Doctoral Dissertation Research: The impact of social factors on the syntactic patterns of code-switching among young adults

本研究考察了摩洛哥年轻人的口头和书面数据，以探讨社会因素对摩洛哥阿拉伯语-法语语码转换的影响，即在一次对话中使用两种语言。由于其殖民历史，法语在摩洛哥仍然是一种重要的语言，但它今天在口语中的使用主要是通过与阿拉伯方言的代码转换而发生的。本研究将从语言学的角度来考察说话者如何将这两种语法上不同的语言整合在一起。虽然阿拉伯语-法语语码转换一直是之前研究的主题，但目前的项目将量化不同背景的年轻人使用法语的比率，以确定社会因素如何与观察到的语码转换语法模式的差异相关联。问题在于双语者如何在不同的媒体中使用他们的语言库，以及是否可以识别出约定俗成的语码转换形式。40名母语为摩洛哥阿拉伯语的人将参与两种任务类型：1)口语会话任务和2)基于互联网的文本聊天。在每个任务类型中，参与者可以自由地用他们喜欢的任何语言讨论他们选择的任何主题。将同一个人的口头和书面作品都包括在内，可以在这种传统的口语方言中识别新兴的语言惯例。本研究的重点是量化法语在阿拉伯语话语中的渗透程度，以及是否存在与社会预测因素（如性别和阶级）相关的可识别的法语使用模式。这样的分析可以与未来在其他地理区域的研究进行比较。此外，这项调查将创建一个摩洛哥阿拉伯语-法语混合口语和书面语料库，与其他研究人员共享，并增加对后殖民背景下语言使用的理解，从而有助于更广泛地研究双语语言形式。

This study examines spoken and written data among young adults in Morocco to probe the effects of social factors on Moroccan Arabic-French code-switching, the use of two languages in a single conversation. Due to its colonial history, French remains an important language in Morocco but its use today in spoken discourse occurs mainly through code-switching with the vernacular dialect of Arabic. This study will examine, from a linguistic perspective, how speakers integrate these two grammatically diverse languages. While Arabic-French code-switching has been the topic of previous studies, the current project will quantify the rates of French usage among young adults of varied backgrounds to determine how social factors correlate with differences in observed code-switching grammatical patterns. At issue is how bilinguals utilize their linguistic repertoires in varied media and whether conventionalized forms of code-switching can be identified.40 native speakers of Moroccan Arabic will participate in two task types: 1) spoken conversational tasks and 2) text-based chat via internet. In each task type, participants will be free to discuss any topic(s) of their choice in any language(s) they desire. The inclusion of both oral and written production of the same individuals allows for the identification of emerging linguistic conventions in this traditionally spoken dialect.The focus of this study is to quantify the extent to which French permeates Arabic discourse and whether or not there are identifiable patterns of French use that correlate with social predictors, such as gender and class. Such an analysis will allow comparison with future research in other geographic areas. Additionally, this investigation will contribute to the study of bilingual language forms more broadly by creating a corpus of spoken and written mixed Moroccan Arabic-French discourse that will be shared with other researchers and adding to an understanding of language use in a post-colonial context.