Language Attitude in Jordan: A Study of Males’ Evaluation of Females’ Variety Choice

This study aims at exploring the attitudes of males toward different spoken varieties of Jordanian Arabic when utilized by females. A female speaker delivered three recorded guises in the major spoken varieties of Jordan: urban, Bedouin, and rural. A Matched Guise Test (MGT) and informal interviews were utilized. In the MGT, 402 participants, evenly representing the three spoken varieties, responded to a questionnaire containing 12 statements related to status and solidarity traits. The analysis, employing Multiple-way ANOVA and Wilcoxon nonparametric tests, revealed a consistent pattern: Participants, irrespective of their spoken variety, rated the speaker of the urban guise most favorably and the speaker of the rural guise least favorably in terms of the examined traits. Results from the interview data, based on content analysis, supported the findings from the quantitative part. The observed attitudes are discussed in terms of socio-economic factors such as education and disparities in labor force participation. Additionally, the findings of the study are discussed with reference to themes from the third wave of sociolinguistics, including indexicality, iconicity, and multiplicity of social meanings.