Dialectal Arabic and English code-switching : the case of the department of foreign languages at Tahri Mohamed University, Béchar

Abstract EN

The current research paper was proposed to investigate the linguistic phenomenon of code-switching in multilingual speech community by the students at Tahri Mohammed University of Béchar.

The main objective of this study is to look at some of the underlying factors that lead University students who belong to the English department to switch between English and Arabic in their daily interactions.

Further, the study sought to investigate their attitudes towards the use of code-switching.

This research identifies the contexts in which Arabic-English code- switching occurs, including the communicative events.

Following mixed approach research, qualitative and quantitative research methods; data were collected from the employment of three tools of enquiry, namely the recording of oral conversations, screenshots of spontaneous chats on Facebook and the questionnaire.

The results show that students tend to switch codes in their speech for both linguistic reasons and social reasons, i.

e.

, to bridge the lexical gap, to further explain a point, to reflect a psychological state, to create a sense of humour, and to impress the interlocutor.

In addition, findings revealed that there are two patterns of code-switching that students of English employed in their daily interactions whether orally or in written chats namely intra-sentential and inter-sentential switching.

However, intra-sentential code-switching is used more frequently than inter-sentential code-switching.

Furthermore, students hold positive attitudes towards code-switching and they consider its use as high proficiency.