Arabic-Hebrew Language-Switching and Cultural Identity

Abstract

The phenomenon of Arabic-Hebrew language-switching is increasingly prevalent among the Palestinian Arabs in “Israel”. This is a preliminary investigative study of Arabic-Hebrew language-switching which deals with the analysis of randomly selected pieces of discourse collected, for the purpose of the study, from various sectors of the Palestinian Arab population. The paper includes three main sections in which an attempt is made to answer the following three questions: (i) which parts of the community use language-switching distinctively in their everyday communication, (ii) what is the nature of such usage and the reasons behind it, and (iii) what is the relationship between language-switching and cultural identity?.