Language shift: gender differences in Chaouia use in Algeria

Abstract The paper explored the shift away from Chaouia, a variety of Tamazight, to the use of Algerian Arabic in Batna (northeast Algeria). The Chaouia-speaking community had recently witnessed a large rural exodus and significant social changes and mobility due to economic opportunities, education and ethnic contact. The paper focused on gender differences in language use and considered how socialisation and cultural ideologies regarding men’s and women’s relationship to language shape linguistic decisions and choices. Building upon representations of masculinity and femininity, we investigated the ways in which these gendered practices constrain or restrict Chaouia use among working-class Chaouias. We used a qualitative approach with an embedded quantitative element to analyse interviews and surveys across the domestic setting as well as schools and social networks in Batna to examine the interplay between gender identities and language socialisation at home, language choices at school and among friends. The increase in cross-ethnic contact with the larger Arabic-speaking community had introduced significant re-considerations of social and linguistic priorities in the community. The findings showed a clear impact of parents on the acquisition of a gendered pattern of language choice, with boys being socialised in Chaouia and girls in Algerian Arabic. This pattern was further reinforced at school and among peers through teachers and social networks. Females’ networks were ethnolinguistically heterogeneous whereas males’ networks were Amazigh-oriented. Hence, the traditional link of Tamazight to femininity was re-negotiated to generate a discourse of blame for the ongoing language shift and identity loss.