The Use of <i>q</i> and <i>g</i> by Female and Male Najdi Preachers in Religious Discourse

This paper describes the results of a study of linguistic variation in the religious discourse of six Najd-based Saudi preachers: three females and three males. The principal focus is on the use of the standard and colloquial variants of the variable /q/: the uvular stop /q/ and the voiced velar stop /g/. The study also accounts for the structural constraints in the use of the diglossic variant of /q/. The results show that both male and female preachers switch from one variant to the other and tend to use the Standard Arabic /q/ more frequently than its Najdi variant /g/. However, females tend to use the Najdi variant /g/ less often than male preachers do. Regarding the constraints of mixing within the same word, the Standard Arabic /q/ is used in the stem of the verb with a Najdi Arabic prefix. No examples were found of /g/ with a Standard Arabic prefix.