Adjective Intensifiers in Najdi Arabic: A Case Study of Interviews on Al-Liwan

Abstract

This study examines the use of Najdi Arabic adjective intensifiers in broadcast interview speech. Data were collected from six episodes of a Saudi television interview program (Al-Liwan) featuring three male and three female Najdi Arabic-speaking guests. Based on Quirk et al.’s (1985) classification of intensifiers (amplifiers, downtoners, and emphasizers), all instances where intensifying forms directly modified a gradable adjective were counted and analyzed. Within the corpus (totaling 8 hours 9 minutes), there were 69 instances of adjective intensifiers. Adjective intensifier tokens appeared in six forms, with jiddan ‘very’ and marrah ‘so, very’ the most frequently used; the least frequent adjective intensifiers were tamāman ‘completely’ and wallah ‘truly’. Amplifiers dominated the data, especially boosters, with jiddan the most frequent, followed by marrah. Considering the social factor of gender, female Najdi speakers produced more intensifiers than males, a finding consistent with cross-linguistic gender patterns. Intensifiers were most commonly used with positive adjectives, followed by negative adjectives, while neutral adjectives occurred the least frequently. Regarding intensifier position, a contrast emerged: jiddan occurred predominantly in the post-adjectival position, whereas marrah was used predominantly in the pre-adjectival position, which is consistent with findings from previous studies on Najdi Arabic. Limitations of the study include the sample size and its focus on the semi-formal broadcast register. Future research using a larger sample could examine other popular Saudi television and radio programs. Studies could investigate the use of adjective intensifiers in Saudi television drama, which reflects Saudi culture through including Najdi and other Saudi dialects.