The Dialect of Hasawis and Bedouins in Al-Ahsa (Saudi Arabia): A Comparative Study Порівняльне дослідження діалектів Хасаві та Бедуїнів у провінції Аль-Ахса (Саудівська Аравія)

Introduction. This paper is a sociolinguistic study that aims to investigate the speech of two groups in Al-Ahsa (Saudi Arabia) for the purpose of making a comparison between their speech. 
Methods. This study is empirical in its methods in that it is fully dependent on naturalistic speech. All the interviews, which were conducted in Al-Ahsa were conducted using the face-to-face technique for obtaining data with regard to linguistic variation. In this, the focus is on the Hasawi people and the Bedouins. 
Results. The study indicates that these two groups manipulate their dialect, in particular the key features of their dialects, to emphasize distinctiveness and negotiate identity. The study shows that while the linguistic behavior of the elderly in both groups is similar both within and outside of the group, the young generations show differences in their speech behavior. Additionally, group identity is very important to them. Outside the group, the possibility of interacting with members of the other group occurs, and, within this context, strong correlations appeared between linguistic factors and social factors, in particular the group identity among young males and gender distinctness among young females in both groups. Young males stereotypically tend to use the local linguistic forms, in particular the forms that are considered "the most salient feature which carries the social meaning of locality (Al-Wer, 1991: 75) and symbolizes local identities. The linguistic behavior of young males in both groups exhibits almost the same trends. Both are proud of the identity of the group to which they belong, particularly in gatherings in which other identities are present. Thus, unlike the two other age groups, the use of the /ts/ by the young Bedouin males and the use of the /EL/ by Hasawi young males increase in these settings rather than inside their own groups. This indicates that displaying one’s group identity is of significance to the young males in each group when a possible interaction takes place. While the use of the /EL/ among young Hasawis inside the group is 55.0%, its use was 70.0% in contexts outside the group and in the presence of other identities. The use of the /ts/ variant inside the group is 40%, while it is 60.0% outside the group. It also shows that the linguistic behavior of the Hisawi elderly is almost identical to the linguistic behavior of the elderly in the Bedouin group. In both groups, age (young, middle-aged or elderly) appears to be significant. 
Conclusion. The study shows that social competition is primarily expressed in the linguistic forms used. The more this social competition increases, the more unlikely the possibility of giving up one's social dialect becomes. People say much more through an accent than through the semantic content of the speech itself. To conclude, the study shows that social competition is frequently expressed in the linguistic forms used.


Introduction
The city of Al-Ahsa is well-known for its abundance of water and numerous springs; it takes its name from these springs (Nakhlah, 1980: 17). Nevertheless, the largest part of it is a desert. Al-Ahsa (Arabic: al-Aḥsāʾ, locally pronounced al-Ḥasāʾ) is the largest governorate in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province and is named after the Al Ahsa oasis. The name Al-Ahsa is also given to the largest city in the governorate). According to a 2005 estimate, Al-Ahsa has a population of over 908,000 people. Al Hofuf and Al Mubaraz are the two main cities of the governorate.
The city is known to be the location of one of the largest headquarters of the oil giant, ARAMCO (American-Arabian Oil company), which is one of the largest and the most authoritative companies in the world. Many foreigners have worked for this company; the English language is the basic language of the culture of this company and its employees. Many local people from Al-Ahsa have worked for this company. Through this, they acquired the English language, and they obtained tremendous and abundant knowledge about the cultures of other people.
As a result, the city reflects a diversity in its culture, and many elderly people speak English fluently, especially those who worked for the company when it was run by an American administration in the past. Many of the Hasawis and the Bedouins who live in Al-Ahsa were given the opportunity to travel abroad (in particular, to the West) to take training courses as employees of this company. The experiences of traveling abroad or working in a company embodying the Western culture had a significant effect on the personal abilities of many of the residents of this area and enhances their educational levels.
In addition to this company, Al-Ahsa has one of the largest universities in the country, namely King Faisal University. This university also plays a role in the educational and cultural prosperity of the area.
The two social identities, the Hasawis and the Bedouins, remain crucial to the culture of the area, and the native population remains committed to defending and protecting its distinctiveness by means of the dialect used. The reasons behind this insistency to remain unchangeable when it comes to social identity, regardless of the factors that succeeded in elevating the level of education and the level of knowledge about other cultures, are the main focus of this study, and the researchers will attempt to provide answers to this. «The study of the lingual consciousness of various ethnic group representatives does not lose its topicality in psycholinguistic investigation for decades» (Terekhova, 2018: 92).
