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Article published In: Styles, Standards and Meaning in Lesser-Studied Languages
Edited by Uri Horesh, Jonathan R. Kasstan and Miriam Meyerhoff
[Language Ecology 4:1] 2020
► pp. 39–54

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Stylistic variation in Hebrew reading tasks

Methodological and theoretical insights

 | Ben‐Gurion University of the Negev
Published online: 27 July 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.00008.gaf
Abstract
One of the core assumptions of the sociolinguistic interview methodology is that read speech tasks may be used to elicit more standard variants from a speaker. This link between reading and standardness, however, is a socially constructed relationship that may differ across cultures. Standard language ideologies in Israel differ from those in well-studied English speaking communities, and exhibit a complex tension between the notions of standardness and correctness. Drawing on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews of 21 Hebrew speakers, this paper analyzes the variation in two Hebrew morpho-phonological variables. The results show a pattern of use that differs from the cline typically observed, which suggests that Hebrew speakers have a specialized reading register that recruits distinctive stylistic resources. These findings highlight the nature of reading as a stylistic performance that may manifest differently according to local language ideologies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reading tasks and Hebrew specific challenges
    • 2.1Prescriptive notions in Hebrew
    • 2.2The Hebrew writing system
  • 3.The linguistic variables (ve) and (ha)
    • 3.1The realizations of (ve)
    • 3.2The realizations of (ha)
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1The sample
    • 4.2The interview and reading passage
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Results for (ve)
    • 5.2Results for (ha)
    • 5.3General discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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