People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

University of SidiBel Abbes
Faculty of Letters, Language and Arts
Department of English

Investigation on sociolinguistic characteristics of

Language use and attitudes in
the department of English
Case Study: SidiBel Abbes Community

A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of English in the Fulfilment

of the Requirement for the Degree of Master in Linguistics.

Submitted by: Supervised by:

Ilyess maafa, bouayadi abdel monhim

University

Year

2020/2021
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 General Introduction

Language is an old unique phenomenon that the humans evolved to use, in order
to communicate among them, and it is considered as the primary means of
communication to us as humans that we are hardwired to use in our daily life. over time,
this means of communication has also evolved simultaneously with the evolution of
humans and started to change at different magnitudes.

Language change that was led by human events and human experiences and
activities either deliberate or unintended became so versatile and multifaceted, in other
words it changed at different levels from different perspectives.

Language changes over place so we can find different languages if we travel

around the world and even different variations of the same language known in
sociolinguistics as regiolects if we travel in the same geographical area known as the
country, and also language changes over time so we can find different versions of the
same language at different times, for instance, there are different versions of English the
old one and modern one with substantial differences and this is at a larger scale, at a
smaller scale we can note agelect variations of language from generation to generation
or three decade from a time perspective.
Other language varieties also appeared when humans started to put themselves
in classes based on some criteria and especially the social criteria which led to the
advent of sociolects, language varieties that make the picture even more complicated,
not to mention the biological gender gap that engenders another language variety that is
more subtle and fine-grained which known as genderlect.

People nowadays find themselves in a labyrinth when they encounter those

language inconsistencies and they cope with them forming and developing language
attitudes and habits and that is in an unvoluntary manner from childhood when they
acquire their mother tongue or in a voluntary way when they learn more languages such
as second language at schools and universities, and that is due to many factors.

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 in This study entitled “Investigation on the sociolinguistic characteristics of language use and
attitudes in the department of English” that was conducted on the students of the English
department at Djilali lyabess university we try to find out what are the sociolinguistic
characteristics that are present and effecting our sample and also what those attitudes are our
participants have towards the different languages they use, and what are the factors that lead to
those attitudes, hoping for a full understanding of how those habits and attitudes are formed.

In order to achieve those goals, the following questions should be asked in the
form of research inquiries now and solved later at the end of this mini research project.
- what are the language attitudes that we can observe and take note of in this
study environment.
- what are the factors that contribute to and drive towards those attitudes
- what is the nature of those attitudes and to which category they belong
to.
- which linguistic and social phenomena that can appear with those
Attitudes.
hypothesizes:
- social factors may play a role and contribute to the formation of those language
attitudes.
- historical factors may also be present and responsible to some degree for such
attitude.

- code switching, code mixing and other phenomena that are associated with
language and society.
- Mother tongues and second languages that are learned and acquired by this
sample population.

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 For the sake of gathering data for our research we used the quantitative research
method an in particular the questionnaire in which we designed an array of open ended
and close ended questions in order to extract data from and analyze to try to reach to
answers or validate the hypotheses we have proposed.

In our case study the sample population that we conducted the research on, is
composed of twenty students from the department of English of the university of djilali
lyabes in the city of sidi bel abbess, and also it is worth to mention that the sample
population we took for our search was collected randomly from different classes and no
selection based on any criteria or condition has taken place.

During the work on this research and in particular on the data collection process
we have faced a lot of obstacles and problems amongst which we mention the long
amount of time we have taken to distribute the questionnaire and collect them again as
a result of the corona virus pandemic that caused the confinement that confined our
movement also, and not to mention the student uncooperating with us. Technical work
on computers also contributed to our problems.

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 Practical side

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 Introduction:

In order to investigate our case study which is what are the language attitudes and
phenomena that occurs and can be observed in our sample population that consists of twenty
Participants from the English department of the university of djlali lyabess, we asked them
to answer a questionnaire that was designed in English, the language they use in their studies
to collect the data needed for our research.

Data Analysis:

The questionnaire has been designed to get pertinent data from the twenty participants,
and for the sake of order and gradation of topics, the questionnaire was composed of seven
sections, with each section containing a set of questions that are related to the section’s topic.
The first section contains the personal profile of the participants, including their age, gender,
region and educational level. The second sections probe the different languages the participants
use and master and at we level they do that. The section that follows investigates the situational
context those languages are used in. Section four and five target the thematic use of the
languages and the attitudes the participants have towards those languages respectively. Section
six tries to detect language phenomena such as code switching and bilingualism, and section
seven addresses foreign language use.

