Regulating and negotiating linguistic diversity: top-down and bottom-up language planning in the Moroccan city

Abstract

This study examines language planning as displayed in street names, advertising posters, billboards, and supermarket product displays in three Moroccan cities: Casablanca, Fes, and Rabat. The study reveals somewhat confusing language planning stemming from on-going political, economic, and social transformation in Morocco. More than 50 years after the end of colonization (1912–1956), street names inherited from the French colonial past are still being replaced with those intended to honor Moroccans and their culture. Other visual displays, such as billboards and supermarket product packaging, reflect a less formal language-planning approach due to Morocco's complex sociolinguistic and colonial past. The country struggles to balance the strong position of French – the language of the colonizer – against an arabization policy that aimed to restore prestige to Arabic at the end of the French occupation, and with the 2011 language policy that promoted Berber to the status of second official language, after Arabic. This study shows that French is still very prominent in urban spaces despite its unclear status, while Berber is absent, and English and Moroccan Arabic are gaining visibility. This study compares bottom-up and top-down language planning with the distribution and roles of languages, exemplifying power relations in Moroccan cities.