English intrusions in and contributions to polyglot Emirati cinema

"The Pleasures of Polyglossia in Emirati Cinema: Focus on From A to B and Abdullah" (2016) compares the work of two Emirati filmmakers with regard to their use of multiple languages in the film dialogue. The study situates two specific feature films in three of Chris Wahl's five sub-categories of the polyglot film. Wahl labels the respective categories as "colonial," "existential," and "globalization," and the fact that Alsuwaidi's film shares the characteristics of the former two testifies to the relevance of post-colonial theory for further inquiries into this topic. Building on this previous study's findings, the present chapter investigates the intrusive function of English in a larger corpus of Emirati polyglot features and short films. The analysis identifies three main areas where characters use English and how code-switching is a prominent marker of the UAE's cultural diversity. The respective areas are the education sector, the media, and tourism. Code-switching in selected films also includes varieties of Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog, and Malayalam, but it is the occurrence of English that challenges post-protectorate developments of cultural and national identity.