in La rivista di Arablit, a. X, n. 20, dicembre 2020, pp. 79-98.

This study aims to analyse the linguistic written practices of contributors to “Goud”, a Moroccan online newspaper, in the discourse on political resistance. The issue is observed in the perspective of the symbolic relation between the concept of Resistance and the tension of formal versus informal standardization process concerning Arabic fuṣḥà (standard variety) and dāriǧah (Moroccan Arabic). Through the observation of a corpus of articles about the “20th February Movement”, the “Hirak Movement”, and the boycott campaigns, this study outlines the different expressions of resistance and the co-existing linguistic varieties to which “Goud” gives voice.

Introduction

In 2011, the protest movement referred to as “Arab Springs” crossed the Arab World (Faris 2012; Khader 2012). In Morocco, the movement was called Ḥarakat ‘Išrīn Fabrāyir1 (the “20th February Movement”; 20FebMo henceforward). There a heterogeneous group of young people and activists organized and gave rise to street demonstrations, which began on February 20th, 2011 in the major Moroccan cities, following the social protests erupted shortly before in Tunisia and Egypt (Igmane 2013; Naimi 2016; Desrues 2012; Bennani-Chraïbi; Jeghllaly 2012).

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