A VOICE FOR THE PEOPLE: Hybrid Arabic in the Political Oratory of Gamal Abdel Nasser

Author

Tate E. Bell, University of MississippiFollow

Date of Award

Spring 4-30-2025

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Modern Languages

First Advisor

Charles Joukhadar

Second Advisor

Allen Clark

Third Advisor

Graham Pitts

Relational Format

PDF

Abstract

This thesis examines the political oratory of Gamal Abdel Nasser through the lens of Arabic sociolinguistics, arguing that his speeches are best understood not as simple alternations between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA), but as instances of hybridization—a strategic and fluid interweaving of registers across a linguistic continuum. While earlier studies by Clive Holes and Nathalie Mazraani have identified register variation and code-switching in Nasser’s rhetoric, this project expands upon their findings by applying El-Said Badawi’s five-level framework to track intra-utterance blending of MSA and ECA. Drawing on a transcription and linguistic analysis of a key Nasser speech from the 1960s, this study analyzes phonological, morphological, and syntactic features to reveal how hybridized speech constructs authority while maintaining populist intimacy. The results demonstrate that Nasser’s use of Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) and hybrid forms—rather than binary code-switching—allowed him to engage diverse audiences, from the educated elite to rural Egyptians. This hybridization was not merely a byproduct of natural speech, but a deliberate rhetorical strategy aligned with broader political goals of Pan-Arabism, anti-colonial resistance, and domestic legitimacy. By reframing diglossia as a dynamic continuum and emphasizing register gradation over binary shifts, this research contributes to both Arabic linguistics and political communication, offering a model for analyzing language variation in other diglossic or multilingual societies.

Recommended Citation

Bell, Tate E., "A VOICE FOR THE PEOPLE: Hybrid Arabic in the Political Oratory of Gamal Abdel Nasser" (2025). Honors Theses. 3239.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3239