Linguistic Analysis of Saudi Pidginized Arabic as Produced by Asian Foreign Expatriates

Abstract

This study aims at describing the system of SPA (Saudi pidginized Arabic) as produced by AFEs (Asian foreign expatriates) working in Saudi Arabia with specific reference to universal characteristics of reduction and simplification in the system of morpho-syntactic structure of Saudi Arabic. The study is based on data collected through a semi-structured interview technique probing into the features of SPA system. Thirty informants were randomly selected from among expatriates working in Saudi Arabia and belonging to different linguistic backgrounds – Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Tagalog, Indonesian, and Malayalam- as representatives of AFEs. The study showed that the AFEs tend to use simplified and reduced system of SA in order to communicate with its native speakers. This was reflected in producing variations of sentence word order that are not compatible with the sentence word order of SA, reduced inflectional verb forms and simplified noun phrase lacking agreement within its structure. The study concluded with the following implications: 1) SPA could be considered as an emerging contact variety among Asian expatriates in Saudi Arabic; 2) it has universal characteristics of reduction and simplification as shown in its structural system; 3) substrate languages play an essential role in the formation of the SPA.