the constraints involved, but the purposes of AA use also extend for social reasons to situations where technical constraints do not apply.

ISSN

1083-6101

Publisher

Wiley Blackwell

Volume

9

Issue

1

Disciplines

Communication

Keywords

Computer applications, Electronic mail, Formal languages, Social aspects, Standardization, Arabic writing system, Computer-mediated communication (CMC), Instant messaging, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Linguistics

Scopus ID

3042682281

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Bronze: This publication is openly available on the publisher’s website but without an open license

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