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Arab World English Journal ( May, 2026) Theses ID 326 Pp.1- 42
This applied sociolinguistic study aims to investigate the perspective of Saudi parents toward using colloquial Arabic for writing children’s stories within the context of the sociolinguistic phenomenon of Arabic diglossia, which refers to the use of two separate variations of Arabic language in the Arab-speaking countries, namely, Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial Arabic. An Arab child’s first learnt speech language variant is colloquial Arabic, while literacy is based on MSA, which is only learned at school age and through instruction. Therefore, the study investigates the issue whether the quality of language used in Arab children’s stories, which has an impact on children’s language skills as well as their vocabulary, should be reviewed, especially with the increasing trend to use colloquial dialect in these stories. To investigate parents’ perceptions of children’s stories written in colloquial Arabic, the study employs a quantitative method implemented through using an attitude questionnaire design. The study sample, which consists of 57 participants, was selected randomly. The participants’ opinions help answer the main question of this study, related to the inquiry about the Saudi parents’ perspectives and attitudes toward Arabic vernacular children’s stories. The study findings indicated that most parents show negative attitudes toward colloquial children’s stories, and that 98.2% of the parents think that reading stories in MSA Arabic is essential to a child’s development as a reader. The study indicated that parents are also fully aware of the significance of both the content and language generated for children on their reading abilities and academic performance.
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Ayah Hamad Alsaleh has an MA in linguistics from the Department of English Language and Literature
at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University, Saudi Arabia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3452-5962