Dr: Fatima AGROU
Volume: 14 Issue: 05, 2026
Abstract:
This article examines communicative insecurity as a socially produced and interactionally enacted phenomenon in the discourse of Amazigh women in a family context. Specifically, it asks: how do intra-familial gendered hierarchies produce and sustain communicative insecurity in women’s speech within the Ult Merghad community of Tinjdad (southeastern Morocco), unlike prior work on female linguistic insecurity - which primarily examines speakers’ orientation toward dominant standard varieties (Labov, 1966; Singy, 1997; Biichlé, 2007, 2011) - this study situates insecurity not in standard-language contact but within the domestic interactional order itself, making Amazigh familial power relations the primary structuring force of the phenomenon. Communicative insecurity is conceptualized as an interactional and symbolic disposition: a socially constructed tendency toward self-censorship, mitigation, or withdrawal from speech, not due to linguistic incompetence but to the internalization of gendered authority structures that regulate the legitimacy of speaking. Based on semistructured interviews with ten Amazigh women, the study shows that this phenomenon is simultaneously discursive, interactional, and socio-affective, shaped by gender, generation, and Amazigh family hierarchy. The impact of communicative insecurity on women's speech is well documented, regardless of age or social status. A gender-based approach allows for a deeper understanding by revealing that this insecurity is rooted in power dynamics inherent to social relations between the sexes. The issue of gender equality within the context of family discussions remains unresolved. One facet of this inequality stems from the prevalence of communicative insecurity, which disproportionately affects women. This research seeks to examine the scope and nature of the insecurities experienced by women in their interactions with specific family members, particularly elders.