Blog #4: Language and Social Status

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 I never considered language a status indicator because English is the official language in the US, and it is used conversationally in most social settings. This is not the case for Morocco. There are many languages spoken due to the different cultural influences present throughout history. The Arab politico-religious conquest brought Arabic into contact with the Berber language. The French colonial occupation introduced the French language to an already bilingual society, and English has been introduced as an effect of globalization (Zouhir, 2013).

According to Abderrahman Zouhir, the status of languages in Moroccan society are Berber, Moroccan Arabic, Classical Arabic, and French/Spanish (English is at a similar status to French/Spanish) (Zouhir, 2013). This listing goes from lowest status (or power) to highest, with Berber the lowest. English is not officially included in this listing because it is the only language not influenced by colonization in Morocco. Berber is the lowest because it is not used in institutional settings, and for a long time, it was only spoken and not written (Zouhir, 2013). The languages used in institutional settings have the most power and are seen as prominent languages.


I was drawn to this article because it reminds me of the human need to classify. In the book  Leading across differences: Casebook, the elements of Social Identity Theory include categorization, identification, and comparison (Hannum et al., 2010). In this analysis of language, I noticed the presence of all three. I see the classification of status by language as a way to form in-group and out-group identities. Zouhir mentions that the government standardized Moroccan Arabic to unite the culturally diverse country (Zouhir, 2013). The efforts by the government to minimize conflicts caused by diversity made me see the value of having a common language. I believe that being multilingual is great because you then have the ability to connect and interact with individuals despite language barriers. Understanding how language can be used as a status indicator has given me a new perspective.


Reference:

Hannum, K., McFeeters, B. B., & Booysen, L. (Eds.) (2010). Leading across
differences: Casebook. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Zouhir, A. (2013). Language situation and conflict in Morocco. In Selected Proceedings of the 43rd annual conference on African linguistics (pp. 271-277). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.


Comments

  1. Zaharia SelmanMay 24, 2022 at 10:03 AM

    Akilah,

    I really enjoyed reading your post and I think you are so right! I find the people that we have interacted with to be so advanced because of their ability to speak multiple languages. Even when there may seem to be a little miscommunication or they don't understand they try their best to still dialogue with us. For example, today during one of our tours, a student asked a question to the tour guide but didn't quite know how to form the question. Instead of moving on, the tour guide asked her to continue asking her question so that he could understand and be able to answer (which he eventually did).

    I further learned from Williamson (2020) that Morocco is a Diglossia country so "certain situations or conditions call for certain languages" allowing them to have " 'high' and 'low' varieties of communication" (Williamson, 2020). Socially speaking, I think Moroccans are well above Americans because of their desire and execution of being able to communicate with others that have a different language than their own.

    http://plan-it-morocco.com/2018/12/09/morocco-diverse-languages/#:~:text=Morocco%20is%20a%20Diglossia%20country,as%20Standard%20Arabic%20and%20Darija.

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