Profile                                    

I was born in the late 1960's in the region of Agadir, Morocco, where I studied up to the BA. After graduating from Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, I joined the graduate program at Mohammed V University in Rabat in 1990. I earned a D.E.S degree in 1994 and a Doctorat d’Etat in linguistics in 2001 in Joint-Supervision with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. Having grown up in a multilingual context, I am a native-speaker of Tashlhit, and I also speak Moroccan Arabic, Standard Arabic, French and English (in the order in which I acquired/learnt them). I also have some functional knowledge in different varieties of Amazigh and Arabic.

I am currently a senior lecturer (Professeur de l’Enseignement Supérieur) in the Department of English at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco. I have been a Fulbrighter three times (1999-2000 and 2005, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA; 2023, Indiana University Bloomington). I am the current editor of Langues et Littératures and co-editor of the International Journal of Arabic Linguistics. I am on the scientific board of Asinag, Revue des Etudes Amazighes, International Journal of Berber/Amazigh Research, and Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies. I am also "expert-évaluateur" with Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST)- Rabat. I am the the winner of the 2014 IRCAM Award for Research and Scientific Thinking and the President of the 2022 IRCAM Prize. 

I have also been a very active member in my department, since I joined it in 1994-1995. I have taught various courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. I have also been advising students at both levels. I have served on Doctoral dissertation defense juries, "Habilitation Universitaire" defenses and "PH-PES" advancements. I have also served on the council of the department on various occasions.     

My research is centered on morphology, phonology, the phonology-morphology/ morphology-syntax interfaces, as well as language contact, variation and change. My authored and co-authored publications in these areas focus on Moroccan languages, mainly Amazigh and Moroccan Arabic. I have also edited and co-edited collections of papers and translated a book on Amazigh sociolinguistics. One of the most recent books I have co-edited is The Handbook of Berber Linguistics (Springer). My research interests extend to applied sociolinguistics and  university pedagogy, particularly the integration of ICT in teaching. 

I have presented at various conferences in Morocco and abroad. I have carried out different projects between 2005 and 2016. I have reviewed for various national and international journals and publishers, like Languages and Linguistics, Asinag, Journal of Applied Languages and Culture Studies, International Journal of Arabic Linguistics, CORELA, Studies in African Linguistics, Journal of Canadian Linguistics, Language and Linguistics Compass, Current Issues in Language Planning, Language Sciences, Glossa, Linguistic Inquiry, Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, Linguistic Analysis, Language Policy series (Springer),  and Berber Studies (Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln).