Dr Lotfi Abdelkader Benhattab

Dr Lotfi Abdelkader Benhattab

Senior Lecturer ‘Maitre de Conference’ in Sociolinguistics

Department of Anglo-Saxon Languages

Fellow researcher in the Dynamics Linguistics and Language management Laboratory

University of Oran

Algeria

Paper Proposal for the international Colloquium « Diversite et Innovation en Milieux Socioprofessionels» to be held from the 16th to the 18th of November 2011 at the MSH university of Clermont Ferrand

Paper Title: The Attitudes of Mzabi and Kabyle Minority Groups towards Code Switching and Other Contact phenomena in a Multilingual Sociolinguistic Environment

Abstract: The Kabyle and Mzabi minority groups of Oran use a language that is unintelligible with the one that is used by the Algerian Arabic speaking majority speakers in this urban centre. This triggers Contact phenomena such as Code Switching, Code Mixing and Borrowing in these minority groups. The Present paper examines the attitudes of the Kabyle and Mzabi minority groups towards these contact phenomena with a special focus on code switching. The use of code switching in thesegroups seems to be stigmatized in the two groups to differing degrees, even if it contributes to the maintenance of Berber as a minority language in Oran. The occurrence of this process in the Kabyle and Mzabi minority groups of Oran highlights the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Berber minorities in Oran, but the attitudes of the Berber speakers in Oran seem not to be in accordance with their patterns of language use. The present paper is a trial to explore the dynamics of languages in contact in urban centres in the light of language attitudes elicitation procedures. It is also a trial to investigate the effect of language attitudes on language use, maintenance and displacement. The population of informants on whom the elicitation has been conducted includes Mzabi and Kabyle informants in Oran. The paper that we intend to present is also a tentative to correlate language use, maintenance and displacement to the socioeconomic environment of the speaker and the inner networks that constitute the minority groups to which he/she belongs.

Keywords: Language Attitudes in Minority groups, Language maintenance, Code Switching, language stigmatization, covert language loyalty.

Introduction:

The present paper examines the attitudes of Mzabi and Kabyle minority speakers in Oran. These minority groups use varieties of Berber that are unintelligible with the varieties that are used by the Algerian Arabic speakers in this city. The contact between Berber, French and Algerian Arabic in the minority speakers listed above triggers contact phenomena such as code switching, code mixing and borrowing. The use of these contact phenomena in minority groups has been dealt with from different angles such as the linguistic, the conversational, the social, and the cultural angles. Few studies explored the aspect of speakers’ attitudes towards the varieties they use and towards code switching and related contact phenomena involving these varieties. The present paper focuses mainly on speakers’ attitudes towards code switching and code mixing. The two groups that have been elicited are the Mzabi and the Kabyle Berber minority groups of Oran. Code switching and related contact linguistic phenomena are part of the verbal repertoire of these two groups, but they are stigmatized by both groups to differing degrees. This is somehow astonishing in the sense that the use of code switching fosters the ethnolinguistic vitality of the two groups and helps the maintenance of Berber as a minority language in an environment where Algerian Arabic is the majority language; besides, the present paper is a trial to explore the relation between Berber minority speakers’ attitudes and their patterns of language use in the urban centre of Oran.

The elicitation procedure:

Language attitudes of Mzabi and Kabyle Berber informants in Oranwere elicited through a direct method using a questionnaire. This method involves asking informants about their attitudes towards a language variety or towards a language phenomenon. This approach arguably has higher validity than the societal treatment approach because “it is not the researcher who infers attitudes from the observed behaviours, but the respondents themselves who are asked to do so” (Garrett et al. 2003:16). It also permits to access a large number of participants to potentially increase the representativity of the results and enable focused and comparable results with the opportunity for collecting both qualitative and quantitative data.It is important to acknowledge that, whatever method one chooses, it is very difficult to measure attitudes which are inner mental states that can never be directly observed.

The questionnaire:

The present elicitation is part of a longer research work on the patterns of language use in the Kabyle and Mzabi minority groups of Oran; however, we will concentrate on the attitudes of Berber informants towards code switching and related contact phenomena such as code mixing, interference and borrowing in this paper. We will be using code switching as a blanket term to refer the above cited contact phenomena. We will try to compare the attitudes of the two minority groups towards code switching when needed. When the attitudes of the two groups are somehow similar we will try to analyse the overall results. Bearing in mind that we are dealing with subjective language attitudes, we have tried to corroborate the different results and indications of the questionnaire. This has been done thanks to two strategies. The first strategy is to ask the same questions differently in different locations in the questionnaire. This strategy is a common practice in elicitation procedures using questionnaires. The second strategy is to group questions in the analysis to strengthen the results and indications reached. This is again often done in attitudes studies.

