The algerian languages and education situation: between monolithic system and multilingual context

Abstract

The most severe problem that Algeria has had to cope with since independence in 1962 lies in language. It is the only Arabic country, which lived under French assimilationist colonial rule for 132 years. It has absorbed the heaviest colonial impact, which has Gallicized the country. To restore and recover a previously oppressed identity and personality, independent Algeria hastens to implement a language policy embodied in Arabization as a monolithic system in education, which remains up to now a very thorny issue. In actual facts, the education system is described as “a real failure”; however, a new political discourse emerges, a discourse which is more open to foreign languages and which admits the linguistic diversity of the country. Education became, therefore, at the crossroad of both Arabization and multilingualism. In this present study, the researcher proposes to investigate the impact of Arabization as a language policy on the educational system with a special focus on the scientific disciplines; it is intended to reveal the main students’ difficulties caused from the contradictional language use as a medium of instruction in both levels (secondary and higher education). The current research is divided in four chapters. The first one is a review of the socio-linguistic features of Algeria and examines the status and functions of each language; it also deals with the language policies implemented in the educational system before, during and after independence with a special focus on Arabization policy and its related impact on secondary and higher education resulting from a contradiction of language use: Modern Standard Arabic in all disciplines of secondary education and French as a medium of instruction in the scientific disciplines of higher education. The second chapter is an overview of language planning and language policy, which discusses also language-in-education and demonstrates that these concepts (i.e. language planning and language policy) are strongly linked to education. The third one mentions the methods that are used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. The fourth chapter introduces some suggestions and recommendations that can be regarded as tentative remedies to “the ills” of the policies of languages in Algeria.