The following abstract is from an article by a Hunter Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship scholar that was published in the prestigious Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal. A link to the full article is provided below.
Author: Fatima Tariq, Hunter College
Title: English as the New French: Nation-State Building and Language as Capital in Morocco
Publication: The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2019
Abstract: This research is a discourse analysis of YouTube street interviews in central Morocco in which passerby respond with their opinion on English as the next “lingua franca” in the nation. The news channel implies that the current lingua franca is French. Language ideologies are never just about language; they reveal cultural logics. Using Duchene and Heller’s (2012) framework, I argue that language can be theorized using two metaphors: pride and profit. A language in a nation-state is either conducive to the construction of the nation-state or as a utilitarian means of acquiring wealth. In this paper, four transcriptions of interviews are examined using this theoretical framework; I argue that in central Morocco, English is being added alongside French as a “profit” language and that French is becoming a “pride” language alongside standard Arabic and Tamaghizt (Berber).
