A socio-pragmatic study of gender differences in the use of "Walak" (woe) and its variants in spoken Jordanian Arabic

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A socio-pragmatic study of gender differences in the use of «Walak» (woe) and its variants in spoken Jordanian Arabic

Ghaleb Rabab'ah, University of Sharjah, UAE

Noor Al-Yasin, The University of Petra, Jordan

Sane Yagi, University of Sharjah, UAE

Abstract

Using a mixed-method approach, this study examines the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker walak and its variants in Spoken Jordanian Arabic. It also explores the differences in the use of this discourse marker according to the speakers' gender. The data was collected from a sample of 200 native speakers of Jordanian Arabic, using informal interviews and a validation questionnaire. The results showed that walak and its variants perform six language functions: warning, insulting, addressing/vocative, endearment, threatening, and denial. As far as gender differences are concerned, the findings indicated that there were statistically significant differences between males and females in the use of walak and its variants in favour of males. This indicates that males agreed more with the sentences expressing each pragmatic function in the validation questionnaire. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications for learners of Arabic as a second language, teachers and syllabus designers.

Keywords: discourse markers, pragmatics, Spoken Jordanian Arabic, warning, insulting, vocative.

Рабабаг Галеб, Аль-Ясін Ноор, Яґі Сане. Соціо-прагматичне дослідження гендерних відмінностей у вживанні “Walak” (лихо) та його варіантів у розмовній йорданській арабській мові

Анотація

Це дослідження покликане дослідити на основі змішаної методики прагматичні функції дискурсивного маркера walak (лихо) та його варіантів у розмовній йорданській арабській мові. Також досліджено відмінності у використанні цього дискурсивного маркера відповідно до гендеру мовців. Дані зібрано від 200 носіїв йорданського варіанта арабської мови за допомогою неофіційних інтерв'ю та анкети. Результати засвідчили, що walak та його варіанти виконують шість мовних функцій: попередження, образа, звертання/спонукання, прихильність, погроза та заперечення. Щодо гендерних відмінностей, результати показали існування статистично значущих відмінностей між чоловіками та жінками в уживанні walak та його варіантів на користь чоловіків. Це вказує на те, що чоловіки більше погоджувалися з висловленнями, які виражають кожну з цих прагматичну функцію в анкеті. Дослідження завершують деякі педагогічні настанови для тих, хто вивчає арабську як другу мову, а також для вчителів і розробників навчальних програм.

Ключові слова: дискурсивні маркери, прагматика, розмовна йорданська арабська, попередження, образа, спонукання.

Introduction

Socio-pragmatic research focuses on the speakers' perceptions of cultura l norms that impact speech acts, politeness, implicature, to mention but a few (Haugh, Kadar, & Terkouraf, 2021). It studies how such social variables as gender, age and power determine language use. One of the social variables that has received great attention in literature is gender. Lakoffs (1975; 2004) characterization of women's language and Tannen's (1990) dichotomy of gendered language have been the predominant frameworks adopted in gendered language research. Lakoff (2004, p. 78-81) characterizes women's stereotypical language in seven main features. First, women have a stock of words related to their own interests, such as sewing terms which men rarely use. Second, they use empty adjectives like cute, divine and gorgeous. Third, they use tag questions when a declarative is expected (e.g. it's hot, isn't it?). Fourth, since society constrains their assertion, women use hedges more than men do (e.g. I think, I guess, probably). Fifth, intensive `so' is also one of their linguistic features which is less assertive than `very'. Sixth, they use hypercorrect grammar and their language is more polite than men's. This includes exclusivity of jokes to men. Finally, they speak statements with rising intonation.

Tannen's (1990) dichotomy of gendered language, o n the other hand, contains six main comparisons (p. 24-28).

1. Status vs. support: men emphasize more power in their language, whereas women express more mutual support.

2. Independence vs. intimacy: men's language shows more independence, while women's language reflects closeness.

3. Advice vs. understanding: in a situation where there is a problem, men tend to propose a solution, whereas women tend to be more empathetic and understanding.