The questionnaire that we have distributed to our participants, and that contained a series of
open ended and close ended questions such as yes or no questions and multiple-choice ones
yielded the following data that is going to be presented in numbers and column charts to be
analyzed.

the personal profile section:

The personal profile section consists of five questions about the participants’
background such as the age, gender, educational level, occupation and region in order to
link the information to the analysis and then interpretation. The participants were
selected randomly.
Table 1: Participants’ Age

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 Age range 20-30 30-40
Percentage 90 10%
%

As we can see in table above ninety percent of our participants age ranges from twenty to thirty and
ten percent of them ranges from thirty to forty a significant variety of age .

Table 2: Participants’ Gender.

Participants gender

Male Female

70% 30%

In our case study seventy percent of the participants were males and only thirty percent were female
participants.

Table 3: Participant’s Educational Level and Occupation.

Participants Studen employed

occupational status t
Percentage 85% 15%

As has been shown in the table eighty five percent of our sample population
study at the university and don’t engage in any kind of occupation and fifteen percent of
our participants study at the university and work at the same time.
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 Section two: Question 1: to what degree do you master the following
languages?

language mastery

100
90
80
Axis Title

70

aa msa french english

Axis Title

This question is aimed at gauging the mastery of the three prevalent languages in
the Algerian society, which are Algerian arabic, modern standard arabic, and French, in
addition to the language they use in their studies which is English. As we can see in the
column chart above, one hundred percent of our participants master Algerian arabic,
and that is because it is their mother tongue that they acquire from birth, and which is a
kind of dialect of mixed languages such as French, arabic, Spanish, Turkish and also,
Tamazight the language of indigenous people called the Berbers. while eighty percent
of our participants Master modern standard arabic since it is considered as their second
language that they study from a younger age at school. not to mention the official state
that it has.
Seventy percent of them say that they master the French language, which is another second
language and ninety percent of them say that they master English since it is the language
they use in their studies.
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Section three: Question 1: in which situations our participants use those languages they
say they master?

situational context

50
10
10

30
90
90
30
10
10 20
10 10
aa msa english french

home school administr

In this question we tried to know the situational context in which our

participants use the languages they say they master, and the bar chart above we can see
the results. We note that ninety percent of the sample uses Algerian arabic at home
other thirty percent uses French at home, ten percent uses English and also ten percent
uses modern standard arabic.
At the university or school, ten percent uses Algerian arabic and ten percent uses modern
standard arabic foreign languages are more used. We find that thirty percent uses French
and ninety percent uses English, and that is because those foreign languages are officially
used at the level of universities due to policies taken by the government. At the official and
administration level fifty percent uses Algerian arabic and ten percent uses modern
standard arabic, while only ten percent uses English and twenty percent uses French.

Section four: Question 1: what is the thematic use and topics of those mastered
languages?
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 thematic use

100
55 5
10
70 40 85
50
20
10 15
70 60 50 40

aa msa french english

politics sport studies religion

In this question we are looking for the thematic use of each language the participants use,
in other words we are trying to identify in which topics the languages are used most of the
time so if we see a pattern, we can relate each language to a certain topic. In the stocked
bar chart, we see above, we can see the results yielded from our sample population. We see
that in the theme of politics seventy percent of our sample use Algerian arabic, and sixty
precent use modern standard arabic while fifty percent of them use French and forty
percent use English to converse in the topic. Concerning the topic of sports, we have found
that seventy percent of the sample use Algerian arabic to speak about sport and twenty
percent use modern standard arabic at the same time ten percent of them French and fifteen
percent use English. In studies eighty five percent of the sample use English and fifty
precent use French while forty percent use modern standard arabic and five percent use
Algerian arabic. In religion topics one hundred percent of our sample use modern standard
arabic while only five precent use Algerian arabic and ten percent use French the same as
English.

