ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we provide a brief review of diglossia as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, and then provide an overview of neurolinguistic research on Arabic diglossia. We discuss the significance of neurophysiological investigations to enhance our understanding of cognitive representation and processing of the two language varieties in Arabic diglossia by introducing Event-Related Potential (ERP) methodologies and describing some language ERP correlates that offer opportunities to investigate different levels of representation and processing in diglossia. Next we offer a brief review of the application of this approach to studies of mental representation in Arabic diglossia, to date. This review highlights the benefits of incorporating neurophysiological investigations into Arabic linguistic studies in order to elucidate the processing of Arabic diglossia in children and adults.