4. Information vs. feelings: men's language is more factual, while women's lan guage is more emotional.

5. Orders vs. proposals: men's language is more imperative while women's language is not. Women give implicit proposals (e.g. `it's hot in here' to suggest opening the window).

6. Conflict vs. compromise: men tend to argue, whereas women avoid conflict and compromise by finding common ground.

Another approach to studying conversational styles based on gender was introduced by Coates (2004). She asserts that gendered language features are used for different conversational purposes. First, men use minimal responses, such as `yeah', `mhm', and `right', as backchannel to emphasize their dominance. In contrast, women use these responses to indicate support to the interlocutor. Second, men use more profane language (e.g. fuck, damn, shit, bloody), which asserts power and masculinity. Third, men use more commands and directives (i.e. imperative language) and they only use interrogative sentences to receive information. However, women tend to use questions (e.g. tag questions) to express uncertainty. Finally, men's compliments are more associated with skills and performance while women's compliments are more associated with appearance.

We aim here to examine the impact of the social variable, gender, in the Jordanian community on the use of the Jordanian-Arabic discourse marker walak (WOE) and its variants. Let us first define a discourse marker. Despite the uncertainty about their functions, discourse markers can be generally defined as words or phrases that contribute to the flow of meaning and structure of discourse (Blakemore, 1987; Andersen, 2001). Fraser (1990) argued that, although most scholars have concurred that discourse markers join discourse elements together, they are still undecided on their definitions and functions. For instance, Lenk (1998, p. 246) defined them as “expressions in spoken discourse that are used pragmatically, with a structuring and organizational function”. However, Fraser (1990) defined them as “a class of expressions, each of which signals how the speaker intends the basic message that follows to relate to the prior discourse” (p. 387).

Discourse markers are optional; a sentence would still be meaningful and grammatical without them (Schiffrin, 1987; Brinton, 1996; Abuseileek & Rabab'ah, 2013; Rabab'ah et al., 2016; Alghazo et al., 2021; Rabab'ah et al., 2022). Nevertheless, Fraser (1990, p. 30) affirmed that the absence of discourse markers may result in a “communicative breakdown.” Heine, Kaltenbock, Kuteva and Long (2021, p. 5) stated that “there is both massive evidence and wide agreement to the effect that DMs are as a rule historically derived from sentence grammar units”. Lexically, discourse markers come from lexical words and phrases, such as verbs, prepositions and modal words (Wang, 2011). Syntactically, they are often not attached to the beginning of a sentence (Fraser, 1990; Ostman, 1995). They are not part of the syntactic structure of a sentence; hence, they do not have a clear grammatical function (Fraser, 1990; Ostman, 1995). Ranger (2019) provided keys to understanding the value and the functions of english discourse markers since they can be a precious resource for language learners and scholars.

As far as the Arabic language is concerned, Kanakri and Al-Harahsheh (2013) assert that spoken Arabic discourse markers should be studied thoroughly since they help non-native speakers hf Arabic better understand the Arab culture. Walak, which is the main concern of the present research, is a colloquial word used in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA); it has several morphosyntactic variants: walak, walah, walik, walih, walkum, walku, walkin, which may imply positive and negative meanings.

