language change and lexical variation in youth language : Tlemcen speech community

Abstract

Within a sociolinguistic scope, the present reseach work is set to describe and examine lexical variation in youth language including the motives which lead to language change or more precisely dialect change at the level of vocabulary in Tlemcen speech community. The dissertation concentrates on three main objectives : First, it focuses on the different reasons that lead youngters (mainly adolescents) use a specific language including innovations and how these innovations are established and integrated as part of colloquial Arabic in the whole speech community. Second, it investigates the role of age and gender in language change. Finally, it examines adults’ attitudes towards youth language. In order to analyse lexical variation in youth language, we apply the Labovian paradigm taking into consideration the factors relevant to the speakers’ social and cultural identity within the society they belong to, while adults’ attitudes are approached on the basis of Lambert’s matched-guise technique. At first, we are concerned with the theoretical part which aims at presenting the concepts related to language variation and change. Then, we deal with the situation in Algeria from a historical and a sociolinguistic perspective. In addition, we try to explores youth language and culture in the Algerian society. Finally, through the use of different methods of data collection and elicitation techniques, such as questionnaires and interviews, this study attempts to shed light on the reasons why the youth use a different vocabulary from that of adults as well as the impact on language change in terms of lexis. The overall findings are elaborated in the general conclusion which confirms that the results of our study seem to support the hypotheses related to the mentioned objectives. Finally, some suggestions are made for further research