Abstract
This chapter takes some examples of writing practices surrounding the Egyptian uprising of 2011 as a reference point in a broader discussion of contemporary sociolinguistic change in Egypt. It describes the ongoing reconfiguration of linguistic resources and repertoires of vernacular literacy events against the background of recurrent language-related ideological debates. Rapid vernacularization is discussed from a historical perspective and within the language-as-practice theoretical framework.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aboelezz, Mariam. “‘Out’ in Any Language!” The Linguist 51, No. 1 (2012): 14–15.
Aboelezz, Mariam. “The Geosemiotics of Tahrir Square: A Study of the Relationship between Discourse and Space.” Journal of Language and Politics 13, No. 4 (2014): 599–622.
Agha, Asif. “The Social Life of Cultural Value.” Language & Communication 23 No. 3–4, (2003): 231–273.
Agha, Asif. “Voice, Footing, Enregisterment.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15, No. 1 (2005): 38–59.
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. “Localizing the Global on the Participatory Web.” In The Handbook of Language and Globalization, edited by N. Coupland, 203–231. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2010.
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. “Language Change and Digital Media: A Review of Conceptions and Evidence.” In Standard Languages and Language Standards in a Changing Europe, edited by T. Kristiansen and N. Coupland, 145–159. Oslo: Novus Press, 2011.
Aouragh, Miryam and Anner Alexander. “The Egyptian Experience: Sense and Nonsense of the Internet Revolution.” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1344–1358.
Baker, Mona, ed. Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Barton, David. Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Barton, David and Uta Papen, eds. The Anthropology of Writing: Understanding Textually-Mediated Worlds. New York: Continuum, 2010.
Bassiouney, Reem. Language and Identity in Modern Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Cameron, Deborah and Ivan Panović. Working with Written Discourse. London: Sage, 2014.
Colla, Elliott. “The Poetry of Revolt.” In The Journey to Tahrir: revolution, protest, and social change in Egypt, edited by J. Sowers and C. Toensing, 47–52. London and New York: Verso, 2012.
Colleoni, Mirko. “Diglossia and the Influence of Foreign Languages as Debated in Arabic Al Jazeera TV Programmes.” In Alf lahğa wa Lahğa: Proceedings of the 9th AIDA Conference, edited by O. Durand, A.D. Langone, and G. Mion, 123–139. Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2014.
Coupland, Nikolas. Style: Language, Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Davies, Alan. The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2003.
Davies, Humphrey. “Dialect Literature.” In Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, edited by K. Versteegh, M. Eid, A. Elgibali, M. Woidich, and A. Zaborski, 597–604. Leiden and Boston, 2006.
Deumert, Ana. Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Doss, Madiha. “Cultural Dynamics and Linguistic Practice in Contemporary Egypt.” In Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt (Cairo Papers in Social Science), vol. 27, edited by M. Abdelrahman, I.A. Hamdy, M.S. Rouchdy, and R. Saad, 51–68. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006.
Doss, Madiha and Humphrey Davies, eds. Written Egyptian Arabic: Selected Texts, 1401–2009. Cairo: Al-Hay’a al-Misriyya al-’Amma lil-Kitab, 2013. (Original in Arabic).
Dovchin, Sender. “The Ordinariness of Youth Linguascapes in Mongolia.” International Journal of Multilingualism 14, No. 2, 2017: 144–159.
El-Youssef, Samir. “The Talking Cure.” New Statesman, October 18, 2007. Retrieved (http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2007/10/arab-safouan-standard-free).
Elinson, Alexander E. “Dārija and Changing Writing Practices in Morocco.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, No. 4 (2013): 715–730.
Fahmy, Ziad. Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Ferguson, Charles. “Diglossia.” Word 15 (1959): 325–340.
Haeri, Niloofar. “The Reproduction of Symbolic Capital: Language, State, and Class in Egypt.” Current Anthropology 38, No. 5 (1997): 795–816.
Haeri, Niloofar. “Arabs Need to Find Their Tongue.” The Guardian, June 14, 2003a. Retrieved (http://www.theguardian.com/comment/story/0,,977260,00.html).
Haeri, Niloofar. Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture and Politics in Egypt. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003b.
Heller, Monica. “The Commodification of Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 39 (2010): 101–114.
Holes, Clive. “Orality, Culture, and Language.” In The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, edited by J. Owens, 281–299. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Ibrahim, Zeinab. “Cases of Written Code Switching in Egyptian Opposition Newspapers.” In Arabic and the Media: Linguistic Analyses and Applications, edited by R. Bassiouney, 23–46. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Khalil, Karima, ed. Messages from Tahrir: Signs from Egypt’s Revolution. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2011.
Khalil, Saussan. “The Evolution of the Arabic Language through Online Writing: The Explosion of 2011.” in BRISMES 2012 Graduate Conference Papers: Change and Continuity in the Arab World, 2012. Retrieved (http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=151357).
Kindt, Kristian Takvam, Jacob Høigilt, and Tewodros Aragie Kebede. “Writing Change: Diglossia and Popular Writing Practices in Egypt.” Arabica 63, No. 3–4 (2016): 324–376.
