Emirati animated sitcoms emblemize the idiosyncratic concerns and ethnolinguistic identities in the United Arab Emiratis (UAE). They depict various social, political, economic, religious, and other day-to-day topics in a wryly humorous fashion with a socio-moral outcome as a part in the process of reproducing the Emirati group recognizability, thus consolidating their social citizenship (Silverstein 2003b: 538). Shaabiat Al-Cartoon [Paperboard Neighborhood] (SAC) (2006), is one of the earliest and most successful Emirati animated sitcoms in portraying the tapestry of the UAE’s ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, and linguistic diversity. As a popular television show during the month of Ramadan, it enjoys an unprecedented loyal fandom (Alriyadh 2014) (Abdul Hamid 2016) and internet forums to discuss its episodes and characters. Ultimately, its popularity makes it an essential tool to examine how this television show is generating a myriad of localized interpretations and negotiations of political dynamics and social nuances. Depending on the episode, it subtly challenges, or reproduces, or selectively furthers and complicates social personas in the Emirati society. One of the significant recurrent themes in the show is gendered conflict talk. Through a multimodal analysis, I aim to contribute to discussions of gendered conflict talk by analyzing the strategic use of non-diglossic code-switching and the linguistic features that move verbal dueling to verbal attack. Previously,
In the first excerpt Deborah Tannen wrote “But What Do You Mean?”, she breaks down and classifies the conversational areas where men and women have the most difficulties communication. Tannen’s excerpt is written from a personal point of view, it is written within her daily workplace and based off actions or events she encounters between men and women. Tannen argues that men tend to be more confrontational when communication and women happen to approach confrontation in a subtle way. Men are direct and to the point, while women try to negotiate. In the excerpt Tannen breaks her argument into 7 sperate
Nydell, Margaret K. (. K. Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times. Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME, 2006.
In our everyday lives, people are exposed to all kinds of media. Many people around the world watch movies, read cartoons and glance at the television. Although they may not realize it, they are under the influence of the images that they see. In fact, these sources may make people have negative assumptions about Middle East. Every so often, there are stereotypical judgments and comments in the media. Exaggerated Hollywood action movies, cartoons and opinionated news emphasize the negative side of Middle East, which indirectly compels audiences to believe that the combinations of images may even be true.
Verbal messages carry majority of social meaning in a conversation. It is through nonverbal cues and clues that the sender and receiver are able to understand each other and exchange a message. This paper will explore the nonverbal communication exchanged in a scene from the program New Girl during season two, episode seventeen. The plot of this episode expands upon four roommates discovering their single parking space and arguing over who deserves it. The roommates consist of four guys and one girl; Schmidt, Winston, Nick, and Jessica. Due to Nick’s seeming lack of interest, they decide he shall be the “decider” and he chooses Jessica. Nick and Jessica have recently kissed, Schmidt claiming she had an unfair advantage. Therefore, Nick gets
Within the essay, “But What Do You Mean?”, author Deborah Tannen explains several main areas of miscommunication between men and women. Within her article, she goes section-by-section comparing men and women’s preferred style of communication. She concludes that while men and women may communicate differently, neither are wrong. To address this concern, she suggests using language both parties can understand. On the other hand, in William Lutz article, “The World of Doublespeak,” he takes a different approach to language discrepancies. Lutz introduces the idea of doublespeak as inherently negative. He starts by proceeding to discuss types of doublespeak subcategory-by-subcategory. Within his subcategories, he gives various real-world examples from various aspects of communication. The conclusion Lutz resolves to claims that doublespeak impedes communication, and thus should be eliminated. Overall, despite both authors exploring aspects of language the tone, categorization, and conclusions are different.
Years later McConnell-Ginet (1989, as cited in McConnell-Ginet, 2011) began to study about language and gender in which it focused on speeches of men and women. Later in 2002, in investigating the characterisation of men and women in language, a study has been conducted that covered the sexism in language (Weatherall, 2002). Thus, the foundation of this research is based on the study of language and gender and its effect on
Deborah Tannen studied at the University of California at Berkeley and received her PhD in linguistics, which is the study of language and its structure. In her essay “Sex, Lies, and Conversations: Why is it So Hard For Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?” , Tannen reports how our gender, different social situations, and the knowledge of particular topics adds to a long list of things that can affect communication between a man and a woman.
Language and Gender is a book composed by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet. It is "another prologue to the investigation of the connection amongst sex and dialect utilize" and is a top to bottom investigation of how men and ladies utilize dialect in an unexpected way. It contains a presentation and nine parts. Different sections examine the social development of sex, social philosophies of dialect, arranging discourse, sex restriction in dialect, and universal perspectives of dialect.
