Curses, Insults and the Power of Words: Verbal Strategies in Maghrebi Dialects

The system of verbal impoliteness in Maghrebi dialects of Arabic (as in any given language), far from being random, is governed by principles that have successfully been described by Brown and Levinson (1987). These principles revolve around the two concepts of positive and negative face, which are in turn rooted in the ideas concerning the nature of our social persona, of honor, virtue, shame and redemption that are common to all cultures (D’Anna 2014: 13). For this reason, (im)politeness has alternatively been considered as “... a kind of residue from our earlier ritually dominated forms of public life” or, in contrast, as “... a model or prototype for other kinds of ritual (Brown and Levinson 1987: 44).” This paper analyzes the verbal strategies employed in verbal impoliteness by speakers of Maghrebi dialects, investigating the link between curses, profanities and the ritual usage of words, with particular reference to magic and religion.