Analysis of identity manifestation in Lebanese-Anglophone written memoirs -

Abstract

This study examined (socio)linguistic aspects—e.g. variation in the Romanization of Arabic and sociocultural influences—in the study of identity manifestation in written discourse of three Lebanese-Anglophone memoirs. This study illustrates that multiple social identities are constructed-revealed through language use, and a particular identity, or identities, can be made salient depending on the situation or context of language use. Multiple social identity constructions and negotiations were examined from the perspective of Social Identity Theory and Identity Negotiation Theory, which recognize identity as a co-construct involving the self and the other. Thus, as discernable from this sociolinguistic study, multiple social identities are manifested through language use, however, readers are recognized to play a significant role in ascribing identity to the writer through interpretation of the writer’s language use, based on their own personal experiences or, internalizations. A corpus of Arabic token words (code-switching) was collected for each of the written memoirs, as a locus of study for the variation in the Romanization of Arabic. Moreover, linguistic inquiry of contextual influences, at the location of Romanized Arabic token insertions, allowed for a deeper understanding of identity manifestation in written discourse practices. Five Arabic letters—-ح-, -خ-, -ض-, -غ-, and -ص-— are unanimously realized as [h], [kh], [d], [gh], and [s], respectively, across all linguistic situations in the Lebanese-Anglophone memoirs, regardless of the (in)formality of the context, showing no variation in Romanization. Variation occurs in the use of -ع-, predominantly represented as [aa] in the Romanization of Arabic in the memoirs, along with variation in the realization of -qaf- (as [q], [k], or replaced with the modern glottal variant [’] in particular instances). The variations present amongst these two Arabic letters were traced back to different