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Co-Constructing Dissent in the Transient Linguistic Landscape: Multilingual Protest Signs of the Tunisian Revolution

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Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape

Part of the book series: Language and Globalization ((LAGL))

Abstract

The protest movements that led to the toppling of presidents and their governments known as the Arab Spring in English and the Arab Revolutions or Arab Uprisings in Arabic spurred a flurry of scholarship in fields such as political science, history and anthropology. Interest from the popular media, both Arab and international, in the language of these revolutions, was high, especially because of their heavy use of digital and social media in disseminating the images and messages of the protests. Research on the subject with a focus on language, however, remains scarce. Focusing on the Egyptian revolution, Bassiouney (2012) examined, from a sociolinguistic perspective, the role of code choice and stance-taking in identity issues in public discourse represented by the media during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Al Masaeed (2013) explored, from a critical discourse analysis perspective, the Egyptian slogans that developed during this period. Maalej (2012), for his part, studied the language of the three final speeches of the ousted Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, focusing on indexicality and personal pronouns in particular, while Makar (2011) examined the use of humor in the demonstrations of the Egyptian revolution. Kasanga and Ben Said (forthcoming) studied the discourse of protests from Tunisia, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo with a particular focus on frames of identity, intertextuality and interdiscursivity as they play out in mobile or ‘non-fixed’ protest signs.

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Authors
  1. Sonia Shiri
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

    Rani Rubdy

  2. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

    Selim Ben Said

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© 2015 Sonia Shiri

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Shiri, S. (2015). Co-Constructing Dissent in the Transient Linguistic Landscape: Multilingual Protest Signs of the Tunisian Revolution. In: Rubdy, R., Said, S.B. (eds) Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape. Language and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137426284_12

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