Moroccan Arabic in TV fiction: promoting de-localised individuals to model speakers

Abstract This paper aims at clarifying the role that TV fiction plays in the indexical redistribution of Moroccan Arabic (MA) linguistic features, and how this is connected to media’s contribution to the non-institutional standardisation of MA. First of all, it shows how six variables are employed in the composition of dialogues for two original Moroccan series and two Turkish series dubbed in MA. In the Moroccan series, the assignment of different features to different characters results in the enregisterment of a linguistic opposition between two social types, distinguished by their attachment to place of origin and attitude vis-à-vis modernity. In the dubbed series, standardisation is at issue in that the authors of the linguistic choices – be they the translators or the dubbers – usually select one single form to the exclusion of all other variants. If this selection of a MA norm is judged on the background of the enregisterment patterns identified in the dialogues of the Moroccan series, it then appears as though such norm favours a type of individual free from particularistic regional affiliations, and with a propensity for an anti-traditionalist and (western-like) modern lifestyle and way of thinking.