Segmental Variation in Egyptian Arabic and American English Dialects: A Sociophonetic Approach

Document Type : Academic research papers

Authors

1 English Language and Literature Department - Faculty of Women for Arts, Sciences, and Education - Ain Shams University - Egypt

2 Professor of Linguistics, English Language Department, Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University, Egypt.

3 Department of English Language and Literature, the Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University

Abstract

This study investigates the segmental variation in selected Egyptian Arabic (EA) and American English (AE) dialects in the current age. It adopts a synchronic comparative approach in an attempt to compare between chosen dialects of both EA and AE in everyday speech. This comparison aims at removing various confusions observed in colloquial speech presented by these dialects through displaying the similarities and differences of segmental changes between EA and AE. This present paper examines 20 words in both EA and AE dialects which are carefully observed, collected, and analyzed. These words are extracted from YouTube platform and International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA) website. The extracted segmental variations include 12 phonological processes between EA and AE: fronting, monophthongization, shortening, lengthening, lenition, fortition, regressive assimilation, insertion, dentalization, TH-stopping, addition, and R-dropping. This comparative study is conducted within the theoretical framework of Generative Phonology (GP) as presented by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle (1968), within the broader framework of Sociophonetics of Manfred Woidich (1952) and William Labov (1991). The findings of the analysis approve the hypothesis of the comparative study. The essential finding of this study is that the segmental variations of EA and AE dialects have its own way of articulation, and this helps in achieving more simplification and more ease of pronunciation. This study highly recommends that Egyptian linguists and dialectologists should establish in Egypt an official website that displays free online database of EA audios and videos, namely Dialects of Egyptian Arabic Archive (DEAA) website.

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Buhūth
Volume 5, Issue 5
Social Sciences and Humanities and Languages
May 2025
Pages 46-109

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