A Sociolinguistic Study of French: The Case Of Oran

Abstract

The aim of this work is to shed light on the status of French in Algeria, which constitutes an inseparate part of the Algerian linguistic patrimony and to focus on the importance of French at different levels of the Algerian society. Although the Algerian government has always promoted monolingualism through an Arabist and Jacobin policy of assimilation and exclusion. It has always been proved that French had and is still having a special place in the society. The present research work is an attempt at analysing a sociolinguistic situation in an urban context, Oran. A particular interest is reserved to it. In the first chapter, we give an outlook of the sociolinguistic situation in Algeria. The first part is about a survey of the history of languages spoken in Algeria before the 19th century then we deal with the current linguistic situation with its different languages and their origins and the linguistic phenomenon that result from the languages contact including the diglossia situation that Algerians live in. Algeria has been marked by a linguistic and political process called Arabization, which aimed at establishing the Arabic language after the independence in 1962 through the country. In the second chapter, we speak about the origins of French in Algeria through a historical background of the French colonization. Then, we speak about the place of French in Algeria: in school with the new reforms introduced in the educational system during the academic year 2003-2004 in the primary, middle and secondary schools; in the administration, in mass media and in the social environment and how it influences the Algerians’ daily life. In the third chapter, we apprehend the attitudes of people towards French and the linguistic contacts of French with Arabic (AA), the evolution of French in the last years. The exploitation of the questionnaire allows us to come back to some of the questions asked in the general introduction about the place of French in Algeria, (Oran).