Essam Farag, Hasnaa
Research Interests:
Arabic linguistics, English linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, sociopragmatics, discourse analysis, translation, literature, Islamic studies, and gender studies
Geographical Area:
Egypt
Current Project:
Terms of Address in Egyptian Television Social Dramas: A Sociopragmatic Intersectional Perspective on Gender, Style, and Performance in Couple Relationships
“My love,” “my soul,” “oh shiekha,” “chum,” “oh woman,” “my girls’ father,” “oh my unfortunate outcome”! The art of address terms among lovers and spouses is a profoundly social practice shaped by societal perceptions about gender, age, and social class, and it varies across various societies. In Egypt, television social dramas provide a rare public window into these intimate linguistic practices during private moments. By exploring how couples in Egyptian TV series address one another, this study illuminates the stylistic variations that both reflect and reshape societal perceptions, offering a fresh lens on the intersection between linguistic choices, social identities, and social purposes. Going beyond lexical meanings, my study newly demonstrates how these terms serve as powerful tools in constructing the styles of different social groups when navigating intimate relationships. It challenges conventional theories on address terms as well as demonstrates how many assumptions about social groups are reinforced or negotiated on screen. My study shows how this linguistic phenomenon among couples in Egyptian Arabic deepens our understanding of intimate social interactions within different communities in Egypt.
Academic Career:
2021- Present: Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Arabic Studies, Faculty of Languages and Literature, BIGSAS, University of Bayreuth.
2018: MA in teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language, Department of Applied Linguistics, the American University in Cairo, Egypt, with a sociolinguistics thesis entitled "Howwa wheyya: Performance and Gendered Style in the Egyptian Caricature [The Piece of Paper] " https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1345/
2010: B.A. in English Language, Literature and Simultaneous Translation, English Department, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is well-known for its majors in Arabic and Islamic studies, alongside specialized disciplines. Hasnaa was an Al-Azhar student since primary school.
January 2026: Performing peer reviews for international conference abstracts for the Sociolinguistics Symposium 2026. This Sociolinguistic Symposium takes place for the first time in Africa, specifically at the University of Fort Hare in East London, South Africa. The theme of the symposium is: “Sociolinguistic Consonance and Dissonance in the Pluriversal World.”
November 2025: Serving as an organizing committee member for a three-day workshop and research colloquium at the University of Bayreuth. This workshop brings together scholars from three German universities: the University of Bayreuth, Leipzig University, and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The theme of the colloquium is: Crossing Areas, Crossing Theories: Towards New Shores within Practices of Critique and Conviviality. Additionally, I have served as the chair and discussant for one of the panels titled "Crossing Media in Africa and beyond," which features six scholars.
Winter Semester 2025/26: Serving as the representative of researchers in African studies at BIGSAS, University of Bayreuth.
February 2024: Attending the winter school of Arabic sociolinguistics at the Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco.
Summer Semester 2023: Teaching the European Interdisciplinary Master African Studies (EIMAS) African Language Course: Arabic at the University of Bayreuth.
April 2023: Serving as an organizing committee member for the International Conference of Arabic in Africa: Historical and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, hosted by the Department of Arabic Studies at the university of Bayreuth.
June 2023: Attending the summer school of Survey and Questionnaire Design at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
2010 – 2019: Teaching Arabic as a foreign language and holding various positions in this field, including education vice manager, developer, trainer, and senior instructor at the Arabic Language Center, located in Downtown Cairo, Egypt. Teaching individual tutoring programs at the American Embassy in Cairo (2019-2020) and the American University in Cairo (2017-2018).
Recent Publications:
Farag, H. E. (2026). Stylistic Love Terms of Address Among Couples in Egyptian TV Series: Beyond Simple Expressions of Love.Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 47(1). https://doi.org/10.33137/twpl.v47i1.45024
Farag, H. E. (2023). Review of Language, identity, and Syrian political activism on social media, by Sinatora, F. L. Journal of Arabic Sociolinguistics, 1(1). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/arabic.2023.000