In fact, Al-Ahsa city resembles a mosaic in terms of the dialects the people use. The population consists of two major groups who have been living in the area for a long period of time: the Hasawis and the Bedouins. The dialects of the two groups are easily distinguishable by those familiar with the Arabic language. The Hasawi dialect is rooted in the area and has a strong connection to it. The dialect, like the people themselves, is named after the name of the place itself, Al-Ahsa. The Bedouin dialect is the Bedouin one that is commonly associated with Bedouins wherever they are.
In other words, Hasawi dialect is linked with the Hasawis who live in Al-Ahsa, but it is unique to the area and is not a cross-border dialect. Contrary to this, the Bedouin dialect is a cross-border dialect as it is heard wherever Bedouin tribes exist. According to El Salman (2016), «the correlation between your being Bedouin and the dialect you use regardless of the place you live is very strong, resulting in a very unique situation for Bedouins» (p. 4).
Thus, although these groups live in the same area, we have classified one group based on their use of the Hasawi dialect, as it strongly correlates with the area, and the other group is classified as the Bedouins based on the dialect of their tribes, the Bedouin tribes. They have brought the language with them to the area from the different places they have previously lived. In this case, the Bedouin dialect is related to the group but not to the place. Its use demonstrates a belonging to the Bedouin group (El Salman, 2016).
Therefore, it is not unexpected to learn that the dialect of the Bedouins is the same wherever they are. For example, the dialect of the Bedouins of Jordan is very similar to the dialect of the Bedouin dialect of Saudi Arabia. Its key feature, namely the affricate dental sound /ts/ (for example, the word /kiif/ «how» is pronounced /tsiif/ «how»), is used by the Bedouins of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, particularly when they are among other Bedouin groups. The Hasawi also show a tendency to use the Hasawi dialect whenever they have desire to show their Hasawiness, so to speak. As one of the informants said, «I'm from the heart of Al-Ahsa» which he stated in the Hasawi dialect to confirm his claim through words. Hasawi is the dialect associated with the Hasawi people and, as a result, is used most often, specifically its key features, when the speaker emphasizes a Hasawi identity.
Every dialect has its own characteristics and key features. These key features occur most often in the speech whenever an expression of identity and distinctiveness are required, and these same key features are suppressed whenever there is a tendency to show that both groups belong to the same place, namely Al-Ahsa. Therefore, the dialect is manipulated to demonstrate a willingness to integrate as groups or to show distinctiveness. Many sociolinguistic studies have shown that multilingual individuals display deliberate language manipulation in order to create a separate or similar social and linguistic identity (Thomason, 2008).

The Key Features of the Hasawi Group and the Bedouin Group The Hasawi Dialect
The Al-Ahsa dialect is a variation of the Arabic spoken in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (Al Jumah, 2008). Although there are many phonetic features that distinguish the Hasawi dialect, thereby identifying its users as Hasawi, the emphatic and lengthening of some sounds in this dialect could be considered the «marker». A «marker» is defined as «the variables which show stratification according to style and social class» (Mesthrie, 2000: 91) or even as a «stereotype» in terms of «forms that are socially marked -that is, they are prominent in the linguistic awareness of speech communities» (ibid.).
Once such sounds known to be unique to the Hasawi dialect emerge in the vernacular of the speaker, he or she can be identified as Hasawi. As a result, and in many cases, the use of such sounds is unlikely to be perceived as unintentional.

The Variable
The dialect of Al-Ahsa has many linguistic features that deserve to be considered Hasawi features. For example, the voiced velar fricative /ġ/ can be realized as the uvular /q/. Thus, a word like /ġorfah/ «room» is pronounced as /qorfah/. With regard to the vowels of the Al-Ahsa dialect, the diphthongs [eɪ] and [ia] are notable (Al Jumah, 2008). The Al-Ahsa dialect exhibits a diphthong similar to that of the English [eɪ] diphthong. It is assumed here that this entered the dialect through some loan words as the diphthong occurs in many of them (ibid., p. 13). For example, the English words radiator, light and gear have been borrowed in this dialect and are pronounced as [radeɪtar], [leɪt] and [ɡeɪr] respectively. Affrication is also a common phenomenon in the Hasawi dialect. For example, the voiceless velar /k/ can be pronounced as /tʃ/. In this case, /akhooki/ «your brother» could be pronounced as / khootʃ/.
