Diglossia in the Algerian Contexts The Case of Three Contexts in Mostaganem City

Abstract

Multilingualism is a phenomenon in sociolinguistics. It is based on the assumption that an individual speaker chooses a specific code for some social reasons. Diglossia is a kind of multilingualism. As a phenomenon, it sees how code choice is made according to the context. The research aims to review the theory of diglossia, delineate the difference between Ferguson’s and Fishman’s diglossia, and most importantly, provide diglossia with a different view. The research attempts to discover if diglossia can be found in one context or not, and if diglossia is always defined as the use of two separate codes in two different contexts. In order to examine the aforementioned statements, the study is conducted on three samples from Mostaganem city. The samples are teachers of English from the department of English at Abdelhamid Ibn Badis University, teachers of classical Arabic at Mokhtar Benyoucef High School and workers at Lazrag Company. The study adopts a qualitative approach through the use of an interview as a tool to collect data. The findings show that two different languages are used in both the department of English and Lazrag Company, and one language and its dialect are used in Mokhtar Benyoucef High School. These findings, therefore, reveal that diglossia exists in one context.