Prompted by a reviewer's comment, we conducted a swift etymological investigation of `walak'. At first, we looked it up in a la rge range of dictionaries, then checked it out in the ArabicDiwan Corpus of Dialects, and we traced it in our own historical corpus (HAC) (Hammo et al., 2016). We concluded that it is not likely for `walak' to have developed from `ya walad' for the followi ng reasons: (1) There are multiple forms of `ya walad' in current use. There are `ya walad', `ya wleid', `ya wild', `ya wleidi', `ya wleidti', etc. Had the vocative been so vulnerable, it would have been deleted in all of these forms, but it has not. (2) Had the third radical consonant in `walad' been so vulnerable, it would have been elided too. (3) We found instances of `walak' and `walik' in seven spoken varieties of Arabic: Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Ta'iz Yamani dialects (Alshargi, 2022). It is not very likely that all seven dialects simultaneously deleted the k radical. From past experience, we observe frequent divergence in their phonological development. (4) The third consonant, k, appears to be so essential that it has been retained in the longer forms of this word, in `ya wildizzina' bastard and `ya wildilharam' born out of wedlock. (5) There is no phonological process that we are aware of, which would change an alveolar plosive to a velar plosive without being caused by assimilation. Where is the assimilation that would convert `walad' into `walak'?

Most likely, `walak' developed from `wai-k' or `wail lak'. What led us to this conclusion is the following: (1) `Walak' functions as an interjection exactly like `wai', `waik', and `wai li' which according to Murtada al -Zabldl (1994) are used for exclamation and `wai' is an abbreviation of `wail', “It is said, `waik astami' qawli' Woe! Listen to me! It is also claimed to mean `wailak' woe unto you!”. (2) There are counterparts of this interjection that have the same pragmatic function, behave in a similar fashion, and have multiple spoken forms: `waiH', `wais', `waih', `wail', and `waib'. (3) All these interjections are used to communicate the same meaning (cf. Ibn Faris al-Qazwlnl, 1985).

We may account for the alteration that produced `walak' from `wai lak' and `wail lak' as follows: (1) Probably, the original form was `wail lak', then it got shortened by dropping the prepositional phrase lak, ending with `wail'. T hen at a later stage, the lateral approximant got elided for the benefit of economy of effort and time, resulting in `wai'. (2) The same motivation could have resulted in a different line of development where the the diphthong ai got reduced to the monothong a, producing `walak'. (3) After hundreds of years of use in the spoken language varieties, `walak' got conjugated to suit the addresse's gender and number: `walak' woe to you (masculine singular); `walik' woe to you (feminine singular); `walko' and `walkom' woe to you (masculine plural); `walkin' woe to you (feminine plural). So, the k here is a segment of the second person pronouns. (4) In the final stage of development, the k got dropped because it is in word final position and the context of conversation requires no need for identifying the person or gender or number of the addressee since they are right before the speaker; henc, the form `wala' for `walak' and `wali' for `walik'.

Jordanian speakers use inflections to mark the gender of the addressee. The following are the different variants of the discourse marker walak.

Discourse marker Meaning

Walak / Wala (2^nd person singular, Masculine) He boy

Walik/ Wali (2^nd person singular, Feminine) Hey girl

Walkum /Walku (2^nd person plural, Masculine) Hey all

Walkin (2^nd person plural, Feminine) Hey all

Exciting as the etymology of the various forms of walak might be, the present study is not going to study the morphosyntax of this term but rather its role as a discourse marker and the pragmatic functions it serves in everyday conversation. More specifically, the study aims to answer two questions:

1. What are the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker walak and its variants in SJA?

2. Are there any statistically significant differences in the use of this discourse marker according to gender?

Literature Review. Language and Gender

For decades, scholars have been studying the difference between men's and women's language. Based on their gender roles in society, research has studied how their language is affected. Some studies reached similar conclusions that women's language is more emotional and sensitive (McMillan et al., 1977; Haas, 1979). In a study that investigated male and female unscripted TV interviews, Brownlow, Rosamond and Parker (2003) lend support to previous literature by showing that women's language is simpler and more emotional, whereas men's language is more complex. Nonetheless, some other studies did not find major divergence in men's and women's language in e-mail messages and phone voice messages with regards to politeness and accommodating the other gender by using same-gender preferential style (e.g., Thomson et al., 2001; Hobbs, 2003). Yet, Sheridan (2007) examined gendered language in workplace meetings and found out that males generally interrupt others more, while females use more hedges showing more hesitance compared to males. This implies that women's language is more tentative and polite (Bi, 2010; Robnett & Leaper, 2011).

