“Eat Me! Eat Me! tounsi”

English in Tunisian linguistic landscapes beyond the official policy legislations

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20507222
AutoresFethi Helal (0000-0003-1259-9551, University of Manouba, Tunisia, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume28
Fascículo5
Páginas980-1001
Data de publicação2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal of Bilingualism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1367-0069 • E-ISSN: 1756-6878
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13670069231206508
OpenAlexW4388042851
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas64

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates the diffusion of English into the linguistic ecologies of Tunisia, an Expanding Outer Circle society in North Africa. It analyzes the language practices of Tunisian business operators in five commercial localities in metropolitan Tunis. The paper focuses, in particular, on the uses of English and its interaction with Tunisia’s dominant languages, the ways the resources of English are locally understood and deployed and the intersection of the emerging “language regime” (Kroskrity, 2000) with the official linguistic landscapes policies and the wider sociohistorical, political, and economic conditions of the country. Methodology and data: Detailed discourse-ethnographic analysis of 363 linguistic landscape signs collected from 5 commercial districts in metropolitan Tunis. Findings and conclusions: The findings indicated the emergence of a bottom-up English-led public signage communicating a global corporate ideology circumventing the official language policies mandating the use and visibility of Modern Standard Arabic in public signage. However, this English-led public posting is intertwined in complex ways with Tunisia’s dominant languages, resulting in translanguaging, linguistic puns, the commodification of vernacular forms of communication as well as (supra)national and aesthetic identity markers. Originality: Tunisia, a traditionally constructed Francophone country moving toward English, is very little explored in the major Global English(es) paradigms. The paper focuses on the possible ideological, economic, and cultural changes engendered by English and connects these changes to the global socioeconomic, political, and cultural transformations undergone by the country over the last decades

Commodification · Economics · Economy · Geography · Ideology · Indexicality · Linguistic landscape · Linguistics · Metropolitan area · Multilingualism · Political science · Politics · Sociolinguistics · Sociology · Law · Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Second Language Learning and Teaching