Abstract
Francis Manzano - On the mechanisms of the North-African sociolinguistic and identity landscape. Studies of the linguistic situation in North-Africa are usually based on the dichotomy between the colonial language (French) vs. the national language (Arabic). Legitimate as this may seem, such a way of broaching the question hardly accounts for the deeper mechanisms of the local sociolinguistic system. In order to understand what is occurring under our very eyes, it is necessary to consider the time element of the question of language and variation in North-Africa. We may then observe the stability of a tri-polar structure which defines the linguistic landscape, largely due to the geographic situation of the region. The distribution between the three poles (Berber, Romance, Semitic languages) may vary, as do the power relations within each. But at the end of the day, the interactive system is still there, strongly balanced and, for that reason, little subject to radical change.
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