The Arabic Language

13.4 Language associations and attitudes
The complicated interaction between extralinguistic factors and linguistic choice 
is controlled by the associations that the speakers attach to the varieties of 
speech current in their community. The low variety of the language is associated 
with low education, since the standard language is taught and learnt at school, 
and hence with illiteracy and poverty, since people with a low education are not 
expected to make a career. The standard language, on the other hand, is associ
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ated with higher education, success in society and a high socioeconomic class, 
even though the colloquial language is also used by people from a higher socio
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economic class as an informal language. Looked at from a different perspective, 
the colloquial language as the language of family and home is associated with 
the in-group, with intimacy and friendship, whereas the high variety is associ-
ated with social distance and official relationships. The use of Standard Arabic 
may thus be a sign of respect, but also of creating a distance between speakers. 
The use of colloquial language may be derogatory, but also a sign of intimacy or 
modesty, somewhat in the way that the use of first names in English may signal 
either familiarity or social contempt.

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The Arabic Language
The choice of linguistic markers takes place partly on a conscious level and 
may be manipulated, for instance, for commercial reasons. In the language of the 
media, and especially in advertisements in Egypt, the level chosen correlates with 
the nature of the product that is being sold and with the target group. Important 
public commodities such as loans and insurance policies are ‘sold’ to a predomi
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nantly male audience by the use of high varieties of the language, but producers 
of food and detergents mainly cater to housewives and accordingly advertise 
their products in colloquial language. The advertisers have to strike a fine balance 
between the intimacy and familiarity of the colloquial language and the prestige 
and intellectual level of the standard language (Bassiouney 2009b)
On the political level, a rather spectacular case of this manipulation of linguistic 
variation is to be found in the political speeches of the late President Nasser 
(1918–70). He used to begin his speeches at an elevated level, spoken slowly and 
rhythmically, because of the formality of the situation. But then his sentences 
would become gradually more and more colloquial, spoken in a faster tempo, 
until he reached a purely colloquial level. At the end of his speech, he would 
conclude with a few sentences in pure Standard Arabic. Such a mixture reflects 
the inherent problem for politicians in the Arab world: on the one hand, by identi
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fying with colloquial speech they wish to involve their audience, who for the most