These findings were also evident in a study applied to Emirati male and female co-workers. Ahmad's study (2014) revealed that men interrupt others more and they focus on convincing the listener, whereas women use more emotional and supportive language. In addition, Banikalef (2019), who studied gender differences of speech acts in a Jordanian-Arabic context on Facebook, found out that male Jordanian Facebook users are more assertive. In contrast, female Jordanian Facebook users are more expressive and emotional. The study implied that male Jordanians boost their male dominance in the Jordanian community by being assertive while female Jordanians tend to focus on their social relations (p. 410). A more recent study by Almegren (2022) investigated gender differences between Saudi males and females in the speech act of persuasion. After carrying out a Discourse Completion Task (DCT), the findings indicated that male Saudis used more direct persuasion strategies (e.g. mood derivable, performatives, hedge performatives, obligation statements, and want statements) than female Saudis. It was also found that the direct strategies are mostly applied by males.

Discourse Markers in English and Other Languages

Empirical research has paid great attention to discourse markers. Scholars were more concerned with their pragmatic functions. One of the prominent studies of discourse markers was presented by Schiffrin (1987). After studying the English discourse markers: `oh', `well' (particles), `and', `but', `or', `so', `because' (conjunctions), `now', `then' (time deictic), `you know', and `I mean' (lexicalized clauses), Schiffrin concluded that discourse markers serve an integrative function that contributes to discourse coherence by connecting what is being said to what has already been said. Montoho Duran and Unamuno (2001) studied the discourse marker a ver (Catalan, a veure `to see'). They suggested that such discourse markers may function differently in certain social interactions such as teacher-student interaction, doctor's office and therapy sessions.

Tchizmarova (2005) studied the function of the Bulgarian discourse marker xajde `come on/let's/why don't we' as a hedging device. She concluded that xajde is used for requests, suggestions, warnings, in addition to showing agreement and surprise. Chodorowska-Pilch (2008) studied the Peninsular Spanish discourse marker veras `you'll see' to examine its function in invoking positive and negative politeness since it reflects attitude towards interlocutors. Pishghadam and Kermanshahi (2012) studied the pragmatic functions of insha'Allah `God's willing' in a Persian context. The results of the study showed that some of this discourse marker's functions are to empower the speaker, to wish and to reflect religious identity. Pishghadam and Kermanshahi also argued that these functions may differ in an Arab context since the difference in language may play a role.

Discourse Markers in Arabic

Discourse markers in the Arabic language have been the highlight of some pragmatic research. For example, Al Kohlani (2010) examined the functions of the Arabic discourse markers: wa `and', fa `then', munthu `since', and inna `certainly' in Arabic newspaper opinion articles both at the sentence level and paragraph level. The results of the study indicated that the discourse markers can be additive, contrastive, explanatory, inferential, sequential, alternative, subjective and interactive at the sentence level. At the paragraph level, they imply continuity, refocus, and change of topic. Some pragmatic research investigated discourse markers in different Arabic varieties, such as Saudi Arabic, and Syrian Arabic. Al-Rousan (2015), for example, studied the pragmatic functions of the Saudi Spoken Arabic discourse marker maf nafsak `with yourself<sup>5</sup> in Saudi online conversations. The findings revealed several pragmatic functions, such as refusal, lack of interest, doubt, and disappointment. In her gender-based study, Habib (2021) investigated the discourse markers yafni and ?innu: `I mean' in Syrian Spoken Arabic. The study showed that ?innu: is used more by children than adults and by women than men. However, it also showed that yafni usually occurs in initial position while ?innu: occurs in medial position.

