Cover not available
Article published In:
Language Problems and Language Planning
Vol. 42:2 (2018) ► pp.173–195
Articles / Articulos / Aufsätz / Artikoloj

Maintaining the status quo

Diglossia and the case of Arabic language policy in Ceuta

| The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Arabic is considered one of the defining cases of diglossia (Ferguson, 1959; Sayahi, 2014). Despite previous scholars’ critiques that the construct of diglossia perpetuates linguistic and societal inequalities, few studies have examined how this seminal construct has been enacted in language policy (Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994; Pennycook, 1994; Harris, 1981). This paper addresses this gap by examining language policy in context through an intertextual analysis of language policy documents including the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and several reports on their fulfillment of the charter’s requirements. Using Irvine and Gal’s (2000) framework of three semiotic processes of ideology, the texts demonstrate the use of the notion of diglossia as a tool of iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure used to naturalize current linguistic inequalities. Consequently, diglossic descriptions are taken up in policy documents in service of a particular language ideology that justifies suppression of minority languages such as is the case of Arabic in Ceuta.
Keywords: diglossia, Arabic, language policy, intertextual analysis, language ideology, Spain
Article outline
  • Diglossia
  • Rethinking diglossia
  • The linguistic, geographic, demographic and sociocultural context of Ceuta
  • Methods and theoretical approach
    • Intertextual analysis
  • Three semiotic processes: Iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure
  • Analysis
  • Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 21 June 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00018.rea
References (48)
References
Antón, M. (2006). Patrones de uso lingüístico entre el alumnado arabófono de Ceuta. Paper presented at “Ciudades del Mediterráneo-Seminario IEIOP sobre Sociolingüística,” Cádiz (Spain), May 30.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Ball, S. J. (1993). What is policy? Texts, trajectories, and toolboxes. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13(2), 10–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2006). Language policy and national identity. In T. K. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy: theory and method (pp. 238–254). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Calvet, L. J. (1993). La sociolinguistique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Constitution of Spain [URL] (accessed 05/20/17).
Cuarto informe sobre el cumplimiento en España de la Carta Europea de las Lenguas Regionales o Minoritarias, del consejo Europa (2010–2013). [URL] (accessed 05/20/17).
Doppelbauer, M. (2008). Las lenguas en las sociedades de Ceuta y Melilla. In M. Doppelbauder and P. Cichon (Eds.), La España multilingue: Lenguas y políticas lingüísticas de España (pp. 304–323). Vienna: Praesens Verlag.Google Scholar
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages [URL] (accessed 05/20/17).
. Application of the Charter in Spain. [URL] (accessed 05/20/17).
Fairclough, N. (1992). Intertextuality in critical discourse analysis. Linguistics and Education, 41, 269–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1959). Diglossia. Word, 151, 325–340 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1991). Diglossia revisited. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 10(1), 214–234.Google Scholar
(1996). Sociolinguistic Perspectives: Papers on Language in Society, 1959–1994, ed. by T. Huebner. Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fernández, M. (1993). Diglossia: A comprehensive bibliography 1960–1990. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fishman, J. (1967). Bilingualism with and without diglossia; Diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues, 23(2), 29–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1991). Reversing language shift. Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1981). The language myth. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. (2002). Outline of a theory of diglossia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1571, 1–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hult, F. M. (2010). Analysis of language policy discourses across the scales of space and time. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2021, 7–24.Google Scholar
Irvine, J. T., & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities (pp. 35–84). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. C. (2015). Intertextuality and language policy. In F. M. Hult and D. C. Johnson (Eds.), Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide (pp. 166–180). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kaye, A. (1970). Modern Standard Arabic and the colloquials. Lingua, 241, 374–391, 412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirschen, B. (2014). The (not-so) distant relation between Spanish and Arabic. Voices, 2(1), 5–12.Google Scholar
Knoerrich Aldabo, I. A. (2011). When Spain meets Morocco: discourses, language choices and linguistic policy in Ceuta and Melilla. DiG, 191, 103–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kristeva, J. (1986). Word, dialogue, and novel. In T. Moi (Ed.), The Kristeva reader (pp. 34–61). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kroskrity, P. V. (2000). Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities and identities. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Maamouri, M. (1998). Language education and human development: Arabic diglossia and its impact on the quality of education in the Arab region. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from [URL]
May, S. (2014). Contesting public monolingualism and diglossia: Rethinking political theory and language policy for a multilingual world. Language Policy, 131, 371–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mortimer, K. (2013). Communicative event chains in an ethnography of Paraguayan language policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2191, 67–99.Google Scholar
Moscoso García, F. (2013). El programa hispano-marroquí de enseñanza de lengua árabe y cultura marroquí (LACM) sometido a revisión, Anaquel de Estudios Árabes, 241, 53–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015). El árabe ceutí, una lengua minorizada de España. Estudios de Asia y África, 21, 395–423. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). El árabe ceutí, una lengua minorizada. Propuestas para su enseñanza en la escuela. Language Documentation and Conservation in Europe, 91, 93–102.Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Phyak, P. (2015). (En)countering language ideologies: Language policing in the idiospace of Facebook, Language Policy, 141, 377–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raji Zughoul, M. (1980). Diglossia in Arabic: Investigating solutions. Anthropological Linguistics, 22(5), 201–217.Google Scholar
Ricento, T. & Hornberger, N. (1996). Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. Language Planning and Policy, 30(3), 401–427.Google Scholar
Ricento, T. (2000). Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(2), 196–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rivera Reyes, V. (2013). El contacto de lenguas en Ceuta. Ceuta: Instituto de Estudios Ceutíes.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (2006). Planning for the survival of linguistic diversity. Language Policy, 51, 441–473. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sayahi, L. (2014). Diglossia and language contact: Language variation and change in North Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Tercer informe sobre el cumplimiento en España de la Carta Europea de las lenguas regionales o minoritarias, del consejo de Europa. (2006–2009). [URL] (accessed 05/20/17).
Vicente, A. (2005). Ceuta, une ville entre deux langues. Une étude sociolinguistique de sa communauté musulmane. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
(2007). Ceuta, una ciudad entre dos lenguas: Formación y evolución del árabe ceutí. Málaga: Gráficas San Pancracio, S.L.Google Scholar
Williams, G. (1992). Sociolinguistics: A sociological critique. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Woolard, K. A. & Schieffelin, B. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 231, 55–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Ali, Farah
2024. Conquest and Colonialism: A Brief History of Morocco-Spain Relations. In Policy, Media, and the Shaping of Spain-Morocco Relations, ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo
Ali, Farah
2024. Discursive and photographic representations of migrants in the media: the case of Ceuta and Melilla. The Journal of North African Studies ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Erdocia, Iker
2020. Language rights and groups of immigrant origin. Language Problems and Language Planning 44:2 ► pp. 146 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.