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Abstract:
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This study examines language attitudes and behaviors among the Druze in Israel in order to assess the roles of Arabic and Hebrew in this community . The study utilizes four different approaches : attitude surveys , a survey of linguistic landscapes , a study of language choice in the Internet and an analysis of codeswitching .
The results of the language attitude survey indicate that a significant number of Druze exhibit inconsistent attitudes toward their first language and linguistic behavior patterns that are in line with general sociolinguistic patterns of language change . Young people , those with less education , and females all express significantly positive attitudes toward Hebrew . As reported in the literature , these groups have been instrumental in the process of language change .
Patterns of language production and consumption in both street signage and websites affirm Bourdieu’s (1991 ) ideas regarding linguistic market capital as Hebrew is found to have greater value than Arabic in the Mount Carmel area , where the Druze maintain a strong connection with the Jewish -Israeli economy . In contrast , Arabic has a stronger presence in Druze neighborhoods in the Lower Galilee area . This is also true of Druze websites , particularly those that address the Palestinian -Israeli community , the majority in the Lower Galilee area . The study finds that while mixed language is the most common code of younger Druze Internet users , a relatively high percentage of cultural tradition and creative writing works were posted in Arabic .
This study also investigates Druze spoken and written codeswitching behavior within the framework of Myers -Scotton's MLF model (1993 , 2002 ) . The analysis reveals that Arabic is the Matrix Language of the mixed constituents , although it is not the most common code in overall language produced .
Although Arabic does not show signs of waning in the mixed languages’ syntactic structure , and is dominant in cultural tradition and literary works , there is manifest evidence of a language shift toward Hebrew , and the leading groups are : youth in general , and speakers in Mount Carmel . |