ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is on showing the multilingual nature of Maghrebi and Egyptian dialects and illustrating how the linguistic behavior contributes in constructing complex identities. The study of identity is based on a variety of forms such as nationality (Suleiman 2003), ethnicity (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985), gender (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992), and region (Cramer 2011), among other forms. The discussion of identity construction in this chapter is based on a project that examines the use of Discourse Markers (DMs henceforth) in spoken Arabic. The goal of this chapter is to examine how the use of elaboration and causality DMs reflects identity construction. In the Arab world, the Arabic language has always been used as a tool to bind people together as stated by Suleiman who argues that “Arabic in its standard form” serves “as the linchpin of the identity of all those who share it as a common language” (2003, 224). This claim may hold for some Arabic-speaking countries but not for others, particularly those with a long colonial past which is always a driving force leading to linguistic heterogeneous situations (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985, 5). As it will be shown in this chapter, it is not only standard forms that may act as the linchpin of identity but also local and foreign forms. This chapter will also show that the use of DMs displays the correlation between the linguistic behavior and the complex identities a participant exhibits as he or she uses language. In light of Le Page and Tabouret-Keller’s (1985) theoretical model, this chapter shows this correlation and provides an explanation for the social motivations that shape the linguistic behavior. This chapter also argues that identity is dynamic and is socially constructed as it stems from social interactions (Bucholtz 1999). The implications of this paper are twofold, theoretical and empirical. At the theoretical level this paper shows how two models can work together to account for the social meaning of the linguistic behavior; empirically this paper brings new data to the study of Arabic identity.
