A Syntactic and Discoursal Analysis of halaʔ ‘Now’ in Jordanian Arabic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1504.32Keywords:
discourse marker, grammaticalization, halaʔ, Jordanian Arabic, multi-functionalityAbstract
This study investigates the syntactic behavior and the discoursal roles of halaʔ in Jordanian Arabic, which corresponds to the English ‘now’ and is frequently used as a discourse marker. Specifically, the syntactic distribution of this discourse marker in everyday conversations, its function in establishing coherence between discourse units, and its communicative and discoursal meanings are scrutinized. The data necessary for the study was obtained from almost a 15-hour corpus of naturally-occurring conversations recorded by the researchers through 30 interviews with 80 (40 males and 40 females) Jordanian students from Al-Balqa Applied University. The data analysis revealed that halaʔ can be used as an adverb conveying temporal meaning and as a discourse marker conveying coherence-related meanings. Semantically, it is a temporal adverb that has a semantic meaning parallel to that of its English adverbial counterpart ‘now’. However, it was found that halaʔ can also serve six pragmatic functions: Changing a topic, introducing a contrast or comparison, marking disagreement, initiating reasons, explanations or clarifications, listing, and marking shifts in participation framework (Marking a change in the speaker’s orientation and marking a change of footing). The study concludes with a suggested grammaticalization path for the development of this discourse marker from a lexical source.
References
Abdeljawad, H., & Radwan, A. A. (2016). Conversational coherence: The role of inzeen (okay) in Arabian Gulf spoken Arabic. International Journal of Arabic Linguistics, 2(1), 1-18.
Aijmer, K. (2002). English discourse particles: Evidence from a corpus. John Benjamins Publishing.
Alazzawie, A. (2014). Yamawwad: A discourse and pragmatic marker in Iraqi Arabic. World Journal of English Language, 4(2), 30-39. https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v4n2p30
Al-Daher, Z. Y. (2021). Code-Switching to English amongst Arabic-speaking Jordanians in Canada. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 13(3), 477-499.
Al-Daher, Z. (2016). Pseudo wh-fronting: A diagnosis of wh-constructions in Jordanian Arabic. Doctoral dissertation, University of Manitoba.
Al-Daher, Z., & Al-Abed Al-Haq, F. (2020). The instrumentality of integrativeness: A case study of ESL Saudi students in Canada. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 12(4), 559-581.
Al-Daher, Z., Al-Dala’ien, O. A., Al-Shboul, Y., Al-Rousan, M., & Sahawneh, M. (2022). COVID-19 humor on Jordanian social media: A diagnosis of written jokes on Facebook. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(1), 162-175.
Al-Dala’ien, O. A., Al-Daher, Z., Al-Rousan, M., Al-Shboul, Y., & Zabadi, M. (2022). Morphology of COVID-19 neologisms in Modern Standard Arabic. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(1), 111-132.
Alqahtani, F. A. (2023). The semantic and pragmatic functions of /bʕdɪn/ “بعدين” in informal Arabic. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 7(1), 46-59. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol7no1.4
Alshammary, M. S. (2021). The meaning and functions of qSdk and yʕny as discourse markers in Saudi Arabic. Theory & Practice in Language Studies, 11(6), 717-722.
Alshboul, S., Al Shaboul, Y., & Asassfeh, S. M. (2010). Grammaticalization patterns: Evidence from future markers in Jordanian Arabic. Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, 114, 99-110.
Al-Shboul, Y., Al-Daher, Z., Al-Dala’ien, O. A., & Abu-Snoubar, T. (2022a). Congratulation strategies by Jordanians on a royal birthday Facebook status. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 13(5), 1097-1104.
Al-Shboul, Y., Huwari, I., Al-Dala’ien, O. A., & Al-Daher, Z. (2022b). An analysis of compliment response strategies by Jordanian adolescent students: The influence of gender and social power. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(7), 1252-1261.
Andersen, G. (2001). Pragmatic markers and sociolinguistic variation: A relevance theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Blakemore, D. (1989). Denial and contrast: A relevance theoretic analysis of "but". Linguistics and philosophy, 12, 15-37.
Blakemore, D. (1987). Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bolden, G. B. (2008). Reopening Russian conversations: The discourse particle -to and the negotiation of interpersonal accountability in closings. Human Communication Research, 34(1), 99-136.
Brinton, L. J. (1996). Pragmatic markers in English: Grammaticalization and discourse functions. Walter de Gruyter.
Erman, B. (1987). Pragmatic expressions in English: A study of you know, you see and I mean in face-to-face conversation. Doctoral dissertation, Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Fraser, B. (1999). What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics, 31(7), 931-952.
Fraser, B. (1993). Discourse markers across languages. In Lawrence Bouton & Yamuna Kachru (Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning (pp. 1-16). Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Fraser, B. (1990). An approach to discourse markers. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(3), 383-398.
Geurts, B. (2000). Explaining grammaticalization (The standard way). Linguistics, 38(4), 781–788.
Goddard, A., & Patterson, L. M. (2000). Language and gender. London: Psychology Press.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Heine, B. (2003). Grammaticalization. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (Eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics (pp. 575-601). Oxford: Blackwell.
Heine, B., Claudi, U., & Hünnemeyer, F. (1991). Grammaticalization: A conceptual framework. University of Chicago Press.
Heine, B., & Kuteva, T. (2002). World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hopper, P. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2003). Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press.
Kanakri, M. A., & Al-Harahsheh, A. M. (2013). The discourse analysis and pragmatics of ʔa:di in Jordanian spoken Arabic. International Journal of English Linguistics, 3(6), 59-63. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v3n6p59
Labov, W. (1984). Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation. In John Baugh & Joel Sherzer (Eds.), Language in use: Readings in sociolinguistics (pp. 28-53). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lenk, U. (1998). Discourse markers and global coherence in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 30(2), 245-257.
Muller, S. (2005). Discourse markers in native and non-native English discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Narrog, H. (2012). Modality, subjectivity, and semantic change: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford University Press.
Östman, J. O. (1981). 'You Know': A discourse-functional study. John Benjamins Publishing.
Redeker, G. (1991). Linguistic markers of discourse structure. Linguistics, 29(6), 1139-1172.
Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schiffrin, D. (1985). Conversational coherence: The role of well. Language, 61(3), 640-667.
Schourup, L. C. (1999). Discourse markers. Lingua, 107(3-4), 227-265.
Traugott, E. C. (2002). From etymology to historical pragmatics. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Bernd Kortmann, Donka Minkova, & Robert Stockwell (Eds.), Studies in the history of the English language: A millennial perspective (pp. 19-49). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Traugott, E. C. (1982). From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: Some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Winfred P. Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel (Eds.), Perspectives on historical linguistics: Papers from a conference held at the meeting of the Language Theory Division, Modern Language Assn., San Francisco (pp. 245-271). John Benjamins Publishing.
Urgelles-Coll, M. (2010). The syntax and semantics of discourse markers. A. & C. Black Publishers Ltd.
Ziegeler, D. (2011). The grammaticalization of modality. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization (pp. 595-604). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