Lahlali, El Mustapha. “The Discourse of Egyptian Slogans: From ‘Long Live Sir’ to ‘Down with the Dictator.’” Arab Media & Society 19(Fall 2014). Retrieved (http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=850).
Lahlali, Mustapha. “Book Review: Moustapha Safouan, Why Are the Arabs Not Free?—The Politics of Writing. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. 128 Pp.” Discourse & Society 21 No. 2, (2010): 240–241.
Mehrez, Samia, ed. Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2012.
Mejdell, Gunvor. “Features of Luġa Wusṭā: Mixed Discourse in Spoken Arabic in Egypt.” In Aspects of the Dialects of Arabic Today: Proceedings of the 4th Conference of the International Arabic Dialectology Association (AIDA), Marrakesh, April 1–4, 2000. In honour of Professor David Cohen, edited by A. Youssi, F. Benjelloun, M. Dahbi, and Z. Iraqui-Sinaceur, 317–328. Rabat: Amapatril, 2002.
Mejdell, Gunvor. “Is Modern Fuṣḥā a ‘Standard’ Language?” In Linguistics in an Age of Globalization: Perspectives on Arabic Language and Teaching, edited by Z. Ibrahim and S.A.M. Makhlouf, 41–52. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008a.
Mejdell, Gunvor. “What Is Happening to Lughatunā L-Gamīla?: Recent Media Representations and Social Practice in Egypt.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 8, (2008b): 108–124.
Mejdell, Gunvor. “Strategic Bivalency in ‘Written Mixed Style’?: A Reading of Ibrahim Isa in Al Dustur.” In Alf lahğa wa Lahğa: Proceedings of the 9th AIDA Conference, edited by O. Durand, A.D. Langone, and G. Mion, 273–278. Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2014.
Otsuji, Emi and Alastair Pennycook. “Metrolingualism: Fixity, Fluidity and Language in Flux.” International Journal of Multilingualism 7, No. 3 (2010): 240–254.
Panović, Ivan. “The Beginnings of Wikipedia Masry.” al-Logha 8 (2010): 93–127.
Panović, Ivan. “‘You Don’t Have Enough Letters to Make This Noise’: Arabic Speakers’ Creative Engagements with the Roman Script.” Language Sciences, 2017.
Parkinson, Dilworth. “Searching for Modern Fuṣḥā: Real-Life Formal Arabic.” Al-’Arabiyya: Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic 24 (1991): 31–64.
Pennycook, Alastair. Language as a Local Practice. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2010.
Rosenbaum, Gabriel M. “‘Fuṣḥāmmiyya’: Alternating Style in Egyptian Prose.” Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 38 (2000): 68–87.
Rosenbaum, Gabriel M. “Egyptian Arabic as a Written Language.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 29 (2004): 281–340.
Safouan, Moustapha. Why Are The Arabs Not Free?: The Politics of Writing. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.
Scollon, Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
Sebba, Mark. Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Shenker, Jack. The Egyptians: A Radical Story. London: Allen Lane, 2016.
Street, Brian. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Suleiman, Yasir. The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Ideology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
Suleiman, Yasir. “Charting the Nation: Arabic and the Politics of Identity.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26 (2006): 125–148.
Suleiman, Yasir. Arabic, Self and Identity : A Study in Conflict and Displacement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Wahba, Kassem M. “Arabic Language Use and the Educated Language User.” In Handbook for the Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, edited by K.M. Wahba, Z.A. Taha, and L. Englan, 139–155. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013.
Woidich, Manfred. “Von Der Wörtlichen Rede Zur Sprachprosa: Zur Entwicklung Der Ägyptisch-Arabischen Dialektliteratur.” In Dialektliteratur heute – regional und international. Forschungskolloquium am Interdisziplinären Zentrum für Dialektforschung an der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 19.11.2009–20.11.2009, edited by H.H. Munske, 63–94. Erlangen: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2010. Retrieved (https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fau/files/1499/04_Woidich_Aegyptisch_Arabische_Dialektliteratur.pdf).
Wright, Sue. “What Is Language?: A Response to Philippe van Parijs.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18, No. 2, (2015): 113–130.
Yaghan, Mohammad. “‘Arabizi’: a Contemporary Style of Arabic Slang.” Design Issues 24, No. 2 (2008): 39–52.
Zack, Liesbeth. “‘Leave, I Want to Have a Shower!’: The Use of Humour on the Signs and Banners Seen during the Demonstrations in Tahrir Square.” In Between West and East: Festschrift for Wim Honselaar on the occasion of his 65th birthday, edited by R. Genis, E. de Haard, J. Kalsbeek, E. Keizer, and J. Steltman, 711–729. Amsterdam: Pegasus, 2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Panovic, I. (2017). Arabic in a Time of Revolution: Sociolinguistic Notes from Egypt. In: Lenze, N., Schriwer, C., Jalil, Z. (eds) Media in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65771-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65771-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65770-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65771-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)