However, in conducting this research, it became apparent that a simultaneous vowel lengthening and emphatic vowel could be considered the linguistic feature that distinguishes the Hasawi from other groups. As a result, this is perceived as unique to the Hasawi dialect as it is not found in the dialect of other main groups living in the area, namely the Bedouins. Thus, the variable of the study will be a simultaneous emphatic vowel and vowel lengthening (henceforth VLE). In this, the people of Al-Ahsa lengthen the vowel and, at the same time, make it emphatic. Accordingly, a token is counted when a speaker lengthens the vowel in any word during his or her speech. For example, in the following sentence taken from speaker number 13 (S13), we counted four cases of vowel lengthening. Each occurrence is placed between two brackets: We notice that the variable is repeated two times and so we count two tokens. This does not happen in the first word athath, but it does happen in the second occurrence of the same word, athath.
In this case, the variable of the study is any of the three vowels: (o), (I), or (a) (henceforth VLE). There are two variants: emphatic vowel and lengthening the vowel or none. For example, the vowel (a) is a variable. Its two variants are + emphatic and lengthening (henceforth) EL). If it happens or -emphatic (henceforth NEL); if emphatic vowels and lengthening do not occur.

Examples of the vowel lengthening are:
«meetings»

The Bedouin Dialect
In Al-Ahsa, there are other population groups who are also considered part of the Hasawi society as mentioned above. One such group is the Bedouin group that also belongs to the greater classification of different Bedouin tribes in the area. The Bedouins have their own dialect, known as the Bedouin dialect. However, the families known to be originally from Al-Ahsa consider the Bedouins as people who came to Al-Ahsa but are not originally from Al-Ahsa. To justify why the Bedouins are not viewed as part of the Hasawi society, 90.0% of the informants stated that most of the grandfathers of the Bedouins were born in other parts of the kingdom but not in Al-Ahsa. In addition, each of the Bedouin tribes is known to originally be from other areas. For example, the Anizi Bedouin tribe is originally from Hafer; al Batin, Shamaris are from Hail. On the other hand, a Hasawi cannot be from any other place but Al-Ahsa.
The Bedouin dialect has its own linguistic features. However, in this research we will concentrate on its key feature, namely the use of the affricate /ts/, as it is taken as a perimeter to show how the Bedouin dialect differs from the Hasawi dialect in which the /ts/ is not used at all. In the Bedouin dialect, this variant is important as a marker that demonstrates the Bedouin social identity.

The Hasa Speech community
The Bedouin key feature /ts/ and the Hasawi key feature, namely the vowel lengthening, are used in this speech community. A speech community comprises «people who are in habitual contact with each other by means of speech, which involves either a shared language variety or shared ways of interpreting in the different language varieties commonly used in the area» (Mesthrie et al., 2000: 38). © Ель Салман Махмуд & Аль Фрідан Абдулл а Though you might find Bedouins and Hasawis living in the same neighborhood, you can nevertheless still feel that there is an isogloss separating each house from another based on the linguistic forms used by them. Living in proximity to one another does not lead to abandoning one's linguistic form in favor of another by either of these two groups. According to Trudgill, traditional dialectology never adequately explored the linguistic behavior of people living in the linguistic borderlands (Trudgill, 1986). I can add that linguists have never explored the linguistic behavior of people living in the same neighborhood and in houses that are very close together. This fact alone increases the significance of our study. Being part of the same speech community gives both groups an advantage in terms of comprehending the social meaning of the use of any variety. Thus, there are conscious rules that became unconscious and are essential to mastering the use of these dialects.
«It seems reasonable that the topic of awareness is discussed in many fields in linguistics because language use combines both conscious selection and automatic production» (Verschik, 2015).
In other words, what is deliberately learned becomes conscious in use through experience. This awareness of the meaning of the different codes used also helps the members of this speech community to linguistically accommodate with one another. This linguistic accommodation is used «to develop different attitudes to life events in order to reduce an external and internal uncertainty in situations» (Savchenko, 2019: 98).
