Second Language Acquisition among Kabylians Living in Arab Communities

Abstract

The present research aimed to study the issue of second language acquisition for Kabyle speakers living in Arabic-speaking societies in the western region of Algeria. precisely in Mostaganem and Oran. In fact, the linguistic situation in Algeria is complex due to several factors, mainly the colonial history and the establishment of many civilizations which led to the variation of the speech. The main question in this work is to know the process that the Kabylians went through to acquire Arabic as a second language. Also, we are investigating whether Arabic would influence their mother tongue. In other words, our main questions are: how do Kabylians manage to learn Arabic as a second language? And have the Kabylians managed to preserve their identity and their language despite the environment which seems linguistically different. To achieve these goals, we have chosen to link our data to linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. This work is mainly devoted to the study of the different linguistic backgrounds that distinguish Algeria. In the practical part of this research, we have chosen for a qualitative questionnaire partially taken from Benhattab's survey of the Berbers of Oran as a research tool to answer our research questions. The results of this work come out with the conclusion that the acquisition of a second language could be a behavior, and that the Kabyle people of Mostaganem and Oran under study showed a positive attitude towards the languages ​​existing in the country precisely. Algerian Arabic, and have succeeded in preserving their mother tongue, because they have shown loyalty and belonging to their language and culture.