Has French won the conflict ? : an investigation of Algiers interlocutors attitudes towards French

Abstract EN

The present study probes the attitudes of the Algerian capital inhabitants towards French.

it aims to gain insight into the factors inducing the massive shift to the French language amongst Algiers interlocutors, and thus find out whether the previously cited language has ended the existing linguistic strife to its favor or not.

feedback from 67 participants on an online structured questionnaire in both standard Arabic and French revealed that notwithstanding its widespread use, French is still competing with the other linguistic codes, mainly standard Arabic.

additionally, respondents’ attitudes towards French are in positive correlation with their linguistic choices.

moreover, French has considerably impacted the local Algerian Arabic dialect and hence the latter is gradually ceding its position to a new variety.

finally, the study has accounted for this massive use of French in the light of the sociolinguistic principle labelled as the linguistic inferiority principle, originally coined in relation to minority languages.

the principle states that a language is considered inferior as long as it belongs to a socially subservient group.