Gender, identity, and the political economy of language: Anglophone wives in Tunisia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using the frameworks of the political economy of language, and of language use as acts of identity, this study attempts to describe and analyze the situation of natively anglophone wives living with their Tunisian husbands in Tunisia – a speech community characterized by Arabic diglossia and Arabic/French bilingualism. Particular attention is devoted to these women's beliefs about using Tunisian Arabic (TA), the native language of their husbands, and the ways in which access to TA or the use of it becomes a site of conflict between husbands and wives, or mothers and children, in these mixed marriages. (Gender, identity, political economy of language, ideology, Tunisia, Arabic, francophonie , diglossia, code-switching, bilingualism, multilingualism, family relations)