ON THE EMERGENCE OF A GULF ENGLISH VARIETY: A SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH

Abstract

The paper discusses the question of Linguistic identity in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (henceforth CCASG). The notion of identity is analysed with reference to linguistic practices as a sociocultural means of communication. The existing register is a natural outcome on which the vast and fast process of modernization is reflected. The paper discusses a corpus of the Gulf register to seek an answer for the question of how the Arabic Gulf native identity impacts the English linguistic practice, as an interdisciplinary and integrative part in the sociocultural approach. Arabic meets with English as a global non-native variety of English and results in the new Gulf code. The result of the examination of linguistic practices confirm that identity in the Gulf reflects a cultural transformation and does not resist the new linguistic and sociocultural system. The selected theoretical framework for the analysis is drawn from a variety of linguistic sub-disciplines and research traditions. The sociocultural approach is selected for this study as it is the most applicable.