Sociolinguistics and Development of Israel’s Arab Minority

The objective of this report is to give a concise study regarding the Arab minority in Israel. It will trace some significant issues that have impacted the overall linguistic reality, nevertheless the marginalization of Arabs in that small but complex country. It will track the language policy adopted in that country, the educational, political,practical,social,ideological reasons that have lead to the Arabic status in Israel. Spolsky and shohamy(1999a:41)suggest an obvious difference among three things, language practices language ideology and language policy. Language practices are the actual use of linguistic repertoire, that is, the options among language varieties and languages accessible to a society. Language ideology is†¦show more content†¦As a result, this situation of Hebrew becoming the national language has created a linguistic and social dominance across all domains. This superstratum of Hebrew in Israel can be seen in most of the domains such as governmental departments and institutions, advertisements, the media, court procedures and education. This linguistic reality, has added to the negative social attitudes towards the Arabic minority, the economic status of a minority language is likely to be a key element in language vitality. Palestinians in Israel, who constitute an indigenous and national minority, are considered a minority of low socio-economic status (Smooha, 2005) this in return has created hegemony amongst the majority towards the Arab minority in the state of Israel (unit glossary) Furthermore, this linguistic reality, has enforced endogamy, where Arab Israelis, have to create state of affairs to maintain and develop the Arabic language by encouraging community activities such, literature events such as poetry, readings, and other literature competitions, further attention to elementary and secondary school in their towns and villages, and continuous discussions and debates regarding the Arabic language policy to further improve and relinquish its status.. The social reality mentioned above has contributed towards the negative economic, social and political status, which in return, has further marginalized and