Many studies, however, have been conducted on discourse markers in Spoken Jordanian Arabic. Since this variety is rich with discourse markers, Arab scholars have examined them, carrying out corpus-based studies, studying their pragmatic functions, applying speech act theory and studying their syntactic distribution. In their translation study, Hamdan and Fareh (1999) indicated that the Arabic discourse marker wa `and' has six functions: the resumptive, the sequential/additive, the alternative, the comitative, the adversative, and the circumstantial (Hamdan and Fareh, 1999). These different functions can sometimes be translated using one marker. For instance, the alternative, the comitative, and the adversative can be translated into English as and.

Some Arab scholars were interested in studying the pragmatic functions of discourse markers. For instance, Farghal (1995) studied the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker insalldh `God willing' in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). He identified the functions of inshallah from a speech act theory perspective. The study concluded with several non-literal meanings of insalldh including affirming, threatening, wondering, wishing, and being ironic. Moreover, the study revealed that the meaning of some utterances differs when the discourse marker is omitted. Farghal's findings, however, showed different functions for the discourse marker insalldh in SJA from those found by Pishghadam and Kermanshahi (2012) in Persian. In their study that investigated the non-literal meanings of the expression inshallah, Mehawesh and Jaradat (2015) found that the utterances which include inshallah do not give the same meaning after its removal. They also found out that inshallah implies irony, threatening, wishing, wondering, etc.

Applying Relevance Theory, Al Harahsheh and Kanakri (2013) examined the pragmatic functions of the Spoken Jordanian Arabic discourse marker tayyib `okay' and its cognate tabb. The study concluded that this discourse marker conveys different pragmatic functions, such as showing objection, introducing a new topic, and mitigating an utterance. In another study, Kanakri and Al Harahsheh (2013) examined the pragmatic functions of the discourse marker ?a:di `normal, usual' in Spoken Jordanian Arabic.the researchers suggested that ?a:di `normal, usual'serves several functions based on the context in which it is used like disapproval and permission.

Jaradat (2014) examined one of the most common discourse markers in Spoken Jordanian Arabic, yalla `let'. This marker has undergone a phonological process. It is phonologically derived from (yd alldh) which is a vocative for seeking God's support. The expression (yd alldh) got blended into yalla. He argued that yalla is used sometimes to mean (let's) in addition to other pragmatic functions (p.61), namely assuring, suggesting, urging people of doing or repeating something. It can also mean forget about it and it's ok. Another study by Hammouri (2017) probed in to the pragmatic functions of yalla `let' but it quizzed, in a questionnaire, Jordanian university students on the use of this discourse marker. The study revealed 27 pragmatic functions for yalla, eight of which recorded the most agreed upon functions, namely approval/acceptance, entreating, signaling the start of an action, spreading enthusiasm, commanding, urging, surrendering, and announcing the start of a new stage.

The discourse marker bas `but' was examined by two researchers using two different methods of data collection, yet they obtained similar results. A corpus-based study by Al-Rousan, Al Harahsheh and Huwari (2020) examined the pragmatic functions of bas `but'. This discourse marker serves various pragmatic functions, such as initiating a topic, ending a conversation, mitigating Face Threatening Acts, showing contrast and expressing regret. Similarly, Ennasser and Hijazin (2021) examined the pragmatic functions of the Jordanian discourse marker bas. Based on a corpus of 22 dyadic conversations by Jordanians, their study showed that the DM bas is multifunctional; it has 12 pragmatic functions, such as making a repair, returning to main topic, showing threat, denying of expectation, indicating insufficient information, mitigating face-threating acts and topic shifting. It also revealed that it functions as a modifier, filler marker, expressive marker and directive marker. In examining a corpus of 250,000 words to find out the pragmatic functions of `to say' in Jordanian Spoken Dialect in Irbid, Al-Shawashreh, Jarrah and Zuraikat (2021) showed that the main lexical function is to introduce direct or indirect speech. However, the results also revealed that there are three more functions, namely expressing the mental state of the speaker, signalling indirect evidentiality, and showing the speaker's disbelief in the accompanying utterance.

