ABSTRACT
What do educated, but non-specialist, native speakers of Egyptian Arabic do when they find themselves expected to produce fu~bii (Formal/Standard Arabic)? A large amount of data relevant to this question was collected in Cairo in 1989-90. Over 100 native speakers of various ages, sexes and levels of education were interviewed by either a male or female speaker. The interviewers were from AI-Azhar and Dar AI-'Ulum and were experts in Arabic. They informed the subjects that they were expected to speak fu~bii during the interview, and used various techniques to keep reminding the subjects during the interview thatjU~bii was expected.
