Abstract

SABIRANET is an ambitious and innovative research project that applies the tools of Digital Humanities to Arabic sociolinguistics and dialectology. It aims to create a Moroccan multimodal corpus of mixed Arabic through which to investigate linguistic practices in digital media, produced and disseminated in the Mediterranean Europe and Morocco, between 2016 and 2023, as well as their reception among users. Considering the diglossic specificity of the Arabic language (codified written language vs. non-codified oral language) and the increasing media visibility of non-standard elements combining with the standard language, SABIRANET aims to investigate: 1) the linguistic and stylistic registers of Mixed Arabic in written contents and oral productions shared in social media through websites and digital platform, generated and disseminated in Morocco as well as in Moroccan communities in Europe; 2) the ideological and identity reception of such linguistic practices deviating from the standard norm, both at the national (Morocco) and cross-regional (Mediterranean Europe) levels, through fieldworks in both Morocco and Italy. Therefore, SABIRANET aims to answer the following questions: a) What are the shared morphosyntactic and lexical features of Mixed Arabic in both written and oral communication? In which written/oral text typology? b) how are non-standard forms of Arabic in the media received by Moroccans and Moroccan communities in Europe and what identity factors emerge from oral/written practices in the Mediterranean cross-regional space? Comparing ideological representations of non-standard practices between the two shores of the Mediterranean, SABIRANET intends to promote intercultural dialogue across the pluralistic European space.