ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to offer novel and detailed trajectories to understand diglossia. It offers a more systematic explanation of the indexes of different codes in the Arab world. The chapter focuses on a survey conducted by the Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies during March 2013. The survey contained sections focused on the importance of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA), Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and English. The chapter compares the results of the aforementioned survey to media data discussed and analysed in Bassiouney that represents both ideologies and manifestations of attitudes towards different codes. These data come from both oral and written sources. They include newspapers and magazines, written in both English and Arabic; two books: one political and one social psychology text; films, both recent and older titles; as well as recent TV interviews. The chapter describes three main concepts to understand the contexts of code switching and diglossia: performance, metalinguistic discourse, and indexes.
