Algerian Arabic, French and Berber code-switching : is there a nexus between gender and code choice in the community of Chlef?

الملخص EN

The objective of this scrutiny is to canvass how Algerian women and men employ code switching in tandem with the Algerian dialect (Chlef Spoken Arabic/ Tamazight) for a variety of reasons in conversations.

What we attempt to do through this investigation is to comb out the salient relations between gender and code choice: Do women employ differently code-switching? And I will explore the sociolinguistic and pragmatic aspects of this phenomenon.

Code switching can be defined as the mixing of elements of different linguistic varieties within a single utterance or even a text.

Women and men seem to manipulate the alternative use of different varieties according to a bundle of social and psychological factors; it will be lucidly shown that male/female in Algeria exhibit some conspicuous differences, or let us say variations, in their code choice.

The gender parameter is inter alia a crucial point that should be taken into consideration as a determining factor of language choice, in general and code-switching in particular.

In the light that identities are multiple and complex, women and men tend to compute social meanings that they see as apt and relevant in specific contexts and particular periods of time.