Recent studies have paid more attention to the syntactic distribution of discourse markers in Spoken Jordanian Arabic. For instance, Jaradat (2021) highlighted the issue of discourse markers as grammatically non-integrated elements. Providing evidence from three Spoken Jordanian Arabic discourse markers ma, hu and mahu, he concluded that these markers share syntactic processes under a domain of grammar. Another recent corpus-based study by Harb, Jarrah and Alghazo (2022) investigated the pragmatic functions of the Spoken Jordanian Arabic discourse marker faad (past form of ?ifaawid/?ifuud `return') and its syntactic distribution. The study concluded that when the position of the discourse marker is sentence-initial, it mainly functions as disagreement to the addressee. On the other hand, when it is in final position, it reflects the speaker's best of knowledge (p.14).

As far as the literature review is concerned, many discourse markers have been examined in Spoken Jordanian Arabic. However, the discourse marker walak (WOE) and its variants have not been explored yet, despite its popularity among the Jordanian community. Moreover, despite the extensive literature on Spoken Arabic discourse markers, none of the previous studies have studied gender differences. Habib (2021) was the only researcher, as far as Arabic language is concerned, who examined gender differences in the Syrian discourse marker yafni and ?innu: `I mean'. Therefore, the present research aims to fill this research gap by exploring the gender differences in the most prevalent pragmatic functions of walak (WOE), and its variants in Spoken Jordanian Arabic.

Participants

The participants of the study were 200 students selected from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Jordan, Jordan. They were enrolled in a variety of specializations, such as English Language and Literature, Applied English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Turkish, and Korean. They were male and female native speakers of Jordanian Arabic who came from different towns and cities. Their age ranges from 20 to 23 years old. Convenience/availability sampling was used for data collection. The participants' con sent was taken to participate in the study.

The sample was divided into two groups; the first group consisted of 50 participants, while the second consisted of 150 participants. The first group were interviewed for identifying the pragmatic functions of walak and its variants in Spoken Jordanian Arabic. This group consisted of equal number of male and female informants (25 males and 25 females). The second group were to validate the questionnaire that was based on the interviews with the first group, and it was designed to check whether they concurred with our assessment of the pragmatic functions of walak and its variants.

Data Collection Tasks. Informal Interview Task

A research assistant had individual interviews with 50 students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages during the second semester of the academic year 2020/2021. All the interviews were held in Arabic, the native language of the participants. Each participant was informed about what the research assistant aimed to obtain from them. She took their permission to audio-record the interview for research purposes. The interview questions included, but not limited to: Do you use walak and its variants in every day conversation and how often? Why do you use this discourse marker? What are the function of this discourse marker? Will you give me an example utterance you use to perform some language functions like threatening, warning, insulting, etc.? The participants' spontaneous production was audio - recorded for further analysis and for the validation questionnaire. The same procedure was used with all the 50 participants.

Validation Questionnaire

The interviews yielded six pragmatic functions for walak and its variants, namely warning, insulting, addressing, endearment, threatening, and denial. Based on these interviews, the researchers designed a validation questionnaire, which consisted of 24 sentences that came from those recorded in the interviews, four representing each pragmatic function. Using a five-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), the participants were asked to specify their level of agreement with our characterization of the function of the discourse marker in each sentence.

Validity of Data Collection Tool

gender walak jordanian arabic

The questionnaire was given to a jury of three English language professionals who were asked to validate the questionnaire items and our pragmatic function characterization of each instance of walak. As a result of this questionnaire, only three sentences were rewritten to take the jury's views into account; the rest of sentences won unanimous approval.

Results

The responses of the 150 participants were analyzed using SPSS. The analysis also aimed to find out if there were any significant differences in the realization of the pragmatic functions of this discourse marker due to gender. Table 1 presents the results related to the six main pragmatic functions of walak and its variants in SJA.

Table 1

Results of the t-Test for Each Domain (Individual Pragmatic Functions) according to Gender