A sociolinguistic investigation of Arabic ‘professional reputation’
A sociolinguistic investigation of Arabic ‘professional reputation’

Summary/Abstract: The current work attempts to investigate the vital role of linguistics in saving and defending ‘reputation’ as an important social and cultural phenomenon that is widely known in Jordan as al-isim ‘the name’ or al-sum‘a ‘the reputation’. A good example that illustrates the common application of this social phenomenon in the Arabic culture is an ordinary job known as samsara, i.e., the act of marketing a property, which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been studied in the linguistic literature. The study attempts to shed lights on the different linguistic features associated with the struggle to save ‘reputation’ within the field of samsara. It argues that it is a big challenge for alsimsār, ‘the dealer’, to resist losing ‘reputation’, as maintaining it requires mastering the skill of using certain linguistic strategies and structures, which I call linguistic power, to maintain al-isim or al-sum‘a as an important social and cultural value. It is an interesting case where three different fields (business, linguistics, and sociology) interact in which business appeals to using linguistic and social tools to survive socially and professionally.

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