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Analysis Of Emirati Animated Sitcoms On The United Arab Emiratis ( Uae ) Essay

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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,

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