The informants of the questionnaire:

The sample for this research consists of 250 respondents. There are 121Mzabi informants and 129 speakers. There are 65 female respondents and 185 male respondents. We understand that deeper insights into language attitudes would have been achieved if we got the opportunity to consider gender differentiation, but we did not because the number of females was not representative. The number of female respondents is related to the fact that the Mzabi minority seems to be a conservative minority and as such does not allow women to talk to strangers.

Different age groups have been questioned. These range from 16 to 78 years old. The age groups have been divided in six groups:

Different occupation groups have been questioned. Four work groups have been questioned to obtain a proper representativity in the sampling.

The analysis of the questionnaire:

The graphs for question 1 indicate that an important number of our respondents code switch from Berber to the other languages that make up their verbal repertoire (46.4% for often and 46% for sometimes). A typical explanation given by the respondents is this one‘even in contact situations with other Berbers, I prefer to code switch instead of using Kabyle or Mzabi solely. The low scores for never (7.6%) indicate that code switching is a common practice in the Kabyle and the Mzabi minority groups alike. The results of question 6 corroborate the indications of question one. 69.6% of the respondents are unaware when they code switch. The tendencies are similar in the two groups (69.98% for the Kabyle group and 70.13% for the Mzabi group). These tendencies indicate that code switching is an important component of the verbal repertoire of both Berber minority groups.

Another possible interpretation for the answers to question 6 may be related to the patterns of code switching displayed by Kabyle and Mzabi informants in Oran. We conducted a previous investigation of code switching in the above cited groups. We found that there are more insertional code switching patterns than alternational ones. Because they tend to insert single items (insertional code switching), the respondents do not feel that they are code switching.

Question 2

The graphs for questions 2, 3, 4, 7, and 10 indicate that our respondents have a negative attitude to code switching. For question 2, results show that (66.8%) of the respondents think that code switching is ‘bad’ for Berber. This is confirmed by the scores we got for question 3 where 74.8% of the respondents believe that code switching makes Berber lose its ‘purity’. The results for question 7 show the same tendency: (72.8%) of the respondents answered ‘code switching will destroy the Berber language’.The scores for question 4 indicate that (68.8%) of the respondents think that code switching is due to weaknesses in Berber. Question 10 confirms this tendency as 71.2% of the respondents answered that ‘code switching is a problem’ for Berber. Studies conducted on other bilingual contexts involving minority groups revealed similar negative attitudes towards code switching (Dorian(1981) on Scottish Gaelic/English code switching; Romaine (1995) on Punjabi/English code switching in the UK; Swigart(1992) on Wolof/French code switching in Dakar).

A Comparative analysis for item question 2,3,4,7 and 10 of questionnaire between the Mzabi and Kabyle informants

The graphs for questions 2, 3, 4, 7, and 10 indicate that a large number ofMzabi and Kabyle respondents demonstrate negative attitudes towards code switching. However, interesting data in relation to the same item questions presents varying percentages on the degree to which code switching is viewed by a number of Mzabi and Kabyle respondents. For instance, in item question 2 we found that an important number of our Kabyle respondents (38.76%) said that code switching is good for Berber whereas only 11.57% of the Mzabi respondents said the same for item question 2.

Similarly, data for item question 3 indicate that a significantly different number of the Kabyle respondents (32.56%) answered code switching will ‘not’ make Berber lose its purity. The results for question 7 demonstrate the same tendency: 35.66 % of the Kabyle respondents believe that code switching will ‘not’ destroy the Berber language whereas only 12.4% of the Mzabi respondents answered the same.

The scores for question 4 show that (37.98%) of the Kabyle speakers and (13.22 %) of the Mzabi speakers think that code switching is a sign of competence. The results of question 10 corroborates the ones of question 4 because (34.88%) of the Kabyle respondents and (14.05%) of the Mzabi respondents answered that ‘code switching is not a problem for Berber. The results of this group of question indicate some homogeneity in the attitudes of both the Kabyle and Mzabi groups. Both groups display negative attitudes towards codes switching may be explained by the fear these minorities feel towards this form of speech which is considered as a threat to the maintenance of Berber.

The comparisons between the attitudes of the two minority groups indicate that the attitudes towards code switching displayed by the Mzabi and the Kabyle minority groups are different. The Mzabi minority group stigmatizes code switching more than the Kabyle group does.

