Lunds universitet/Masterprogram: Språk och språkvetenskap
Abstract
This Master’s thesis is a sociolinguistic case study about intra-sentential code-switching, also known as code-mixing, between colloquial Moroccan Arabic and French. The data is collected by arranged interviews with focus groups consisting of university students in Rabat, Morocco, in order to investigate the trends and the extent of the occurrence of French in speech situations where intra- sentential code-switching between colloquial Moroccan Arabic and French is present. The hypothe- ses are based on findings of previous research conducted on code-switching in North Africa by Ben- tahila (1983a/b), Bentahila & Davies (1983, 1995), and Sayahi (2011a/b, 2014). The most important independent variables in the study are gender and field of education through five different focus groups consisting of participants from five different fields of study, including both the fields of humanities and sciences. This study investigates French verbs, whether adapted into colloquial Moroccan Arabic verb morphology patterns or not, the occurrence of numerals, whether used in Arabic or in French, the realisation of the phoneme /r/ in French words, whether French, guttural [ʁ] or alveolar trill [r], the role of code-switching in repetition and rhetorical emp- hasis, as well as examining whether there is a difference in the frequency and amount of intra-sen- tential code-switching performed by male and female speakers and the different focus groups. The analysis provides examples of the examined phenomena, offering an insight to what intra-sen- tential code-switching in the Moroccan context may look like. The results show that all the features of intra-sentential code-switching mentioned above occur in the data: the usage of French verbs be- ing adapted into colloquial Moroccan Arabic exceeds the amount of cases of code-switching with French verbs; the usage of numerals in Arabic exceeds the usage of numerals in French; the pro- nunciation of the phoneme /r/ in French words differs between male and female speakers, as the female speakers use more French, guttural [ʁ] while the male speakers use more alveolar trill [r], yet the language of instruction being French for certain participants significantly had an impact on the realisation of the phoneme. Furthermore, the data presents in total 16 cases of repetition reached by code-switching, and the analysis of the independent background variables shows differences be- tween groups regarding both gender and field of education: the male participants used more French verbs than the female participants, whereas female participants provided more cases of French nu- merals and the French, guttural [ʁ] when pronouncing French words with /r/ in comparison to the male participants. Finally, the field of education certainly is proven to have an impact on the partic- ipants' likelihood to use French.This Master’s thesis is a sociolinguistic case study about intra-sentential code-switching, also known as code-mixing, between colloquial Moroccan Arabic and French. The data is collected by arranged interviews with focus groups consisting of university students in Rabat, Morocco, in order to investigate the trends and the extent of the occurrence of French in speech situations where intra- sentential code-switching between colloquial Moroccan Arabic and French is present. The hypothe- ses are based on findings of previous research conducted on code-switching in North Africa by Ben- tahila (1983a/b), Bentahila & Davies (1983, 1995), and Sayahi (2011a/b, 2014). The most important independent variables in the study are gender and field of education through five different focus groups consisting of participants from five different fields of study, including both the fields of humanities and sciences. This study investigates French verbs, whether adapted into colloquial Moroccan Arabic verb morphology patterns or not, the occurrence of numerals, whether used in Arabic or in French, the realisation of the phoneme /r/ in French words, whether French, guttural [ʁ] or alveolar trill [r], the role of code-switching in repetition and rhetorical emp- hasis, as well as examining whether there is a difference in the frequency and amount of intra-sen- tential code-switching performed by male and female speakers and the different focus groups. The analysis provides examples of the examined phenomena, offering an insight to what intra-sen- tential code-switching in the Moroccan context may look like. The results show that all the features of intra-sentential code-switching mentioned above occur in the data: the usage of French verbs be- ing adapted into colloquial Moroccan Arabic exceeds the amount of cases of code-switching with French verbs; the usage of numerals in Arabic exceeds the usage of numerals in French; the pro- nunciation of the phoneme /r/ in French words differs between male and female speakers, as the female speakers use more French, guttural [ʁ] while the male speakers use more alveolar trill [r], yet the language of instruction being French for certain participants significantly had an impact on the realisation of the phoneme. Furthermore, the data presents in total 16 cases of repetition reached by code-switching, and the analysis of the independent background variables shows differences be- tween groups regarding both gender and field of education: the male participants used more French verbs than the female participants, whereas female participants provided more cases of French nu- merals and the French, guttural [ʁ] when pronouncing French words with /r/ in comparison to the male participants. Finally, the field of education certainly is proven to have an impact on the partic- ipants' likelihood to use French
