UCLA

The motivating idea behind this research is the close and dynamic relationship between language, culture, and social identity. In this dissertation, I discuss this relationship in terms of Arabic language learners and focus, in particular, on a unique feature of Arabic—the God-expressions or Allah Lexicon—religious formulae spoken by religious and non-religious people alike in their everyday conversations. These formulae serve myriad communicative functions and are prevalent throughout the Arab world. However, they are also socially and culturally “loaded,” that is, their meanings cannot be derived from the component words themselves but must be deduced from the context in which they are used. As such, there are no “perfect” equivalents to most of these formulae in other languages, and Arabic learners may have difficulty in understanding and/or producing them.

Scholarly research has demonstrated that language learning involves the process of acquiring a new identity. For some students, particularly heritage learners, the Allah Lexicon is not problematic to this process because they likely feel a personal, familial, ethnic and/or religious resonance when learning and using the phrases. However, I argue that for foreign language learners, the identity acquisition process can be challenging, complex, and difficult: first, because Arabic is distinctively different linguistically and culturally from English; and secondly, because the phrases of the Lexicon strongly evoke a Muslim identity—one that may drastically differ from, or even contradict, the learner’s own conceptions and beliefs. Thus this dissertation explores the ways in which Arabic learners “digest” these Arabic religious expressions. How do they understand these phrases? To what extent are they aware of their social and cultural connotations? Do learners choose to use these phrases or refuse to us them because the terms evoke discomfort? How do learners feel about using phrases that evoke a Muslim identity in the current anti-Islamic climate?

The purpose of this study is to shed light on the individual learner and his/her identity shifts and struggles when learning and using Arabic and the God-expressions. Using interviews as a data collection technique, I investigate the questions I have posed and probe learners’ attitudes towards the language and its native speakers, in general, and towards this cultural aspect of Arabic, in particular. Although the main goal of this research is to better understand Arabic learners and know how they receive and perceive what is taught to them, the broader goal is to expose persistent, cultural stereotypes and bridge the gap between English- and Arabic-speaking people.