Linguistic accommodation helps to create good relations between participants. According to Zasiekina (2019), Therefore, the use of any linguistic form in Al-Ahsa could not be random but socially chosen. It is not possible to hear a Hasawi using /ts/ under any circumstances. This is not because they are unable to pronounce this variant -indeed they can -but because of the social meaning it carries. This attempt will then be perceived by their group as an attempt to disassociate themselves from the Hasawi group. To accommodate to a friend's speech might carry a reward, but the cost is inevitably much higher. Bedouins also avoid accommodating by adopting features of another dialect. It's not possible to expect a Bedouin might lengthen the vowel in a linguistic context as the Hasawi do. An attempt of this sort carries a significant social cost. Nevertheless, and as an unwritten tradition, the key features of the two groups that clearly indicate their identity are avoided in gatherings attended by members of both groups. By doing so, they attempt to appear as one group. However, if a situation which calls for exerting one's identity arises, such as a conflict, these key features are ready to be used. Thus, the use of a marked code is not unintentional but rather deliberate to achieve something social. According to Verschik (2015), awareness is also related to more fundamental issues of identity in multilinguals, for example, deliberate use of stylistically marked contact features. Jealousy between the members of the two groups is to be considered. Ambivalence and uncertainty of jealousy are deeply rooted in the public consciousness of many peoples (Terekhova, 2018).
Sociolinguistic and anthropological studies are full of examples of deliberate language manipulation by multilingual individuals in order to create a separate, bi-, or multilingual identity.
Our intent in this discussion is to demonstrate that the key feature [ts] of the Bedouin dialect and the [ELV] are definitively linked with the Bedouins and the Hasawis, respectively. These two linguistic features have become an identity feature for a Hisawi or a Bedouin regardless of whether they use it or not.

Methods
This research is experimental. It depends entirely on naturalistic speech in its methodology. The interviews that were conducted in Al-Ahsa were used. They were conducted using the face-to-face method. In this way we obtained data on linguistic variation. The study comprises people who are either Hasawis from Al-Ahsa, or Bedouins from Al-Ahsa. The size of the sample is acceptable and similar to the number of informants in many similar studies. For example, the number of informants in Trudgill's (1974) was 60 in a city with a population of 118,610, and the number of informants in Daher's (1998) conducted in Damascus was 46.
Our large social network enabled us to draw our sample from different kinds of people and from both genders. As a research team, we had the advantage that both of us are professors at the city's university and one is a native of the city. This helped us to avoid the inherent difficulty of a male-to-female interview, and, as such, we were not obliged to engage a female to help us in carrying out the interviews.
The methodology adopted in this research came as a result of the nature of the research. Most of the hypotheses emerged from our own observations while dealing with people belonging to both groups. In order to prove these observations, systematic interviews were carried out. In some interviews with people who were friends, we had previously had opportunities to observe their speech before the study officially initiated. Face-to-face interviews were used; and street observations of people talking were also used as complimentary tools to collect data. These pre-research observations were the cornerstone on which our hypotheses were built. These pre-research observations also helped us to become acquainted with the people to be interviewed. For example, it was observed that the dental affricate sound totally disappeared in the speech of the students in classes and on the university campus. The Hasawi feature of lengthening vowels was normally used by males and in classes, in particular when the topic was unrelated to the context of the lesson of the class, or in our offices. Generally, students are young. Thus, gatherings at the university where people of both groups were present were intensively studied.
This study is conducted in light of the Labovian Paradigm (Labov, 1966), and the quantitative approach is adopted. The sample consists of people who belong to both groups and who live in Al-Ahsa area. However, these interviews and the gathering of information took place in Al Hasa city, in particular the Al Haffof district.
We divided the sample into two kinds of groups, according to sex, and age. In order to gain a statistically accurate view of the use of the variables a univariate analysis is employed. For the purpose of using the univariate analysis, each group is denoted by a number. The male group is denoted by number 1 and the female group by number 2. The young-age group is denoted by 1, the middle-age group by 2, and the elderly group -by 3 (see Table 1, and  Table 3 shows that the use of the variant /ts/ is actively used by all age groups.  The study will concentrate on the age group of the young and, to a lesser extent, on the middle-aged group as the elderly are preservers of the native dialect. Butragueño (2020) also shows that gender and age are important factors that determine the language used.

Findings and Discussions
SPSS statistical analysis also shows that age is very significant in the use of the [ts] variant (P<.05 while P<000 for age with regard to the use of the [ts]. The older generation also sees little reason to change their speech because they are not concerned with the prestige associated with the variants one employs. Abandoning their native variant would be highly criticized by their society simply because of their age. It is a very well-known fact that the elderly are subject to much more pressure from their society to preserve their native dialect than the young (Al-Wer, 1991;Walters, 1991).
Linguistically, table 3 also shows that both females and males of the elderly age group behaved similarly in that they categorically preserved the [ts] variant. SPSS analysis shows that gender, by contrast, has a very low significance in the use of the [ts] variant (P<.05 while P<.280 for gender in the use of the [ts] variant).
