Multilingualism in linguistic landscapes in Tunisia: a critical discourse analysis of language policy activities

ABSTRACT

Taking a multi-level perspective on language-in-public-space policy, this study investigates the way Tunisia’s dominant languages are dealt with in three independent but interrelated activities of language policy: official texts, public talk, and the actual practices of business actors in five commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Detailed critical discourse analysis of these policy activities indicated considerable tension between official texts’ legislations on, and public élites’ debate about public signage and “on the ground” sociolinguistic practices. While official texts and public debates base the dominant languages on monolingual, postcolonial and highly compartmentalized language ideologies, the sociolinguistic practices within these localities are marked by the emergence of an English-leaning trend in public signage. Nevertheless, this trend is heavily qualified by the concurrent use of identifiable language clusters, creative wordplay, multiscriptal practices, the commodification of heritage, national and supranational symbols, and an overall resistance to big commercial names as well as subversion of the official legislations and public debates. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the approach to multilingualism adopted in this study for illuminating the connections between Tunisia’s dominant languages, language policy and linguistic landscapes.

KEYWORDS:

• Multilingualism
• dominant language constellations
• LPP
• text
• discourse
• performance
• linguistic landscape

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Dārija or ‘ʿāmmiyya are the labels which people in the Maghreb (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) use to refer to the variety of Arabic they use in everyday communication. Fuṣḥā or Standard Arabic is used by educated speakers and is usually reserved for formal situations. In Ferguson’s (1959) framework, Fusha is associated with the high variety (H) whereas dārija is associated with low variety (L).

² German, Spanish and Turkish are taught as optional subjects at school. Middle and upper middle classes offer their children additional private language tuitions in these languages as investment for the future, specifically German and Spanish, for university studies, training and employment. Apart from it historical presence during the Ottoman rule (1574–1881), Turkish is increasingly used for recreational (e.g. watching series) and commercial purposes (e.g. the so-called suitcase merchandise).

³ The Constitution adopted after the July 25, 2022 Referendum proclaims Tunisia as part of the Islamic Umma in Clause 4. Caluse 6 states that Tunisia is part of the Arab nation and Arabic its official language. Clause 44, about the prioritization of Arabic in education and the wider linguistic ecology, is a verbatim rendition of Article 39 of the abrogated Constitution (2014).