A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF STYLES, REGISTERS, AND VARIETIES IN HOT MAROC

Abstract

In Hot Maroc (2016), Yassin Adnan, a Moroccan author and journalist, reconstructs through the literary fiction the political and social changes of contemporary Morocco, from the end of the reign of Hassan II until today. Through the eyes of the main character, Raḥḥāl, the reader discovers both the social jungle of Marrakesh and the digital Moroccan jungle in which the young man becomes a professional keyboard warrior. Being paid by Moroccan mukhabarat, Raḥḥāl manipulates public opinion through readers’ comments published in an electronic journal, called Hot Maroc. The present study aims to analyse styles, registers, and linguistic variation through a sociolinguistic perspective. Although the main language of the novel is Fuṣḥā (here intended as Modern Standard Arabic), discursive parts make also use of Dāriǧa (Moroccan Arabic). The plurality of voices and linguistic diversity which emerge from online and offline discourses and interactions among characters is not limited to merely enhancing the novel’s 'realism', but it makes it possible to analyse how the communicative nature of language is functionally manipulated to serve instead as an instrument of miscommunication.