These results also indicate that the Kabyle respondents show more positive attitudes towards code switching than the Mzabi respondents. These results may indicate that this minority group is undergoing some changes: there seems to be a shift in language attitudes and linguistic choices among the Kabyle minority group.

The graph for question 5 seems to be paradoxical and inconsistent with the overall observations made in the previous item questions about the negative attitudes Berber speakers have towards code switching. The differences in the scores for item question 5 were not that significant (40.4% for literate and 57.2% for illiterate). We hypothesized that this could be related the differing attitudes of the two groups towards code switching.

The graph for question 5 of questionnaire three provides data which will probably empower our hypothesis on the possibility that the Kabyle speakers display more positive attitudes to code switching than the Mzabi ones.(65.29%) of the Mzabi respondents answered that code switching is a sign of illiteracy whereas. The tendencies are however different with the Kabyle minority group (49.61%) for ‘literate’ and (49.61%) for ‘illiterate’. These results seem to corroborate more the hypothesis that we have been developing throughout this elicitation. The Kabyle minority group informants seem to demonstrate attitudes towards code switching that are more positive than the ones of the Mzabi groups.

Questions related to identity and culture

The graphs for questions 8 and 9 indicate that code switching is seen as a ‘sign of a lack of Tamazight identity’ (61.2%). As to those who do not see it as ‘a sign of a lack of identity’ they represent (34%). These results seem to strengthen the hypothesis that put forward throughout the development of this paper. Kabyle and Mzabi minority speakers seem to stigmatize Code switching. They also seem to consider it as a real threat to the maintenance of Berber as a minority language.

As to the question whether code switching is ‘a sign of a dual identity’, 56.8% of the informants think that this phenomenon signals a dual identity (Berber/Algerian identity). This may signal a process whereby the Berber minority groups under study in the present paper are undergoing a process of assimilation to the mainstream of Oran community. This process is not a straight forward one but is more complex than it seems. The Kabyle and the Mzabi minority groups seem not to be on an equal scale in terms of this assimilation in the mainstream of Oran community. The comparison between the results obtained by the two groups in relation to questions 8 and 9 will corroborate these differing tendencies.

The comparison of the results for question 8 indicates that code switching is not seen similarly by both minority groups. As we have been hypothesizing from the beginning of this paper, the Mzabi group is more conservative than the Kabyle group when it comes to the core values of the Berber minority in Oran. The Mzabi respondents seem to view Code switching from Berber to Algerian Arabic or French as a real threat to the maintenance of both Mzabi language and identity. In the same vein the tendencies for the Kabyle group are less accentuated. The Berber respondents are more balanced regards the threat from code switching on the maintenance of their language, culture and identity. This may indicate that Kabyle minority members have assimilated better to the Algerian Arabic majority speech community. The nature of the inner social networks in the two groups may also have an influence of their attitudes. The Kabyle minority group’s social networks are more diffuse than the ones of the Mzabi minority group which are more focussed. This may lead to different assimilation processes.

The comparison of the results for question 9 slightly corroborates the overall tendencies that have been developed throughout this paper. The Mzabi minority seems to be less willing to assimilate to the mainstream than the Kabyle group.

A

Conclusion:

The results of the questionnaire that we administered to the Kabyle and Mzabi minority groups of Oran indicate that code switching seems to be stigmatized by these two groups to differing degrees. The Mzabi group seems to be more conservative in relation to the use of code switching and related contact linguistic phenomena as part of its verbal repertoire. The Kabyle minority group seems to be less conservative and seems also to assimilate better to the mainstream of Oran speech community. The differences in the attitudes of the two groups may be hypothetically related to the natures of their inner networks. The inner networks of the Mzabi minority group are dense and this makes this group more permeable and less willing to assimilate to the Algerian Arabic majority community. The inner networks of the Kabyle minority group are diffuse and the group is consequently less conservative when it comes to code switching and to the threat coming from Algerian Arabic. We also hypothesized that there could be a relation between the system of values in the two groups and their attitudes towards the languages that make up their verbal repertoire and towards the contact phenomena involving these languages or language varieties. This may be the scope of some future research that we will be conducting on the two groups in Oran.

Bibliography:

• Dorian, N. (1981). Thelife cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism. 2nd edition. Oxford. Basil Blackwell.
• Swigart, L. (1991). Women and Language choice in Dakar: A Case of Unconscious. Women and Language15(1), 11-20.