Section five: Question 1: what are the different language attitudes participants have
towards those languages?
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 language attitudes

60 30
85
70

40
50
0 60

40 70
50
5
aa msa french english

expressiv prestige easy

The question tries to answer for the language attitudes our sample population have towards
the languages they use in their daily life, in other words how our participants think about
and see those languages from their perspective. The question has three choices that we see
as the most important, that the participants should choose from, and which are: expressive,
prestigious, and easy to learn. The results from that question were taken and presented in
the above stacked chart.
We note that seventy percent of our participants think that Algerian arabic is easy to use,
and eighty five percent had this attitude towards the English language, while only thirty
percent of the sample voted for French as an easy language to use, and sixty percent of
our participants voted for modern standard arabic as an easy language to use. The mother
tongue which is Algerian arabic has received a seventy percent vote from the participants
as an easy language to use which is a reasonable result.
Concerning prestige as a language attitude we can observe that sixty percent of the
sample have voted for French as a prestigious language, and fifty percent have voted for
English as a prestigious one, while forty percent have that attitude towards modern
standard arabic. The mother tongue on the other hand has received zero vote for prestige.
For the third language attitude which is expressiveness, we see that seventy percent of
our participants think that the mother tongue which is Algerian arabic is an expressive
language, and fifty percent think that English is an expressive one, while forty percent have
the attitude towards standard modern arabic, and only five percent said that French is an
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expressive language.

Section six: Question 1: Do you use two languages in your speech at the same time in the
same sentence? Circle the most probable answer?

code switching
95
percentage

5
yes no
code switching

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In This question we try to investigate a linguistic phenomenon, that is known as code
switching, by seeing if it exists among our sample population and how much it is spread
also. For that aim, and from the basic definition of code switching the construction of our
question was as simple as possible, and which was whether or not our participants use two
languages in their speech at the same time, in the same sentence. By that we can see if the
phenomenon exists and how much it is spread. The results from that question are taken and
presented in the above column chart ready for analysis.
As we can see in the column chart above ninety five percent of our sample population said
that they use two languages at the same time in their speech in the same sentence and only
five percent of our participants say they don’t use two languages at the same time in their
speech in the same sentence.

Question 2: What combination of languages do you use at the same time. (code

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switching)?

language combinations

70

30
25

5
aa french msa french english aa msa aa

In this question we try to delve deeper into the phenomenon of code switching, and we
probe which language combinations our sample population use most of the time in their
daily life, and so for that we gave four language combinations for our participants to
choose from, and which are: Algerian arabic, French ; modern standard arabic, French ;
English, Algerian arabic ; modern standard arabic, Algerian arabic. at the end we will see
what language combinations are the most dominant and prevalent among our sample
population. The results of the question are taken and presented in the above column chart.
We can note in the above column chart that seventy percent of our participants use
Algerian arabic, and French combination, and thirty percent of them use modern standard
arabic, Algerian arabic combination, while twenty five percent use modern standard arabic,
French combination, and only five percent of our sample use English, Algerian arabic
combination.

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Question 3: Why do you switch between those two languages?

switching reason

70
65

10
5
missing words habit exclusion prestige

Since we have decided to study this phenomenon which is known as code switching we
see that it is so interesting to study the reasons behind this phenomenon, and in this question
we asked our participants what are those reasons by giving them four choices that are
concidered the most important to choose from and which are: find missing words, a habit,
exclusion, and prestige. The results from this question are taken and presented in the above
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colunm chart.
From the chart above we see that seventy precent of the sample population say they use
code switching in order to find missing words they want to use in the conversation , but they
can’t find the equivalent in the mothertongue language, and sixty five percent think that it is
a habit they acquired from the society they live in from birth. While ten percent say they use
it for exclusion, an encrypted language to exclude others from their speech. Another five
percent of the participants use it for prestige, as a presigious way of speaking.

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Question 4: What do you think about this phenomenon?

percentage

70

15 15

good bad other

In this question we are trying to gauge our participants opinion about this
phenomenon,whether they see code switching as good or bad behaviour. For that aim we
gave them three choices to select from, and those are: they see it good, they see it bad, or
others. The results from that question are taken and presented in the above colunm chart
ready to be analysed.
In the the chart above we can observe that seventy percent of our sample population think
that code switching is a good phenomenon, wherease fifteen percent of our participants sees
it as a bad phenomenon, while another fifteen percent are undiffrent about it.

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Section seven: Question 1: Are you for or against using foreign languages in your daily
life?

foreign language use

60

40

for against
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 Since foreign languages play an important role in code switching, we have seen that it is
important to measure our participant’s compartment and behavior towards the use of those
languages in speech. For that aim we asked our sample population the question whether
they are for or against using foreign languages in speech in their daily life. The results from
that question are taken and presented in column chart above, ready to be analyzed.
In the chart above we note that sixty percent of our sample population said that they are
for using foreign languages in speech in their daily life, while forty percent of our
participants say that they are against using foreign languages in their speech.
General Interpretation: