Linguistic unrest at times of revolution: The case of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. This chapter examines data from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Sudan, which share one language, and witnessed more or less violent upheavals in the period since 2011. Linguistic forms and codes played a crucial role as a symbol of power and a tool to dominate. The chapter concentrates on media and public discourse, re-evaluating the relation between language and conflict. We argue that linguistic codes are resources for individual and also a point of contention during or after conflicts. In Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, linguistic codes were contested, and the authentic identity of revolutionaries during the three revolutions was always questioned by the pro-regime group. The chapter analyses the use of linguistic codes, evaluating them in relation to linguistic theories including the concepts of indexicality, performance, and metalinguistic discourse.https://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1026/thumbnail.jp

Variation in transcription

The entextualization and recontextualization of speech via transcription is a fundamental methodology of discourse analysis. However, particularly for researchers concerned with sociopolitical issues in discourse, transcription is not a straightforward tool but a highly problematic yet necessary form of linguistic representation. Recent commentators have critiqued the inconsistency of researcher transcripts; by contrast, this article seeks to understand rather than remedy such variability, conceptualizing diversity in transcripts as a kind of linguistic variation. Examining four different types of variation in transcription practice — global format choices based on an analytic focus on content versus form, variation in the details of transcription format in reproducing one's own or others' transcripts, orthographic variation in a single transcript, and variation in translation — the article argues that although reflection about the transcription process cannot overcome the difficulties inherent in this methodology, it can allow scholars to be more attentive to their own transcription choices and their limitations and to make these explicit in their writing