Measure Terms in Rural Jordanian Spoken Arabic

Abstract

The use of measure terms can be socially and culturally determined, as every speech society may have its own unique measure terms. This study aims to shed light on the sociolinguistic usage of measure terms in Jordanian Spoken Arabic (JSA). The researcher collected the data from everyday conversations in the rural dialect of the north of Jordan. The participants of the study were 15 men and women who were in their fifties and sixties. The ethnography of communication and Interactional Sociolinguistic (IS) approaches are adopted as the theoretical framework for this study. The study concluded that measure terms in JSA are culturally and socially inherited and transmitted, and Jordanians tend to use body parts (i.e. finger, hand, foot and leg related expressions) as measure terms for heights, lengths and weights..