Thus, as Le Page (1997) interprets, the elderly do not have a strong motive to manipulate their dialect to achieve something social. As a result, the percentage of the use of their native variant /ts/ remains consistent whether inside the group or outside it. It was 98.0-99.0% within and 99.0% outside the group, respectively. The percentages are almost identical.
The middle-aged group shows some willingness to abandon the /ts/ when outside the group. Accordingly, the percentage of the use of /ts/ outside the group decreases in favor of the use of the /k/ variant, but the percentage is not drastically lower. In other words, the middle-aged group shows a moderate linguistic behavior similar to their being in the middle, not that old and that young.
Young males who are known to place great importance on the meaning of identity, show willingness to use the /ts/ outside the group more than they do inside the group.
What is identity?
«Identity, simply stated, is who you are; individuality; the condition of being a certain person. In the social sciences, identity is defined as the way that individuals label themselves as members of a particular group» (Rovira, 2008: 4 So, the use of the Bedouin variant indicates a tendency to make a person's Bedouin identity discernable. These social categories function as an orienting system for self-reference by providing an individual with a conceptualization of their place in society (Jenkins et al., 2019). The rate of use is 60.0% outside the group and 40.0% inside it. The young generation, in general, tends to use colloquial speech patterns in Saudi Arabia. According to Al Mahmoud (2012), the linguistic and cultural context of Saudi Arabia has been characterized by significant use of Standard/Classical Arabic as well as the presence of colloquial Arabic. Then he found that students essentially used colloquial Arabic in their daily conversations, that is, in every day social interactions and in informal written discourse (ibid.). Many of the young persons are students. Thus, the choice to use the Bedouin dialect is expected to be their choice. In addition, it is not unexpected that young Bedouins should adopt the local Bedouin variant as «males appear to favor more localized variants, which carry some kind of identity-based social meaning in the local community» (Milroy & Milroy, 1997: 55).
When it comes to females, the identity of being «females» is more important than their identity as a Bedouin or Hasawi. Therefore, they adopt the variant that helps them achieve this identity. In this case, it is the SA and neutral variant /k/. As a result, the use of /ts/ outside the group is very low among young females. The social meaning that young females seek differs from that sought by young males. While the prestige of social identity or the tribal identity is the concern of young men, this is not the concern of young females. Young women strive to obtain social prestige by appearing soft and urbanized. According to Daher, females avoid using the sounds «associated with a rural background, lacking in what is perceived to be the superior status of city life» (Daher, 1998: 198).
This cannot be achieved through the use of a relatively stigmatized variant that does not sound familiar to others outside the group but rather the sound that is well-known and used by everybody, namely the velar stop /k/.
Most studies show that «discourse on gender differences, in fact, also exists in the use of language for communication, highlighting that men and women are different in their ways of communication, and therefore they should be treated differently» (Mahmud, 2010: 2).
According to Lakoff (1976), women are known to have a tendency toward hypercorrect grammar and the use of standard forms. Subon (2013) adds that «gender differences in politeness, rules and tradition suggest that women are supposed to behave more politely than men» (p. 69).
This explains their tendency to and the high percentage of the use of a variant similar to the variant used by the other group. This also explains why the linguistic behavior of both men and women in the elderly age group was similar while this differs significantly when it comes to the youth. This is due to the significance of the social meaning of the linguistic form as they perceive it; furthermore, they are of an age in which social competition is also important.
To conclude, the use of the /ts/ variant is manipulated by Bedouins in particular outside their social tribal domain. This is embodied in the significant difference between the use of it inside the group and outside it in Al Hasa when a possible interaction with other people who belong to other groups, in particular the other major group, the Hasawis, takes place. Table 4 shows the use of the (VLE) variant by gender and age. It shows that the linguistic behavior of the elderly is almost identical to the linguistic behavior of the elderly in the Bedouin group. In both groups, age (young, middle-aged or elderly) appears to be significant.   This could be interpreted based on the reasons we use when we interpret the linguistic behavior of the elderly of the Bedouin group. The pressure put on the older generation to preserve their native speech plays a major role in this. Moreover, as an elderly member of the tribe, it is neither possible nor realistic to be innovative by abandoning one's linguistic form in favor of another linguistic form. Thus, many linguists have explained this and recognized that young children, adolescents, youths, adults and the elderly speak differently (Okombo, 2020). Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that the reason for the use of the [EL] by the young, although it accounts for a smaller percentage than that of the elderly, differs from the reason for its use among the older generation. Its use is intentional, and the local identity as a competing factor of social identity in the area is important. Young males stereotypically tend to use the local linguistic forms, in particular the forms that are considered «the most salient feature which carries the social meaning of locality» (Al-Wer, 1991: 75) and symbolizes local identities.
