THE EFFECTS OF AGE AND GENDER ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE QASSIMI ARABIC DIALECT

Abstract

This article examines the effects of age and gender on perceptions that speakers of Qassimi Arabic, a variety of Najdi Arabic spoken in central Saudi Arabia, have of the placement and extent of dialect areas marked on hand-drawn maps representing variation within their own dialect. Analysis of composite maps of respondents’ perceptions using a GIS mapping program (ArcGIS) reveals that both age and gender have an effect on respondents’ perceptions of linguistic landscape. Specifically, men tend to distinguish more linguistic variation by identifying more dialect areas than women do. As for age differences, middle-aged respondents identified more dialect areas with higher agreement levels than both younger and older respondents. These patterns of variation among age and gender groups can be attributed to differences in the local traditional society in terms of contact and geographic mobility, particularly following the socioeconomic changes that Saudi Arabia has experienced in the past half-century.