Patterns of diphthong adaptation within English loanwords in Iraqi Arabic

Abstract

This study investigates the phonological adaptation of diphthongs within English loanwords in Iraqi Arabic (IA). In contrast to earlier small-scale descriptive studies, this study used quantitative content analysis to analyse 346 established loanwords collected through document review and direct observation to determine the diphthong adaptation patterns involved in the nativisation of English loanwords by native speakers of IA. Content analysis results revealed that most GB diphthong adaptations in English loanwords in IA occur in systematic patterns and thus may be ascribed to particular aspects in both L1 and L2 phonological systems. More specifically, the results indicate that the IA output forms tend to maintain the features of the GB input diphthong to the greatest extent possible by either replacing diphthongs with vowel-plus-glide sequences or reducing them to single vowels. Still, several diphthong adaptations were not found to be dictated by phonological considerations, and the way the words were spelt seemed to play a part in the process.