The linguistic behavior of young males in both groups exhibits almost the same trends. Both are proud of the identity of the group to which they belong, particularly in gatherings where other identities are present. Thus, unlike the two other age groups, the use of the /ts/ by the young Bedouin males and the use of the /EL/ by Hasawi young males increase in these settings rather than inside their own groups. This indicates that displaying one's group identity is of significance to the young males in each group when a possible interaction takes place.
While the use of the /EL/ among young Hasawis inside the group is 55.0%, its use was 70.0% in contexts outside the group and in the presence of other identities. The use of the /ts/ variant inside the group is 40.0%, while it is 60.0% outside the group.
Young girls also manipulate the accent use, but, as their objective is not the same as that of young males, we notice that Bedouin young females and Hasawi young females linguistically behave almost similarly. The use of the key features of their native dialects exhibited low percentages while the standard variants of the (K) variable and the standard variant of the (VLE) were favored by them. According to Nemati and Bayer (2007), «although men and women live in the same environment, they establish different relations with society as though each belonged to a different environment and culture, the result of which is consequently reflected in the language of both genders as in other aspects of their lives» (p. 12).
As Akhter (2014) explains, «the two sexes respectively command different communication styles. In other words, it can be said that the language which is used by women is different from the language used by men» (p. 13).

Conclusion
As demonstrated throughout the research, Hasawis and the Bedouins of Al-Ahsa have lived in the same area for a long period of time. The dialects of both groups have remained as they are. Neither dialect has left significant effects on the other. The Bedouins are the «Bedouins» and the Hasawis are the «Hasawis». To confirm this distinctiveness in terms of the origin, the dialects are manipulated to the greatest extent to confirm these two social identities. The two key features of both dialects were shown to be used whenever the social identity needs to be asserted in any gathering. Vowel lengthening is the key feature of the Hasawi dialect. Nevertheless, it is not used in a high percentage if a gathering includes people who belong to the same identity, for example, the Hasawi identity. In situations where identity is important and where being Hasawi might be advantageous for social prestige, such as being an original resident of the area, this key feature is used at a very high percentage. The same can be said of the key feature of the Bedouin group, namely, the affricate /ts/. In general, this variant is used only if a gathering includes Bedouins. It is then used at a high percentage. The objective clearly is to confirm that the people present all belong to the same group.
However, if there are people who do not belong to the Bedouin group present in the social gathering, the study shows that the key feature is used in a very low percentage. It is nevertheless worth noting that this percentage increases greatly when the Bedouin identity needs to be confirmed. Bedouins are proud of their identity, and, indeed, their «dialect is a dialect of people whose history is deeply rooted in the history of the ancient Arab tribes» (El Salman & El Haisoni, 2013: 48).
In other words, each group perceives itself as a group with legitimate history worthy of a kind of social prestige. The dialect is manipulated significantly to assert this belief and to confirm the social identity each group claims as its own.
The study clearly shows that young males in each group appear to place the most value on the social meaning of group identities. Therefore, they use the key linguistic features that represent their group in a high percentage.
Young females also behave linguistically similarly in each group. They avoid using colloquial dialect of their groups when they are outside their groups. Young Hasawis use their key features only when inside their own groups, and young female Bedouins seldom use their key features. The study concludes that women are more sensitive to and more conscious of prestige than men. They prefer to emphasize their identity as females through the use of the variant, which is more attached to urbanization and softness.
Men are more prestige conscious than women in terms of emphasizing their identity as local and tough, so they choose to use the variant that displays their local identity and toughness. Therefore, what one group perceives as prestigious is not necessarily the same for another. In this case, the variant that the females may perceive as a stigmatized variant because it is not associated the high class or an urban group, is perceived as the best and most prestigious variant to help males achieve their desire to associate themselves with local prestige. In this, the men tend to use more standard features.
The study also shows that social competition is frequently expressed in the linguistic forms used. The more this social competition increases, the less possible the likelihood of giving up one's social dialect becomes. People are able to express much more through the accent used than through the semantic content of the speech itself. It would be very rude and socially unacceptable to constantly announce your social identity in the social context we studied. Yet people do it through the use of the linguistic forms of the group as the confirmation of their identity.