The social stratification of the Syro-Potamian dialect of Deir Ez-Zor: exploring linguistic prestige and identity in a diasporic dialect

As many sociolinguistic works of literature adopt the norms of non-standard dialects as being of a low-profile or non-prestigious subset of the standard, this paper delves into the social factors that affect language behaviour along with the features that would be eliminated—code-switching/mixing—due to the stigmas imposed by society. Therewithal, this paper investigates the socio-diffused status of the Deiri dialect by examining the significance of distinct social factors—gender, social class, religion, urban/rural status—and the prestigious notion attributed to a standard dialect of a nation. I argue in this paper that the attitude towards the Deiri dialect would instead define the mutual intelligibility and social status of the Deiri speakers by stratifying the community into three registers: urban, rural, and Christian. Using the findings of the collected data on the Deiri dialect, conferring that females are more prestige-conscious than males, with a consequential tendency towards the dominant dialect of the capital.