Heteroglossia in Choukri’s Al-Khubz al- Hafi: A Reflection on Moroccan Plurilingualism

Abstract

Language is not only a means of communication but also a symbol of identity.The languages people master and use determine not only their ethnic group, geographical region, and level of education but also their socioeconomic status and the identity that they claim.Like in the plurilingual[i] Society many languages are in contact in Morocco, and people have to code-switch and, or code-mix vernacular, official, and foreign languages.This article aims to investigate the use of languages, namely Darija, Amazigh[ii], Spanish and Modern Standard Arabic in Mohamed Choukri’s (1982) autobiography, Al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī within Bakhtin’s (1981) model, known as Heteroglossia, which views language as a sociocultural phenomenon.The paper also uses Habemas’ (1991) concept of “public space” to determine the domains of the use of languages.The significance of this study lies in its exploration of language use through the analysis of a literary text.Many sciences fields like linguistics, literature, sociolinguistics , and sociology are in contact in this study.The main question of this study is: How is pluriligualism represented in Choukri’s Al-Khubz al-Ḥāfī?.The linguistic analysis of the novel reveals the plurilingual profile of the author and Morocco and the ways all the existing languages interact.