A Conversational Analysis of Arabic-French Code Switching in Algerian TV Talk Shows

The current study is a conversational analytic study of Arabic-French code switching among Algerian bilinguals in some TV talk shows. The first objective of this study is to reveal the aspects of language negotiation among Algerian bilinguals. The second one is to find out what code switching may display about the participants’ language preference and bilingual competence. The last objective is to understand how code switching is employed by Algerian bilinguals to organize their conversations. A sequential (turn-by-turn) analysis was conducted to examine a corpus of four (4) excerpts extracted from three different Algerian TV talk shows, following Auer’s (1984) theory of conversational code switching (1984). This qualitative analysis revealed that the Algerian bilinguals tend to negotiate the language of interaction through sequences of language convergence and language divergence during their exchange of turns. It was also found that code switching gives an insight about the interlocutors’ language preference and competence. Finally, the study revealed that the Algerian bilinguals switch between Arabic and French to manage turn-taking and to organize the sequence of their conversational tasks. The findings also showed that code switching is used by the Algerian bilinguals to fulfill the following conversational tasks: topic change, stating a sideremark, stating a personal evaluation, giving an account or explanation, shifting back to the previous point of talk, self-repair, other-initiated repair, marking a contrast in the internal structure of the narrative, reinitiating turn-taking after an interruption or talk-overlap, marking preference or dispreference and stating direct quotations.