The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Ideology - Softcover

Suleiman, Yasir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748617078 ISBN 13: 9780748617074

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Considering the communicative and symbolic roles of language in articulating national identity, Yasir Suleiman provides a fresh perspective on nationalism in the Middle East. The links between language and nationalism are delineated and he demonstrates how this has been articulated over the past two centuries.

Straddling the domains of cultural and political nationalism, Suleiman examines the Arab past (looking at the interpretation and reinvention of tradition, and myth-making); the clash between Arab and Turkish cultural nationalism in the 19th and early 20th century; readings of canonical treatises on the topic of Arab cultural nationalism, the major ideological trends linking language to territorial nationalism; and provides a research agenda for the study of language and nationalism in the Arab context.

This the first full-scale study of this important topic and will be of interest to students of nationalism, Arab and comparative politics, Arabic Studies, history, cultural studies and sociolinguistics.

About this title

From the Publisher

"Performs a very useful service in its careful assembling, summarizing, and linking together a lot of rather obscure material, much of it in Arabic...a very useful addition to courses on Arab nationalism, nationalism in general, and Arabic linguistics." -- Professor Clive Holes FBA, Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford, England.

"This compelling and timely study of Arabic culture, language, history, and nationalism by distinguished Arabic linguist Yasir Suleiman, allows English-speaking audiences an inside view of key issues in understanding the Arab world. Based on Suleiman's extensive research in Arabic language and society, the book is scholarly but not pedantic, and will appeal to a wide range of readers." --Karin C. Ryding, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic, and Chair of the Department of Arabic Language, Literature and Linguistics at Georgetown University.

"A major work . . . .[it] combine[s] detailed knowledge of the language, the underlying philosophy, political trends through the 20th century, and also literary production . . . will constitute a basic text in all departments where the Arabic language and its associated literature are studied." --Tim Niblock, professor of Middle Eastern Studies and director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, England.

"Masterfully combine[s] his profound familiarity with the Arabic literature, the endless literature on nationalist ideology, and the very substantial sociolinguistic literature on language and ethnic identity." --Joshua A. Fishman, Distinguished University Research Professor of Social Sciences, Emeritus, Yeshiva University and Visiting Professor of Linguistics and Education, Stanford University and New York University.

About the Author

Professor Yasir Suleiman, FRSE, is Director of the Edinburgh Institute for the Advanced Study of Islam and the Middle East at the University of Edinburgh. He has written and edited several books including The Arabic Grammatical Tradition, Arabic Sociolinguistics and Language and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0748617078
• ISBN 13: 9780748617074
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288