Ibraheem 1 Amenah Ibraheem Holly Jacobus ENG 091 October 19, 2016 Al Basheer Show The Al Basheer Show is an Iraqi comedy show. It targets politics, media organizations, and often uses self-reverential humor, as well. It typically presents comedy news instead of traditional news and it has three different types of humor. The first type is topical. The Al Basheer show targets political and corrupt government workers. For example, former Iraqi Prime Minister Norris Al Maliki urged the Iraqi people who complaining from routine power outages by not using electricity for cooking or heat. “My friend,” responded Al Basheer, holding back his laughter. “All people in Iraq must turn off the heat in the winter and make tea with fire wood.” The comment
The work of the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Iris Zaki have helped in overcoming the danger of a single story in that they show true images of people in countries such as Iran, thus allowing people to better understand them. If people develop a better understanding of Iranians, then there is a great opportunity that any default judgements about them may be vanquished. In Bourdain’s work, the Iranian people are shown as overall friendly people, that enjoy conversing, listening to pop music, as well as eating dishes such as chelow kebabs. It is also discussed in his work how Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, are all grouped into one by foreigners in that they are all oppressive to women. It is stated in Bourdain’s work that not all countries in the Middle East are oppressive to women in the vein of how Saudi Arabia is. It is stated that unlike in Saudi Arabia, women are able to partake in activities such as driving and voting in Iran. Through watching Bourdain’s work, one may be able to see Iranian people for who they truly are rather than what they are portrayed as in one’s own default judgement. As for Zaki’s work, both Arab and Jewish women eat and converse at a hair salon named “Fifi’s”. Although both the Arab and Jewish women come from very different cultures, they develop an understanding and respect for one another through their time at the salon. They accept each other for who they are as they have a clear understanding of one another through the conversations that they have had. Through these understandings of one another, the danger of a single story can be
One of the most important people in the business of emulating and converting American culture for the enjoyment of the Middle East is Amro Hosny. Poplak describes the work Hosny does as “reculturating” as he is responsible for taking the most stereotypical American films and shows and converting them into thoroughly Arabic titles. While people like Hosny work hard to bridge the cultural gap, some differences cannot be mended. The stereotyping of Arabic culture with films portraying the region in such bad light (such as Disney’s Aladdin) only brings divisions between the East and West. As a result, organizations like the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee are formed and efforts are made to alleviate this tension. Such efforts are made
Souheila Al-Jadda is a Muslim American television producer and journalist who currently is a writer for USA Today and the editorial director for The Islamic Monthly. Together with being a reporter, she has also been a producer at Link TV, where she created a Peabody winning daily news program. Her passion for writing started when she got her Bachelor of Arts at The George Washington University in Journalism and Political Science. She went on to get her Master’s degree from John Hopkins University in Economics and Middle East Studies. Due to her personal experiences to the daily life of being a Muslim, her feelings are slightly biased. The varying topics she discusses in her articles are avant-garde in American society because they involve American Muslims, Islam, the Middle East, politics, and women’s rights. Even though Souheila Al-Jadda discussed her position in a slightly biased manner, she effectively discusses political and religious affairs with her use of
The Emirati directed films have yet to reach a quality and level where they have significant distribution outside the Gulf, so they are not doing much to diversify the portrait of self abroad. However, they are helping define how Emiratis see themselves, very much an image in the making, both in reality and in film. While the government is not supporting films of national self-glorification, it is not allowing for self-criticism. The same is true for the audience. Perhaps as the UAE becomes more confident and comfortable with its portrayal abroad, itwill be more flexible with its portrayal at home. Part of that growth will depend on an acceptance of societal realities, as well as a commitment to screenwriting and story development. So while the UAE undergoes its cinematic split personality—heavily soliciting productions like Syriana and then censoring in local theatres two minutes of the footage shot in Dubai because it highlighted labor issues and religious fanaticism—it is also developing an audience that will hopefully become more comfortable with seeing itself in the reality created by film. In other words, ideally filmmakers will increasingly be able to pursue more engaging, fullyrealized stories that can look at critically at themselves rather than relying on expat boogie men to serve as the scapegoats
In these days, the media are playing a major role in the people's thoughts, opinions, decision, personalities, knowledge and beliefs. An important section in the media is the television drama. We all know that the drama is just for entertainment, but is that fully true? Of course not, the drama, as the whole media, affects people's minds and characters. Nowadays, you can find the media, whether TVs, radios, newspapers, Internet etc., around the world, and the Arab world is not an exception. The drama has started in the Arab world early since black and white movies, but the drama that we talk about is the recent drama industry. The rise of pan-Arab satellite in the 90s represent this period. The Arabs produced their own drama as the Syrian drama and the Egyptian drama, but they also arabized some others starting with
In these days, the media are playing a major role in the people's thoughts, opinions, decision, personalities, knowledge and beliefs. An important section in the media is the television drama. We all know that the drama is just for entertainment, but is that fully true? Of course not, the drama, as the whole media, affects people's minds and characters. Nowadays, you can find the media, whether TVs, radios, newspapers, Internet etc., around the world, and the Arab world is not an exception. The drama has started in the Arab world early since black and white movies, but the drama that we talk about is the recent drama industry. The rise of pan-Arab satellite in the 90s represent this period. The Arabs produced their own drama as the Syrian drama and the Egyptian drama, but they also arabized some others starting with