The Arabic Language

bitāʿ
, the indeclinable relative 
illi
, the use of the continuous marker 
bi-
, and so on. Al Batal (2002) studied the linguistic style of the largest Lebanese 
radio channel, LBCI. In their programmes, too, written documents are at the basis 
of the discourse. The speaker transforms this written text into informal speech 
by inserting colloquial markers. For this type of discourse the basis is Standard 
Arabic, into which colloquial elements are inserted, for instance, by replacing 
the future particle 
sa- 
with colloquial 
raḥ-
,
 
or the standard demonstrative 
hāḏā 
with 
ha-
. The majority of replacements takes place in phonology, for instance, by 
replacing /q/ with /ʾ/. There is a large amount of variation between speakers, and 
one speaker may alternate between variants within the same stretch of discourse.
These colloquial markers in a standard text signal to the audience the speaker’s 
intention to create an atmosphere of intimacy and warmth (as in the text quoted 
above in Chapter 9 from a radio programme for an audience of housewives, p. 167). 
In the case of the radio programmes of LBCI, the base is 
fuṣḥā 
both lexically and 
syntactically, in which colloquial phonology and a number of morpho syntactic 
markers are inserted. Inversely, in the case of Educated Standard Arabic of the 
type studied by Mejdell and Bassiouney there is a strong colloquial base, in which 
fuṣḥā 
lexical and morphological elements are inserted. The difference between 
the two styles has to do with the medium: in radio Arabic the point of departure 
is a written text, which is modified by the reporter in oral delivery; Educated 
Standard Arabic, on the other hand, is spoken Arabic, which is being ‘upgraded’.
The procedure of upgrading when used by educated speakers does not lead to 
hypercorrections, but if someone attempts to speak in an elevated way without 
proficiency the result may look different. In such a case, the use of Standard 
Arabic markers, such as the use of the coordinative particle 
fa-
, the use of passive 
forms, or in general the insertion of case endings, may be practiced by speakers 
when they wish to impress upon their audience the importance of the occasion 

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Diglossia 
249
or the topic. Hypercorrections are then likely to occur, because of their lack of 
training in the structure of 
fuṣḥā
. In the radio style, on the other hand, there 
will be no hypercorrections because the discourse is based on a written text, but 
there might occur some hypercorrection in dialect structure, emanating from 
the speaker’s wish to make the text sound dialectal. An example is the use of a 
b
-imperfect after modals, e.g., 
lāzim bniftikir 
‘we have to consider’ (Diem 1984: 71).
Markers, both standard and colloquial may also be used for rhetorical intratex
-
tual purposes. Hamam (2011) mentions the fact that because the high variety (H) 
is more prestigious, it somehow counts as more objective, while the low variety 
(L) is more personalised. Therefore, an utterance in L may serve as a comment on 
a text that has been pronounced in H. The effect works particularly well if there 
is a real switch of codes (as between two completely different languages). But 
because of the continuum between H and L, it is often not a matter of complete 
switching, but of an upward or downward movement, which is better referred to 
as code-mixing.
The value of the markers, both colloquial and standard, may differ: some 
of them are more salient than others (Mejdell 2012b: 163–4). In phonology, for 
instance, consonantal switches are much more salient than vocal ones. The use 
of the attributive demonstrative 
hāzā
/
hāḏā 
or the negative 
lam 
or 
lan 
immediately 
marks the discourse as standard. Inversely, the use of vernacular demonstratives 
or the negative 
ma- …
-š 
indicates a shift to the colloquial. On the other hand, the 
use of the colloquial relative 
illi 
does not seem to carry a similar value and may be 
used freely without marking the discourse in any significant way.